Democratic Norms and Means of Communication: Public Sphere,Fourth Estate,Freedom of Communication

Abstract

This article assesses some major democratic norms commonly invoked in relation to means of communication or ‘media’, especially in the context of ‘media policy’. The paper argues that freedom of communication provides the most appropriate normative discourse in which to re-articulate the case for the European policy practice of ‘regulated pluralism’ outside Europe. Recent developments in Australia provide a brief case-study of this thesis.     

Introduction: Assessing the Social and Political Impact of the Internet and New Social Media in Asia

This paper introduces a special issue on the social and political impact of new information communications technologies (ICTs) in Asia, with specific attention paid to new social media. This paper provides some contextualisation of the broader questions that the principal literature on the subject raises, namely questions about the effectiveness of ICTs as tools for mobilisation and information exchange; mechanisms of censorship and control; and the nature of public discourse on the Internet. In doing so, the paper introduces and locates the articles that comprise this special issue within these debates.     

The Struggle to Be Seen: Social Movements and the Public Sphere in Brazil

This paper analyzes how community movement activity in three popular neighborhoods in Belém, Brazil, shaped the dynamics of contention in the public sphere. Popular social forces, elite actors, and the state mutually influence each other across three moments of public interaction: it clarifying popular discourse, it the struggle to be seen, and routine politics. The article reverses the usual picture in movement research, which emphasizes movements as organizational outcomes to be explained, and instead builds on a body of research that explores how movements can contribute to broader processes of political change.     

行政权力范围的决定因素

搞清楚我国现阶段行政权力范围的决定因素有哪些 ,这对于正确认识行政权力范围是十分必要的。这些因素包括国家政府的类型及其管理理念、政治与经济的体制类型、国家与社会的融合程度、国际氛围以及对于行政管理体制框架结构的逐渐深入的认识过程等     

The Pluralistic Public Sphere from an Ontological Point of View

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide a rationale for a ‘model of the public sphere’ in terms of hermeneutic ontology that begins from Heidegger's Being and Time. However, this Heideggerian hermeneutic ontology will both be weakened and extended through a dialogue with social theory, which occupies a central place in this paper. More specifically, the main aim of this paper is to suggest some ideas to bridge the gap between the ontological focus on the hermeneutic fore-structure of being-in-the-public-sphere and the focus of social theory on the nexus between constructing identity and narrative, the result of which is the idea of the public sphere as an open-ended intercultural dialogue.     

Introduction: theorizing different forms of belonging in a cosmopolitan Malaysia

This article introduces this special issue on new ethnoscapes of a cosmopolitan Malaysia. It investigates questions of belonging and analyses the conditions that make possible cosmopolitan solidarity between citizens and sub- and non-citizens in a globalized world. I posit several critical frameworks on cosmopolitanism, citizenship and the public sphere to theorize the relationship between citizens and non-citizens in Malaysia: ‘zones of sovereignty’, the refugee as homo sacer and ‘acts of citizenship’ that constitute rights and subjecthood for non-citizens. In an attempt to outline a more detailed ethnography of everyday ways of belonging, I touch briefly on Conradson's ‘spaces of care’. Lastly, I focus on the public sphere, which can be a barometer for gauging whether cosmopolitan solidarity and transnational crossings can occur.     

The European public sphere and the debate about humanitarian military interventions

Studies on the democratic control and legitimacy of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) have thus far mostly focused on formal institutions. However, a comprehensive analysis requires including the ‘sociocultural infrastructure’ in which such formal institutions are embedded. Students of democracy have argued that the public sphere is a crucial dimension, if not a precondition for all mechanisms of democratic control in general. This paper investigates whether and in which ways Europeans participated in transnational European communication on humanitarian military interventions (1990–2005/2006). The paper analyzes a full sample of 108,677 newspaper articles published in leading newspapers of six EU member states, and the US as a comparative case. It demonstrates that the ‘national’ arenas of political communication are intertwined and allow ordinary citizens to make up their minds about common European issues in the highly controversial and normatively sensitive realm of humanitarian military interventions.     

经学之人同文艺主体的公共区间

经学同文艺理论关系在主体层面表现出来,是经学人论所树立之人同以审美为本位的文论所说的文艺主体共享着一个公共区间。经学人论所树立之人本质属于经学主体,审美的文艺活动中的文艺作者和接受者本质属于文艺主体,但二者虽各有本质,彼此却历史地相互交集。在这一彼此交集的公共区间里,经学之人和文艺主体作为存在者都具有"人——文艺主体"这一二重结构,这个二重结构当其属于经学或属于文艺时,结构的内涵和结构的两大要素之轻重均有所不同。经学和文艺正是在这一区间内发生种种复杂而微妙的关系,中国古代的文艺主体论的存在与发展因此总是历史地承受着经学或隐或显的影响。     

Stirring up apathy? Political disengagement and the media in the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections

This paper examines the media coverage of the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections in the context of the wider academic debate about the media's relationship with political engagement. It draws on evidence to suggest a potentially positive relationship between media use and voting, before arguing that this relationship was limited in Wales in 2003, due both to the limited penetration of the Welsh media in Wales and the election's low prominence in this media. It then examines the way in which ‘the apathy story’ dominated media coverage. Such an emphasis wrongly equated apathy with discontent with the devolution process in Wales, and dominated the issues which the public were represented as discussing, while space was rarely given to their views on policy issues. Bad news about electoral disengagement was much more likely to be emphasised than good news, while emphasis on public ‘apathy’ offered a typically negative simplification of political attitudes among the electorally disengaged. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

政府诚信论纲

现代政府是服务型政府,担负着为社会提供秩序、安全与自由的重任。社会成员对于政府的依赖正逐步增强。在此背景下,政府是否遵循诚实信用原则从事管理活动,能否为社会成员提供稳定的生活预期,便成为行政法学需要认真研究的课题。文章对政府诚信的含义、引入公法的理由、建立的基础、意义及具体作用领域等问题进行了勾勒,对现代政府所遵循的诚信原则做出了初步分析。