scholarly journals Review Essay

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-147
Author(s):  
Nick Couldry
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Data Extraction ◽  
Discourse Representation ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Democratic Culture ◽  
The People ◽  
Late Modern

This review of two recent books, with further discussion of a third, addresses questions of the direction of democracy and the impacts of media circulation and data extraction on democratic culture. The reviewed books are Selena Nemorin (2018). Biosurveillance in New Media Marketing: World, Discourse, Representation, and Dipankar Sinha (2018). The Information Game in Democracy, with discussion also of Peter Csigo (2016). The Neopopular Bubble: Speculating on “the People” in Late Modern Democracy.

Monkey Business: Imitation, Authenticity, and Identity from Pithekoussai to Plautus

2004 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Connors
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Culture ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Greek Comedy ◽  
The People

Abstract This essay explores references to monkeys as a way of talking about imitation, authenticity, and identity in Greek stories about the ““Monkey Island”” Pithekoussai (modern Ischia) and in Athenian insults, and in Plautus' comedy. In early Greek contexts, monkey business defines what it means to be aristocratic and authoritative. Classical Athenians use monkeys to think about what it means to be authentically Athenian: monkey business is a figure for behavior which threatens democratic culture——sycophancy or other deceptions of the people. Plautus' monkey imagery across the corpus of his plays moves beyond the Athenian use of ““monkey”” as a term of abuse and uses the ““imitative”” relation of monkeys to men as a metapoetic figure for invention and play-making. For Plautus, imitator——and distorter——of Greek plays, monkeys' distorted imitations of men are mapped not onto the relations between inauthentic and authentic citizens, as in Athens, but onto the relation of Roman to Greek comedy and culture at large. Monkey business in Plautus is part of the insistence on difference which was always crucial in Roman encounters with Greek culture.

scholarly journals Transformation of democracy in the information age: the role of new media and civic communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-105
Author(s):  
Serhiy Danylenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
New Media ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Corporate Influence ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Media

The article aims to outline the transformation in the functioning of modern democracy as a form of government, to explore the influence of modern media on the mechanisms of its implementation. The issue is raised about the preservation of its fundamental principles during the information revolution (primarily in the media sphere) and changes in the forms and methods of communication of people during political interaction. The model of „monitoring democracy” was chosen as the theoretical and conceptual basis for considering these processes, which is based on the „idea of a monitoring citizen” and which is caused by rapid growth of various extra-parliamentary (non-representative) mechanisms of government. Among them, the most important for us is the rapid development of media instruments, namely social networks. The imperative of elections, political parties and parliamentary life, typical for representative democracy over the last two centuries of the history of civilization, is now far behind the capacity of other actors of public life to influence the political decisions of citizens. The author also points to the fact that technology companies, which have concentrated both information − microtargeting supply of information based on psychological profiling, and business activities, demonstrate a new phenomenon, which is assessed by citizens as the most competent and ethical center of gravity and trust. At the same time, governments, independent public institutions and traditional media are perceived as less effective and ethical. Such a concentration of information and corporate influence in one actor (a small group of technology companies) is a new challenge for democracy. Respectively, basic principles that ensure its functioning as the most successful form of government, namely − election and control of power, protection of human rights, participation of citizens in political life and governance, rule of law and accountability of government agencies, prevention of usurpation of power – nowadays experience theoretical rethinking, and are embodied in new political practices. In addition, they (foundations of democracy) are torpedoed by negative phenomena of the period of transformation and political turbulence, among which populism in all its manifestations is the most threatening. Key words: representative democracy, monitoring democracy, mediacracy, constructive journalism, civil communication, social networks.

scholarly journals Content analysis of new means of communication in contemporary democratic states

2018 ◽  
Vol 325 ◽  
pp. 249-256
Author(s):  
Mihaela Rusu
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
New Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Three Dimensional Model ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Web Space ◽  
The Uk

