scholarly journals Inventing ‘infrastructure’: tracing the etymological blueprint of an omnipresent sociotechnical metaphor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justinien Tribillon
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Know How ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Intellectual Origins ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Infrastructure Studies ◽  
Clear Relation

This article proposes an archaeology of the concept of ‘infrastructure’, focusing specifically on a period ranging from 1842 until 1951, before the term entered the English language from French. In doing so, it contributes to an ongoing discussion on ‘What does infrastructure really mean?’ by deconstructing the omnipresent concept of ‘infrastructure’ as an expression of modernity that has crystallised a sociotechnical imaginary: a relation between technology, space and power. Indeed, our understanding of its etymological, epistemological and intellectual origins is patchy, based on repeated chronological mistakes and conceptual misunderstandings. To put it bluntly: we do not know how the word came to be. By unearthing the origins of ‘infrastructure’, this article aims to contribute to scholarly debates on the definition(s) of infrastructure in social sciences, urban studies, science and technology studies and infrastructure studies. It also wishes to contribute to ongoing debates taking place in the public sphere regarding what should count as ‘infrastructure’. This paper’s findings demonstrate a clear relation to Karl Marx’s ‘historical materialism’; the paper also analyses how the word evolved over a short period of time to become sociotechnical metaphor; finally, the paper demonstrates the emergence of a concept that linked engineering to larger socioeconomic concerns in the 1890s, well before the emergence of ‘infrastructure’ as a key concept of development economics in the 1950s.

scholarly journals Infrastructure and the Post-Truth Era: is Trump Twitter’s Fault?

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Oliver
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Infrastructure Studies

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between social media and political rhetoric. Social media platforms are frequently discussed in relation to ‘post-truth’ politics, but it is less clear exactly what their role is in these developments. Specifically, this paper focuses on Twitter as a case, exploring the kinds of rhetoric encouraged or discouraged on this platform. To do this, I will draw on work from infrastructure studies, an area of Science and Technology Studies; and in particular, on Ford and Wajcman’s analysis of the relationships between infrastructure, knowledge claims and politics on Wikipedia. This theoretical analysis will be supplemented with evidence from previous studies and in the public domain, to illustrate the points made. This analysis echoes wider doubts about the credibility of technologically deterministic accounts of technology’s relationship with society, but suggests however that while Twitter may not be the cause of shifts in public discourse, it is implicated in them, in that it both creates new norms for discourse and enables new forms of power and inequality to operate.

scholarly journals Reconstructing the Indian public sphere: Newswork and social media in the Delhi gang rape case

Journalism ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1059-1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Belair-Gagnon ◽  
Smeeta Mishra ◽  
Colin Agur
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
English Language ◽  
Foreign Correspondents ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Gang Rape ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Manuel Castells

In recent years, a growing literature in journalism studies has discussed the increasing importance of social media in European and American news production. Adding to this body of work, we explore how Indian and foreign correspondents reporting from India used social media during the coverage of the Delhi gang rape; how journalists represented the public sphere in their social media usage; and, what this representation says about the future of India’s public sphere. Throughout our analysis, Manuel Castells’ discussion of ‘space of flows’ informs our examination of journalists’ social media uses. Our article reveals that while the coverage of the Delhi gang rape highlights an emerging, participatory nature of storytelling by journalists, this new-found inclusiveness remains exclusive to the urban, educated, connected middle and upper classes. We also find that today in India, social media usage is rearticulated around pre-existing journalistic practices and norms common to both Indian reporters working for English-language media houses and foreign correspondents stationed in India.

scholarly journals Questioning the Usage of Generic Masculine and Reflection of Objective Reality with Regard to the Function of Language (Demonstrated on the Slovak and English Examples)

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-124
Author(s):  
Petra Jesenská
Keyword(s):  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
English Language ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Real Presence ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Slovak Language ◽  
National Corpus

