“Hidden Transcripts” and Microhistory as a Comparative Tool: Two Case Studies in Communist Czechoslovakia

2013 ◽  
Vol 40 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muriel Blaive
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Vaclav Havel ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Communist Past ◽  
Current History

This article applies James Scott’s anthropological analysis of domination practices to the field of Czechoslovak communist studies. In the first part, the article retraces the epistemology, as well as the use and abuse, of the term “totalita(rianism)” in the Czech public sphere in relation to the communist past. In the second part, it contrasts the “totalita” theory to the results of two oral, microhistorical studies that investigated life under communism: the first one was undertaken in the Czech town of České Velenice at the border to Austria, the second in the Slovak town of Komárno at the border of Hungary. Through their answers, the interviewees expose the current history politics practiced in Prague as a political discourse that has little in common with everyday practices of communist rule. Far from presenting themselves as unilateral heroes or victims, the interviewees leave no doubt to the fact that the “border between good and bad” passed within each and every individual—or as Václav Havel put it, people did not support or oppose the system, they became the system.

Word, Image, Sound

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-152
Author(s):  
Matthew Engelke
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Special Section ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Religion ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This essay introduces the special section “Word, Image, Sound,” a collection of essays on public religion and religious publicities in Africa and South Asia. The essays cover case studies in Myanmar, Zambia, Senegal, Rwanda, and Egypt. The introduction situates the essays in relation to the broader fields of work on the public sphere and publics, especially as they relate to recent work in the human sciences that focus on materiality, the senses, and media.

scholarly journals Come Fly With Me: Analyzing The F-35 Aircraft Acquisition Discourse to Study Incivility in Question Period

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
The People ◽  
Canadian Politics ◽  
The Government

The main objective behind the parliamentary practice of Question Period is to ensure that the government is held accountable to the people. Rather than being a political accountability tool and a showcase of public discourse, these deliberations are most often displays of vitriolic political rhetoric. I will be focusing my research on the ways in which incivil political discourse permeates the political mediascape with respect to one instance in Canadian politics - the acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. I believe that incivility in the political discourse of Question Period must be understood within the mechanics of the contemporary public sphere. By interrogating the complexities of how political discourse is being mediatized, produced and consumed within the prevailing ideological paradigms, I identify some of the contemporary social, cultural and political practices that produce incivility in parliamentary discourse.

Liminal Participation: Young People’s Practices in the Public Sphere Between Exclusion, Claims of Belonging, and Democratic Innovation

2021 ◽  
pp. 0044118X2110408
Author(s):  
Ilaria Pitti ◽  
Yagmur Mengilli ◽  
Andreas Walther
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
European Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
The Public ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Innovation And Change

Existing understandings of youth participation often imply clear distinctions from non-participation and thus boundaries between “recognized” and “non-recognized” practices of engagement. This article aims at questioning these boundaries. It analyzes young people’s practices in the public sphere that are characterized by both recognition as participation and misrecognition or stigmatization as deviant and it is suggested to conceptualize such practices as “liminal participation.” The concept of liminality has been developed to describe transitory situations “in-between”—between defined and recognized status positions—and seems helpful for better understanding the blurring boundaries of youth participation. Drawing on qualitative case studies conducted within a European research project, the analysis focuses on how young people whose practices evolve at the margins of the respective societies position themselves with regard to the challenges of liminality and on the potential of this for democratic innovation and change.

An Emerging Online Public

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-170
Author(s):  
Ya-Wen Lei
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Media Institutions ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
Demographic Background ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Party State

This chapter focuses on the emergence of an online public in China and delves into its relationship with the party-state and various intermediary actors, as well as its interaction with legal and media institutions. It argues that netizens' everyday practices and participation in public opinion incidents facilitated the rise of contentious culture and China's contentious public sphere. Because the late 2000s were critical to the rise of an online public and the contentious public sphere, the analysis focuses mostly on this period. To depict a more comprehensive picture of Chinese netizens, the chapter first draws on statistical data to describe their demographic background, social networks, political attitudes, and political behavior. Next, it describes their everyday practices and participation in public opinion incidents. It then examines the case study of a public opinion incident involving food safety, and shows how netizens interacted with the Chinese party-state and various intermediary actors to make what happened a “public opinion incident.” Finally, the chapter draws on in-depth interviews with ordinary citizens to understand how netizens' everyday practices and participation in public opinion incidents contribute to politicization.

Cultures of Political Discourse in Europe: Explaining Multiple Segmentation in the European Public Sphere

2015 ◽  
pp. 145-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hepp ◽  
Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw ◽  
Swantje Lingenberg ◽  
Johanna Möller ◽  
Michael Brüggemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
European Public Sphere ◽  
European Public

Playing (Safely) with Fire

2021 ◽  
pp. 218-234
Author(s):  
Mary Angela Bock
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Human Capability ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Way

This chapter reviews the project’s argument, that social actors struggle over the construction of visual messages in embodied and discursive ways. Digitization has vastly expanded the encoding capabilities of everyday citizens, allowing them to render their expression of democratic voice visible, even as the ethical rules for visual expression are inchoate. The project’s case studies demonstrate the way grounded practices produce representations that support the authority of the criminal justice system, and together they invite three theoretical discussions: (1) on the way visual journalism’s physicality increases its reliance on those in power, (2) on the importance of image indexicality as a discursive affordance in the public sphere, and (3) on the digital public sphere as visual, and participation in this visual public sphere must be considered as an essential human capability. As a whole, the project offers insight into the construction of the criminal justice system’s literal and metaphorical image.

scholarly journals Blogging as Popular History Making, Blogs as Public History: The Singapore Case Study

2007 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Ho
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Public History ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Historical Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Blogging is a twenty-first century phenomenon that has heralded an age where ordinary people can make their voices heard in the public sphere of the Internet. This article explores blogging as a form of popular history making; the blog as a public history document; and how blogging is transforming the nature of public history and practice of history making in Singapore. An analysis of two Singapore ‘historical’ blogs illustrates how blogging is building a foundation for a more participatory historical society in the island nation. At the same time, the case studies also demonstrate the limitations of blogging and blogs in challenging official versions of history.

The Guilty Brelfie

Screen Bodies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mari E. Ramler
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Digital Images ◽  
Material World ◽  
The Public ◽  
Female Breast ◽  
The Public Sphere

Breastfeeding mothers and their babies are simultaneously in the public sphere and hidden from public view. Although social media has the potential to normalize attitudes toward breastfeeding by increasing visibility, Facebook and Instagram maintain an unpredictable censorship policy toward “brelfies”—female breast selfies—which has undermined progress. Combining Iris Marion Young’s “undecidability” of the breasted experience with Brett Lunceford’s rhetoric of nakedness, this article investigates what breastfeeding mothers communicate online via digital images when they expose their breasts. By deconstructing controversial case studies, this article concludes that brelfies have increased breastfeeding’s accessibility and acceptability in the material world.

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