scholarly journals The playful newsroom: Iterating and reiterating the news and its publics

First Monday ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Foxman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Professional Identity ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Primary Case ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

The crisis in the journalism industry, intensified with the popularization of the World Wide Web, warrants radical rethinking of the professional identity of journalists and their role in society. This paper first suggests replacing the Habermasian public sphere with Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s magic circle of play to describe the relationship between the press and its audience. Within this new model, the writer configures the rules and boundaries in which the reader is free to respond and subvert, an interplay that increasingly shapes both current news production and expectations of the public. This paper then explores play and playful attitudes in newsroom practices and output through semi-structured interviews with journalists, game designers and educators. The “Game Team” at the news and entertainment Web site BuzzFeed acts as a primary case study of a group of journalists who make a variety of playful products — from full-fledged games to interactives — which they iterate and improve over time, in response to readers’ feedback.

scholarly journals Digital authorship and social media: French digital authors’ attitudes towards Facebook

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-137
Author(s):  
Erika Fülöp
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Different Response ◽  
The Relationship

Social networks have changed our relationship to the world wide web and the ways in which we communicate. This applies to the relationship between authors and readers and affects the ways in which authors can and need to be present in the public sphere and enact their authorship. Digital authors experience this particularly acutely, and the present article proposes an overview of the three main types of attitude they have chosen facing the largest social network, Facebook: using, refusing and abusing, each presented through a case study. François Bon embraces the platform and encourages authors to take advantage of the tools it offers in order to reach readers, network with authors, and become independent of traditional infrastructures. After years of almost addictive use, Neil Jomunsi came to quit the network and explained his decision, but also the dilemma upon his return, until eventually leaving again. Jean-Pierre Balpe’s ‘digital installation’ ‘Un Monde Uncertain’, finally, abuses the website by circumventing its terms and conditions and animating a series of fictional author profiles whose Facebook statuses are created by Balpe’s text generator software. Each of the three approaches represents a different response to the constraints and opportunities offered by the social network in light of the author’s situation, their political stance regarding Facebook, and objectives as an author.

Facebook as a Tool for Enhancing Alternative/Counter-Public Spheres in Cyprus

2013 ◽  
pp. 107-132
Author(s):  
Christiana Karayianni
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
The Press

The chapter is based on a study focusing on the uses and impact of different forms/media of communication on bicommunal relations in Cyprus. It presents a case study of bicommunal communication through Facebook Groups that took place in Cyprus between 2007-2010. The discussion identifies the ways in which certain Facebook Groups facilitate bicommunal communication in Cyprus and explains why they can be considered part of a counter-public sphere. The analysis suggests that groups whose voices or discourses are excluded from the public domain/sphere can find through the use of tools like Facebook Groups alternative forms of organising and debate, which places them—at least as far as this medium is concerned—on an equal footing with discourses sanctioned by power and hegemonic institutions, such as the press and broadcast media.

E-Government's Role in Shifting the Paradigm of Performance in the Public Sector

2020 ◽  
pp. 497-514
Author(s):  
Lidia Noto
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Simulation ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Services ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Government Project ◽  
Feedback Structure

The emergence of e-government changed the world of the Public Administration (PA) and the discipline of Public Management dramatically. Through the presentation of a case- study of the municipality of Palermo, this article attempts to discuss the renewed need for assessing performance of e-government services in a local government and to disclose the main critical issues in accomplishing this evaluation. Palermo is experiencing the implementation of a second- generation e-government project that is embodied in the realization of a web portal. The conceptualization of a framework to assess the performance of the digital services appears to be crucial in order to improve the system and to avoid the errors of the first project. This work relies on a survey to the citizens and semi-structured interviews to managers in charge of the development of the project. System Dynamics, a particular kind of dynamic simulation, is used to provide the necessary feedback structure for identifying the determinants of the success of the portal.

E-Government's Role in Shifting the Paradigm of Performance in the Public Sector

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lidia Noto
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Services ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
Government Project ◽  
Feedback Structure

The emergence of e-government changed the world of the Public Administration (PA) and the discipline of Public Management dramatically. Through the presentation of a case- study of the municipality of Palermo, this article attempts to discuss the renewed need for assessing performance of e-government services in a local government and to disclose the main critical issues in accomplishing this evaluation. Palermo is experiencing the implementation of a second- generation e-government project that is embodied in the realization of a web portal. The conceptualization of a framework to assess the performance of the digital services appears to be crucial in order to improve the system and to avoid the errors of the first project. This work relies on a survey to the citizens and semi-structured interviews to managers in charge of the development of the project. System Dynamics, a particular kind of dynamic simulation, is used to provide the necessary feedback structure for identifying the determinants of the success of the portal.

The uninterrupted life is not worth living: On religious education and the public sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gert Biesta ◽  
Patricia Hannam
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Worth Living ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Existential Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this paper we explore the relationship between religious education and the public sphere, suggesting that religious education, if it takes its educational remit seriously, has to be orientated towards the public sphere where human beings exist together in and with the world. Rather than seeing religion as propositional belief, we argue for an existential approach that focuses on the question as to what it means to exist religiously. We offer educational and theological arguments for our position and, along both lines, seek to (re)connect religion and religious education to the idea of democracy.

