scholarly journals Talking Green in the Public Sphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (s1) ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Alon Lischinsky ◽  
Annika Egan Sjölander
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
The Public ◽  
Promotional Materials ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Environmental News ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractIn a climate of growing public concern and monitoring of business’s impact on the environment, corporations and industry groups have developed increasingly sophisticated strategies to manage their environmental reputation and to influence the outcome of environmental debates in the public sphere. In this article, we provide an exploratory overview of how the largest Swedish corporations selectively subsidise environmental news-making by supplying it with promotional materials disguised as journalistic copy. We analyse a year’s worth of public relations output from the largest 15 companies traded in the Stockholm exchange or owned by the Swedish state, in order to shed light on the environmental themes they cover, the techniques they adopt to maximise the likelihood of media coverage and the evidence they provide to support their claims. Our analysis shows that corporate voices make substantial use of environmental and ecological arguments in their strategic communication, but they provide little useful information about the company’s impact and do not usually foster forms of dialogic stakeholder engagement.

Transnational Protest and The Public Sphere

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Beyeler ◽  
Hanspeter Kriesi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Economic Globalization ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Of

This article explores the impact of protests against economic globalization in the public sphere. The focus is on two periodical events targeted by transnational protests: the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on a selection of seven quality newspapers published in different parts of the world, we trace media attention, support of the activists, as well as the broader public debate on economic globalization. We find that starting with Seattle, protest events received extensive media coverage. Media support of the street activists, especially in the case of the anti-WEF protests, is however rather low. Nevertheless, despite the low levels of support that street protesters received, many of their issues obtain wide public support.

A Genealogy of Muslims Dying in France

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Nur Yasemin Ural
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
The Public ◽  
European Public ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
Real Challenge ◽  
Space Recognition ◽  
Shed Light

The question of the death of a Muslim in France engenders a discussion on the forms and limits of secularisation in the public sphere. Contrary to other public institutions like schools, hospitals and prisons, the particularity of mortuary spaces lies in their nearly uncontested religious character, also recognised by the French state. Despite the fact that repatriation remains to be the dominant practice among French Muslims, the descending generations, who overtly declare their identities as Muslim and European at the same time, seek to obtain their place within the European public sphere. Yet accommodating deceased bodies of Muslims within the so-called secular cemeteries represents a real challenge in terms of space, recognition of religious identities and application of Islamic funerary rites. The regulations imposed by the French authorities seem to pose serious problems to Muslims, who desire to be buried in accordance with the requirements of their religion. In this respect the cemetery becomes a realm of spatio-temporal struggle, where subjectivities are formed via negotiations between the subjects—dead or alive—and state apparatuses. This article aims to reflect on the power struggles in the development of the mortuary space from a historical perspective. It will then attempt to shed light on the legal possibility of the construction of the only French Muslim cemetery inaugurated in Strasbourg in 2012.

Chewing the Communal Cud

2011 ◽  
pp. 296-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Mummery ◽  
Debbie Rodan
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Market Demand ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
Political Blogs ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Public Sphere

Contending that media users are more than consumers and that the mass media are able to achieve more in the public sphere than simply meet market demand, Mummery and Rodan argue in this chapter that some types of mass media may in fact fulfil public sphere responsibilities. The authors demonstrate how forums such as broadsheet letters to the editor and online political blogs—despite their commonly recognised limitations due to influence by private/commercial ownership, editorship, and the requirements of authorship—may exemplify, enable and support community deliberation over issues of public concern. More specifically, via engaging with Jürgen Habermas’ conceptions of the necessary conditions for rational and communal deliberation, and critically examining recent debates in these forums, the authors argue both that these mediated forums can enable and exemplify community deliberation and, more generally, that community deliberation itself does not need to be strictly consensus-oriented to be productive.

Worktown and Muslims

British Gods ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 144-181
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Attitude Survey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Satanic Verses ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Town ◽  
British People

In the 1930s, Bolton was the site of Mass Observation’s first major research project, and subsequent restudies allow us to track in detail the decline of Christianity in the town. It was also the site of the first major Muslim demonstration against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The reaction of Boltonians to Islam is discussed as an introduction to wider consideration of the impact of the growth of Islam in Britain. Detailed discussion of media coverage of Muslims and of attitude survey data makes the case that, while some British people dislike Islam, a more powerful trend is growing hostility to any religion that is taken seriously enough to intrude on the public sphere.

