Public Sphere

"This article examines the status of the cartoon in a globalized society, spurred by a discussion about the twelve cartoons of Mohammad published in a Danish newspaper in 2005. We can define caricatures as charged or loaded images that compress ideas into memorable icons, namely clichés. A cartoon must have a point, and a good cartoon can change our perspective on the ruling order. Sigmund Freud’s book on jokes still provides a key template for analyzing the triangular structure of communication and the aggressive potential in humor. It challenges us
to ask ourselves, Who is laughing with whom at whom, and why?
What kinds of bonds are forged between the tellers of jokes and their listeners? Are hidden aggressions expressed indirectly through the joke? Who is the object of attack, or the butt of the joke? And how is race ascribed and enacted in this dynamic, which is simultaneously inclusive and exclusive? Through an examination of this episode and the serious implications of humorous discourse, I argue that it is a challenge of our times to imagine responsibility within a global public sphere and regulatory framework that will transcend the boundary of the nation-state."

Michael Saward argues that ‘defining democracy is a political act’ (Saward, 1994: 7). By this, he implies that there is no one universal definition or model of democracy. As such, it is important to point out right from the start that all definitions and all models of democracy are contestable. This chapter merely seeks to establish working definitions of democracy to explore debates around digital media, particularly the role of the Internet and mobile phones in their creation of a democratic ‘public sphere’. Digital democracy is used here to refer to ‘a collection of attempts to practice democracy without the limits of time, space and other physical conditions, using [new] ICT as an addition, not replacement, for traditional analogue practices’ (Hacker & van Dijk, 2000: 2).

""This article tests the relevance and salience of Putnam and Campbell’s concept of moral freighting, developed within a US and largely Christian context, to the more secularised and religiously diverse context of the UK. Moral freighting suggests that individual citizens who are members of religious groups are better neighbours and more civically active than their secular counterparts. The article maps Putnam and Campbell’s arguments, locating them within the wider genealogy of sociological theory explaining connections between religious belonging and pro-social participation. It thickens and nuances Putnam and Campbell’s definition of moral freighting with reference to recent UK-based qualitative research via means of Belonging, Becoming and Participation Grids (BBP). Three case studies (Buddhist, Muslim and Christian) are extrapolated, before concluding with a brief appraisal of moral freighting as an adequate conceptual tool for locating the role of religious and spiritual groups in shaping the contribution of individual citizens to public life.
Key words: moral freighting, religious groups, spiritual groups, postsecular, civic engagement, public sphere.
""

The special characteristics of the digital medium act as a powerful determinant on the appearance of a communicative system, giving rise to a communications media and public that are clearly differentiated from the traditional ones. There is a qualitative and quantitative increase in pluralism, thanks especially to the development of different interactive tools and systems of publication that give shape to an active public, one which can act as receiver and emitter of information, thus clearly counterposed to the traditional spectator, reader or listener of the mass media. This article analyses the media framework that is taking shape following the appearance and development of the different digital communication systems in recent decades, characterised by a new model of communication and even a new composition of the public sphere.

The paper offers a political-philosophical analysis of the state and publics in the age of technoscience to propose three distinct categories of publics: scientific-citizen publics constituted by civil society, quasi-publics that initiate another kind of engagement through the activation of ‘political society,’ and non-publics cast outside these spheres of engagement. This re-categorization is possible when the central role of the state in its citizens’ engagement with technoscience is put upfront and the non-Western empirical contexts are taken seriously by Science and Technology Policy (STP) studies. The paper argues that in most of the world the state maintains a political contract with technoscience to form a functional coupling as the state-technoscience duo, which shapes public engagement with science through different functional modalities of government. Civil society is the sphere of legitimate engagement and participation in technoscientific issues for the scientific-citizen publics. The quasi-publics choose to be in the shady zone of political society establishing a paralegal relationship with the state-technoscience duo, while the non-publics come into being due to conditions of extra-legality created by the duo. The non-publics are implicated in the political community paradoxically as an excluded category who cannot be included in deliberation because of their status as being expelled from political community in a ‘state of exception.’ The paper proposes that the scientific-citizen publics are mobilized in contrast to the quasi-publics and with reference to the non-publics, helping STP studies to identify the ‘missing masses’ of technoscience.

