Democratic Communication Research Articles

The limits of communicative rationality and deliberative democracy

This article argues that Habermas' account of deliberative democracy rests upon a set of untheorized decisions about language and communication derived from his account of formal pragmatics. Assessing the limitations of his formal pragmatics thus demonstrates why the account of deliberative democracy is incapable of adequately addressing asymmetries in power, generated by economic and bio‐political discourses. I contend that disagreement is intrinsic to communication, that agreement represents a temporary hegemony, and that rationality is better conceived of as itself implicated in regimes of power, rather than as an external means of offering a critique of these regimes.

Language and Democracy ‘in Movement’: Multilingualism and the Case of the European Social Forum Process

In recent years new cross-European protests and movements have developed on global justice and within the loose platform of the European Social Forum (ESF). One of the major challenges for transnational communication and grassroots democracy within the Social Forums is linguistic communication problems and the ‘work of translation’ required to create a democratic setting. In the willingness to provide open access beyond linguistic communication problems, activists and organizers involved in the ESF preparatory process therefore hold their regular European preparatory assemblies to the ESF summits within a multilingual setting. Given the potential challenges of working transnationally, and of multilingual meetings, the ESF provides a good case study to test whether such processes work effectively in practice in comparison with national social movement assemblies: to what extent is democratic discussion and decision making possible in such emerging multilingual meetings compared to national meetings in which the majority of participants speak the same language? Being interested in linking the theoretical ground of discourse and deliberative democracy to the subject of the emerging Social Forums, I have studied the extent to which democratic discussion in the sense of deliberative debate might or might not take place within the multilingual and Europe-wide preparatory assemblies in the ESF process. The findings of my comparison between Europe-wide Social Forum preparatory assemblies and those taking place at the national level in Germany and the UK show that the absence of one common language within the European assemblies, contrary to what one might intuitively suppose, does not reduce the quality of democratic deliberation as compared to the national context. Therefore, informal power structures and gatekeeping mechanisms frequently rooted at the national level of Social Forum processes, together with a lack of transparency and asymmetries of information, seem to have indirectly reduced the accessibility of European meetings.

Brazilian community communication initiatives in radio and TV digital switchover

In Brazil, distinct movements have developed a critical discourse since the mid-1980s that aims to re-establish democratic communication public policies in different spheres, and to strengthen a social network made by people, groups and organizations. Actors in these networks come from many thematic particularities but share an understanding of communication as a tool for mobilization and empowerment. Ironically, this shared understanding has also become a considerable limitation to the affirmation of movement demands. On the basis of bibliographical and document research, as well as interviews with advocates and activists, this article focuses on contributions for social development by community communication initiatives. Many examples discussed are from the Brazilian context, but with reference to parallels and differences to cases in other countries. The article discusses cases of effective social appropriation of ICTs by community radio stations and community TV and other projects that increase the participation of many sectors to promote decentralized policy-making processes in the communication field. Special attention is given to the challenges and contributions of community communication in times of radio and TV digitalization. Community media are legitimized by their contribution to development, their own local situation and their relevance to society at large. These relationships are dynamic and ever changing. The perspective developed in this article aims to support community media against governments and corporate media attacks.

From liberal to predatory mass media in post-communist Lithuania

Referring to the concepts, communicative democracy is defined as free, open and democratic communication organized around three equally legitimate public sphere actors – politicians, journalists and public opinion, and populism is understood as good, entertaining and effective communication with people, eroding basic functions of the political parties (institutionalization of ideological conflicts) and politicians (representation), the paper provides insights about the dangers to quality of democracy if the free mass media gets utterly away from political parallelism. Special attention is placed on the tendencies of media personnel to be active in the political life. The paper conceptualizes a tremendous decrease (by one third) in public trust in mass media in Lithuania, observed from 1998 to 2009 and interprets this change as a cumulative result of the post-communist illstructured political field under pressing liberalization and democratization coupled with specific patterns of the Lithuanian political culture and public sphere. In the conditions of a still relatively high public trust in mass-media and scarce foreign ownership of the mass-media outlets in Lithuania, the local media barons are able to produce and impose their own public-agenda. The Lithuanian massmedia and government relations evolve along the lines of the zero-sum game: they seek to control each other, and at the same time try to avoid being controlled by the other, while any other pattern of inter-relations does not appear as viable and appropriate. INTUNE project survey (2009) shows that the media elite’s influence in the national decision making process is significantly higher in Lithuania than, for instance, in Germany or Hungary.Key words: populism, communicative democracy, mass-media ownership, public sphere, public trust.

