Democratic Discourse Research Articles

Transferable lessons for care provided to children with intellectual and developmental disabilities based on an analysis of facilitators and barriers to SARS-CoV-2 testing

IntroductionThe purpose of this article is to report on the lessons learned from parents and caregivers of school-age children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Missouri and Maryland regarding the facilitators and barriers to SARS-COV-2 testing.MethodsParents participated in interview sessions that employed fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM), a reliable knowledge-based method that facilitates democratic discourse to understand how stakeholders make decisions. A total of 94 parents from Missouri (58) and Maryland (36) participated in the FCM sessions.ResultsEight primary barriers and eight primary facilitating factors were identified that influence a successful SARS-COV-2 test. Analyzing the connections between these factors provided valuable information about not only which ideas were most central to the goal of a successful test, but also which factors could be modified to improve the likelihood of success. Results indicate that the physical environment and child preparedness play a central role in successful SARS-COV-2 testing for children with IDD; however, these factors within the context of other invasive procedures should be studied further.DiscussionIt is likely that the findings from this study are transferable to other diagnostic procedures such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas (MRSA), which require similar testing techniques using a nasopharyngeal swab.

Regenerating the pitch: environmental discourses in football

ABSTRACT Climate crisis, environmental problems, and their appropriate responses are contested topics in international football. In this study, I analyse the construction of these issues and the privileging of certain responses through a critical discourse analysis of media content on environmental problems from FIFA, UEFA and We Play Green's (WPG) websites posted in 2022 (N = 66). I then examine how power is expressed within these discourses, and how this influence the renegotiation of the dominant discourse. In addition to a dominant discourse offered by FIFA and UEFA emphasizing how economic development is compatible with, and needed to achieve environmental sustainability, I identified a counter-discourse offered by WPG, promoting radical changes in politics and consumer practices. The various constructions of environmental problems and appropriate responses found in the two discourses demonstrate the need for democratic discussions when conceptualizing these issues, to make responses less dependent on strategic and economic interests.

Unveiling Russian Language as a Propaganda Tool

The paper explores how the Russian language has been used as a propaganda tool by the Russian government since the Bolshevik takeover while shedding light on its status before the Russian Revolution. Through a critical analysis of numerous sources, including political speeches, media coverage, and cultural products, this paper examines how language has been used to shape public opinion and promote nationalistic ideals. The paper argues that the Russian language has been used as a powerful tool of propaganda in various ways, such as shaping national identity, creating a sense of pride in the country’s history and culture, and promoting a specific worldview. The paper also discusses the role of language in Russian propaganda efforts abroad, particularly in neighboring countries and regions by concentrating its focus on post-Soviet countries. Particular attention has been paid to the policy measures taken by the Communist governments of both Russia and Union Republics to propel the status of Russian as a lingua franca in the Soviet Union by presenting it as the language of education, culture, and high status. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential consequences of the use of language as a propaganda tool, including the polarization of societies, the suppression of dissent, and the erosion of democratic values. It argues that a critical examination of the role of language in propaganda is essential for safeguarding the integrity of language and promoting open and democratic discourse.

Drivers of hate speech in political conversations on Twitter: the case of the 2022 Italian general election

We study the prevalence and characteristics of toxic speech on Twitter in the run-up to the 2022 Italian General election. We analyzed over 8.5 M tweets shared by 450k unique users and employed a machine learning classifier to estimate the toxicity score of their messages. We found that supporters of different political coalitions exhibit varying levels of toxic speech, sending between 6-8% of toxic messages overall. Notably, Centre-Left politicians received more toxic messages on average, with the largest target of hate receiving over 15,000 toxic replies. We employed Generalized Linear Models to study factors that drive hate speech to political targets, finding that, importantly, politicians employing more abusive and harmful language are also more likely to attract more inflammatory speech. Our findings underscore the critical need for targeted interventions to address hate speech online, fostering healthier dialogue and safeguarding democratic discourse.