This article analyzes the openings in host-caller interactions in three leading U.S. political talk radio (PTR) programs. Conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis are used to describe how fandom is achieved in these shows. Callers present themselves as fans in the first possible position in the interaction, using various practices ranging from uttering the word ditto to creating extended discourse structures. The hosts usually perceive these practices as compliments and appreciate them and the callers. PTR is a prime example of a fan-public, since its host harnesses the fans to achieve his political (and commercial) agenda. The hyphen in fan-public deserves attention, because this notion is rooted in infotainment, combining the relationships of the entertainment business, fans, and stars with the realm of politics, which would assume some critical notion and individuality in the decision-making processes.

" Prodnik, Jernej. A public sphere without public(s)? Publics and counterpublics in post-fordist capitalism. In: Correira, João Carlos Ferreira (ed.). Public sphere reconsidered: theories and practices. Covilhã: LabCom Books, 2011.

Also available via: http://www.livroslabcom.ubi.pt/pdfs/20111222-public_sphere_reconsidered_ebook.pdf


Abstract

The author of this text questions conceptualizations of the public sphere that take its existence for granted, without reflecting what in fact constitutes this public discursive field (or public “infrastructure”). It is argued that when considering the idea of the public sphere, it is public(s) that should first and foremost play the crucial role in determining how we understand and characterize it and how it should develop in practice. This epistemological presumption raises an important prerequisite for all more comprehensive debates on the public sphere, as it is the emergence (or eclipse) of public(s) that constitutes fully-working, active, and democratic public sphere. Even though public(s) have largely been ignored in the last two decades this concept has again been gaining in prominence (e.g. Angus, 2001; Gilman-Opalsky, 2008; Hind, 2010), especially with social transformations and bottom-up social developments. This reinvigoration of critical-theoretic discourse was also partially prompted by the new media technologies which opened up possibilities for transnational connections that can possibly influence wider society. Earliest normative approaches regarding the question of the public (and publics) are followed up in this paper, concentrating especially on John Dewey’s (1927/1989) seminal work “The Public and its Problems” and C. Wright Mills's (1956/2000) “The Power Elite”. This presents a suitable basis to connect them to later developments in theorizing this important concept and for analyzingcounterpublics, which were perhaps most notably described by Nancy Fraser (1991), but later-on furthermore developed by several other authors. Author’s reconsideration of the public sphere through focus on publics and counterpublics is theoretically based in the project of alternative modernity (Negri and Hardt, 2009), through which post-modernistic approaches can be rejected, but which also provides foundation through which this concept can be detached from some of the questionable influences of modernistic line of thought. It is claimed that changes and developments in the material basis of society should not be neglected when approaching these issues. This is achieved through contextualization of the Imperial governance and post-Fordist capitalism. "

This paper considers the question of whether journalism can be considered to be a social practice. After considering some of the goods of journalism the paper moves to investigate how external goods can corrupt the practice and make it somewhat ineffective. The paper therefore looks to consider ways in which the goods claimed have been better served in ‘radical’ journalism. Bristol Independent Media Centre is then evaluated as an example of an active project in which the goods of community are pursued through an inclusive form of participatory journalism

Demosthenes, I’ll show, has a realistic, non-ideological sense of the elemental flaws of democracy: The ambition and cunning of the few (politicians, etc.)(F1); the want of courage and smarts in the many (ordinary citizens)(F2); the general imprudence and equal fallibility of all (F3); the basic lack of human self-sufficiency (F4). Given the last two, he would find the idea of basing politics on the sufficiency of either moral virtue or expertise dangerous—blue-eyed anyway. Because the first two could be said to be inherent traits in all majorities and elites, any straightforwardly authoritarian or paternalistic scheme is ruled out in fact. Instead, the defects are to be counteracted by making sure all citizens have the best information available and by strengthening their basic capacity for critical thinking and ethical choice. Demosthenes is that rarest of creatures: An intellectual who actually believes popular rule is better than other forms of government.