On the assumption of self-reflective subjectivity

Contemporary social theory has consistently emphasized habitual action, rule-following, and role-performing as key aspects of social life, yet the challenge remains of combining these aspects with the omnipresent phenomenon of self-reflective conduct. This article attempts to tackle this challenge by proposing useful distinctions that can facilitate further interdisciplinary research on self-reflection. To this end, I argue that we need a more sophisticated set of distinctions and categories in our understanding of habitual action. The analysis casts light on the idea that our contemporary social theories of self-reflection are not consistent with everyday notions of agential knowledgeability and accountability, and this conclusion indicates the need to reconceptualize discourse and subjectivity in non-eliminative terms. Ultimately, the assumption of self-reflective subjectivity turns out to be a theoretical necessity for the conceptualization of discursive participation and democratic choice.

Responding to the Unspeakable

This chapter makes a case for a multimodal account of discursive participation. In the context of tragedies where collective suffering is unspeakable, deliberative democratic theory should be sensitive to political claim-making that go beyond linguistic forms of expression. The chapter puts forward some examples of claim-making that go beyond voice, as well as practices of responsiveness that act on these political claims. To recognize that there are many forms of claim-making, however, is not enough. For deliberative democratic theory to maintain its critical bite, pluralizing norms of discursive participation must remain anchored on clear ethical commitments. The chapter draws on normative media theory’s concept of agonistic solidarity as a guidepost to assess democratic practice amidst spectacular tragedies.

Participatory audiences in the European public service media: Content production and copyright

The interactivity and participation of the public in the media is not a novelty, but has increased significantly with the adaptation to the digital convergence process. The possibility for audiences to share content through social platforms or generating its own is raising new ethical and legal issues. In this context, the public service audiovisual media must be pioneer both in the introduction of new participatory experiences and in the debate on the behaviour of the media regarding the interaction with its users. The objective of this article is twofold: on the one hand, to approach the current scenario of participatory mechanisms present in the European public service audiovisual media; on the other hand, to determine how this media is solving the new problems generated by the increase in user interaction. The research on participatory mechanisms offered by public service media shows that social networks, blogs, and comment sections are the main tools for discursive participation, while the field of creative participation requires the exploitation of new innovation strategies. The main challenge arising from this situation is how to control the legality of user-generated content and how to manage the ownership of copyright according to social values represented in public service media. La interactividad y participación del público en los medios de comunicación no supone una novedad, pero se ha incrementado notablemente con la adaptación al proceso de convergencia digital. La posibilidad de las audiencias de compartir a través de plataformas sociales o de generar contenido propio está planteando nuevas problemáticas éticas y jurídicas. En este contexto, los medios audiovisuales de servicio público deben ser pioneros tanto en la introducción de nuevas experiencias participativas como en el debate sobre el comportamiento de los medios en la relación con sus usuarios. El objetivo de este artículo es doble: por un lado, hacer una aproximación al panorama actual de los mecanismos de participación con los que cuenta el servicio audiovisual público europeo; por otro, conocer cómo estos medios están resolviendo las nuevas problemáticas generadas por el incremento en las relaciones con los usuarios. La exploración de los mecanismos de participación ofrecidos por los medios de comunicación públicos demuestra que las redes sociales, los blogs y las secciones de comentarios son los instrumentos de participación discursiva predominantes, mientras que en la esfera de la participación creativa es necesario explotar nuevas estrategias de innovación. Como principal reto a abordar, se plantea cómo controlar la legalidad del contenido generado por los usuarios y gestionar la titularidad de los derechos de autor conforme a los valores sociales representados en los medios públicos.

Swearing Effects on Citizen-to-Citizen Commenting Online

Swearing, the use of taboo languages tagged with a high level of emotional arousal, has become commonplace in contemporary political culture. The current study attempts to understand the ways in which swearing influences citizen-to-citizen news commenting online. Based on a large corpus of the 2-month user comments from 26 news websites in South Korea, the study examines swearing effects as well as its interplay with anonymity on garnering public attention and shaping other users’ perceptions of the comments. Findings suggest that swearing generally has a positive effect on increasing user attention to comments as well as gaining other users’ approvals. Comparisons between political and nonpolitical topics further suggest that swearing effect on gaining public attention is particularly prominent for political discussions. In contrast, the magnitude of change toward positive valence in public perception to comments is much greater for nonpolitical topics than for politics. From the findings, we conclude that an acceptable degree of swearing norms in online discussions vary across news topical arenas. The results also lead to discussions about the possibility of like-minded exposure to political comments as a default condition for online discussions. Finally, the study highlights the role of high-arousal emotions in shaping discursive participation in contemporary networked sociodigital environment.

Does Deliberation Breed an Appetite for Discursive Participation? Assessing the Impact of First-Hand Experience

Various deliberative practices have been argued to constitute viable supplements to traditional representative decision making. At the same time, doubts have been raised as to whether ordinary citizens want to be involved in such demanding forms of political participation. This question has been difficult to resolve since few citizens have had the chance to take part in genuine deliberative practices. For this reason, we examine how participation in a deliberative mini-public affected attitudes towards discursive participation as a supplement to representative decision making. Moreover, we investigate how group composition and individual-level factors affect these developments. Our data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged in Finland in 2012. The results suggest that the participants grew more positive towards the use of deliberative practices regardless of individual socio-demographic resources, whereas the effects of prior political engagement depend on the composition of the group the participants were assigned to.