Public Communication and Social Web: How Public Administrations Promote Citizen Sharing and Participation

AbstractThis paper examines advocacy, agenda-setting and the public policy focus of private philanthropic foundations in Australia. While concerns have been raised regarding advocacy and public policy influence of foundations in countries such as the U.S., less is understood on this issue in other contexts. Interviews were conducted with 11 managers and trustees of 10 Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs) in late 2014. Analysis of publicly available data on the participating PAFs was then undertaken comparing PAF information available at the time of the interviews with that available approximately five years later, to consider any changes in the public communication of their agendas. Findings reveal PAFs’ agendas were largely consistent with public policy but may vary in the approaches to address social causes. Further, a preference for privacy indicates the PAF sector may be characterised as ‘quiet philanthropy’ rather than having a visible public presence. As such, PAFs’ advocacy focused on promoting philanthropy, rather than altering or influencing public policy. Our main contention is that the conceptions of advocacy in structured philanthropy are dominated by the obvious, the outliers and the noisy. Our contribution to the philanthropic literature is a more nuanced and broader discussion of how advocacy and agenda-setting occurs and is understood in the mainstream.

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Shaping the Urban Life of Oil in Bahrain: Consumerism, Leisure, and Public Communication in Manama and in the Oil Camps, 1932-1960s

Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East ◽

10.1215/1089201x-2072721 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 59-74 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

N. Fuccaro

Keyword(s):

Urban Life ◽

Public Communication

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Demagogic populism and media system: A preliminary articulation

European Journal of Communication ◽

10.1177/0267323121999532 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026732312199953

Author(s):

Paul K Jones

Keyword(s):

Political Communication ◽

Systems Approach ◽

Public Communication ◽

Communication Studies ◽

Theoretical Frameworks ◽

Existential Crisis ◽

System A ◽

Media System ◽

Modern Media ◽

Media Systems

Political communication studies has a long tradition of ‘crisis talk’ regarding the fate of public communication. Now, however, the field itself faces a kind of existential crisis as its core assumptions of ‘normal’ political communication are daily undermined. This ‘liberal normalcy’ shares much with orthodoxies in populism studies, most notably a tendency to bracket out demagogic communication, both in historical fascist regimes and democracies. Yet correcting these failings is not simply a matter of rejecting liberal models for left-populist ones. Rather, both fields need to broaden their historical parameters and deepen their theoretical frameworks. The article draws on the Weberian conception of modern demagogy and its revision in the wake of 'modern media' by Shils and Adorno. It further argues that a critical reworking of Hallin and Mancini’s media systems approach could benefit both fields. For Hallin and Mancini’s socio-historical use of Weberian ideal-typification complements Worsley’s never-completed plan for an ideal-typification of modes of populism and demagogic leadership.

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