La formación inicial en Educación Cívica. Un estudio de casos múltiples en Costa Rica

The article is a multiple case study in three Initial Training in the Teaching of Social Studies and Civic Education of two Costa Rican public universities, where the purposes of the courses in the Civic Education component are described. In order to understand the initial formation and citizenship, we start from critical theories applied to the didactics of social sciences, based on formation models that include school culture and conflict as part of the factors that allow problematizing current citizenships. The methodology is qualitative with an interpretative-descriptive approach, and the analysis of curricular documentary sources (9 course programs) was proposed to study the type of citizenship promoted in initial training. The data analysis was carried out through a comparative matrix, which was triangulated from the data. The results show a mixture of positions on citizenship and its teaching, with an inclination towards liberal and republican discourses. In addition, teaching and evaluation methodologies are traditional. The main conclusion is that citizenship is a dynamic concept that is situated from historiographical visions, and converges between liberal, republican and critical approaches.

Discursive Practices during an Electoral Cycle: Public Opinion and Political Disillusionment on Twitter

Electoral cycles are highly charged, politically intense moments that influence public discourse. Political elites, citizens, and the traditional news media seek to generate opinions and interactions on social networks. This research is motivated by the following questions: What are the communicative and deliberative practices used in these spaces? Is it possible to identify the characteristics that –through deliberative conversations– potentially foster or undermine democratic debate, particularly when using populist and polarizing discourse? Using a mixed methods approach, we apply a social network analysis tool to track conversations and identify the volume of political discourse (N=346,000). Using selective and staged filtering, we identified posts from nine Peruvian Twitter accounts during the September 2022 electoral campaign in Lima: three candidates, three media outlets, and three accounts with high levels of engagement. Our data comprised the comments from these nine accounts and was extracted using an Application Programming Interface (API). Subsequently, we carried out ethnographic content analysis on publications with more than 30 comments. In this phase, we analyzed Twitter comments using a codebook to identify deliberative practices and user responses. Our findings underscore the significant role of principal media outlets in shaping political conversation on Twitter. We also discovered that attempts to interact and deliberate were often overshadowed by heated comments attempting to impose opinions on others. Most importantly, our research reveals a widespread disillusionment with politics, political institutions, and even the political preferences of fellow citizens in Peru, highlighting a key challenge for democratic discourse on social media.

Agonizing Pancasila: Indonesia’s state ideology and post-foundational political thought

ABSTRACT This article explores the implications of Indonesia’s official state ideology, Pancasila, and its articulations in contemporary Indonesia from the perspective of ‘post-foundational’ agonistic theories of democracy. A set of five precepts created by Soekarno, the nationalist leader and founding president of Indonesia, Pancasila was integral to strategies of social control during the authoritarian ‘New Order’ regime of Soeharto and continues to function in Indonesia as a potent empty signifier, well over two decades after the fall of that regime in the Reformasi of 1998. By engaging with domestic scholarly and political discourses of Pancasila and Pancasila democracy from the agonistic perspective on democracy shaped by theorists such as Étienne Balibar, Chantal Mouffe, and Jacques Rancière, this article points to the tension between the aspiration of the advocates of Pancasila to present Pancasila as democratic and their commitment to seeing Pancasila as an embodiment of traditional culture and values that is essential to the consistency of Indonesian national identity. The relation between the two terms that constitute ‘Pancasila democracy’ is further complicated by the tendency of contemporary proponents of Pancasila to attempt to ‘immunize’ the state ideology from the possibility of interruption and contestation.

The Role of Audiovisuals in Counter-Framing Dynamics: A Longitudinal Experiment on Causal Responsibility Attribution

ABSTRACT Opposing the interpretation of a societal problem with a countering framing is a common characteristic of the democratic discourse. While studies on the dynamics of such counter-framing situations point largely toward recency effects, it remains mostly unclear which characteristics of the initial frame influence these recency effects. Taking current developments in news reporting into account—the trend toward audio and audiovisual news—this study suggests that news framed and presented in textual and audio and audiovisual modalities can attenuate recency effects in counter-framing environments. Building upon the long-standing research strand of responsibility framing and theories of multimodal learning, the findings of this longitudinal probability-sample experiment indicate that the recency effects of frames largely endure even if the initial frame is presented in a multi-modality mode.

A Predictive Model for Benchmarking the Performance of Algorithms for Fake and Counterfeit News Classification in Global Networks.

