scholarly journals Reporting on Science as an Ongoing Process (or Not)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Slater ◽  
Emily R. Scholfield ◽  
J. Conor Moore

Efforts to cultivate scientific literacy in the public are often aimed at enabling people to make more informed decisions — both in their own lives (e.g., personal health, sustainable practices, &c.) and in the public sphere. Implicit in such efforts is the cultivation of some measure of trust of science. To what extent does science reporting in mainstream newspapers contribute to these goals? Is what is reported likely to improve the public's understanding of science as a process for generating reliable knowledge? What are its likely effects on public trust of science? In this paper, we describe a content analysis of 163 instances of science reporting in three prominent newspapers from three years in the last decade. The dominant focus, we found, was on particular outcomes of cutting-edge science; it was comparatively rare for articles to attend to the methodology or the social–institutional processes by which particular results come about. At best, we argue that this represents a missed opportunity.

Author(s):  
Angela Dranishnikova ◽  
Ivan Semenov

The national legal system is determined by traditional elements characterizing the culture and customs that exist in the social environment in the form of moral standards and the law. However, the attitude of the population to the letter of the law, as a rule, initially contains negative properties in order to preserve personal freedom, status, position. Therefore, to solve pressing problems of rooting in the minds of society of the elementary foundations of the initial order, and then the rule of law in the public sphere, proverbs and sayings were developed that in essence contained legal educational criteria.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110320
Author(s):  
Ann Christin Eklund Nilsen ◽  
Ove Skarpenes

Histories of statistics and quantification have demonstrated that systems of statistical knowledge participate in the construction of the objects that are measured. However, the pace, purpose, and scope of quantification in state bureaucracy have expanded greatly over the past decades, fuelled by (neoliberal) societal trends that have given the social phenomenon of quantification a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere. This is particularly the case in the field of education. In this article, we ask what is at stake in state bureaucracy, professional practice, and individual pupils as quantification increasingly permeates the education field. We call for a theoretical renewal in order to understand quantification as a social phenomenon in education. We propose a sociology-of-knowledge approach to the phenomenon, drawing on different theoretical traditions in the sociology of knowledge in France (Alain Desrosières and Laurent Thévenot), England (Barry Barnes and Donald MacKenzie), and Canada (Ian Hacking), and argue that the ongoing quantification practice at different levels of the education system can be understood as cultural processes of self-fulfilling prophecies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Izmy Khumairoh

Abstract This article analyzes the close relationship between religion (i.e. religious discourses in the context of everyday life) and modernization (i.e. the intensive and excessive use of social media in society). This article is based on literature and social media review—in particular it reviews on how the role of religion changed drastically due to mediatization process that occurs in the public sphere; as well as how the social media plays a dynamic role in society. This article concludes that the new image of religion as shown in mass media and social media demonstrates its shifting power from traditional institutions to mass and social media. Religious value immerses into every aspect of the everyday life and the religious aura; and this phenomenon neglects the secularization theory. Keywords: anthropology, social media, marriage, Islam  Abstrak Artikel ini menganalisis hubungan erat antara agama (yaitu wacana keagamaan dalam konteks kehidupan sehari-hari) dan modernisasi (yaitu penggunaan media sosial yang intensif dan eksesif dalam masyarakat). Analisis berdasar pada studi literatur dan observasi di dunia maya - termasuk beberapa akun media sosial dan interaksi antara netizen - terutama bahasan mengenai perubahan peran agama yang drastis akibat proses mediatisasi yang di ranah publik; sebagaimana media memainkan peran dinamis dalam masyarakat. Artikel ini menyimpulkan bahwa citra baru agama, yang terpampang di media massa dan media sosial, mencerminkan pergeseran kekuasaan agama dari institusi tradisional ke media. Nilai-nilai agama terus menemukan celah untuk memasuki setiap aspek kehidupan dan mencakup aspek aura agama sehingga fenomena ini tidak sesuai dengan teori sekulerisasi. Kata kunci: antropologi, media sosial, pernikahan, Islam


