Management Education in a “Post-Truth” World: Critical Theory’s Contribution to Addressing Disruptions to Learning and Communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 105256292110086
Author(s):  
Stephanie A. Welcomer ◽  
Mark E. Haggerty ◽  
Linda M. Sama
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Management Education ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
The Public ◽  
Theodor Adorno ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere

Post-truth poses deep challenges for educators and learners as classrooms are disrupted by the erosion of the status of facts, technologically driven information sourcing, and increasing incivility in the public sphere. These disruptions manifest behaviorally and conceptually and, we argue, can potentially radically realign learning and decision-making landscapes at local classroom levels as well as societal levels, conditioning learners to knowledge systems controlled and curated by powerful interests, threatening students’ ability to function as citizens in a democracy. We analyze these disruptions using the work of Theodor Adorno and Jurgen Habermas and highlight Habermas’s focus on communication and Adorno’s elucidation of cultural production via the culture industry. Using these perspectives, we underline the urgency of responding to post-truth shifts and suggest a framework of practices for educators to consider as they confront these post-truth disruptions.

scholarly journals Pluralism, Disagreement, and the Status of Argument in the Public Sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Asen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Public Sphere

Argument teachers and scholars have frequently invoked external justification-impressing one's viewpoint upon another-as the primary social function of argument. Pluralism and fundamental disagreement in contemporary democratic societies raise questions regarding the status of argument, including the functions argument should serve. In this essay, I suggest alternatives of agenda expansion, responsibility attribution, and identity formation as important functions of argument in diverse societies. These alternative functions are especially important under conditions of social inequality, since they allow less powerful individuals and groups to confront more powerful actors in situations where decision making is not open to all.

State contestations in constructions of 1Malaysia

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Public ◽  
Malaysian Population ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.

Building democracy from below: a case from rural Tanzania

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Rural Village ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Rural Tanzania ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right

ABSTRACTFocusing on events in a rural village in Tanzania during 2001–02, this paper examines the changing nature of state/society relations in Tanzania. Drawing on experience from previous years of fieldwork in the early 1990s, it becomes apparent that villagers are beginning to change the way they engage with the state. These new approaches are framed in part by the discourse of democracy, with which Tanzanians have become familiar since the economic and political liberalisation policies of the 1990s. These events reveal a new sense of the right to participate in decision-making on how to use key development resources. They also illustrate how local elites can threaten to capture benefits for their own gain. As Tanzanians begin to demand more rights to participate in the public sphere, their achievements enlarge our understanding of what might constitute civil society.

Democratising the global order: from communicative freedom to communicative power

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES BOHMAN
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
The Other ◽  
Global Order ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One ◽  
Communicative Power

AbstractWhile there is much discussion of the need for democracy in transnational institutions, there is less discussion of the conditions for their democratisation. To address this deficit, a general account of democratisation is necessary. I propose that democratisation is dependent on the joint realisation of two conditions: communicative freedom and communicative power. Democratisation thus requires, first, publics and associations in which communicative freedom is realised on the one hand; and, second, institutions that link such freedom to the exercise of communicative power to decision making on the other. In order for these conditions to be met, civil society must be expanded into the public sphere. The transformation of communicative freedom into communicative power can be promoted only by institutions that recognise the decisional status of publics, which in turn depend on civil society to generate the deliberative benefits of the plurality of perspectives. Communicative power is not merely spontaneously generated through publics, but also through publics expressly formed through democratic institutional design.

Media, Intellectuals, the Public Sphere, and the Story of Barack Obama in 2008

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleanor Townsely
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Field Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Media Institutions ◽  
Strong Program ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Journalistic Field

This article examines the epoch-making sense of Barack Obama’s historic election as U.S. president in 2008 and the heightened solidarity it produced, as well as the role of the mass media in creating such meanings. It first describes a sociological model of the public sphere by combining insights from field analysis and the Strong Program in cultural sociology, focusing on the theories advanced by Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jeffrey C. Alexander. It then considers how intellectuals, acting through media institutions, define and expand public spheres before discussing the interrelationships among autonomy, rationality, and democracy. It also explores how the autonomy of cultural production can influence the autonomy of the journalistic field and, therefore, the autonomy of the political public sphere. Finally, it explains how civil society, and its public sphere institutions more specifically, produces solidarity by making distinctions between civil and uncivil things.

