scholarly journals Rethinking the Public Sphere in an Age of Radical-Right Populism: A Case for Building an Empathetic Public Sphere

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Korstenbroek
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Media And Communication

Abstract With right-wing populist movements gaining ever more traction worldwide, great attention is paid to addressing their exclusionary rhetoric. In this article, I focus on the question how to deal with these radical-right sentiments in our public debates. Believing that both exclusion and inclusion of right-wing populist voices wield counter-productive effects, I juxtapose Habermas’s public sphere theory to Mouffe’s model of agonistic pluralism and posit that both are ultimately insufficient to tackle the populist danger, albeit for different reasons. However, by synthesizing Mouffe’s model with the ideas of Zygmunt Bauman and Iris Marion Young, I introduce the concept of an empathetic public sphere as a model for creating minimal common grounds between right-wing populist “selves” and the “others” they oppose. Finally, I then move this normative model into the realm of media and communication studies and assess how empathetic storytelling might be given shape in today’s fragmented media ecology.

scholarly journals Cultures of rejection at work: Investigating the acceptability of authoritarian populism

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110124
Author(s):  
Alexander Harder ◽  
Benjamin Opratko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Authoritarian Populism ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article introduces the concept of cultures of rejection as a framing device to investigate conditions of acceptability of authoritarian populism among workers in Germany and Austria. After situating the concept in the current scholarly debate on right-wing populism and discussing its main theoretical points of reference, we offer an analysis focusing on experiences of crisis and transformation. Two elements of cultures of rejection are discussed in depth: the rejection of racialised and/or culturalised ‘unproductive’ others; and the rejection of the public sphere, linked to the emergence of a ‘shielded subjectivity’. These articulations of rejection are then discussed as related to two dimensions of a crisis of authority: the crisis of state or political authority in the field of labour and the economy; and the crisis of a moral order, experienced as decline in social cohesion. In conclusion, we identify possible avenues for further research, demonstrating the productivity of the conceptual framework of cultures of rejection.

Social inclusion, a challenge for deliberative democracy? Some reflections on Habermas’s political theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 136843102098378
Author(s):  
Isabelle Aubert
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

This article explains how the issue of inclusion is central to Habermas’s theory of democracy and how it is deeply rooted in his conception of a political public sphere. After recalling Habermas’s views on the public sphere, I present and discuss various objections raised by other critical theorists: Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Nancy Fraser, Axel Honneth and Iris Marion Young. These criticisms insist on the paradoxically excluding effects of a conception of democracy that promotes civic participation in the public debate. Negt, Kluge and Fraser develop a Marxist line of analysis that question who can participate in the public sphere. Honneth and Young criticize in various ways the excluding effect of argumentation: are unargumentative speeches excluded from the public debate? I show how Habermas’s model can provide some responses to these various objections by drawing inspiration from his treatment of the gap between religious and post-metaphysical world views.

Homophobia and queer belonging in Hungary

Focaal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (53) ◽  
pp. 20-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadley Z. Renkin
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Verbal Aggression ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
Lgbt People ◽  
The Public Sphere

Violent attacks on gay and lesbian activities in the public sphere, coupled with verbal aggression against sexual minorities by right-wing politicians in Hungary and other postsocialist countries, illustrate the centrality of sexuality in questions of postsocialist transition. This article discusses the limits of current scholarly interpretations of homophobia in postsocialist countries. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on LGBT activism in Hungary, it argues that by undertaking public projects that assert multiple forms of identity and community, LGBT people, although often portrayed as passive objects of the changing configurations of power of Hungary's transition, have raised a radical challenge to traditional imaginings of the boundaries between national and transnational meanings. It is this challenge—the proposal of a “queering” of belonging—to which right-wing, nationalist actors have responded with public violence.

