Making It Relevant: Qualitative Inquiry in the Public Sphere Focusing End-of-Life Care and Migration

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Migala ◽  
Uwe Flick

Qualitative inquiry in the public sphere is discussed with a study concerning intercultural palliative care. For the case of Russian-speaking immigrants in Germany, language problems in care are analyzed as an issue of organizational ethics. Interviews with this target group originally addressing barriers of access to professional care are reanalyzed for the roles of language, limited language skills, and the lack of professional translation in care. The focus is on ethical implications for organizing services and the health care system planned for organizational justice for all groups in a diversifying society. Findings are discussed with Burawoy’s concept of a public sociology.

Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda ◽  
Rocci Luppicini

Ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society are a core focus within the field of technoethics. Over the last few years, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama's campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study's results are explored in this chapter.


2014 ◽  
pp. 1663-1682
Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda ◽  
Rocci Luppicini

The field of technoethics explores the ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society. Recently, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama's campaign social networking site, mybarackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study's results can be found further in the article.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Maxwell

This article focuses on public policies and programs as a major component of the “public sphere,” and argues that qualitative inquiry can make uniquely valuable contributions to their development and evaluation. These contributions include understanding (a) how people interpret and respond to such policies, (b) contextual variability and its effects on the implementation and consequences of these policies, and (c) the processes through which policies achieve their results. The movement for “evidence-based” policy and practice has largely ignored these issues, but they are critical for developing policies that actually achieve their goals and avoid unintended and damaging consequences.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Baarda ◽  
Rocci Luppicini

The field of technoethics explores the ethical challenges that technology poses to the different spheres of society. Recently, scholars have begun to explore the ethical implications of new digital technologies and social media, particularly in the realms of society and politics. A qualitative case study was conducted on Barack Obama’s campaign social networking site, my.barackobama.com, in order to investigate the ways in which the website uses or misuses digital technology to create a healthy participatory democracy. For an analysis of ethical and non-ethical ways to promote participatory democracy online, the study included theoretical perspectives such as the role of the public sphere in a participatory democracy and the effects of political marketing on the public sphere. The case study included a content analysis of the website and interviews with members of groups on the site. The study’s results can be found further in the article.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-135
Author(s):  
Judith C. Lapadat

At the Thirteenth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, we gathered as a community to share perspectives on qualitative inquiry in the public sphere in these troubled times and to advance the causes of social justice. “Entangled” is a poetic montage that pieces together powerful words, phrases, and images that I gathered in sessions, in hallways, and on the lawns at ICQI 2017. This composite of fragments reflects the conference as I experienced it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Flick

What means qualitative inquiry in the public sphere? What are public spheres for qualitative inquiry? First, to transgress the disciplinary boundaries of qualitative inquiry. Second, to identify research problems of societal relevance and target groups affected. Third, to make our results accessible for public audiences—how we write about our research and where we publish our findings. Fourth, to face changing political discourses with our research. Public sociology and ethnography are discussed for their relevance for qualitative inquiry in the public sphere. An overview of the contributions and the way this idea is treated in them are given.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Datts

Several scholars have attributed high hopes to social media regarding their alleged ability to enable a nonhierarchical and freely accessible debate among the citizenship (Loader & Mercea, 2011; Shirky, 2011). Those hopes have culminated in theses such those describing the social web as being a ‘new public sphere’ (Castells, 2009, p. 125) as well as in expectations regarding its revitalizing potential for the ‘Habermas’s public sphere’ (Kruse, Norris, & Flinchum, 2018, p. 62). Yet, these assumptions are not uncontested, particularly in the light of socially mediated populism (Mazzoleni & Bracciale, 2018). Interestingly, research on populism in the social web is still an exception. The same is true for the populist permeation of the social media discourse on migration, as a highly topical issue. This study seeks to elaborate on this research gap by examining to what extent the Twitter debate on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) was permeated by populist content. For this purpose, almost 70,000 tweets on the most important Hashtags referring to the GCM that took place in Marrakesh in December 2018 were collected and the 500 widest-reaching tweets analysed in terms of their populist permeation. Against initial expectations, the empirical findings show that populist narratives did not dominate the Twitter debate on migration. However, the empirical results indicate that ordinary citizens play an important role in the creation and dissemination of populist content. It seems that the social web widens the public sphere, including those actors who do not communicate in accordance with the Habermasian conceptualization of it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 455-469
Author(s):  
Christoph Hübenthal

In this article, the notion of the secular is defended as a meaningful and relevant concept in order to determine the role of theological reasoning in the public sphere. For this purpose, in the first section, it is shown that John Duns Scotus already developed a provisional account of the secular and, moreover, provided it with a theological justification. The second section starts off with a brief sketch of the secular’s main characteristics as they can be deduced from Scotus’s account. Building on Thomas Pröpper, it is demonstrated how a transcendental analysis of freedom as the basic rationale of the secular brings to the fore a fundamental ethical principle as well as an idea of the secular’s ultimate destination. Theological reasoning in the public sphere or public theology, so it will be argued, aims primarily at making visible the ethical implications and the ultimate destination of the secular.


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