scholarly journals The Demise of Moderate Islam: new media, contestation, and reclaiming religious authorities

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Wahyudi Akmaliah
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Platform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Issues ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Desk Research

The landscape of the Indonesian public sphere amidst the rise of new media has opened both opportunities and threats dealing with Islamic teaching. This condition shapes a danger for the two largest of moderate Muslim Organisations (Muhammadiyah and Nahdatul Ulama/NU), in which they do not engage a lot of this development of the digital platform. Consequently, dealing with religious issues, their voices become voiceless. By employing desk research through some relevant references and collecting information from social media, specifically Instagram and Youtube, this article examines the role of the Islamic organization of moderate Islam in the rapid of the digital platform as the new of the public sphere. The article finds that they have difference respond to dealing with the presence of the new religious authorities. In comparison, while Muhammadiyah is more accepting of them calmly, NU is more reactively in responding.Lanskap ruang publik Indonesia di tengah muncunya media sosial membuka kesempatan sekaligus ancaman terkait dengan dakwah Islam. Hal itu merupakan ancaman bagi dua organisasi besar Moderat Islam di Indonesia (Muhammadiyah dan NU), di mana mereka menjadi kelompok minoritas dalam aktivitas dakwah online. Akibatnya, berkaitan dengan issu-isu keagamaan, suara mereka menjadi tidak terdengar/didengarkan. Dengan melakukan riset studi literatur yang relevan dan informasi yang didapatkan dari akun media sosial, khususnya Instagram dan Youtube, artikel ini menjelaskan peranan organisasi Islam moderat di tengah cepatnya platform digital di ruang publik. Artikel ini menemukan bahwa Muhammadiyah dan NU memiliki respon yang berbeda terkait dengan kehadiran otoritas keagamaan baru. Sebagai perbandingan, penerimaan Muhammadiyah terhadap kehadiran mereka terlebih lebih biasa ketimbang dengan NU yang reactif.

Defining Urban Planning Strategy Through Social Media Application

2019 ◽  
pp. 268-286
Author(s):  
Alessandro Scuderi ◽  
Luisa Sturiale
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Planning Strategy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Web

Social networks in the public sphere support the process of innovation that aims to make the action of the municipalities more efficient and participatory. Due to their characteristics, social media seem to be able to contribute significantly to the development of e-governance and e-democracy as tools based on dialogue and on the enhancement of the contribution of users-citizens or, more generally, of users-local stakeholders. Web 4.0 and social media are progressively taking on a role of primary importance in the contemporary socio-economic context, contributing to change not only the processes and methods of communication of individuals, citizens and businesses, but also the organization and business management itself. In the new dimension of the Web 4.0 the user's behavior is not predetermined, but the user can derive and autonomously build the services, as the web is decentralized and enriched by the experiences of the users who participate in the definition and improvement of content.

Too Much Information? Political Science, the University, and the Public Sphere

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technological Structure ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The University

This article argues that the technological structure of the modern world has reshaped drastically the role of political scientists as purveyors of information. Only a few decades ago, scholars were still central to the development, collection and dissemination of knowledge. But the transformation in the availability of data due to the proliferation of social media and research engines creates a new environment in which scholars can no longer claim to be the erudite carriers of hard-to-get facts. In order to play a constructive role in this quickly changing setting, political scientists need to invent a new identity for themselves as active practitioners engaged in a dynamic dialogue with students and policymakers.

Thanks for (actually) responding! How citizen demand shapes politicians’ interactive practices on Twitter

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 676-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Tromble
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
The Public ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Twitter Activity ◽  
The Impact

Social media are frequently touted for their potential to strengthen democratic processes by bringing politicians and citizens into dialogue with one another. Social media may enrich the public sphere and improve democratic decision-making by allowing politicians and constituents to discuss matters of political import directly, free from intermediaries. But what factors impact whether this potential is realized? Previous research has focused on politicians’ structural incentives for strategic communication online but neglected the impact of citizen demand for politicians’ attention. I examine the role of citizen demand using an original dataset comprising the Twitter activity from and to members of the lower legislative houses in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and United States during the latter half of October 2013. The data suggest that citizen demand plays a crucial role in determining the presence, as well as the extent, of politicians’ reciprocal engagement with members of the public.

