scholarly journals Published Opinion: understanding Punditry through Luhmann’s theory

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (49) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Figueiras
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article aims to analyze current mechanisms that lead to public opinion in Portugal, by studying one of its components, published opinion. In so doing, the profile of pundits, their agenda and the way they discuss public affairs will be analyzed. The main goal of this research is to confront its empirical results with democratic cultural understanding of public opinion and with Luhmann’s theory on this subject. Will public opinion’s main cultural values be found in the Portuguese Op-ed pages; or will its characteristics be empirical evidence of Luhmann’s theory on public opinion? Despite the fact that in traditional cultural identity of the public sphere, diversity and pluralism of voices, themes and perspectives are considered to be structuring values that society esteems and that allow the building of enlightened public opinion and social consensus; the empirical results discussed in this article, however, indicate that Portuguese punditry seems to be an empirical evidence of Luhmann’s symbolically generalized communication media, serving the political system’s self-referential closure.

scholarly journals Social Media as Valuable Anti-Corruption Assets in the Public Sphere in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
B. Babasanya ◽  
L. Ganiyu ◽  
U. F. Yahaya ◽  
O. E. Olagunju ◽  
S. O. Olafemi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual

The issue of corruption in Nigeria has assumed a monumental dimension in such a way that it has become a household song and practice. Thus, adopting a rhetoric definition may not be appropriate instead a succinct description will suffice. The dimension of corruption is monumental because it started from pre-independence in the First republic with the first major political figure found culpable and investigated in 1944 and reach its peak recently with the evolvement of ‘godfatherism’ in the political landscape of the country. Therefore, corruption in Nigeria is more or less a household name. Using Social Responsibility Media Theory as a guide, this paper undertakes an examination of the right of the media to inform the public, serve the political system by making information, discussion and consideration of public affairs generally accessible, and to protect the rights of the individual by acting as watchdog over the governments. This discourse analysis is backed up with the presentation of documented materials on tracking corruption through the use of social media. Since the use of mainstream media only is disadvantageous owing to its demand-driven nature, social media stands as a veritable and result-orientated asset in tracking corruption across the public sphere. This paper found that complimented with mainstream media, social media and civic journalism have exposed corrupt tendencies of contractors and public office holders including the political class in the provision and handling of infrastructural development projects thereby make public officials accountable and create an open access to good governance.

The Chaste Parricide: Murder, Femininity and the Subversion of Authority in the Reception of the First Performance of Shelley’s The Cenci, 1886

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-211
Author(s):  
Lee Michael-Berger
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
True Story ◽  
The Public Sphere

The story of The Cenci’s first production is intriguing, since the play, based on the true story of a sixteenth-century Roman family and revolving around the theme of parricide, was published in 1819 but was denied a licence for many years. The Shelley Society finally presented it in 1886, although it was vetoed by the Lord Chamberlain, and to avoid censorship it had to be proclaimed as a private event. This article examines the political and social context of the production, especially the reception of actress’s Alma Murray’s rendition of Beatrice, the parricide, thus probing the ways in which The Cenci question was reframed, and placed in the public sphere, despite censorship. The staging of the play became the site of a political debate and the performance – an act of defiance against institutionalised power, but also an act of defiance against the alleged tyranny of mass culture.

scholarly journals Heiner Goebbels's Stifters Dinge and the Arendtian Public Sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127
Author(s):  
Luke Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collaborative Working ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Working Processes

Heiner Goebbels’s works are examples of “postdramatic” theatre works that engage with the political by seeking to challenge socially ingrained habits of perception rather than by presenting traditional, literary-based theatre of political didacticism or agitation. Goebbels claims to work toward a “non-hierarchical” theatre in the contexts of his arrangement of the various theatrical elements, in fostering collaborative working processes between the artists involved, and in the creation of audience-artist relationships. In offering a reading of Goebbels’s “no-man show” Stifters Dinge, this paper seeks to situate Goebbels’s practice within a theoretical tradition that also encompasses Hannah Arendt’s deployment of the theatre as a metaphor for the public sphere. Within this analysis, I suggest, theatre can be seen to offer the possibility of a participatory democracy through its attention to disappearance and absence.

scholarly journals PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Luís Guilherme Nascimento de Araujo ◽  
Claudio Everaldo Dos Santos ◽  
Elizabeth Fontoura Dorneles ◽  
Ionathan Junges ◽  
Nariel Diotto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Press ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Military

The political and economic crises faced today, evidenced by the manifestos of political parties and the texts published in social networks and in the press, point to Brazilian society the possibility of different directions, including that of an autocratic regime, with the return of the military to the public sphere. This article discusses the movements of acceptance and resistance to the military regime that was implemented in Brazil with the coup of 1964. It is observed that the military uprising received at that time the support of a large part of the Brazilian population, which sought ways to maintain its socioeconomic status to the detriment of a majority that perceived itself vulnerable in view of the forms of maintenance and expansion of power used by the regime. In this context, Tropicalism emerges as an example of a contesting movement. This text approaches the song "Culture and civilization" by Gilberto Gil, performed by Gal Costa, relating the ideas present in this composition with the understandings of politics and culture, in a multidisciplinary proposal, seeking to understand the resistance and counter-resistance movements that emerged in Brazil at the time.

scholarly journals Politics and everyday life in Serbia in 2005: Views of politics, change of social system, the public sphere

2005 ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Spasic
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Scene

The paper offers an analysis of the interview data collected in the project "Politics and everyday life: Three years later" in terms of three main topics: attitudes to the political sphere, change of social system, and the democratic public sphere. The analysis focuses on ambivalences expressed in the responses which, under the surface of overall disappointment and discontent, may contain preserved results of the previously achieved "social learning" and their positive potentials. The main objective was to examine to what extent the processes of political maturation of citizens, identified in the 2002 study, have continued. After pointing to a number of shifts in people?s views of politics which generally do not contradict the tendencies outlined in 2002 (such as deemotionalization and depersonalization of politics, insistence on efficiency of public officials and on a clearer articulation of positions on the political scene), it is argued that the process of rationalization of political culture has not stopped, but it manifests itself differently in changed circumstances. The republican euphoria of 2002 has been replaced by resignation, with a stronger individualist orientation and a commitment to professional achievement.

Approaching the Hellenistic Polis through Modern Political Theory: The Public Sphere, Pluralism and Prosperity

2018 ◽  
pp. 68-98
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gray
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy

This chapter discusses methods and problems in reconstructing an inclusive, dynamic picture of the political thought and debates of the Hellenistic cities (c. 323– 31 BC), drawing on theories and models from modern political and social theory. It shows the benefits of integrating together the widest range of possible evidence, from Hellenistic philosophy to the most everyday inscriptions, in order to reconstruct for the Hellenistic world the kind of complex, wide-ranging picture of political thought advocated by P. Rosanvallon and others in the study of modern political thinking. When studied in this way, the political thinking and rhetoric of Hellenistic philosophers, intellectuals and citizens reveal attempts to reconcile the Greek polis with ideals of cosmopolitanism and social inclusion, without diluting political vitality. As evidence for this political vitality, the paper demonstrates is the fruitful interlocking and mutual counterbalancing within the Hellenistic public sphere of the three types of political discourse studied in turn in Ober’s trilogy on Classical Athens: political lobbying and negotiation, including rival attempts to shape civic values; philosophical and critical reflection about the foundations of politics; and rationalistic consideration of efficiency, especially the devising and advertisement of incentives.

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