Political Participation in Early Stuart Ireland

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eamon Darcy
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Common ◽  
Competing Ideas ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractA consideration of political participation in early Stuart Ireland suggests modifications to the prospectus outlined by Peter Lake and Steven Pincus in “Rethinking the Public Sphere in Early Modern England.” By investigating the structures that facilitated public debates about politics in Ireland, as well as the factors that complicated it, this article challenges the periodization of the public sphere offered by Lake and Pincus and suggests that there is a clear need to integrate a transnational perspective. Unlike England, Scotland, and Wales, the majority of Ireland's population was Catholic. The flow of post-Tridentine Catholic ideas from the Continent and Anglo-Britannic political culture meant that competing ideas of what constituted the common good circulated widely in Ireland and led to debates about the nature of authority in the early modern Irish state. These divisions in Irish society created a distinctive kind of politics that created particularly unstable publics. Thus, Ireland's experience of the early modern public sphere differed considerably from concurrent developments in the wider archipelago.

scholarly journals Responding to Richard: Celebrity and (mis)representation of science

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 535-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Johnson ◽  
Elaine Howard Ecklund ◽  
Di Di ◽  
Kirstin R.W. Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Practice Of Science

Drawing on 48 in-depth interviews conducted with biologists and physicists at universities in the United Kingdom, this study examines scientists’ perceptions of the role celebrity scientists play in socially contentious public debates. We examine Richard Dawkins’ involvement in public debates related to the relationship between science and religion as a case to analyze scientists’ perceptions of the role celebrity scientists play in the public sphere and the implications of celebrity science for the practice of science communication. Findings show that Dawkins’ proponents view the celebrity scientist as a provocateur who asserts the cultural authority of science in the public sphere. Critics, who include both religious and nonreligious scientists, argue that Dawkins misrepresents science and scientists and reject his approach to public engagement. Scientists emphasize promotion of science over the scientist, diplomacy over derision, and dialogue over ideological extremism.

scholarly journals The Limited Influence of Right-Wing Movements on Social Media User Engagement

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512110416
Author(s):  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Online Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article generates new insights into the dynamic interplay between social media content generated by right-wing movements, user engagement, and the public attention movements receive. I argue that movement leaders seek to achieve high user engagement for utilizing mechanisms of information diffusion to increase both online and on-site mobilization. In a case study, I analyze the German right-wing movement Pegida, which uses Facebook for spreading its anti-Islam agenda online. Data from Pegida’s Facebook page are combined with news reports over a period of 18 months to measure activity on Facebook and in the public sphere simultaneously. Results of quantitative text and time series analysis show that Pegida cannot influence user engagement by simply creating more posts. Instead, it is the content of posts that matters. Moreover, findings highlight a strong connection between Facebook activities and the public sphere. In times of decreasing attention, the movement changes its social media strategy in response to exogenous shocks: Pegida resorts increasingly to radical mobilization methods by posting xenophobic content that is more likely to incite users to engage on Facebook.

scholarly journals Angry tweets

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-145
Author(s):  
Ruth Breeze
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
The Public ◽  
Semantic Domain ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Self Defence ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

Abstract The rise of populism has turned researchers’ attention to the importance of affect in politics. This is a corpus-assisted study investigating lexis in the semantic domain of anger and violence in tweets by radical-right campaigner Nigel Farage in comparison with four other prominent British politicians. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of discourse show that Farage cultivates a particular set of affective-discursive practices, which bring anger into the public sphere and offer a channel to redirect frustrations. Rather than expressing his own emotions, he presents anger as generalised throughout society, and then performs the role of defending ‘ordinary people’ who are the victims of the elites. This enables him to legitimise violent emotions and actions by appealing to the need for self-assertion and self-defence.

Embodied Reasons in the Public Sphere: The Example of the Hijab

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-512
Author(s):  
Thomas Wabel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
The Public Sphere

In public debates on moral or political issues between participants from different religious backgrounds, liberal and secular thinkers like John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas recommend to restrict oneself to free-standing reasons that are independent of their religious, social or cultural origin. Following German philosopher Matthias Jung, however, I argue that such reasons fall short of describing the relevance of the issue in question for the adherents of a specific religion or worldview. Referring to the debates in several European countries about the hijab, I am showing how a deeper understanding of reasons as embodied in social practices and as embodied in individual biographies can help to disentangle such debates and to facilitate a dialogue on these issues.

Abusing Public Visual History

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-85
Author(s):  
Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public History ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Codes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Illustrated Press ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Visual History

The covers of the two mainstream right-wing magazines in Poland, (W) Sieci and Do Rzeczy, have put numerous images on display that refer to well-known events from the past. However, most of the images suggest incorrect interpretations or even falsify historical facts. Asserting that visual history as presented in the illustrated press belongs to the field of public history, the author discusses the consequences of such a deceptive use of history in the public sphere. The article challenges the affirmative approach of public history by showing that scholars should pay more attention to those who ignore ethical codes and do not follow what are considered to be best practices.

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