Shaping Facebook and Twitter Public Spheres: The Case of Swiss Franc Mortgage Holders in Poland

The article focuses on the online communication on Polish Facebook and Twitter around issues related to mortgage loans in Swiss francs. Based on 20k posts retrieved from both Facebook and Twitter, we found the most active actors and the most common topics appearing on those micro-public spheres. It was revealed that actors with institutional affiliation and those who are not affiliated discuss different problems and share dissimilar content related to Swiss franc debts. It was also found that certain categories of actors may influence online discussions on both social networking sites by promoting specific content in order to pursue their institutional interests. Finally, the diversity of topics and problems discussed by the two categories of actors identified on Facebook and Twitter suggest that Swiss franc mortgage holders are a good example of “connective action” with no clear identity or community traits that led to favourable judgment of the European Court of Justice.

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Internet Public Sphere as a Counter-Public Sphere: The Question of Effectiveness

Molung Educational Frontier ◽

10.3126/mef.v10i1.34037 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 149-158

Author(s):

Roshani Dhamala

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Social Networking ◽

Social Networking Sites ◽

Major Change ◽

Online Discussions ◽

Protest Movements ◽

Public Spheres ◽

Limited Effectiveness ◽

The Social ◽

To Come

This article explores the nature of public and counter public spheres by studying some existing scholarships on these topics. It discusses the nature and efficacy of internet, especially the Social Networking Sites, when it comes to serving as public and counter public spheres to facilitate discussion and deliberation within a democratic setting. It then relates the feminist groups of Nepal, who have been relentlessly staging online protest movements against the existing citizenship provision in the constitution of Nepal, with the counter-public groups as described by Frazer. It finally delves into the question of how effective these counter-public groups have been in achieving their proclaimed aim of amending the citizenship provision. Through the literature review of existing literatures on these topics, it elaborates on the possible reasons behind the limited effectiveness of advocacy and protests that take place in the online or digital public sphere. Some of the reasons explored are lack of accessibility to the online platform run through internet, inequality in terms of the accessibility to these platforms because of the digital divide created by caste, gender, and class, disproportionate representation of the voices of social groups, failure of internet based protest movements to ignite enough interest and engagement in the public to bring any major change, and failure of online discussions to follow the high ideals set for deliberative democracy. The paper concludes on a note that in order to make such internet, particularly the Social Networking Sites, based discussions and deliberations more effective and change-causing, there is a need to come up with structural and more formalized procedures to connect such internet based deliberations with the real decision making process.

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Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice

10.1017/9781108615020 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

William Phelan

Keyword(s):

European Court Of Justice ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

European Court

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Fighting for Authority: Strategic Actions of National High Courts in the European Union

der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy Recht und Management ◽

10.3224/dms.v12i2.04 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (2-2019) ◽

pp. 419-433

Author(s):

Stefanie Vedder

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

European Court Of Justice ◽

Eu Law ◽

The European Union ◽

Principal Agent Theory ◽

Strategic Actions ◽

High Courts ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

European Court ◽

Lower Courts

National high courts in the European Union (EU) are constantly challenged: the European Court of Justice (ECJ) claims the authority to declare national standing interpretations invalid should it find them incompatible with its views on EU law. This principle noticeably impairs the formerly undisputed sovereignty of national high courts. In addition, preliminary references empower lower courts to question interpretations established by their national ‘superiors’. Assuming that courts want to protect their own interests, the article presumes that national high courts develop strategies to elude the breach of their standing interpretations. Building on principal-agent theory, the article proposes that national high courts can use the level of (im-) precision in the wording of the ECJ’s judgements to continue applying their own interpretations. The article develops theoretical strategies for national high courts in their struggle for authority.

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