The Public Sphere, Globalization and Technological Development

Development ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-93
Author(s):  
Tina Sikka
Author(s):  
Thomas Hvid Kromann

Thomas Hvid Kromann: The literary work, the public sphere, (net)archive – transformation of the literary field in the mediatisation age and how we save it for posterity The article examines the ongoing transformation of the Danish literary field: what consequences does technological development in particular have for the concept of the literary work, the (literary) public sphere and for the possibilities for storing digital platforms that house both literary works, which are not associated with the printed media, and discussion forums on the internet? The author Caspar Eric’s publications are used as a case for a contemporary expansion of the concept of the literary work, since Eric’s work is not limited to the printed media, but also includes writing experiments, which he publishes on digital platforms in parallel with the official printed versions. The article argues that Eric’s publications in an extended literary field, indicate a need for a thorough reassessment of our delimitations of a literary work. Connected to the expansion of the public sphere, one finds a levelling of literary criticism, partly connected to the rise of social media. Based on the now closed sites Litlive and Promenaden the limits and possibilities of this tendency are examined. Finally, the article discusses the existing conditions for archiving these sites in order to save them for posterity, and it is reasoned that literary research within contemporary literature, beneficially, should include the archiving of literary source material.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9408
Author(s):  
Marlous Blankesteijn ◽  
Bart Bossink

This paper researches legitimacy creation in a publicly-funded trajectory of innovative technological development. It develops a framework of input, throughput and output legitimacy. The framework is developed based on a review of the literature on the creation of legitimacy in innovative technological development. The framework assists in further exploring the potential of the integrated assessment of the legitimacy of technological innovation trajectories in the public sphere, in terms of (1) public accountability (ensuring input legitimacy); (2) science, technology and innovation policy (ensuring throughput legitimacy); and (3) the potential for the implementation of the technology itself in practical contexts (ensuring output legitimacy). The framework is used to analyze a case study about the publicly-funded development of innovative technology for the retrieval of raw materials from waste water. Theoretically, the value of a more processual approach to the conceptualization of legitimacy becomes apparent. Furthermore, the framework assists in the development of practical recommendations on the ways in which to optimize the legitimacy in an earlier stage in the innovation’s trajectory. However, due attention should also be paid to the role of regulatory arrangements in the optimization of the legitimacy of publicly-funded technological innovation. This is an avenue for further research.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-62
Author(s):  
Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar

This study explores Habermas’s work in terms of the relevance of his theory of the public sphere to the politics and poetics of the Arab oral tradition and its pedagogical practices. In what ways and forms does Arab heritage inform a public sphere of resistance or dissent? How does Habermas’s notion of the public space help or hinder a better understanding of the Arab oral tradition within the sociopolitical and educational landscape of the Arabic-speaking world? This study also explores the pedagogical implications of teaching Arab orality within the context of the public sphere as a contested site that informs a mode of resistance against social inequality and sociopolitical exclusions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-103
Author(s):  
Mai Mogib Mosad

This paper maps the basic opposition groups that influenced the Egyptian political system in the last years of Hosni Mubarak’s rule. It approaches the nature of the relationship between the system and the opposition through use of the concept of “semi-opposition.” An examination and evaluation of the opposition groups shows the extent to which the regime—in order to appear that it was opening the public sphere to the opposition—had channels of communication with the Muslim Brotherhood. The paper also shows the system’s relations with other groups, such as “Kifaya” and “April 6”; it then explains the reasons behind the success of the Muslim Brotherhood at seizing power after the ousting of President Mubarak.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-210
Author(s):  
Erin Nunoda

This article examines YouTube videos (primarily distributed by a user named Cecil Robert) that document so-called dead malls: unpopulated, unproductive, but not necessarily demolished consumerist sites that have proliferated in the wake of the 2008 recession. These works link digital images of mall interiors with pop-song remixes so as to re-create the experience of hearing a track while standing within the empty space; manipulating the songs’ audio frequencies heightens echo effects and fosters an impression of ghostly dislocation. This article argues that these videos locate a potentiality in abandoned mall spaces for the exploration of queer (non)relations. It suggests that the videos’ emphasis on lonely, unconsummated intimacies questions circuitous visions of the public sphere, participatory dynamics online, and the presumably conservative biopolitics (both at its height and in its memorialization) of mall architecture.


Author(s):  
Natalia Kostenko

The subject matter of research interest here is the movement of sociological reflection concerning the interplay of public and private realms in social, political and individual life. The focus is on the boundary constructs embodying publicity, which are, first of all, classical models of the space of appearance for free citizens of the polis (H. Arendt) and the public sphere organised by communicative rationality (Ju. Habermas). Alternative patterns are present in modern ideas pertaining to the significance of biological component in public space in the context of biopolitics (M. Foucault), “inclusive exclusion of bare life” (G. Agamben), as well as performativity of corporeal and linguistic experience related to the right to participate in civil acts such as popular assembly (J. Butler), where the established distinctions between the public and the private are levelled, and the interrelationship of these two realms becomes reconfigured. Once the new media have come into play, both the structure and nature of the public sphere becomes modified. What assumes a decisive role is people’s physical interaction with online communication gadgets, which instantly connect information networks along various trajectories. However, the rapid development of information technology produces particular risks related to the control of communications industry, leaving both public and private realms unprotected and deforming them. This also urges us to rethink the issue of congruence of the two ideas such as transparency of societies and security.


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