Quality Of Public Debate Research Articles

Self-censorship among online harassment targets: the role of support at work, harassment characteristics, and the target’s public visibility

ABSTRACTOnline harassment of professionals with public visibility has many potentially harmful societal consequences, including its probable silencing effect. Targeted individuals may refrain from voicing their opinion, which can negatively affect their professional and personal lives, but also the quality of public debate. This study examined the effect of perceived social support at work and perceived organizational support on self-censorship in response to work-related online harassment. We collected survey data based on representative samples from Finnish academics (N = 2,492), local politicians (N = 510), and media professionals (N = 695). We found that 64% of politicians, 58% of media professionals, and 30% of academics had experienced work-related online harassment. Among university staff, perceived social support from colleagues was negatively associated with self-censorship, and perceived social support from the closest supervisor had similar association among media professionals and politicians. Additionally, the frequency and severity of the harassment, as well as the target’s public visibility and female gender as predicted, along with other sociodemographic characteristics, were associated with self-censorship in response to online harassment. The results suggest that characteristics of the harassment and the target’s work environment influence the silencing effect of work-related online harassment and that perceived social support at work constitutes an important resource in dealing with harassment and its potential consequences.

Oligarchizacja mediów w Czechach na przykładzie koncernu Mafra Andreja Babiša

The contemporary functioning of the media is inextricably linked with what is happening in the world ofpolitics. The case of the Mafra corporation and the behaviour of its owner Andrej Babiš shows how throughthe interrelations of these two spheres the media can influence the shaping of political decisions, opinionsor preferences in the elections. The penetration of business and political interests, related informal layoutsand dependencies as well as high media instrumentation allow us to claim that today the process ofoligarchisation of the Czech media is highly advanced. This is connected with the increasing concentrationof ownership of media companies and intervention of the owners into the published content, but also withchanges in journalism itself. The media cease to be a “watch dog” controlling the authorities and caringabout the quality of public debate. Instead, they are creating reality, more and more openly, attemptingto manipulate the public, which results in less and less trust on their part and poses a serious threat todemocracy.

The Democratic Legitimacy of the 2016 British Referendum on EU Membership

This article addresses the input legitimacy of the British EU membership referendum of 2016. It considers who was given a vote in the first place, and whether those given a vote could make a reasonable choice in light of the campaign. More precisely, it assesses the following four criteria: the franchise, the presence of clarity, the amount and quality of information and the quality of public debate. The article argues that instances of direct democracy, such as referendums, require higher standards of civic behaviour from both elected representatives and voters than representative democracy. Applying these criteria to the EU referendum shows it fell short of the first two whilst it could have done better as regards the last two. The article concludes by briefly discussing what can be learnt from this referendum for the future.

Assessing the Democratic Legitimacy of the 2016 Brexit Referendum

This contribution addresses the input legitimacy of the British EU membership referendum of June 2016. It considers who was given a vote in the first place, and whether those given a vote could make a reasonable choice in light of the campaign. More precisely, it assesses the following four criteria: the franchise, the presence of clarity, the amount and quality of information, and the quality of public debate, arguing that instances of direct democracy, such as referendums, require higher standards of civic behaviour from both elected representatives and voters than those required of representative democracy. The empirical analysis of these criteria shows that the referendum fell short regarding the first two criteria whilst it could have done better as regards the last two. The paper concludes by briefly discussing what can be learnt from this referendum for future referendums.

Cognitive Constraints Shape Public Debate on the Risks of Synthetic Biology

We consider efforts to understand public perceptions of synthetic biology, describing a novel cognitive science approach indicating that cognitive biases constrain risk perceptions of synthetic biology. We discuss the implications of these findings and outline how they may be harnessed to improve the quality of public debate.

Discussing Brexit—Could We Do Better?

AbstractIt is widely recognised—by both Remainers and Leavers—that the quality of public debate in the lead‐up to the UK's 2016 referendum on EU membership was dismal. That was partly because of the nature of the referendum itself: it was on a broad proposal rather than a specific law; the government that called it did not support the change on the ballot paper and refused to prepare for the possibility of a vote for leaving the EU. It was also influenced by the nature of the campaign: both sides propagated misinformation; key issues were barely discussed; the public were often left dissatisfied and bewildered. This paper sets out evidence on these points and then analyses whether anything could be done to address them. Drawing on recent comparative research into referendums, it explores the importance of preparing for the decision to call a referendum. It then examines three possible approaches to improving political discourse during the campaign itself: exposing misinformation; providing high‐quality information; and promoting citizen deliberation. It finally considers how these could be applied to possible referendums on the issue of the UK's EU membership.

