Javnost - The Public, Vol. 31 - 2024, No. 4
The Public Sphere and the Internet in Latin America
To what extent does the notion of the public sphere serve to assess Latin America in networked times? The debate over the modern condition of the region and the contradictions of enlightenment values shaping a land conquered by the sword provides the backdrop for evaluating the pertinence of Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in the region, specifically regarding the chances the subaltern has to speak. Acknowledging its modern imprint and the varied criticisms it has received, the notion of the public sphere a la Habermas, offers a set of criteria for assessing the processes and outcomes of media and public communication development in Latin America. In this sense, this article connects the colonial imprint of Latin American nations, its struggles over media power, the meaning of communication, and the arrival of the Internet and Web 2.0 in the region through the notion of the public sphere. This overview exposes the features of the Internet in Latin America that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and the lack of voice while raising questions about the actual life of the “public” as a concept in the region.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Performing What Is Absent: The Making of Representative Claims in the 2020 Chilean Constitutional Convention
Amid a crisis of political representation, Chile ran an institutional experiment. After a month of riots, lootings and human rights violations, in November 2019, the Chilean Parliament proposed the creation of a fully elected convention with the one objective of writing a new Constitution. The 155 members were elected in October 2020 and 62% of them were non-professional politicians but environmental activists, members of indigenous communities or feminist leaders. Inspired by the ideas of representative claim proposed by Saward and performativity coined by Butler, we analysed their inauguration speeches to observe how they attempted to constitute themselves as political representatives. We found that they relied upon four types of speech appeal in their political claims-making. We refer to these as the Agonistic (whereby the claim-maker purported to speak for “us” as opposed to “them”); the Climactic (whereby the claim-maker offered themselves as an embodiment of a historical coming of age for a particular group); the Biographical (the claim-maker focuses upon their personal qualities of identity with empathy towards a group); and the Trustee (whereby, adhering to more conventional rhetoric of representation, a claim-maker sets out their qualification to acknowledge and look after the interests and values of a particular group).
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Book Theft as Social Deviance in Modern China: An Elegant Offense or the Intellectual Robin Hood
During China’s transition from pre-modern to modern society, book theft, as a form of social deviance, reflected the multifaceted cultural metaphors of books in modern Chinese social life. The shift from the notion that “common thieves do not steal books” to book theft as a representation of cultural power struggles exemplifies the media cultural transformation in modern Chinese society. Contemporary attitudes towards book theft reveal complex tensions between economic order, publishing supply and demand, social mentality, cultural capital, knowledge power, media discourse, and public opinion during this period of societal change. In this context, book theft can be seen as a dual phenomenon, embodying both a clever and sophisticated act that challenges dominant norms and values on one hand, and a form of rebellion that seeks to redistribute power and knowledge, akin to the legendary outlaw Robin Hood, on the other.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Exploring the Sociological Impact of Wechat: Reshaping the Public from the Theoretical Perspective of Modernity
This article aims to explore the social significance of WeChat as a form of new media. It argues that, on a personal level, WeChat resulted in a paradox of both “connection” and “aloneness,” accelerating the trend of individualism. At the communal level, the temporariness of WeChat hastened the decay and transformation of communities within contemporary society. On a societal scale, WeChat has redefined the meaning and value of public spaces, effectively reshaping the public of the new media era. It concludes that new media exemplified by WeChat can be seen as an amplifier and accelerator of modernity.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Rise of Digital Authoritarianism? Exploring Global Motivations Behind Governmental Social Media Censorship
Social media has been a crucial online space, yet our comprehension of government censorship remains limited by insufficient research. This study addresses this scholarly gap by probing two key inquiries: censorship's motives and evolutionary course. An analysis of 360 censorship incidents from 2006 to 2023 across 76 countries examines three primary rationales: political, social, and security, with political motives prevailing. The reasons for censorship vary across platforms and years, with political and social factors predominantly impacting Facebook and YouTube, while security concerns notably affect TikTok and Telegram. Regional disparities in censorship underscore the prevalence of political motives in Asia and Africa, social factors in South Asia and the MENA region, and security concerns in North America, Europe, and Oceania—the entirety of the Western world. The escalating social media censorship, particularly driven by political and social considerations since 2015, underscores a broader trend of dwindling democracy and burgeoning digital authoritarianism globally. We presume that a nation's democratic environment indicates its social media censorship practices, suggesting the nexus of local and global politics with technology complicates the understanding of social media censorship.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Dismissed or Acclaimed for Breaking Norms: The Discursive Positioning of Young Active Citizens in Czech Online Media
Despite new affordances available since the mainstreaming of digital media in countries with high levels of internet connectivity, young actors in teenage years are a group whose involvement in social and political affairs remains constrained by prevailing stereotypes regarding the social role of youth and acceptable forms of civic engagement. This paper explores the discourse on youths’ active citizenship found in Czech online media outlets, conceptualised as adult-governed spaces. Considering age as a significant exclusionary category in approaches to citizenship, the discursive construction of young active Czech citizens is studied on six concrete local actors and analysed via two types of relational positioning: (1) intra-generational (youth-to-youth) and (2) inter-generational (youth-to-adult). Media representations reveal normative expectations of youth as political actors that range from a refusal to recognise their participation to acclaiming them for it. Depending on the intersection of the actors’ agendas, their personal profiles, and the political orientation of the media outlets, the media depict the actors either negatively as deviant or positively as exceptional, reflecting contemporary ideo-political conflicts in Czechia. The paper concludes that the young age of the actors serves as an amplification factor for discreditation of a counter-attitudinal political agenda.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
What Do News Disseminators and Audiences in the Digital Age Need Most? — Skills? Knowledge? Or Accuracy-Motivated Sceptical Knowing
In the digital age, journalism encounters both challenges and opportunities. Drawing on a wide range of classic discussions and investigative experiments, this article introduces the concept of “accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing.” This concept, driven by the verification of factual accuracy, represents a professional form of sceptical knowing and is crucial for becoming a responsible media professional and an informed citizen. This article discusses the necessity of transitioning from “general scepticism” to accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing. From the perspectives of both the disseminator and the audience, this article proposes methods for accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing: the disseminator should persist and innovate, while the audience should focus on the source, evidence, openness, and education, and both disseminators and audiences should embrace the “Hurtt Six Points” — questioning, suspension, search, empathy, self-esteem, and autonomy. Finally, this article clarifies the difference between accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing and related concepts, as well as the boundaries of its application.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article