The English language uses dual gender which is an umbrella term for including fe/males, e.g. student, doctor, teacher, president, minister, opponent, etc. In Slavic languages, e.g. in the Slovak language it works differently. Suffixes reflect grammatical and natural gender of lexemes referring to occupation, activity or the position of a person in the public sphere. And so the gender is recognized by means of a masculine or feminine suffix. In effort to become economical with language and to avoid misunderstandings as well, generic masculine (GM), i.e. preferring dominant masculine gender whereever possible, was introduced in the past. It used to be working for some time without doubting or questioning GM. However, this is no longer true as far as females realize that there is no real existence without their real presence in language. And so what is inherently present in English due to its typological type of language known as analytical, must be reconsidered in some Slavic languages due to their flexive nature. This was investigated by several means: approach of professional language workers for dictionary, appearances of frequencies in the Slovak National Corpus, Google and Census which took place in 2011 in Slovakia. The Census reveals the real numbers of fe/males in their public positions (i.e. occupations and jobs). The analysis and further comparison bring both relevant information and uncover discrepancies between language and reality. It turns out that reality is manipulated via language which has appropriate means to include both genders in public discourse in order to avoid gender stereotypes which are present in more or less sexist society. Remark: In the paper Slovak examples are left without specific Slovak signs in order to avoid misinterpretation by formal publishing mistakes and problems.

scholarly journals Change(s) in Vocabulary(/ies) – Hungarian and Romanian Lexical Phenomena During COVID

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Enikő Biró ◽  
Gabriella Kovács ◽  
Imola Katalin Nagy
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
English Language ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Language Environment ◽  
Health Organization

Abstract The COVID-19 epidemic caused not only an unprecedented crisis in our lives but also changes in our language use and word formation habits: this new disease and its cures have naturally led to the emergence of new concepts and names. In 2020, more and more words or phrases related to the COVID-19 epidemic appeared in the public sphere as a result of COVID-related publications issued by the World Health Organization, regulations issued by the authorities of the countries, news in the press, and endless debates in the social media. This study examines the lexicalization processes and semantic shifts generated by the COVID epidemic, as we aim to examine professional and colloquial developments in pandemic-inspired terminology. We analyse the changes that have taken place in the Hungarian and Romanian language environment, while also taking into account the English language elements as a background reference. Among the most notable lexico-semantic phenomena, we have identified word coinages, changes of meaning, and varied word formation techniques which have fostered the processes of lexicalization and neologism creation, revealing an impressive linguistic dynamic at the level of public discourse.

scholarly journals THE PHENOMENON OF "CELEBRITY" IN RUSSIAN PUBLIC SPACE OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
K. I. Shneyder ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
Short Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Methodological Guidelines

In modern historiography, the phenomenon of "celebrity" attracts close attention of specialists and experts. The study of this phenomenon is closely related to the history of the emergence and development of the public sphere, publicity, public and public opinion. The article examines the historical context of the formation of the public sphere in Russia in the second half of the 18th – the first half of the 19th centuries; the conceptual points of Jürgen Haber-mas’s model and Antoine Lilti’s theory, which are the main methodological guidelines for investigating the construc-tion of "celebrity" in public space; and the opinions of modern researchers on the issue. The author draws attention to the temporal features of the genesis of the public sphere in the conditions of the existence of an autocratic regime in Russia. The article presents a version of the multifactorial and multi-temporal history of the Europeanization of Rus-sia in the 18th century, which in short period helped integrate Russia into the context of modern European processes. In accordance with it, the society first experienced “Peter's Europeanization”, a purely foreign policy wave, thanks to which an imperial state emerged with the right to participate in European international affairs. The natural conse-quence of the previous period was “Catherine’s Europeanization”, an internal political wave that imported Western axiology, norms and practices of European governance, changes in the everyday life of the nobility, etc. into the country. The article contains an analysis of the concrete historical situation in Russia in the first half of the 19th centu-ry, which determined the time route of movement towards the establishment of a full-fledged public space in the society. In conclusion, the main factors contributed to the formation of the phenomenon of "celebrity" in the domes-tic public sphere are determined.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

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