THE PECULIARITIES OF SOCIAL PERCEPTION IN THE CONTEXT OF INFORMATION-PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

In the recent decades, war fields have moved into the information sphere. Today’s person has reason to “be informed”; as having information provides a sense of security. In the modern world, great effort is invested in expanding information sources, because it serves to articulate both international policies and the context of wars. The exchange of information in domestic and international platforms influences the quality of public debate and ideology, which affects social attitudes and decision-making processes. This article presents the role of information-psychological warfare as a factor in forming public opinion. It discusses the peculiarities of organizing an information-psychological warfare during military conflicts. The goal of our research is to explore how social groups might perceive peculiarities in the information-psychological warfare. The research involves methods of survey, content analysis, and free associations. The effectiveness of psychological warfare significantly depends on how people perceive information. Consequently, in the contemporary world, it is necessary to not only protect or fight on the battlefield, but also to use information weapons. This imposes requirements on psychological scientists to explore peculiarities around the perception of information to help find mechanisms that safeguard people’s lives by way of contributing to the formation of necessary attitudes and stereotypes.

The Epistemic Value of Public Opinion: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

This paper discusses the claim that citizens lack sufficient political knowledge to make sound judgements on public matters. It is contended that practical judgements raise essentially two types of claims, namely a claim to empirical truth and a claim to normative rightness, and that there are good reasons to believe that people's insufficient political knowledge undermines both of them. Yet, an examination of the dynamics of public opinion formation reveals that there is an epistemic potential in public opinion, though it is dependent upon the quality of public debate. Building on this idea and on the concept of deliberative responsiveness, two paths of political reform are proposed, which should illustrate the practical implications of the theoretical argument made in this paper by demonstrating how the quality of public debate and, thus, the epistemic value of public opinion could be enhanced.

Climate Skepticism in British Newspapers, 2007–2011

Climate skepticism in the UK media has not been a major focus of recent research. This paper aims to help fill the gap by looking at the incidence of skeptical voices in UK newspapers across three periods: 2007, 2009/2010, and 2010/2011. After analyzing more than 3200 articles, it finds that skeptical voices increased their presence markedly across all newspapers and all types of articles in the second period, and maintained a significant presence in many in the third. Uncontested skeptical voices were particularly prevalent in opinion pieces and editorials in right-leaning newspapers in the second. It also finds that skeptical voices or opinions were more likely to be included in pieces written by in-house non-specialist columnists than by environment editors or correspondents. The negative implications of the results for public understanding and the quality of public debate are then explored.

Inequality in Singapore: Requirements for Enhancing the Quality of Public Debate

The publication of Thomas Piketty’s 2014 book "Capital in the Twenty First Century" has been a catalyst in bringing the issue of inequality to the forefront of public policy debates in many countries. This is remarkable, given the book’s length (696 pages), intricacies of historical data series from many sources forming the statistical foundations of the book’s main propositions; complexity of theoretical and empirical reasoning employed; and relatively narrow geographical focus (mainly US, U.K., and Western Europe).Mr. Piketty’s data sources, statistical evidence, theoretical reasoning, and policy suggestions continue to receive searching scrutiny. This is likely to result in better understanding of the inequality issue around the world.The issues of inequality, social mobility prospects, and of fairness and adequacy of social protection arrangements have recently been prominent in public policy debates in Singapore, and this is likely to continue. It may therefore be instructive to examine two implications of Piketty’s book for enhancing the quality of public policy debate on these issues in Singapore.

Introduction: Australian industrial relations in 2012

Much of the discussion in the public domain about Australian industrial relations has been concentrated quite narrowly on the legislative environment in which it is occurring, partly due to the Fair Work Act Review that took place in 2012. Given that the major parties are pursuing legislative changes that favour their interests, the discussion has been quite divisive, which has diminished the quality of public debate over industrial relations. The political context has also contributed to this outcome. The articles included in this review edition provide an opportunity for discussion to expand beyond this narrow base.

A Tale of Two Houses: Does MMP Mean New Zealand Doesn’t Need an Upper House?

