Social Justice and Social Inequalities — Analysis of the Public Discourse in Poland

2008 ◽  
pp. 285-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Rokicka ◽  
Wielisława Warzywoda-Kruszyńska
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals Prekäre (Kultur-)Kämpfe?

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (160) ◽  
pp. 361-376
Author(s):  
Magdalena Freudenschuß
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Societal Changes

Precarity became an issue in public discourse in German speaking media throughout 2006. In this article the author takes a closer look on the symbolic negotiations on precariousness/precarity and its references to neo-conservative reasoning undertaken in the public media discourse. Who is designated as the precarious subject -- and to what extent do discursive designations legitimate social inequalities? Public discourse is to be understood as an ambivalent and multifaceted field of negotiations on society and social justice. As such, it is a field where interpretations of societal changes try to gain a hegemonic position and where they are at the same time challenged, disrupted and irritated. Thus, the article points out some hegemonic and counter-hegemonic moments within the public discourse on precarity.

Social work, participation, and poverty

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrien Boone ◽  
Griet Roets ◽  
Rudi Roose
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Structural Change ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Work Participation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nancy Fraser ◽  
Shed Light

Summary Although participatory social work approaches have been considered as a fruitful strategy, critical questions are raised in relation to the social justice aspirations of participatory social work with people in poverty. Inspired by the work of Nancy Fraser, we provide an in-depth insight in the complexities of supporting participatory parity in ‘Associations where People in Poverty Raise their Voice’. Combining semi-structured interviews and focus groups with practitioners in these organisations, we shed light on the complexities of the ‘how’, the ‘who’, and the ‘what’ of social justice that arise in such participatory practice. Findings Our findings suggest that even in practices that situate the principle of participatory parity at the heart of their fight for social justice, power asymmetries and social inequalities require attention. Exclusionary mechanisms become apparent in how practitioners try to support participatory parity of people in poverty in the different components in the organisation. When practitioners try to overcome these exclusionary effects, a sheer complexity and inescapable power struggles become visible. Moreover, the ambiguity of how practitioners attempt to empower people in poverty and enhance structural change leads to tensions between affirmative and transformative strategies in the fight against poverty. Applications Practitioners should be aware that they will never be able to resolve or escape inherent complexities in their attempts to work on a par with people in poverty. Nevertheless, it remains valuable to make continuous efforts to inform the public debate about the socially unjust nature of poverty and social inequality in our societies.

scholarly journals Digital divides in education. An analysis of the Romanian public discourse on distance and online education during the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-39
Author(s):  
Alexandra Hosszu ◽  
Cosima Rughiniș
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
Digital Divides

Adapting “face-to-face” education to distance/remote and/or online education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a massive challenge for countries around the world. Online education reignited older debates about inclusive education, such as hoped-for universal access versus current digital divides, prompting the public to reflect about the past, the present, and future of the educational system. This article analyzes the Romanian public discourse, both scientific and non-scientific, on emerging distance and online education in Romania during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to understand how public communication functioned as feedback for school digitalization. The paper charts the advantages and challenges of distance and online education experienced by various actors (teachers, students, and the members of civil society) or identified through scientific research, focusing on the way online education has spotlighted and reshaped social inequalities. We use thematic content analysis of 152 online articles published from March to June 2020 and eight scientific studies and reports. The results showed that public discourse about distance and online education was largely consistent within and across multiple stakeholders; also, the scientific reports were aligned with the other public opinions expressed and promoted via online channels. The general perspective of the emerging online education during COVID-19 is that it deepens the educational gaps and creates new forms of exclusion. On the positive side, some of the teachers have improved their teaching methods and educational content.

scholarly journals Approaching actually existing neoliberalisms: Citizenship, responsibility, and (health)care in anthropology

2020 ◽  
pp. 193-233
Author(s):  
Anika Jugović-Spajić
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Operational Definition ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Governance

Neoliberalism seems to be a ubiquitous concept, both in anthropological scholarship and in the public discourse, as global social inequalities continue to grow. In anthropology, neoliberalism has been particularly popularized in the past decade and a half, but - as is the case with most anthropological concepts - the consensus on its meaning has not been met. Furthermore, it is not rare to see neoliberalism being used in scholarship without an operational definition. Concurrently with its popularity, the concept attracted numerous criticisms. In this review article, I present a short overview of how neoliberalism has originated, then used, and criticized in anthropology and its sister disciplines such as human geography. Additionally, I focus on the transformations in the nature of the state, governance, and subjectivity that occur in late capitalism, as well as how we can approach those transformations ethnographically. The increased unavailability of welfare provision in neoliberalism has been heavily investigated in anthropology of health and care. I thus particularly discuss how the concepts of care and responsibility have been used in anthropology to that end.

Wanted a New Conceptual Framework for Doing Psychology in India

2019 ◽  
pp. 219-245
Author(s):  
U. Vindhya
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Critical Psychology ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Perspective Drawing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychology Perspective

Addressing the social inequalities and their influences on behaviour and striving for work towards a change in institutions and systems that perpetuate injustice and inequities implies a commitment to a social justice agenda. It is this commitment and the research and practice it seeks to generate that can be termed as the public psychology perspective. It pursues the quest for social change by an ethic that emphasizes distributive justice and human rights and advocates for policies that maximize the accessibility of resources to the disenfranchised and disempowered sections of society in particular. This chapter focusses on the tenets of the public psychology perspective, drawing on the tradition of critical psychology and covers the efforts currently underway exemplified by this perspective, drawn from the fields of mental health and education.