The pervasive spread of fake news in online social media has emerged as a critical threat to societal integrity and democratic processes. To address this pressing issue, this research harnesses the power of supervised AI algorithms aimed at classifying fake news with selected algorithms. Algorithms such as Passive Aggressive Classifier, perceptron, and decision stump undergo meticulous refinement for text classification tasks, leveraging 29 models trained on diverse social media datasets. Sensors can be utilized for data collection. Data preprocessing involves rigorous cleansing and feature vector generation using TF-IDF and Count Vectorizers. The models' efficacy in classifying genuine news from falsified or exaggerated content is evaluated using metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, and more. In order to obtain the best-performing algorithm from each of the datasets, a predictive model was developed, through which SG with 0.681190 performs best in Dataset 1, BernoulliRBM has 0.933789 in Dataset 2, LinearSVC has 0.689180 in Dataset 3, and BernoulliRBM has 0.026346 in Dataset 4. This research illuminates strategies for classifying fake news, offering potential solutions to ensure information integrity and democratic discourse, thus carrying profound implications for academia and real-world applications. This work also suggests the strength of sensors for data collection in IoT environments, big data analytics for smart cities, and sensor applications which contribute to maintaining the integrity of information within urban environments.

Threat or menace to media pluralism? A framework to assess alternative conspiracy media in today’s information landscape

In this article, we examine recent changes in Western media landscapes that witnessed the emergence of alternative conspiracy media critiquing the epistemic hegemony of legacy media, and explore ways to analyze whether they contribute to or hinder democratic discourse. This pressing question depends not only on the empirical manifestations of such media outlets, but also on the ideal conceptualization of media pluralism, which is contingent upon the preferred democratic theory. In this article, we draw from and build upon the work of Daniëlle Raeijmaekers and Pieter Maeseele, and develop a framework to systematically compare media practices against different democratic ideals/theories. We conceptualize a set of criteria that are crucial for the functioning of democracy given each democratic line of thought. Focusing on the three most important contemporary schools – liberal, deliberative, and agonistic – we argue that evaluations of media practices should consider three concepts especially important for media’s functioning in democracy: actor diversity, discursive diversity, and epistemological diversity. We have developed a comparative framework designed for systematic evaluations of media practices, assessing their contribution to media pluralism. This framework may be useful for scholars and media practitioners when assessing the democratic potential of new alternative (conspiracy) media.

Game of frames: a content analysis of politicians’ framing of public service media on Facebook and Instagram in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT Despite the distinctive role of public service media in fostering democratic discourse and maintaining the integrity of democratic processes across European democracies, recent politicization, polarization, and increasing attacks on public media pose significant challenges to its traditional functions. This study investigates the framing of public service media by the parliamentary political parties and their leaders in digital communication, focusing on the Czech Republic as a case study within the broader European context. The study draws upon framing theory to examine frames’ content and temporal dynamics, their use across social networking sites, and the influence of political affiliations on discourse around public service media. A quantitative content analysis of Facebook and Instagram posts about public service media (n = 1,859) spanning four government terms between 2013 and 2022 revealed patterns of construction of evaluative, functional, and justifying frames by populist and government actors. These findings contribute to an understanding of the role of political discourse in shaping functions and perceptions of media environments and offer insights for safeguarding the integrity of public media in democratic societies amidst contemporary challenges.

Fifty Years of Secrecy: The Politics of Oblivion and Perpetuation of the Dictatorship’s Impunity in Contemporary Uruguay

This article explores the long duration of posttransitional authoritarian discourses of “national security” in Uruguay, in the five decades since the coup that led to a State terrorist regime. We posit that the current deployment of Cold war era discourses justifying state terrorism constitute foundational master tools that enable modern-day military and alt-right autocrats to conceal human rights violations and appropriate the liberal human rights discourse for illiberal political ends. Authoritarians of this new type use these resignified democratic discourses to perpetuate their power, gain influence, and legitimize their repressive illiberal practices. The article uses three public debates relating to the military’s illicit actions in the dictatorship and their involvement in contemporary politics via the new military political party, Cabildo Abierto, to show how these authoritarian tools are deployed in political discourse. We analyze a corpus of texts from recent judicial documents with military “confessions,” official withholding of secret archives, and law proposals presented in Congress. Our findings show that dictatorship-era discourses of “national security” are employed by contemporary military and right-wing political actors for the purpose of sustaining their power. We reveal continuities in dictatorship era discourse practices and strategies that contribute to the emergence of new autocratic social actors who enter the political sphere to capture state resources and protect their group interests. Our findings contribute to the exploration of discursive uses of the past in the present resulting in increased political polarization and autocratic tendencies in contemporary Uruguay.