The previous period of United States presidential elections of 1996 has redirected the relevant scientific research to investigate the correlation online communication - political sphere. Consequently were formulated various paradigms and the most discussed was the democratic paradigm, according to which the representation serve as a basic principle of modern democracy. The study of the level of influence of new communication technologies on political sphere became, for a number of scientific investigations carried out in USA, Canada and later in some European countries such as France, Italy, the UK (in 2000 and since 2007 in Romania), an important objective of empirical research. In most cases, the first stage of the investigation of online political communication has been marked by some methodological problems such as: the changeable nature of web space, the necessity to elaborate new indicators able to represent basic aspects of studied reality, the temporal validity of the data. The elaboration of A Model of Cyber –Interactivity by Sally J. McMillan has contributed to overcome these difficulties and has demonstrated the effectiveness of content analysis as research method used for the study of Web Space dynamic reality. Later, the research team from the University of Rochester (Paul Ferber, Frantz Foltz, Rudy Pugliese) have perfected the two-way interactivity model (elaborated by Sally J. McMillan) and have it completed with three-dimensional model of interactivity for the purpose of quantitative investigation of political websites and to argue that these forms of new media correspond to the ideals of cyberdemocracy.

scholarly journals MEDIA AND PUBLIC TRUST TOWARDS COVID-19 INFORMATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-176
Author(s):  
Muhammad Yunus Patawari
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
The People ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Media Channels ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior

Mass media is one of the leading sectors in handling COVID-19. Amidst current health emergency, public trusttowards the information conveyed by the mass media is the key to successful mitigation. Various types of newsregarding massive COVID-19 reports in several media channels have the potential to cause information bias whichends in pros and cons. Insubstantial debates in varied media are counter-productive to the efforts of various partiesin educating the society to avoid misinformation. Based on this, it is important to know the media that are referencesand that gain public trust in seeking information. This study examines the level of public trust in information aboutCOVID-19 in the mass media, both old and new media, using an online questionnaire methodology on May 3, 2020,which was given to 60 respondents. The results show that the respondents’ level of faith in television is higher, but itsconsumption by viewers is much lower than that of online media (news sites and social media). The results showedthat viewers still deemed television a reliable reference for information. From these data it was found out why themedia are rarely used by the people but are able to gain high trust in the eyes of the public. The results of this studyare expected to provide an overview of the attitudes and behavior of the community in understanding COVID-19information so that relevant parties can make appropriate policies in the perspectives of media and communication.

Remaking the People

2021 ◽  
pp. 263-290
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Power Monitoring ◽  
Democratic Culture ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Verbal Insults ◽  
Governing Institutions

This chapter explains how a democracy weakened by damaged social foundations and corrupted governing institutions breeds despotism. The governing party machine, in the hands of a big boss leader, stirs up talk of ‘democracy’ and ‘the people’. It neuters the courts and other power-monitoring institutions and turns them into empty shells. Demagogic talk of ‘democracy’ and the need for firm rule backed by ‘the people’ grows louder, and more militant. Elections become rowdy plebiscites. Rumours, exaggerations, and bullshit are spread by its loyal media organs. The signature tactic is stirring up trouble about who counts as ‘the people’. Elections are turned upside down, they become an exercise in electing an alternative people, a ‘true’ and ‘pure’ people rid of misfits and miscreants. The government votes in the people. India is pushing in a similar direction, with the country’s 200 million Muslim citizens as the ‘non-people’ that strongman Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party seeks to disempower. They are the prime targets of verbal insults, institutional discrimination, police inaction, political propaganda, and street-level thuggery. But the country’s intrinsic plurality and a well-entrenched democratic culture remain a powerful bulwark against centralized state power.

The Power of the People

2020 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Ari Hirvonen ◽  
Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Theoretical Idea ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
The People ◽  
Jacques Rancière

In this chapter Hirvonen and Lindroos-Hovinheimo argue that the revolutionary power of constituent power and popular sovereignty are relevant conditions of radical emancipatory and egalitarian politics. How the people become the people – and what makes the people in its becoming – are relevant questions in modern democracy. The article considers the power of the people as a theoretical idea and political possibility. It brings together the older tradition of political philosophy with contemporary theory by discussing Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas together with those of Jacques Rancière, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Alain Badiou.

