Participatory Communication in International Context

Author(s):  
Tom Jacobson ◽  
Nicole Garlic

Participation through communication has been studied internationally in analyzing social change at varying levels of analysis. In modernization theory, it was used largely at the national level for analyzing media consumption and participation in democratic political institutions, particularly voting, in newly established countries. In postmodernization theory, Paulo Freire and others employed it to analyze both interpersonal interaction and community development processes. Since that time, interest in participatory processes has proliferated in a variety of community development, social movement, and other middle-level social change efforts, including some operating via social media. In addition, with increasingly urgent threats posed by pandemics, human rights violations, global warming, and other international pressures today, transnational forms of civic and political action are increasingly treated as processes of global level participation. The idea of a global political public sphere is one of these processes. Citizen representation in multilateral organizations, global social movements, and other forms of cosmopolitan action are also treated as participation. A comprehensive understanding of participatory communication in the international context must attend to social processes at various levels of analysis, ranging from local project interventions to national political processes to global change.

Author(s):  
Martijn van Zomeren

Social change sometimes happens because groups in society make it happen. The social psychology of such “man-made” change in political contexts studies the key psychological and political processes that play an important role in driving such change. Theory and research have focused on political processes as conditions that foster change but also on the psychological processes that describe how a structural potential for change translates into political action, which puts pressure on political decision makers toward social change. This yields important scientific insights into how political action occurs and thus may affect political decision making. As for political processes, one relevant model is McAdam’s political process model, which identifies a number of structural factors that increase the potential for political action to achieve social change. As for psychological processes, one relevant model is the Social Identity Model of Collective Action, which identifies a number of core motivations for political action, and which seeks to integrate psychological insights with political models of social change. A joint discussion of these models offers hope and scope for further theoretical and empirical integration, as well as a broader and more comprehensive understanding of political and psychological processes in political action toward social change.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariadne Vromen

How do community–based political activists justify the ongoing effectiveness of their chosen location for political activity? How do they describe the shifts in relationships between community–development activism and the state? This article presents findings from case studies undertaken with two community–development organizations based in Sydney, Australia, and Toronto, Canada. The focus of the analysis is 40 in–depth interviews conducted with activists in the late 1990s. The article details how the activists describe the present realities for community–development activism and what they conceptualize as the future for their field of political action. It is argued that by appreciating how activists substantiate the relevance of community–development activism in periods of economic, political, and social change we are able to build a notion of participation that is inclusive of, rather than critical of, everyday activist experiences.


2013 ◽  
Vol 154 (16) ◽  
pp. 619-626
Author(s):  
Mária Resch ◽  
Tamás Bella

In Hungary one can mostly find references to the psychological processes of politics in the writings of publicists, public opinion pollsters, philosophers, social psychologists, and political analysts. It would be still important if not only legal scientists focusing on political institutions or sociologist-politologists concentrating on social structures could analyse the psychological aspects of political processes; but one could also do so through the application of the methods of political psychology. The authors review the history of political psychology, its position vis-à-vis other fields of science and the essential interfaces through which this field of science, which is still to be discovered in Hungary, connects to other social sciences. As far as its methodology comprising psycho-biographical analyses, questionnaire-based queries, cognitive mapping of interviews and statements are concerned, it is identical with the psychiatric tools of medical sciences. In the next part of this paper, the focus is shifted to the essence and contents of political psychology. Group dynamics properties, voters’ attitudes, leaders’ personalities and the behavioural patterns demonstrated by them in different political situations, authoritativeness, games, and charisma are all essential components of political psychology, which mostly analyses psychological-psychiatric processes and also involves medical sciences by relying on cognitive and behavioural sciences. This paper describes political psychology, which is basically part of social sciences, still, being an interdisciplinary science, has several ties to medical sciences through psychological and psychiatric aspects. Orv. Hetil., 2013, 154, 619–626.