Mixed Member Proportional voting (MMP) was introduced in New Zealand as a remedy for four particular problems that characterised New Zealand's unicameral political system. These problems were (1) lack of effective representation, (2) inadequate public deliberation, (3) lack of executive government accountability and (4) rushed legislation. Prior to the introduction of MMP, New Zealand’s unicameral Westminster system meant that a single party was usually able to gain control of the entire Parliament, often with only around 40 per cent of the popular vote, and as a result was able to conduct the affairs of government and enact its legislative agenda without substantial parliamentary scrutiny. This paper undertakes an assessment of the capacity of MMP to remedy these problems. The paper concludes that while MMP has substantially improved the representativeness of the system, and has helped to improve the quality of public debate and legislative deliberation, it has led to little if any improvement in the level of government accountability to Parliament. While MMP creates strong incentives for minor parties to maintain their distinctiveness from the two major parties in matters of policy, when minor parties cooperate with one of the major parties to form government, those minor parties have no real incentive to scrutinise the exercise of executive power by the government, as they themselves share in the spoils of government. Only if executive and legislative power are more effectively separated can the Parliament function as an effective check on executive power, and this separation can only effectively be achieved in Westminster systems through a second house of Parliament over which the governing party (or coalition of parties) does not have majority control.

Emotion and rationality: The characterisation and evaluation of opposition to renewable energy projects

Opposition to wind farm developments has been seen as a significant threat to climate change mitigation policies in the UK. This paper considers the complex of different factors that may lie behind such oppositional activism and the role of emotion within these. Drawing on a programme of interviews it then explores in detail the ways in which industry and policy actors construct the role of emotion in wind farm opposition and in decisions on planning permission, often as an unwelcome intrusion into a supposedly rational process. The consequences of such understandings of opposition for the shaping of public engagement practices and for the nature and quality of public debate are examined.

DELIBERATIVENESS OF ONLINE POLITICAL DISCUSSION

Citizen participation in online political debate and the Internet's effect on Chinese society have become an important research field. However, few studies so far have examined the use of interactive functions by Chinese newspaper websites to facilitate online discussion of civil issues, or the quality of public debate on the websites of Chinese online newspapers. Using the concept of the public sphere as its theoretical framework, this article aims to advance this line of inquiry through content analysis of the Guangzhou Daily website—Dayoo.com—to explore both the potential and the limits of the Internet in fostering civic engagement. Key variables measured include the quantity of posts and participants, topicality, nature of the argument (i.e. justification, complexity and civility), and responsiveness and homogeneity of contributions. Findings suggest that a political public sphere in Chinese cyberspace is emerging at the incipient stage, where the quality of discourse has reached a certain level but is not yet mature in terms of the complexity of dialogue and the exposure to disagreement.

Beyond the Oozone Layer

Despite occasional pockets of climate change scepticism, the days when journalists would report on climate change by balancing "pro" and "sceptic" voices, or by knocking the human-induced climate change argument with prominent coverage of an alternative theory, already seem a distant memory in the UK, claim the authors. This marked change in the treatment of climate change in the British media has helped lay the ground for a dramatic shift in the quality of public debate around the issue. Numerous specialists credit UK journalism of the last 18 months with being leagues ahead of their U.S. colleagues in the depth and regularity of coverage. Yet, why did it take the media 10 years to understand where the centre of gravity of informed opinion on climate change lay? - "the story didn't break, it oozed," they write. "The basics of the science have, after all, changed little since the mid 1990s. There are worrying signs that some of the reasons for this delay - above all a well-intentioned deep affection for sceptical opinion - could impede public debate on the next and vital stage in the climate change debate as we work out what political and economic steps to take."

Blogging the New Zealand Election: The Impact of New Media Practices on the Old Game

While the audiences for news and current affairs on the Internet are small, the Re is evidence from the United States that some online media are having a disproportionate influence on public affairs through their impact on the wider mediasphere. In particular, weblogs are credited with fact-checking the news media, widening the news agenda and forging new kinds of information networks. What is far from clear, however, is whethe R these new media contribute to a different quality of public debate or merely add a few extra voices. This paper explores the impact of weblogs on public affairs in Aotearoa/New Zealand through an analysis of the blogging of the 2005 general election.

