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The article explores the history of the development and cultural scaling of electronic screenness as the main information and communication medium which is shaping new media and language forms today. The article singles out four major formats of electronic screenness, providing a comparative analysis of their characteristic features in a dialogue connection with the wide socio-cultural space of their explication. The research identifies causes of the mass popularization of various screen formats revealing the dynamics of their evolution from the publicity of "big screens" to their integration into home-based social spaces and an individual's personal life. The semiotics of screenness, features of its media language and the main rhetorical tools are reconstructed.

The article analyzes the linguistic structures of video games, their formation in a historical perspective and explication of the current semiosphere of video game cybertexts. The history of the formation of the graphic code system of video games is reconstructed. The significance of the technical factor (computing capabilities of hardware game devices) in shaping the diversity of the spectrum of video game icons is highlighted. Parallels in the visual semiotics and aesthetics of cinematic animation and video games are noted. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the procedural cluster of video game semiotics.

The author presents a selection of important results from a new representative population survey on the attitudes and experiences with various forms of heterodox (also sometimes called non-institutionalised, "eclectic" or "esoteric") religiousness, conducted in the Russian Federation in 2006 – the first survey in this country to have focused specifically on this kind of religiousness. The author shows that heterodox religiousness appears to have become the dominant form of religiousness in contemporary Russia and involves a larger proportion of the population than traditional Christian religiousness.

This article analyses the current socio-economic situation in Portugal from the perspective of the transition to a knowledge-based society postulated by the European Union's Lisbon Strategy. It provides a critical examination of the latest trends in the Portuguese economy, taking account of the twofold impact of EU financial assistance and discussing the extent to which the contemporary Portuguese economy may be characterised as knowledge-based. The article further turns to assessing present levels of human capital in the country. The challenge of enhancing human capital is studied within a broader scope of the production and spread of knowledge. Several kinds of institutions and their present performance are analysed to this end, including schools, higher education establishments, private sector enterprises and frameworks for importing human capital from abroad. In conclusion, the complex nexus of knowledge and development is addressed in terms of its general relationship with human capital and the economy, as well as providing some directions for further research that could contribute towards clarifying this linkage.