Desenvolvendo capacidades para a comunicação democrática: uma abordagem integrada de ensino baseada na deliberação

This study describes an innovative educational proposal to develop deliberative skills – motivation and ability to explain points of view based on reflected considerations, reciprocal involvement, and more inclusive and respectful communication. Based on theories of deliberative democracy – and expanding citizen participatory initiatives and experiences in the area of education, we propose an approach with (i) peer learning, (ii) playful and performative activities, and (iii) authentic discussions about controversial political issues. Our experiment illustrates how to develop a conceptual understanding of deliberative principles, promote selfreflection, and practise democratic discussions on contentious issues. This study has theoretical and practical implications for programs that seek to promote democratic communication.

Popular Understandings and the Limits of Popular Democracy

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on how more democratic processes and more democratic participation are not in themselves good measures for a successful democratic order. Rather, whether more democratic participation is good depends on the type of knowledge the people actually bring to the political order. Increases in democratic participation are, thus, a misleading measure of democratic success. The crucial point is what sort of knowledge the people bring to democratic discourse. Furthermore, political and civic institutions play a key role in fostering and shaping public understandings. Here, I suggest that American institutions, while designed to help educate popular understandings by requiring the building of complex democratic majorities, have in many instances enabled the worst aspects of popular government, often empowering minority rule, rather than refining popular sentiment. Thus, American political institutions could engage in constitutional reform to recapture the balance between popular understandings and the constitutional institutions that help articulate, educate, and refine those understandings.

‘CONSTRUCTING FOREIGN POLICY THROUGH DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSES: Insights from Indonesia and Turkish Foreign Policies in 2003-2015

‘CONSTRUCTING FOREIGN POLICY THROUGH DEMOCRATIC DISCOURSES: Insights from Indonesia and Turkish Foreign Policies in 2003-2015

News Censorship and the Practice of Citizen Journalism

This study delves into the relationship between news censorship and citizen journalism within the contemporary media landscape. It scrutinizes how news censorship, encompassing government intervention and self-censorship by media entities, impacts transparency and freedom of expression. In response to these constraints, citizen journalism emerges as a vital alternative platform for information dissemination, especially in authoritarian contexts. However, citizen journalism encounters hurdles such as the absence of formal training and the inherent risks associated with independent reporting. Nonetheless, despite these challenges, citizen journalism serves as a potent counterforce to censorship, empowering individuals to share suppressed information and shape public discourse. Through comprehensive analysis, the study underscores the pivotal role of citizen journalism in circumventing censorship and offering diverse perspectives. Yet, it also brings to light the imperative need for enhanced training and support mechanisms to bolster the quality and credibility of citizen journalism. Ultimately, the study concludes that safeguarding freedom of expression and fostering support for citizen journalism are indispensable for nurturing transparency and democratic discourse. To this end, To this end, the study advocates for comprehensive initiatives aimed at bolstering citizen journalism. These include not only providing ample training resources to equip citizen journalists with the necessary skills and knowledge but also facilitating robust collaboration between them and traditional media outlets. Such collaboration can foster mutual understanding, enhance the exchange of information, and strengthen the overall quality of reporting.

Practicing deliberation in challenging speech cultures: the role of metadiscourse

Abstract This qualitative research draws on language and social interaction (LSI) approaches to consider how speech culture shapes the practice of deliberation in a country presumed to be a challenging environment for deliberative practices: Israel. Our analysis examines structured deliberative forums conducted by communication students in Israel, to demonstrate how participants reference, use, and orient to both deliberative democracy discourse and Israeli speech culture in ways that enable them to overcome cultural challenges to doing deliberation. We found that participants utilize metadiscourse to take stances that frame cultural challenges of deliberation, negotiate the tensions between deliberative principles and local speech culture, and creatively integrate local speech norms with deliberation. This research contributes to LSI and Political Communication scholarship, by enhancing practical theory of deliberative democracy. The explication of the role of metadiscourse reframes the relationship between culture and deliberation thereby providing new directions for scholars, practitioners, and educators of deliberative democracy.