Dress and Gulf imagery in two Malayalam films: Pathemari and Marubhoomiyile Aana

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musthafa Mubashir ◽  
M. Shuaib Mohamed Haneef
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Control

Malayalam films since the 1970s have captured the history of Gulf migration from Kerala, which occurs primarily due to the desperate need of its people for jobs and for money. Predominantly, the discourses of migrants in the films are embedded in various things, including dress from the Gulf, the insignia of opulence that depict the status of the migrants in the public sphere. Using thematic analysis of two Malayalam films, Pathemari and Marubhoomiyile Aana, this study argues that the motif of the Gulf is associated with power and control in the cultural discourse of Kerala. Drawing on the semiotic analysis of Barthes, we contend that the replacement of mundu, a traditional attire of Kerala men, by trousers, is one among several mythical markers of modernity, including perfumes and watches brought from the Gulf. The performativity and materiality of dress in these two films produce imageries of the Gulf by which the wearers, mostly male, accumulate social and symbolic capital and assert dominance in the film’s narration.

‘Not in My Backyard’: The Local Planning Process in Australia and its Impact on Minority Places of Worship

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noel G. Villaroman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Australian State ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article analyses the engagement of minority religious groups with the local planning process in Australia as they try to build places of worship. Such groups oftentimes encounter opposition from local residents who are reluctant to share the public sphere with the newly arrived and less known ‘other.’ The public sphere has become a contested terrain between those who desire to preserve the status quo of the built environment and those who desire to affirm their collective identity through new religious structures. The Australian state, acting through local councils, finds itself in the middle of this contest and is tasked to resolve it. This article offers illustrative snapshots of how Australia promotes, respects and protects religious freedom, particularly its aspect concerning the ability of minority religious groups to build their own places of worship. Through case studies, this article assesses, albeit with respect to such cases only, how religious freedom is being concretised in the ‘religious’ physical landscape of Australia—that is its temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs and other minority places of worship.

Communicating Citizenship

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro I. Paz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Normative Model ◽  
Major Topic ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Communicative Processes

Citizenship has become a major topic in anthropology and the study of language (including sociolinguistics) since the early 1990s, with scholars in these fields especially examining the status and political claims of immigrants, refugees, indigenous groups, and other subaltern populations. This article argues that models of communication lie at the heart of debates about citizenship and explores two fundamentally communicative processes: first, the mutual recognition of citizens as citizens, and second, the interpellation by state apparatuses of citizens. It first discusses the emergence of the question of citizenship within anthropology and the study of language. It then considers the tension that arises as any recognition of difference confronts the normative model of citizenship already institutionalized in the state apparatus. Finally, this article examines the interlacing of these scholarly trajectories in one of the premier sites where citizens communicate as citizens: the public sphere.

Gendered power transformations in India’s Northeast: Peace politics in Nagaland

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Manchanda ◽  
Seema Kakran
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Power Transformations ◽  
Customary Laws ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

As the middle space for ‘post ceasefire-cold peace’ politics expanded in Nagaland in India’s Northeast, the Naga women’s question has emerged as symbolic of the intense social churning in traditional hierarchies around three sites of inequality: decision-making in the public sphere, patriarchal customary laws and property rights. The article tracks the shift in Naga women’s peace politics, from motherhood politics to asserting more equal modes of citizenship, and explores the emancipatory potential of Naga women’s emergence in the public sphere as key stakeholders in the peace process within a context of growing tensions in the relationship between gender and ethnicity.

scholarly journals Social media as public sphere: a stakeholder perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Rohde Johannessen ◽  
Øystein Sæbø ◽  
Leif Skiftenes Flak
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Communication Preferences ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Stakeholder Perspective ◽  
The Public Sphere

Purpose This paper aims to examine major stakeholders’ communication preferences in eParticipation initiatives and discuss how this affects the public sphere. Despite the potential of social media, it has proven difficult to get people actively involved in the decision-making processes. There is a need for more research on how stakeholders manage and use social media to communicate. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. Data sources include interviews, social media content, document analysis and field notes. Findings Communication preferences of stakeholders vary according to their salience level. Stakeholders with higher salience are less likely to participate in social media, whereas those who are less salient will use every available medium to gain influence. This challenges the opportunity to create a traditional public sphere in social media. Research limitations/implications The authors contribute to a better understanding of who participates in social media and why. Stakeholder salience analysis shows that in the case of citizen-initiated eParticipation, social media cannot be seen as a Habermasian public sphere. Practical implications The authors suggest two approaches for government officials’ handling of social media: to treat social media as a channel for input and knowledge about the concerns of citizen groups and to integrate social media in the formal processes of decision making to develop consultative statements on specific policy issues. Social implications The study shows that power and urgency are the most important salience attributes. These findings indicate that social media may not be as inclusive as early research indicates, and less active social media users may have power and influence through other channels. Originality/value The findings extend current knowledge of the public sphere by adding the stakeholder perspective in addition to existing evaluative models of the public sphere.

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