Understanding and Efficiency: Habermas’s Concept of Communication Relief

This commentary calls attention to a topic neglected in the scholarly reception of Habermas’s work—the concept of communication relief. In his recent public sphere theory, he classifies different media forms that are necessary for coordinating different types of social action. He identifies three such media forms: linguistic agreement, steering media, and generalized communication. Although communication scholars acknowledge his ideas on linguistic agreement, they have overlooked those on steering media and generalized communication. Accordingly, this analysis focuses more on the latter two media forms, which fall under the broader concept of relief mechanisms. Extending the media theories of Talcott Parsons, Habermas identifies four types of relief mechanisms: money, power, influence, and value commitment. Money and power perform steering media functions that promote efficiency. Influence and value commitment perform generalized communication functions that promote not only efficiency but also understanding. Implications for normative theories of mass-mediated democratic communication are discussed.

Making citizenship public: identities, practices, and rights at Woodsquat

The common conception of citizenship is that of belonging to a political community, with the ensuing rights and responsibilities of membership. This community tends to be naturalized as the nation-state. However, this location of citizenship needs to be decentred in order to investigate current modes of democratic participation. This paper investigates current sites and practices of citizenship through reflection on a tactical housing squat of an empty department store staged by an urban social movement in Vancouver in 2002, known as ‘Woodsquat’. It uses a social movement perspective to look at citizenship, emphasizing the identities, practices, and locations of democratic engagement over the collective question of how we will live together in these places. From this point of view Woodsquat shows current limits of national citizenship, conceptually and practically, and suggests alternative possibilities for future citizenship practices located in multiple identifications with (political) communities. Moving from this analysis of political participation at Woodsquat attention is brought to the importance of spaces of democratic communication for possibilities of citizenship, where there seems to be a reinforcing relationship between public spheres, social movements, and democracy. Ultimately, then, actions at Woodsquat are argued to be a form of citizenship that emerged within a democratic public.

Teaching Communication Ethics in the African Context: A Response to Globalization

The present article analyzes how the teaching of communication ethics could prepare African journalists to develop in Africa a more independent, self-reliant response to globalization. The economic stagnation and governance without accountability are due, largely, to the failure to link citizens into a democratic national communication system. Professional journalists often do little to develop self-reliant national democracies because their training and ethics focus more on a blind photographic reproduction of the minutiae of social reality rather than the ability to see in current events the central issues of a democratic communication system, namely, social inequalities, structural injustices, exclusion from communication, and lack of accountable governance.

Trajectories of European Politics: An Introduction

This article introduces a specially commissioned issue of West European Politics marking the journal's 30th anniversary. It highlights profound changes in the European political landscape over the last three decades, including the fall of Communism; progressive European integration; territorial restructuring; public sector reforms at European, national, regional and local levels; changes in democratic participation, protest, elections, political communication, political parties and party competition; and challenges to the welfare state. The special issue also discusses how political science has responded to these changes in terms of its substantive focus, concepts, methods and theories. Many of the 17 contributions included in the special issue identify important challenges for the future, including those challenges stemming from EU integration, the reduced electoral accountability of politicians, the problematic legitimation of party government and the sharpening of the edges of the state.