Discursive construction of an anti-immigration Europe by a Sweden Democrat in the European Parliament

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-439
Author(s):  
Kamber Güler
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Power ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Group

Discourses are mostly used by the elites as a means of controlling public discourse and hence, the public mind. In this way, they try to legitimate their ideology, values and norms in the society, which may result in social power abuse, dominance or inequality. The role of a critical discourse analyst is to understand and expose such abuses and inequalities. To this end, this paper is aimed at understanding and exposing the discursive construction of an anti-immigration Europe by the elites in the European Parliament (EP), through the example of Kristina Winberg, a member of the Sweden Democrats political party in Sweden and the political group of Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy in the EP. In the theoretical and methodological framework, the premises and strategies of van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach of critical discourse analysis make it possible to achieve the aim of the paper.

On Waxen Wings: Challenges to the Public Sphere in the Network Age

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Francoeur
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Multiple Viewpoints ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Communicative Space

There is a tendency, particularly among Western pundits and technologists, to examine the Internet in almost universally positive terms; this is most evident in any discussion of the medium’s capacity for democratization. While the Internet has produced many great things for society in terms of cultural and economic production, some consideration must be given to the implications that such a revolutionary medium holds for the public sphere. By creating a communicative space that essentially grants everyone his or her own microphone, the Internet is fragmenting public discourse due to the proliferation of opinions and messages and the removal of traditional gatekeepers of information. More significantly, because of the structural qualities of the Internet, users no longer have to expose themselves to opinions and viewpoints that fall outside their own preconceived notions. This limits the robustness of the public sphere by limiting the healthy debate that can only occur when exposed to multiple viewpoints. Ultimately, the Internet is not going anywhere, so it is important to equip the public with the tools and knowledge to be able to navigate the digital space. 

COVID-19 and the politicisation of medical preprints on Twitter: Quantitative Analysis of Social Media Data (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Urman ◽  
Stefania Ionescu ◽  
David Garcia ◽  
Anikó Hannák
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
New Research ◽  
Sharing Patterns ◽  
Political Divide

BACKGROUND Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have been willing to share their results quickly to speed up the development of potential treatments and/or a vaccine. At the same time, traditional peer-review-based publication systems are not always able to process new research promptly. This has contributed to a surge in the number of medical preprints published since January 2020. In the absence of a vaccine, preventative measures such as social distancing are most helpful in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Their effectiveness can be undermined if the public does not comply with them. Hence, public discourse can have a direct effect on the progression of the pandemic. Research shows that social media discussions on COVID-19 are driven mainly by the findings from preprints, not peer-reviewed papers, highlighting the need to examine the ways medical preprints are shared and discussed online. OBJECTIVE We examine the patterns of medRxiv preprint sharing on Twitter to establish (1) whether the number of tweets linking to medRxiv increased with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) which medical preprints were mentioned on Twitter most often; (3) whether medRxiv sharing patterns on Twitter exhibit political partisanship; (4) whether the discourse surrounding medical preprints among Twitter users has changed throughout the pandemic. METHODS The analysis is based on tweets (n=557,405) containing links to medRxriv preprint repository that were posted between the creation of the repository in June 2019 and June 2020. The study relies on a combination of statistical techniques and text analysis methods. RESULTS Since January 2020, the number of tweets linking to medRxiv has increased drastically, peaking in April 2020 with a subsequent cool-down. Before the pandemic, preprints were shared predominantly by users we identify as medical professionals and scientists. After January 2020, other users, including politically-engaged ones, have started increasingly tweeting about medRxiv. Our findings indicate a political divide in sharing patterns of the top-10 most-tweeted preprints. All of them were shared more frequently by users who describe themselves as Republicans than by users who describe themselves as Democrats. Finally, we observe a change in the discourse around medRxiv preprints. Pre-pandemic tweets linking to them were predominantly using the word “preprint”. In February 2020 “preprint” was taken over by the word “study”. Our analysis suggests this change is at least partially driven by politically-engaged users. Widely shared medical preprints can have a direct effect on the public discourse around COVID-19, which in turn can affect the societies’ willingness to comply with preventative measures. This calls for an increased responsibility when dealing with medical preprints from all parties involved: scientists, preprint repositories, media, politicians, and social media companies. CONCLUSIONS Widely shared medical preprints can have a direct effect on the public discourse around COVID-19, which in turn can affect the societies’ willingness to comply with preventative measures. This calls for an increased responsibility when dealing with medical preprints from all parties involved: scientists, preprint repositories, media, politicians, and social media companies.

Financial Crises and the Public Discourse on Financial Elites

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef Cassis ◽  
Giuseppe Telesca
Keyword(s):  
Great Depression ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Late Twentieth

Why were elite bankers and financiers demoted from ‘masters’ to ‘servants’ of society after the Great Depression, a crisis to which they contributed only marginally? Why do they seem to have got away with the recent crisis, in spite of their palpable responsibilities in triggering the Great Recession? This chapter provides an analysis of the differences between the bankers of the Great Depression and their colleagues of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century—regarding their position within, and attitude towards the firm, work culture, mental models, and codes of conduct—complemented with a scrutiny of the public discourse on bankers and financiers before and after the two crises. The authors argue that the (relative) mildness of the Great Recession, compared to the Great Depression, has contributed to preserve elite bankers’ and financiers’ status, income, wealth, and influence. Yet, the long-term consequences of their loss of reputational capital are difficult to assess.

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