The Academic-Media Nexus

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Michael McDevitt
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Public Colleges ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Intellectual Work ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Public Sphere

The academic-media nexus represents a liminal space where intellectual work is regularly held up to public judgment. Three sources of control impinge on the nexus as a sphere for ideas that challenge orthodoxies: self-imposed instrumentalism of intellectuals; a new form of anti-intellectualism that features systemic surveillance of academic discourse; and the strategic communication of university administrations. The contemporary university is instrumental and strategic rather than anti-rationalist in the control of intellect. Still, mistrust of intellect thrives at private and public colleges, entrusted with preservation of cultural heritage. When faculty take risks in the public sphere, they should not assume that administrators will support them against populist blowback. A final section contemplates implications of risk-averse tactics for public perceptions of intellect and its contributions to political discourse and policy.

Iranian Women from Private Sphere to Public Sphere, With Focus on Parliament

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 401-414
Author(s):  
Elaheh Koolaee
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Iranian Women ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Governmental Institutions ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractWomen in Iran have gained unprecedented experiences in the course of their fight for democracy and human rights. In the Pahlavi era, the modernisation model was based on Western patterns. With the Islamic Revolution, a new generation of Iranian women emerged in social arenas. Ayatollah Khomeini always emphasised women's prominent and important role in social life. His views shed light on potentials for women's rights, but the obstacle of old cultural and historical attitudes have made these ideas difficult to actualise. The weakness of civil organisations, including women's political and non-political organisations, has seriously affected the outcomes. Although a reformist government and the reinforcement of governmental institutions concerned with women's affairs can play a part in improving the situation of women, women's civil society organisations can assume responsibilities at social levels in order to complement the role of the representatives. The author discusses the process of women's entrance in the public sphere and efforts by the 6th parliament to protect their rights.

scholarly journals Frontier zones of public policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.I. Soloviev
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Orientation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
State Public Policy ◽  
Analytical Correction ◽  
The Public Sphere

Referring to the traditional interpretations of “public policy”, the author substantiates the need for analytical correction of its content on the basis of identifying universal parameters of publicity, reflecting a special format of open (public) relations between the state and society. In this context, there are three social spaces of the public sphere, each of which determines the possibilities of implementing the course of citizens' participation in the management and strengthening the social orientation of government policy. The features of the implementation of such a variant of state public policy in modern Russia are briefly outlined.

scholarly journals The Governmentality of Promoting Ex-Gay “Change” in the Public Sphere

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Thorn
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
The Public ◽  
Commercial Media ◽  
Jurgen Habermas ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Gay Movement ◽  
Conservative Christians ◽  
Analyse De Discours

Background  A long-term “earned media” marketing strategy deployed by the Christian ex-gay movement backfired and now generates mostly negative media against the movement.Analysis  A governmental discourse analysis is used to examine media coverage representing conservative Christians struggling against unwanted same-sex desire. It does so in relation to Jürgen Habermas’ (2006) analysis of commercial media and Anna McCarthy’s (2007) notion of “neoliberal theatre of suffering.”Conclusion and implications  Media coverage of the ex-gay debate showcases suffering as entertainment and does not achieve the full reasoned deliberation Habermas calls for in the public sphere. Nevertheless, it has not led to a paralysis of society’s ability to debate the issue of ex-gay “change.” Competing governmental perspectives still intersect and modify each other in ways that extend beyond mere commercialism.Contexte  La stratégie de marketing à long terme adoptée par le mouvement ex-gay chrétien a échoué, et de nos jours elle reçoit généralement une couverture médiatique négative.Analyse  Une analyse de discours gouvernemental sert à examiner la couverture médiatique de chrétiens conservateurs qui essaient de réprimer leur attirance pour des personnes du même sexe. La démarche adoptée s’inspire de l’analyse des médias commerciaux effectuée par Jürgen Habermas et de l’idée de « théâtre néolibéral de la souffrance » formulée par Anna McCarthy.Conclusion et implications  Dans les médias, la couverture du débat ex-gay exploite la souffrance à des fins de divertissement, ne permettant pas une délibération raisonnable dans la sphère publique du type prôné par Habermas. Néanmoins, cette couverture n’a pas paralysé la capacité qu’a la société à débattre la question du « changement » ex-gay. Par exemple, des perspectives gouvernementales divergentes continuent à se croiser et se modifier de manières qui dépassent le simple commercialisme.   

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