Newspapers in Sierra Leone: A Case Study of Conditions for Print Journalism in a Postconflict Society

In this article the conditions for newspaper production in Sierra Leone since the end of the civil war in 2002 were used as a case study in the difficulties of democratic communication under conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. Sierra Leone has a tradition of a vigorous press. However, journalism struggles for survival in the country, which is one of the world's least developed. Problems include legal constraints, difficulties in distribution, lack of journalistic skills, a minuscule revenue base, and a lack of electricity, basic materials, technologies, and resources. The scarcity of financial resources engenders the unethical practice of “coasting,” or blackmailing, among journalists. However, resource problems haunt every layer of society, including government, business, and civil society. As such, the case of Sierra Leone demonstrates a broader point about journalism: That it cannot be viewed in isolation from broader social contexts. Despite these constraints, journalism in Sierra Leone is emerging as a watchdog on concentrations of power.

Victims of Political Violence: A Habermasian Model of Truth Recovery

This article focuses on truth recovery as a core aspect of the transition from political violence to peace and reconciliation. It is crucial within any process of truth recovery in transitional contexts that victims of political violence are provided with the opportunity to articulate their narratives of suffering within the context of a public dialogic process. Using Northern Ireland as an illustrative case study, I outline a unique and original model for truth recovery in transitional contexts. I argue that in post-conflict societies victims of political violence should be enabled to engage in meaningful truth recovery through a Habermasian process of public democratic deliberation and communication that involves direct dialogue with perpetrators of political violence. This process – which I have labeled ‘communicative justice’- is framed within the context of the theory of communicative action of Jurgen Habermas. Communicative justice can help to ensure that legitimate truth recovery publicly acknowledges the trauma of victims and subjects perpetrator narratives of political violence to critical scrutiny and rational deconstruction.

New competencies in democratic communication? Blogs, agenda setting and political participation

Contrary to initial predictions Internet-mediated forms of communication have not become mediums of mass communication. Traditional media still reach far more people than even the most popular websites. Still, there is evidence that blogs in particular help mobilize opinions, and set the agenda for political elites such as journalists and politicians, while providing interested citizens with a new technology of knowledge as well as a surprisingly effective way to participate in politics. This study focuses on how the presence of blogs has altered the structure of political communication.

Elements of innovative cultures

AbstractOrganizational culture is an important determinant of sustained innovativeness and financial performance. Though it is easy to appreciate the important role culture plays in making an innovation successful, it is difficult to change culture. One way of changing culture could be to identify elements of innovative culture and then imbibing the ones relevant to a given organization. In this paper, we have identified, based on past research, eight elements of organizational innovative culture: innovative mission and vision statements, democratic communication, safe spaces, flexibility, collaboration, boundary spanning, incentives, and leadership. We believe that assimilating these elements of organizational culture will enable organizations to support and sustain innovative activities. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Speech rights in America: the First Amendment, democracy, and the media

Why the First Amendment fails to protect speech rights and what to do about it The First Amendment is the principle guarantor of speech rights in the United States, but the court’s interpretations of it often privilege the interests of media owners over those of the broader citizenry. In Speech Rights in America, Laura Stein argues that such rulings prevent the First Amendment from performing its critical role as a protector of free speech, alienate citizens from their rights, and corrupt the essential workings of democracy. Stein locates the source of clashes over First Amendment interpretations in the differing views of neoliberal and participatory democratic theory on the meaning of rights and the role of communication in democratic processes. Drawing on the best of the liberal democratic tradition, she develops a systematic and concise definition of democratic speech and compares this definition to legal understandings of speech rights in contemporary media law. She demonstrates that there is a significant gap between First Amendment law and the speech rights necessary to democratic communication, and proposes an alternative set of principles to guide future judicial, legislative, and cultural policy on old and new media.

A Functional Public Sphere? A Systems Theoretical Look at the Professionalization of Political Communication

The basic proposition of this article is that the democratic potential of professionalization clearly outweighs the problems, at least in the Danish case, but probably also more generally. Thus, my claim is that the professionalization of political communication contributes positively to the development of the public sphere and more democratic communication in the political system as well as the journalistic system. This claim is, however, not based on critical public sphere theory, but rather sociological systems theory headed first and foremost by Niklas Luhmann. Thus, the article introduces the functionalistic strategy of analysis of systems theory as an alternative to what could be called the utopian method of critical public sphere theory. In the final instance, the choice between these two traditions is simply a matter of analytical approach.