Ethics and aesthetics: the social theory of barbershop harmony

Popular Music ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Until recently, the world of the British barbershop singer was a self-enclosed community whose existence went largely unrecognised both by musicians involved in other genres and by the public at large. In the last few years this has started to change, chiefly due to the participation of barbershop choruses in the televised competition ‘Sainsbury's Choir of the Year’. Encouraged by the success of Shannon Express in 1994, many other choruses entered the 1996 competition, four of them reaching the televised semi-finals, and two the finals. During this increased exposure, it became apparent that television commentators had little idea of what to make of barbershoppers, indeed regarded them as a peculiar, and perhaps rather trivial, breed of performer. This bafflement is not surprising given the genre's relative paucity of exposure either in the mass media or in the musical and musicological press; the plentiful articles written by barbershoppers about their activity and its meanings are almost exclusively addressed to each other, to sustain the community rather than integrate it into wider musical life. The purpose of this paper, however, is not to follow the theme of these intra-community articles in arguing that barbershop harmony should actually be regarded as a serious and worthy art, or to explain to a bewildered world what this genre is actually about; rather, it aims to explore the way that barbershop singers theorise themselves and their activity to provide a case study in the relationship between social and musical values. That is, I am not writing as an apologist for a hitherto distinctly insular practice, but exploiting that very insularity as a means to pursue a potentially very broad question within a self-limited field of enquiry.

Te Karere o Poneke: Creating an Indigenous Discursive Space?

Itinerario ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-390
Author(s):  
Lachy Paterson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Western Model ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere

AbstractOver sixteen months in 1857 and 1858, Walter Buller produced a weekly newspaper for Māori of the Wellington region in their own language. Although he was the son of a Wesleyan missionary and an official interpreter, the niupepa was neither a church nor a government publication, although it promoted discourses favoured by both. A number of niupepa had preceded Buller's Te Karere o Poneke, the first appearing in 1842, but his paper was distinctive in the sizable platform he provided for correspondence. Over half of the items printed comprised letters from Māori, many of them commenting on, and occasionally critiquing the colonial milieu.The concept of “public sphere” is heavily theorized, often postulated in acultural terms (although suspiciously European in form) and it is debatable if Te Karere o Poneke's readership and their engagement with the textual discourse meet the theory's required criteria of constituting a public sphere. New Zealand was annexed to the British Empire in 1840, meaning that by 1857 colonization was still a relatively new phenomenon, but with substantial immigration and a developing infrastructure, change was both extensive and dynamic. According to the theory, it may be difficult to apply the concept of “public sphere” to Māori anytime during the changing contexts of nineteenth-century colonialism, and indeed other colonised cultures for whom the advent of literacy, Christianity, market economy and colonial administration had been sudden and unexpected. Of course this does not mean that Māori lacked a voice, at times critical. Using Te Karere o Poneke as a case study, this essay argues that Wellington Māori of 1857 do not readily fit the Western model of the “public sphere”, but they nevertheless utilized the discursive spaces available to them to discuss and evaluate the world they now encountered.

Boundary Politics in the Public Sphere: Openness, Secrecy, and Leak

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes S. Ku
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The issue of openness/secrecy has not received adequate attention in current discussion on the public sphere. Drawing on ideas in critical theory, political sociology, and cultural sociology this article explores the cultural and political dynamics involved in the public sphere in modern society vis-à-vis the practice of open/secret politics by the state. It argues that the media, due to their publicist quality, are situated at the interface between publicity and secrecy, which thereby allows for struggles over the boundary of state openness/secrecy in the public sphere. A theory of boundary politics is introduced that is contextualized in the relationship among state forms, the means of making power visible/invisible (media strategies), and symbolic as well as discursive practices in the public sphere. In explaining the dynamics of boundary politics over openness/secrecy, three ideal-types of boundary creation are conceptualized: open politics secrecy and leak. The theory is illustrated with a case study of the Patten controversy in Hong Kong.

scholarly journals Egypt’s feminist counterpublic: The re-invigoration of the post-revolution public sphere

2019 ◽  
pp. 146144481989057
Author(s):  
Dalia Elsheikh ◽  
Darren G. Lilleker
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Feminist Movements

This study examines the current feminist counterculture movements which appears to be reinvigorating the Egyptian public sphere. The study argues women in particular have been able to find themselves alternative ways to develop a discourse focused on a desire for social changes around which they can unite. In focusing on lifestyle issues that normally are discussed only in small private spheres, they are able to challenge norms while not provoking the state or security apparatus and avoiding becoming part of the polarised political environment. This article explores the dynamics and motivations of these groups through a case study of three of the networked feminist movements. Our data from semi-structured interviews with the founders show that they grew from networks to movements which then evolved in order to be sustainable. This article argues that through the process of their evolution, these movements are helping strengthen the public sphere and enhance Egyptian democracy.

scholarly journals Female Colonial Travel Writing as a Critique of Victorian Gender Stereotypes and Roles:
A Case Study of F.D. Bridges’s Journal of a Lady’s Travels Round the World (1883)

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-76
Author(s):  
Mouloud Siber
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Victorian Women ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Degraded Condition

Making recourse to Virginia Woolf’s “Professions for Women” (1931), I have studied the manner in which F.D. Bridges criticizes the patriarchal representations of Victorian women in her Journal of a Lady’s Travels Round the World (1883). In her text, she not only accounts for her experiences of travel in foreign countries but also inserts a discourse that lies counter to male definitions of women’s roles as “household angels,” confined in the domestic space and deprived of power. With the strength she demonstrates through her experiences of travel, she criticizes the fact that women are considered to be ‘the weaker sex.’ She also cultivates a quest for knowledge so as to carve her place in the ‘public sphere’ of knowledge and power and to criticize the practice of representing women as uneducated and ignorant. Last but not least, she highlights the degraded condition of the foreign women in an attempt to call for a universal enfranchisement of women abroad and in her country. All the three elements allow Bridges to fight against the “phantom” of the “angel in the house,” which, according to Woolf, needed to be “killed” in order for a woman to impose her authorship.

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