Eliza Cook, New Media Innovator

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-96
Author(s):  
Alexis Easley
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
New Media ◽  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Gradual Disappearance ◽  
The One

This chapter provides an in-depth examination of the career Eliza Cook. After publishing her first book, Lays of a Wild Harp, Cook submitted verse to the Weekly Dispatch and soon thereafter became its house poet. By 1847, Cook was serving as editor of the paper’s ‘facts and scraps’ column, a position that enabled her to hone her editorial skills and publish the work of fellow women writers. Cook’s masculine appearance violated the poetess norm of the period, as did her romantic partnership with American actress Charlotte Cushman, but this seemed only to enhance her image as an eccentric yet accessible poet of the people. In 1849, she parlayed this fame into the founding of her own Eliza Cook’s Journal, which initially surpassed Dickens’s Household Words in popularity. Yet as the 1840s gave way to the more conservative 1850s, Cook was frequently the target of gender-trolling attacks in the popular press, which defined her as a sexual deviant on the one hand and a second-rate poet on the other. This notoriety may have been one factor that forced her to retreat from the public eye in 1852—a move that initiated her gradual disappearance from literary history.

Political philosophy, Jewish

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam J. Zohar ◽  
Michael Walzer
Keyword(s):  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Divine Sovereignty ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
The People ◽  
Covenantal Community ◽  
Popular Consent ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Central Form ◽  
Equal Concern

Jewish ideas about politics are embedded in the traditional genres of Judaic discourse, more often legal or homiletic than systematically philosophical. A defining feature of this tradition is its historical setting, as for most of their history the Jews lacked a state. Still, central issues of political thought were addressed primarily in the context of Judaism’s characteristic political entity, the medieval kahal – the by and large autonomous urban Jewish community. Discussions of issues such as authority, justice, or membership were informed by the Talmudic legal tradition, by biblical memories of Israel’s monarchic period and by dreams of restoration, inspired by ancient prophecies regarding the messianic era. The central form defining political authority and allegiance is the covenant, enacted at Sinai between God and the Israelite people, whom He had elected and liberated from Egypt. The people recognized God’s supreme authority, consenting to live by His teachings, the Torah. The significance and demands of this divine election, and the parameters and requirements of membership of the covenantal community, are much-debated issues in the Jewish political tradition. Of equal concern are the concrete implications of divine sovereignty. On one view, this precludes any institutionalized form of human authority. On other views, divine authority is invested in one or more of various human agents, from kings and priests to prophets and rabbis; strikingly, the latter used their own reason to interpret God’s words, and in their assemblies would take a vote to decide among interpretations. In uneasy co-existence with these, the tradition includes prominent justifications for human political agency, the legitimacy of which derives not from divine authorization but from popular consent. Living as a (sometimes) tolerated minority under non-Jewish rulers, the Jews dreamed of redemption, imagining the messianic king as leading them to triumph. Yet the foundational tale in Genesis is of humankind as one family, and the biblical prophets envisage world peace. Since 1948 the state of Israel has become the locus for re-examination of the Jewish political tradition. A crucial question has been to what extent this tradition, which includes proto-democratic as well as theocratic elements, can inform political discourse in a modern democracy whose citizens are mostly Jewish but include also significant non-Jewish minorities.

15. The Arab Spring: The ‘People’ in International Relations

2019 ◽  
pp. 339-367
Author(s):  
Larbi Sadiki
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
External Interference ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The People ◽  
Media And Technology ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter looks at the Arab uprisings and their outcomes, approaching them from the perspective of the peoples of the region. The Arab uprisings are conceived of as popular uprisings against aged and mostly despotic governments, which have long silenced popular dissent. Ultimately, the Arab uprisings demonstrate the weakness of traditional international relations, with its focus on states and power, by showing how much the people matter. Even if the Arab uprisings have not yet delivered on popular expectations, and the Arab world continues to be subject to external interference and persistent authoritarian rule, they are part of a process of global protest and change, facilitated by new media and technology, which challenges the dominant international relations theories.

scholarly journals The Strange Fruit of the Tree of Liberty: Lynch Law and Popular Sovereignty in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-834
Author(s):  
Michael Gorup
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
The People ◽  
The Right

Lynch mobs regularly called on the language of popular sovereignty in their efforts to authorize lynchings, arguing that, as representatives of the people, they retained the right to wield public violence against persons they deemed beyond the protections of due process. Despite political theorists’ renewed interest in popular sovereignty, scholars have not accounted for this sordid history in their genealogies of modern democracy and popular constituent power. I remedy this omission, arguing that spectacle lynchings—ones that occurred in front of large crowds, sometimes numbering in the thousands—operated as public rituals of racialized people-making. In the wake of Reconstruction, when the boundaries of the polity were deeply contested, spectacle lynchings played a constitutive role in affirming and circulating the notion that the sovereign people were white, and that African Americans were their social subordinates.

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