scholarly journals The State Awaking Or Stealing?

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Ivana Nardelli Debač
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Online Comments ◽  
Discourse Strategies ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

The 2020 parliamentary elections in Croatia were held in an atmosphere marked by fear and anxiety because of negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, and riddled with other unresolved socio-economic and political issues. Therefore, choosing appropriate political slogans that would reflect positive messages of hope, encouragement, and safety to the Croatian people seemed of utmost importance. This paper identifies and discusses political discourse strategies behind the creation of selected billboard slogans used in the pre-election period by different political parties and platforms. Taking into account the results of the elections, the research focuses on the negative reactions to the content of the slogans in the Croatian public space. For this purpose, a corpus of readers’ online comments was built and subjected to a computer sentiment analysis. The results show that the majority of citizens in the research sample created negative mental images of political agents and the policies they promote. Further investigation of the reasons for the negative perception and evaluation revealed that the politico-historical and situational contexts play a significant role in shaping the public opinion, specifically in times of crises and threats to public health and wellbeing.

scholarly journals The Individual and the Nation in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s Early Writing

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
Simona Hevešiová
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Postcolonial Writers

Abstract In its essence, postcolonial literature evolved as an opposition to colonial discourse and ideological representation of the colonized subject inherent in colonial narratives. Springing out of the need to reconceptualize and reconstitute their communities, postcolonial writers often addressed the pressing historical and political issues of that time in their writing. In its early stages, postcolonial literature was therefore often marked by a strong sense of nationalism, interweaving fictional stories with the public narrative of pre-independence ideology. The paper seeks to explore the border between the public and the private in the early novels of the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Just as his contemporaries in other colonized countries, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o tends to utilize literature as a powerful tool for raising national awareness. The pre-independence period, in which Ngũgĩ’s novels are set, is marked by a certain degree of romanticism and idealism, yet there is also an underlying sense of doom. Drawing on the cultural roots and mythology of his community, the writer steers his narrative in the direction of a larger, public discourse, suggesting that “the individual finds the fullest development of his personality when he is working in and for the community as a whole”. Therefore, the public/private dichotomy stands at the very centre of his writing, proving the rootedness of the individual in the public space.

scholarly journals Trendsetter Muballigh di Medsos: Analisis Framing Instagram Felix Siauw dan Hanan Attaki

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-48
Author(s):  
Nor Latifah ◽  
Romario Romario
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Good Advice

The increasing use of Instagram is dominated by users around the age of 15-30 years. The majority who followed in Instagram were famous public figures such as celebrities, political figures and religious leaders. With this Instagram, da'i or preachers can convey their messages easily and free through photos and captions or short videos. This study is important to see how Instagram as a new media is able to become a trendsetter for wellknown Ustadz like Felix Siauw and Hanan Attaki. This study uses a qualitative research method using the framing model as proposed by Robert N. Entman by observing how a discourse or communication is displayed in the public space. The finding confirmed that the framing model of Felix Siauw and Hanan Attaki has similarities in preaching Islam through Instagram social media using short posts or short videos and interesting captions. However, both of them have different tendencies, in which Felix Siauw is more dominant in discussing social and political issues while Hanan Attaki is more dominant in discussing good advice or about love between men and women.

scholarly journals The uses of satire: Unorthodox news, cultural chaos and the interrogation of power

Journalism ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Harrington
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
The Political ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Team ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Political World ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
Significant Opportunity

This article focuses on the satirical Australian show The Chaser’s War on Everything, and uses it to critically assess the potential political and social ramifications of what McNair (2006) has called ‘cultural chaos’. Drawing upon and analysing several examples from this particular program, alongside interviews with its production team and qualitative audience research, this article argues that this TV show’s engagement with politicians and political issues, in a way that departs from the conventions of traditional journalism, offers a significant opportunity for the interrogation of power. The program’s use of often bizarre and unexpected comedic confrontation allows it to present a perhaps more authentic image of political agents than is often cultivated in mainstream journalism. This suggests therefore that the shift from homogeneity to heterogeneity in the news media – which McNair (2006) sees as a key feature of cultural chaos – presents a significant challenge to those who wish to retain control over what the public sees and understands about the political world, and is a development which should be viewed in positive terms.