Author(s):  
Thomas Faist

The social question is back. Yet today’s social question is not primarily between labour and capital, as it was in the nineteenth century and throughout much of the twentieth. The contemporary social question is located at the interstices between the global South and the global North. It finds its expression in movements of people, seeking a better life or fleeing unsustainable social, political, economic, and ecological conditions. It is transnationalized because migrants and their significant others entertain ties across the borders of national states in transnational social spaces; because of the cross-border diffusion of norms; and because there are implications of migration for social inequalities within national states. The first section discusses the structure of social inequalities in migration and the politics around it. It starts, first, by elaborating upon the commonalities and differences of the social question in the 19th and 21st centuries and then, second, asks whether the increasing relevance of location compared to class for income and life chances has replaced voice as a main response by exit. This is followed, third, by an elaboration of the nexus between social inequalities and migration, i.e. migration being both an antecedent and a consequence of social inequalities. Fourth, the focus moves to the main changes in migration control, its externalization from border control to remote control. This is followed, fifth, by a consideration of the other side of the coin, internalization processes in countries of destination and origin, driven by processes such as marketization and securitization of migration. The second section then moves on to sketch one of the main challenges, the need to include ecological aspects into the discussion of the social question. The analysis concludes with reflections on the shifting form of the transnationalized social question. Finally, the outlook discusses the role of social scientists in discussing the transnationalized social question in the public sphere.


2019 ◽  
pp. 146-172
Author(s):  
Paul Mutsaers

This concluding chapter synergizes the previous chapters and adds something new. Both functions are captured by the title, Reclaiming the Public in Policing. First, it argues that the empirical and conceptual work in this book points at the corrosion of the public character of policing, which results in law enforcement agencies that find it increasingly difficult to exclude politics, particularism, and populism from their operations. This part of the chapter concludes that it is imperative that we ‘unthink’ bureaucracy as the social evil of our time and revalue the public contours of policing. A second way to reclaim the ‘public’ in policing, now defined not as a quality of the police but an engaged citizenry that is involved in public debates on the police, concerns the role of police scholars in the public sphere. The chapter advocates a public anthropology of police and reflects on the author's efforts to ‘go public’.


Author(s):  
Berceste Gülçin Özdemir

The concept of social gender is an interdisciplinary matter of debate and is still questioned today. Making sense of this concept is understood by the ongoing codes in the social order. However, the fact that men are still positioned as dominating women in the contrast of the public sphere/private sphere prevents the making sense of the concept of gender. This study questions the concept of social gender through the female characters and male characters presented in the film Tersine Dünya (1993) within the framework of Judith Butler's thoughts regarding the notion of the subject. The thoughts of feminist film theorists also bring the strategies of representation of female characters up for discussion. Butler's thoughts and the discourses of feminist film theorists will enable both making sense of social gender and a more concrete understanding of the concept of the subject. The possibility of deconstruction of patriarchal codes by using classical narrative cinema conventions is also brought up for discussion in the examined film.


Hypatia ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 422-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Epstein

Jürgen Habermas's recent challenge to secular citizens calling for greater inclusivity of religious justifications in the public sphere opens new epistemological debates that could benefit from the rich insights of feminist epistemologists. Despite certain theoretical tensions, there is some common ground between Habermas and recent work in feminist epistemology. Specifically, this article explores the shared interests between Habermas and one feminist theorist in particular, Miranda Fricker. I choose Fricker because her formulation of the epistemological and ethical hybrid virtues of testimonial justice and hermeneutical justice provide efficacious theoretical and practical tools capable of deepening the epistemological basis of Habermas's challenge to secular citizens. After a detailed analysis of Habermas's and Fricker's respective epistemological positions, I argue that Fricker's analysis provides a rich framework for thinking through questions of power, identity, and credibility with respect to religious justifications in the public sphere. In conclusion, this article emphasizes the importance of fostering more robust and just epistemic communities capable of countering the social, political, and ethical injustices of epistemic disauthorization and marginalization.


2011 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Yeran Kim ◽  
Irkwon Jeong ◽  
Hyoungkoo Khang ◽  
Bomi Kim

This article explores how Korean bloggers, in contestation, participate in the social structure of communication and potentially transform it through their vernacular practices of decoding and recoding in the blogosphere. As a neo-liberal regime has been established, citizens practise discursive politics in a seemingly democratic and technologically advanced society that is actually a coercive-controlled communication system. Through the analysis of news blogs on the Cheonan disaster, it is suggested that a majority of bloggers are seen to utilise news media stories to gain leverage for their points of view or to provide counter-arguments against the dominant frames generated by the established news media. The critical reframing of the digital network in Korean society allows a reflexive reading of the Korean digital wave, which should be contextualised within generation politics, economic polarisation and ideological contestation. In order to avoid a nationalistic celebration of the IT power of the country, citizens' digital media practices are analysed as contributions to the democratisation of the public sphere and the enhancement of social openness and participation in the digitised arena of discursive politics.


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