Online discussion or authentic dialogue? How design affects discussions in two alternative types of online forums

AbstractAuthentic dialogue demands that we respond, interpret and sometimes disagree with others' ideas—a key component of participation in a democratic society. Yet the sharing and uptake of different ideas can be hampered by traditional online platforms which divide students into isolated threads. To tackle this issue, we introduce two novel online forums designed to foster engagement and idea exchange: a linear chat, akin to SMS, and a collaborative writing forum we call CREW. Seventy‐three graduate students, divided into 18 small groups, tested these forums. We used discourse analysis to measure idea uptake and other dialogic features. From this analysis, seven discussions emerged as particularly interactive and engaging, exhibiting a high uptake‐to‐turn ratio. We noticed linear chat encouraged a high proportion of uptake, but also produced ‘tangles’—breaks in related post chains. CREW discussions sparked similar engagement but resolved most tangles since they required a collaborative written response. This study offers fresh insights in both research and teaching for improving online discussions. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic A vital practice for scholarly dialogue and democratic discourse is uptake: building on what others have written or said. Instead of encouraging uptake of others' words and ideas, typical online discussions in Learning Management Systems (LMSs) can inadvertently isolate students in separate threads. What this paper adds We introduce and analyse two new, innovative types of online discussions that may encourage more uptake of others' words and ideas. To eliminate isolation and encourage uptake, a linear chat forum makes all posts visible, but may produce interruptions, or ‘tangles’. A forum that includes collaborative responsive writing requires participants to converge on a collective response, encouraging dialogue and overcoming tangles. Implications for practice/policy Teachers and other stakeholders might consider how discussion forum designs in LMSs can support or limit authentic dialogue. Practitioners might consider how to incorporate deliberation about a shared focus into online discussions. Instructors might avoid tangles by aligning assignment purposes with dialogic principles: posing authentic questions that invite multiple interpretations and require uptake of others' responses.

Politico vivere in Niccolò Machiavelli and Donato Giannotti: Monarchy, Republicanism and Mixed Government in Florence

ABSTRACT The tensions between monarchy and republicanism are a dominant feature of Machiavelli’s political works, and both the so-called ‘monarchical’ work, The Prince, and the more overtly republican Discourses laud the benefits of republicanism and warn against relying on hereditary monarchy. This article compares Machiavelli’s proposals, advanced in 1520, for a mixed constitution for the city of Florence with those of his younger compatriot, Donato Giannotti, who became secretary to the Ten in the last Florentine republican government of 1527-30. As the historical context changed, and Florence progressed from republic to absolutist duchy under the later Medici, Giannotti was exiled from the city and the article examines how his proposed reforms of 1528 and then his major work, Della republica fiorentina, drafted and redrafted between 1531 and 1538 as the politics of Florence changed, reinforce and expand Machiavelli’s views of politico vivere in a republican polity like Florence whose constitution was being dramatically rewritten.

Self-creation Without Natural Limits? On a Certain Blindness in Richard Rorty’s Anti-authoritarian Pragmatism

Abstract This article argues that Richard Rorty’s philosophy has a blind spot regarding our relationship with nature. It examines his distinct version of pragmatism to find ways to address this shortcoming. Rorty’s antirepresentational “pragmatism as anti-authoritarianism” and its anthropocentric character are discussed. His linguistic instrumentalism is problematized since it entails an unapologetic Baconian view of knowledge as power and nature as a manipulable object. While Rorty’s Darwinian image of the human being somewhat relativizes this Baconian humanism, it does not address the dependence of the human species on its natural environment. According to the romantic dimension in Rorty, the human being is rather exalted, and the imperative of infinite self-creation ignores natural limits. However, there are valuable resources in Rorty’s philosophy that can limit this imperative and his instrumentalism. For instance, Rorty’s anti-authoritarianism reminds us of the moral responsibility of choice about (our) nature. Furthermore, his inclusivist ethic of solidarity implies the potential extension beyond the human species. Lastly, his notion of philosophy as cultural politics could foster democratic discussion on the pressing issues of technological advance.