Assessments of User Comments With “Alternative Views” as a Function of Media Trust

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Online Discussions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Argument Quality ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Media Trust ◽  
Heuristic Information Processing

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

The Road to Iraq

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Idrees Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Road ◽  
Cohesive Group ◽  
Political Agents

The Road to Iraq is an empirical investigation that explains the causes of the Iraq War, identifies its main agents, and demonstrates how the war was sold to decision makers and by decision makers to the public. It shows how a small but ideologically coherent and socially cohesive group of determined political agents used the contingency of 9/11 to outflank a sceptical foreign policy establishment, military brass and intelligence apparatus and provoked a war that has had disastrous consequences.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

Public space of the trustworthiness of sociological knowledge: The case of electoral research

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
OLEKSANDR STEGNII
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
Sociological Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Approval Ratings ◽  
The Impact

The paper analyses specific features of sociological data circulation in a public space during an election campaign. The basic components of this kind of space with regard to sociological research are political actors (who put themselves up for the election), voters and agents. The latter refer to professional groups whose corporate interests are directly related to the impact on the election process. Sociologists can also be seen as agents of the electoral process when experts in the field of electoral sociology are becoming intermingled with manipulators without a proper professional background and publications in this field. In a public space where an electoral race is unfolding, empirical sociological research becomes the main form of obtaining sociological knowledge, and it is primarily conducted to measure approval ratings. Electoral research serves as an example of combining the theoretical and empirical components of sociological knowledge, as well as its professional and public dimensions. Provided that sociologists meet all the professional requirements, electoral research can be used as a good tool for evaluating the trustworthiness of results reflecting the people’s expression of will. Being producers of sociological knowledge, sociologists act in two different capacities during an election campaign: as analysts and as pollsters. Therefore, it is essential that the duties and areas of responsibility for professional sociologists should be separated from those of pollsters. Another thing that needs to be noted is the negative influence that political strategists exert on the trustworthiness of survey findings which are going to be released to the public. Using the case of approval ratings as an illustration, the author analyses the most common techniques aimed at misrepresenting and distorting sociological data in the public space. Particular attention is given to the markers that can detect bogus polling companies, systemic violations during the research process and data falsification.

The public and the private: reconfiguring the interrelationship during a civil act

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.

The Challenges in Dealing with Organized Crime and its Consequences in Modern Societies in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia – the Balkan Peninsula

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Bashkim Selmani ◽  
Bekim Maksuti
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Organized Crime Groups ◽  
Further Development

The profound changes within the Albanian society, including Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, before and after they proclaimed independence (in exception of Albania), with the establishment of the parliamentary system resulted in mass spread social negative consequences such as crime, drugs, prostitution, child beggars on the street etc. As a result of these occurred circumstances emerged a substantial need for changes within the legal system in order to meet and achieve the European standards or behaviors and the need for adoption of many laws imported from abroad, but without actually reading the factual situation of the psycho-economic position of the citizens and the consequences of the peoples’ occupations without proper compensation, as a remedy for the victims of war or peace in these countries. The sad truth is that the perpetrators not only weren’t sanctioned, but these regions remained an untouched haven for further development of criminal activities, be it from the public state officials through property privatization or in the private field. The organized crime groups, almost in all cases, are perceived by the human mind as “Mafia” and it is a fact that this cannot be denied easily. The widely spread term “Mafia” is mostly known around the world to define criminal organizations.The Balkan Peninsula is highly involved in these illegal groups of organized crime whose practice of criminal activities is largely extended through the Balkan countries such as Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, etc. Many factors contributed to these strategic countries to be part of these types of activities. In general, some of the countries have been affected more specifically, but in all of the abovementioned countries organized crime has affected all areas of life, leaving a black mark in the history of these states.

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