Kai kurie jaunuolių altruizmo internalizacijos būklės bruožai

Straipsnyje remiantis empiriniais tyrimais Lietuvos mastu atskleidžiami kai kurie jaunuolių altruizmo internalizacijos būklės bruožai. Taikant diagnostinį trijų - aukštos, vidutinės, žemos - altruizmo pakopų pjūvį pagal dorinės pozicijos struktūros komponentus analizuojama, kaip jaunuoliai supranta altruizmo esmę, suvokia jo prasmę; kaip jie vertina savo altruistinius išgyvenimus, siekius ir altruistinį savo elgesį.

Communication management in the public sector: Consequences for public communication about policy intentions

Abstract Public communication about policy intentions is important but delicate. Government officials are confronted with four main constraints typical of the public sector compared to the private sector: more complicated and unstable environment, additional legal and formal restrictions, more rigid procedures, and more diverse products and objectives. These constraints imply that ministers communicating about policy intentions face specific communication issues such as intensive political and media interferences, need for democratic communication, and more rigid timing and budget constraints.

United yet autonomous: Indymedia and the struggle to sustain a radical democratic network

The past decade has witnessed an emergent form of activism increasingly defined by its reliance on internet strategies, network social structures and participatory practices. Internet strategies employed by many contemporary activists include websites, listservs and hyperlinked networks used for exchanging information, mobilizing both old and new constituencies, and coordinating collective action. Networks of organizations and individuals are formed both on and offline and decision-making within these groups is often made by consensus. Perhaps best characterizing this activism is its lack of hierarchy, epitomized by democratic communications, both within and between networked organizations. This article focuses on Indymedia, a prime institutional exemplar for the indicators mentioned above internet-based activism, network formation and participatory politics. Specifically, it addresses issues related to sustainability and political efficacy in radical democratic activist networks that are increasingly enabled by internet technologies.

Educação, justiça e direitos humanos

Neste artigo, o autor reflecte sobre a questão da justiça e dos direitos humanos, tendo presente as exigências da democracia deliberativa, na linha de Habermas e, sobretudo, as propostas de uma democracia comunicativa. Assim e num primeiro momento, o autor problematiza as relações entre democracia, justiça e direitos humanos, dando um particular realce quer às tendências individualistas e mercantilizadas de ver a democracia e os direitos quer às concepções deliberativa e comunicativa da democracia e suas implicações em termos de justiça e direitos humanos. A partir daqui, a reflexão inflecte para o campo da educação, como um outro lugar da justiça, debatendo a questão da justiça escolar e a concepção da escola como organização dialógica e comunicativa, realçando, em linguagem habermasiana, as funcionalidades sistémica e comunicativa que a perpassam. O autor completa esse enquadramento destacando, dentro da ideia de que a escola é um lugar de vários mundos e de justiças, as múltiplas racionalidades mobilizadas pelos actores escolares, a quem compete fazer opções, conscientes de que, quando a racionalidade comunicativa-emancipatória domina sobre outros tipos de racionalidade, a justiça e os direitos se abrem e se universalizam. Finalmente, essa discussão é retomada no último ponto do artigo, mas agora enquadrada nos desafios da globalização entendida em vários sentidos, terminando com a referência, dentro de uma concepção de globalização contra-hegemónica, a uma "democracia cosmopolítica", favorecedora de uma cordialidade solidária e cosmocidadã, apoiada nos direitos humanos.

Communication Technology

Communication Technology, Barney, Darin, The Canadian Democratic Audit; Vancouver, UBC Press, 2005, pp. 210, xiii.When Darin Barney tells people he studies digital politics, they typically ask, “So, is the Internet good for democracy or isn't it?” (179). If you have ever wanted to know, Barney's Communication Technology provides an extremely comprehensive answer to questions about information and communication technologies (ICTs), democracy and Canadian politics.

Reconstructing the Internet: How Social Justice Activists Contest Technical Design in Cyberspace

Reconstructing the Internet: How Social Justice Activists Contest Technical Design in Cyberspace