The gender dimension of the 2020 Belarusian protest: Does female engagement contribute to the establishment of gender equality?

2021 ◽  
pp. 2336825X2110291
Author(s):  
Vasil Navumau ◽  
Olga Matveieva
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Depth Interviews

One of the distinctive traits of the Belarusian ‘revolution-in-the-making’, sparked by alleged falsifications during the presidential elections and brutal repressions of protest afterwards, has been a highly visible gender dimension. This article is devoted to the analysis of this gender-related consequences of protest activism in Belarus. Within this research, the authors analyse the role of the female movement in the Belarusian uprising and examine, and to which extent this involvement expands the public sphere and contributes to the changes in gender-related policies. To do this, the authors conducted seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with the gender experts and activists – four before and four after the protests.

scholarly journals Contested Numbers: Census Controversies and the Press in 1960s Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Population Census ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

The NGOization of Space: Dilemmas of Social Change, Planning Policy, and the Israeli Public Sphere

10.1068/d459t ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Yacobi
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper offers a critical analysis of the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal with planning policy in general and in Israel in particular. The inherent dilemmas of the different NGOs' tactics and strategies in reshaping the public sphere are examined, based on a critical reading of Habermas's conceptualization of the public sphere. The main objective of this paper is to investigate to what extent, and under which conditions, the NGOization of space—that is, the growing number of nongovernmental actors that deal with the production of space both politically and tangibly—has been able to achieve strategic goals which may lead towards social change.

scholarly journals Desiring the Secular: Capital, Cohesion, and the Fantasy of Secularization

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Ian A. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Religious Subject ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Public Sphere

Towards the end of the twentieth century, religion re-emerged as a topic of pressing concern in a number of the most self-consciously secularized states of the global north. From disputes over the wearing of headscarves in schools to debates over accommodations for religious practices in the public sphere, religion, particularly the ‘foreign’ religiosity of migrants and other minority religious subjects, appeared on the scene as a phenomenon whose proper place and role in society required both urgent and careful deliberation. This article argues that in order to account for the affective potency produced by the immanence of the figure of the ‘foreign’ religious subject, it is necessary to understand secularization as fantasy. It is within the fantasy of secularization that the secular emerges as an object of desire—as something that, if attained, appears as a solution to the problem of ‘foreign’ religiosity—and figures of inassimilable religiosity assume the role of scapegoats for the failure to resolve these concerns. In this sense, within this fantasy scene, the secular promises to provide ‘us’ with something that we are lacking. However, this promise has been undermined by the apparent persistence of religious difference. As such, as a result of their continued religiosity, ‘they’ appear to be taking something from ‘us’.

Ambiguities and Clichés in the Debate about Public Intellectuals

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
New Left ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Intellectuals ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production Of Knowledge ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.

Secular–Religious Competition and the Exclusion of Islam from the Public Sphere: Islamic Welfare in Western Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Kortmann
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Service Delivery ◽  
Religious Competition ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Islamic Organizations

AbstractThis paper deals in a qualitative discourse analysis with the role of Islamic organizations in welfare delivery in Germany and the Netherlands. Referring to Jonathan Fox's “secular–religious competition perspective”, the paper argues that similar trends of exclusion of Islamic organizations from public social service delivery can be explained with discourses on Islam in these two countries. The analysis, first, shows that in the national competitions between religious and secular ideologies on the public role of religion, different views are dominant (i.e., the support for the Christian majority in Germany and equal treatment of all religions in the Netherlands) which can be traced back to the respective regimes of religious governance. However, and second, when it comes to Islam in particular, in the Netherlands, the perspective of restricting all religions from public sphere prevails which leads to the rather exclusivist view on Islamic welfare that dominates in Germany, too.

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