The study aims to determine the role of the US media as a destabilizing factor in the contemporary domestic politics of Venezuela, especially in the context of the power crisis of 2013–2019. The study used the methods of data analysis obtained through interviews, discourse analysis, the method of grounded theory, content analysis of selected sources (CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Bloomberg) and event analysis, which made it possible to analyze the most frequently mentioned in the American media developments in the domestic politics of Venezuela for the period 2013–2019. The results of the study reveal the bias of the American media and their dependence on the main US political course towards Venezuela, demonstrate the systematic creation of a negative image of Venezuela in the American media with a focus on the economic crisis and low living standards in the country, and attempts to influence US and international public opinion on the issue of recognizing the illegitimate parallel government of self-proclaimed President Juan Guaidó. The practical significance of the work’s findings is the that they can be used in developing a strategy for information interaction between Venezuela and the United States, creating an information security system that accounts for the identified threats and strengthening the regional media of Venezuela.

Teaching a foreign language at a university presents a particular challenge for teachers and methodologists: how to combine a foreign language, especially a second one, with the future professional activities of students. The purpose of this paper is to offer the most effective practical project-based tasks for teaching a second foreign language. An experiment over four academic years within the subject “Second Foreign Language” in the field “Tourism” at the Financial University (Moscow) with 180 undergraduates proved that the project-based assignments could be adjusted for different levels of students' training and used for teaching a second foreign language and the main one.