The Campus Press and Pernicious Speech: The Case against Stupid Advertisements

Alexander Meiklejohn offers a provocative reading of First Amendment, one that focuses more on ends than means and one that settles, ultimately, on vitality of relationship between public communication and self-governance. Meiklejohn rejects standard libertarian view of freedom of expression, which regards individual liberty as sacrosanct, and substitutes for it a rationale for free speech and a free press that, on balance, favors what community needs to hear over what individuals want to say. Democracy demands a certain quality of public debate, Meiklejohn contends, more than it requires opportunities for individuals to promote themselves and their personal interests. To be sure, Meiklejohn believes that First Amendment protects freedom of speech, not freedom to speak; that Constitution safeguards content of expression, not individual expression; and that democracy requires uninhibited communication as a condition of popular sovereignty, not as a prerequisite for private gain. When Meiklejohn famously What is essential is not that everyone shall speak, but that everything worth saying shall be said, he meant that First Amendment, properly conceived, provides for the common needs of all members of body politic and has, comparatively, concern for needs of individuals to express themselves.1 Any number of First Amendment theorists rely on Meiklejohn for a framework for affirming importance of connection between public discussion and democratic participation,2 but here I turn to Meiklejohn for support for more modest claim that campus press ought to steer clear of advertisements that amount to little more than pernicious speech. In this misappropriation of his work, I use Meiklejohn's distinction between unregulated talkativeness and responsible and regulated discussion, along with Amy Gutmann's distinction between tolerating and respecting speech, to argue against sadly popular view that individuals and organizations can use purchased space in student newspapers to say just about anything they want to say. Pernicious Speech and Stanford Daily In late 2003 Stanford Daily, Stanford University's independent student newspaper, published a series of advertisements from a group called One Truth Foundation, whose members disturbed by false accusations and untruths being told by many in Arab world but whose web site lists no members, no location, no phone number, and no mailing address. One ad compared effect of a Palestinian's attack on his Israeli victims (29 civilians murdered, 140 wounded, 20 seriously wounded) with effect on his Palestinian family ($25,000 in cash, furnished apartment, pension for life, celebrity status). Another ad included a photograph of destruction caused by a bomb that exploded in cafeteria at Hebrew University of Jerusalem; caption read, On July 31, 2002, a Palestinian terrorist murdered 12 students and wounded 80 Americans, and Arabs, because they dared to hang out together. A third ad depicted with two photographs response to September 11, 2001, in Tel-Aviv and in Lebanon: Israelis mourned, Palestinians celebrated. All three ads included Foundation's trademarked tag line, There are two sides to every story, but only one truth. Unsurprisingly, ads elicited outpouring of commentary, mostly outrage, ranging from a flood of letters, as Daily itself described deluge, to a petition to recall editor, signed by several hundred students, alumni, and local residents. Most of commentary denounced ads as, variously, racist, distasteful, offensive, dehumanizing, an expression of hate, and an act of intolerance. A few letter writers supported publication of ads, but usually without explicit endorsement of content of ads. The Daily's editor joined debate with a signed editorial, which began with a quote from Eugene Patterson, former president of St. …

Into the Swamp: The Analysis of Social Issues

Prior analysis of the implications of public policy initiatives is commonly quite inadequate, and spectacularly so in recent government history. There has been a retreat from reason in public affairs. Until now Operational Research has largely failed to address or be applied to issues in the public policy domain. However, the new generation of problem structuring methods offers forms of analysis well suited to the environment in which public policy is formed. The quality of public debate would be much enhanced by a wider dissemination of analytic support. Cabinets, Parliamentary Committees, political parties, and a wide range of community-based groups could benefit in this way. A network of think-tanks and research institutes, whose inter-disciplinary basis would incorporate operational research, is proposed to provide the requisite analytic capability.

The responsibility of the scientific community in matters of national security

Scientists must provide more and better leadership in the debate over how to avoid catastrophe, whether it be through war, or starvation, or plague, or environmental degradation. Scientists should be vigilant about challenging false perceptions and defending the truth. They should alert our citizenry to major dangers—such as those brought about by weapons of great destructive potential—whether they be nuclear, biological, chemical, or even psychological. The scientific community needs to provide accurate and understandable analyses of these issues. It is their duty to develop and disseminate factual information by engaging in research, teaching, public outreach, and even lobbying. The scientific community has an obligation to identify and challenge muddled thinking. It is absolutely essential that the quality of public debate be raised well above where it now resides, in this election year. Some years ago, the American Physical Society created a Panel on Public Affairs. It has sponsored in-depth studies on critical national concerns such as energy and the environment. In this connection, I quote from a letter to the membership from Sid Drell, when he was President of the American Physical Society: As a result of the great impact of technology on our conditions of life and especially the threat of nuclear holocaust, there has never been a greater need for scientists, and physicists in particular, to be involved with public policy. The Society can and should play a constructive and instructive role in informing its members and in supporting and presenting appropriate studies to members of government and to the public. The council and officers of the Society have an important trust in protecting a high standard for such studies. The APS directedenergy weapons study stands out as the most pressing item on the society's agenda this year. I hope that by this coming summer the council will be able to release a report which will contribute significantly to the national dabate on the strategic defense initiative. The above report has, indeed, been released. But scientists have not yet done enough to make it understandable to the public.