scholarly journals When journalists lose their foothold

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigurd Allern ◽  
Ester Pollack
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Working Life ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Structural Problem ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Self Examination ◽  
Public Criticism

The global #MeToo movement exposed the widespread structural problem of sexual harassment, which was also the case in Sweden and Norway. Across the various sectors of working life, women were able to identify with the call. This perspective, however, was under- mined in the public sphere when person-centred scandal stories about a few powerholders and media celebrities took over. In addition, a lack of verifiable documentation – and uncritical use of anonymous sources – ignited renewed debates about the ethical standards of professional journalism. This article discusses two alleged #MeToo cases: Aftonbladet’s dramatic and unfounded accusations against the theatre CEO Benny Fredriksson and VG’s misuse and manipulation of a “bar-dance” episode involving the Norwegian Labour politician Trond Giske. Both media stories developed into “critical incidents”, resulting in public criticism, self-examination and discussions around ethical rules and regulation.

Collective Voices Online

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Vittoria Bernardini
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser

The chapter investigates how women use the practice of speaking out in their activism to bring issues that are significant to them from the private sphere into the public sphere. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing how this was achieved in the case of the #MeToo movement, taken as the most prominent example of activism against sexual harassment in recent years. Using the conceptual tool of counter public sphere developed by Nancy Fraser, the chapter examines two relevant events from #MeToo: the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Aziz Ansari and the circulation of the so-called “Shitty Media Men” list.

Going Online: Saudi Female Intellectual Preachers in the New Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-131
Author(s):  
Laila Makboul
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
New Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Public Criticism

This chapter examines the phenomenon of female intellectual preachers (dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt) in Saudi Arabia, their engagement in the new media and by extension their participation in the public sphere. Having their public participation conditioned on preserving strict physical gender segregation, this chapter argues that the new media have facilitated the engagement and presence of the dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt in the wider public on an unprecedented level. However, new challenges in terms of transgressions of constructed gender norms and exposure to increased public criticism and political vulnerability have also followed their presence in the new media. Consequently, this chapter contends that although the new media has been utilized to permeate the public sphere and, in many ways, has revolutionized their public participation, it has also altered the engagement of dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt in profound ways and ultimately exposed them to greater social and political vulnerability.

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.

Habermas, Cultural Hegemony, and the Educational Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Cultural Hegemony ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Arabic Speaking

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.

The Dynamics of Egypt’s “Semi-opposition,” 2004–11

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-103
Author(s):  
Mai Mogib Mosad
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political System ◽  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

This paper maps the basic opposition groups that influenced the Egyptian political system in the last years of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. It approaches the nature of the relationship between the system and the opposition through use of the concept of “semi-opposition.” An examination and evaluation of the opposition groups shows the extent to which the regime—in order to appear that it was opening the public sphere to the opposition—had channels of communication with the Muslim Brotherhood. The paper also shows the system’s relations with other groups, such as “Kifaya” and “April 6”; it then explains the reasons behind the success of the Muslim Brotherhood at seizing power after the ousting of President Mubarak.

I Think We’re Alone Now

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-210
Author(s):  
Erin Nunoda
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Digital Images ◽  
Empty Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article examines YouTube videos (primarily distributed by a user named Cecil Robert) that document so-called dead malls: unpopulated, unproductive, but not necessarily demolished consumerist sites that have proliferated in the wake of the 2008 recession. These works link digital images of mall interiors with pop-song remixes so as to re-create the experience of hearing a track while standing within the empty space; manipulating the songs’ audio frequencies heightens echo effects and fosters an impression of ghostly dislocation. This article argues that these videos locate a potentiality in abandoned mall spaces for the exploration of queer (non)relations. It suggests that the videos’ emphasis on lonely, unconsummated intimacies questions circuitous visions of the public sphere, participatory dynamics online, and the presumably conservative biopolitics (both at its height and in its memorialization) of mall architecture.

The public and the private: reconfiguring the interrelationship during a civil act

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.

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