2020 ◽  

The authors of the book analyze domestic political processes and international relations in the post-Soviet space. They examine the balance of political forces in Belarus after the presidential elections in August 2020, and transformations of political systems in Ukraine and Moldova. The main features of formation of the political institutions in the countries of South Caucasus and Central Asia and the latest trends in their devel-opment are analyzed. Attention is paid to the Karabakh and Donbass conflicts. The book examines the policy of major non-regional actors (USA, EU, China, Turkey) in the post-Soviet space. The results of develop-ment of the EAEU have been summed up. The role in the political processes in the post-Soviet space of a number of international organizations and associations (the CIS, the Union State of Russia and Belarus, the CSTO etc.) is revealed.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shefali Virkar

Over the last two decades, public confidence and trust in Government has declined visibly in several Western liberal democracies owing to a distinct lack of opportunities for citizen participation in political processes; and has instead given way instead to disillusionment with current political institutions, actors, and practices. The rise of the Internet as a global communications medium and the advent of digital platforms has opened up huge opportunities and raised new challenges for public institutions and agencies, with digital technology creating new forms of community; empowering citizens and reforming existing power structures in a way that has rendered obsolete or inappropriate many of the tools and processes of traditional democratic politics. Through an analysis of the No. 10 Downing Street ePetitions Initiative based in the United Kingdom, this article seeks to engage with issues related to the innovative use of network technology by Government to involve citizens in policy processes within existing democratic frameworks in order to improve administration, to reform democratic processes, and to renew citizen trust in institutions of governance. In particular, the work seeks to examine whether the application of the new Information and Communication Technologies to participatory democracy in the Government 2.0 era would eventually lead to radical transformations in government functioning, policymaking, and the body politic, or merely to modest, unspectacular political reform and to the emergence of technology-based, obsessive-compulsive pathologies and Internet-based trolling behaviours amongst individuals in society.


Author(s):  
José Luis Coraggio

In this chapter the Social and Solidarity Economy is presented both as an alternative theory and a counterhegemonic program of political action that challenges the tenets of the market economy of neoliberal doctrine. The proposal is framed within a substantive economy approach based on the works of Marx and Polanyi. The categories of a substantive economic analysis regarding ethical and specifically economic principles and institutions are outlined. Recent advances in the line of a Social and Solidarity Economy are sketched for some of the Latin American national-popular political processes (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, with some references to Brazil), including an especial reference to the new constitutions and public policies and the tensions between different objectives revealed within them.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Arvanitakis

On 16 February 2003, more than half a million people gathered in Sydney, Australia, as part of a global anti-war protest aimed at stopping the impending invasion of Iraq by the then US Administration. It is difficult to estimate how many millions marched on the coordinated protest, but it was by far the largest mobilization of a generation. Walking and chanting on the streets of Sydney that day, it seemed that a political moment was upon us. In a culture that rarely embraces large scale activism, millions around Australian demanded to be heard. The message was clear: if you do not hear us, we would be willing to bring down a government. The invasion went ahead, however, with the then Australian government, under the leadership of John Howard, being one of the loudest and staunchest supporters of the Bush Administrations drive to war. Within 18 months, anti-war activists struggled to have a few hundred participants take part in anti-Iraq war rallies, and the Howard Government was comfortably re-elected for another term. The political moment had come and gone, with both social commentators and many members of the public looking for a reason. While the conservative media was often the focus of analysis, this paper argues that in a time of late capitalism, the political moment is hollowed out by ‘Politics’ itself. That is to say, that formal political processes (or ‘Politics’) undermine the political practices that people participate in everyday (or ‘politics’). Drawing on an ongoing research project focusing on democracy and young people, I discuss how the concept of ’politics‘ has been destabilised and subsequently, the political moment has been displaced. This displacement has led to a re-definition of ‘political action’ and, I argue, the emergence of a different type of everyday politics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal Lupo

Reduced demand for wood and wood products resulting from the economic crisis in the first decade of the 2000s severely impacted the forest industry throughout the world, causing large forest-based organizations to close (CBC News, 2008; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2009; Pepke, 2009). The result was a dramatic increase in unemployment and worker displacement among forest product workers between 2011 and 2013 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Forested rural communities often depended on the large-scale forest industry for their livelihood, and as a result, decreased reliance on large-scale industry became increasingly important (Lupo, 2015). This article explores portable-sawmill-based entrepreneurship as an opportunity to promote social change in the local community. Results indicated that portable-sawmill-based small businesses created community development opportunities, which promoted social change in the larger community through farm business expansion, conservation efforts to improve local community development, and niche market creation in the local or larger community.


Author(s):  
Lee Artz

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has built mass organizations of workers and communities that have erratically challenged class and market relations—verifying that taking political power is difficult but essential to fundamental social change and that capitalist cultural practices complicate the revolutionary process. This work identifies components of state power, separating state apparatus (government) as a crucial site for instituting social change. The case of democratic, participatory communication and public media access is presented as central to the successes and problems of Venezuelan 21st century socialism. Drawing on field research in community media in Caracas, the essay highlights some of the politico-cultural challenges and class contradictions in producing and distributing cultural values and social practices for a new socialist hegemony necessary for fundamental social change.


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