scholarly journals In spaces in between–From recollections to nostalgia: Discourses of bridge and island place

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-290
Author(s):  
Jana Raadik Cottrell ◽  
Stuart P. Cottrell
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Capitalist Country ◽  
Public Forum ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Multiple Realities ◽  
Symbolic Meanings ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
Context Dependent

Creation of a terrestrial connection to the mainland from Saaremaa Island (Estonia) has been discussed among politicians, scientists and the general public for the last decade. A fixed link has been a dream, hope, and fear in a situation where the island faces enormous societal changes in a rapidly developing young capitalist country. Islanders and visitors feel threats to their home place with or without the bridge. This paper explores public discourse of textualized landscapes as context-dependent multiple realities. Questions related to the perceptions of change of material landscapes as well as symbolic meanings of lived environment in the transition and rhetoric of everyday spatial practices are examined. The rhetorical ‘journey’ of a planned terrestrial fixed link (a bridge from an island to the mainland) is followed. Materials from an online public forum from five years related to the topic and approximately 120 online articles with more than 1800 comments from the general public were examined to reveal major themes of discourse on island place, landscape of identity as well as possible transformations of related concern. Idealized landscapes of a nostalgic past are voiced equally yet differently among political powers, islanders themselves and tourists.

scholarly journals Recognizing the trafficking in human beings victimization

Temida ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biljana Simeunovic-Patic
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Trafficking In Human Beings ◽  
Relative Prevalence

In spite of relative prevalence of trafficking in human beings issues in the expert and general public discourse in recent years, recognition of victimization by various specialists that may come across with victims still is being estimated as unsatisfactory. Stereotypes about victims of trafficking in human beings are just one factor that imperils correct and prompt recognition of victims, i.e. victims' identification, as principal prerequisite of their protection and support. Today, there are various efforts to overcome that problem - primarily through the training of professionals and creating the identification guidelines, i.e. lists of indicators of trafficking in human beings victimization; however, these resolves only one part of the problem and reveal some new challenges at the same time.

The Media Agenda: The Marginalization and Domestication of Europe

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Voltmer ◽  
Christiane Eilders
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
European Integration ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
European Level ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
National Quality ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Eu

This chapter investigates whether the assumption that the media contribute to the communication deficit of the EU is reflected in the empirical pattern of political coverage. In particular, it explores the extent to which German media take a Europeanized perspective on political affairs and whether or not they promote the politics of European integration. The study is based on a content analysis of the editorials of German national quality newspapers covering the period between 1994 and 1998. The findings show that the media under study devote only a very small portion of their attention to European issues, thus marginalizing Europe to an extent that is not warranted by the significance of the European level of governance. If the media do focus on European issues, they predominantly address them in terms of national politics, which is interpreted as a ‘domestication’ of Europe in public discourse. At the same time, the media unanimously support the idea of European integration. This pattern of communicating Europe reflects the élite consensus on European matters in Germany and may have contributed to the alienation of the general public from European politics.

Mortality and Border Deaths Data

Border Deaths ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Dearden ◽  
Tamara Last ◽  
Craig Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
General Public ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Future ◽  
Current Context

Statistics on border deaths have permeated public discourse over the last few years in Europe, in part due to the increased effort by academics, journalists, NGOs and international organizations to document these deaths. For researchers and policy makers, these quantitative data help indicate the severity of the phenomenon of people dying while trying to reach other countries in an irregularized manner. Such figures can also raise awareness and concern within the general public. This chapter is organized around the main challenges associated with quantitative border deaths data collection and dissemination. The chapter suggests strategies for improvement of the current context as well as directions for research and work on border deaths in the future.

scholarly journals The Genre of Invective in Public Discourse

2020 ◽  
pp. 153-163
Author(s):  
Marina Kalinina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Verbal Abuse ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
Linguistic Means

The relevance of this research project lies in the increasing interest of the general public and professional linguists towards public discourse and the specific type of the communicative personality whose verbal behavior shakes up the normative framework and leads to violations of linguistic security. Such a speaker prefers non-normative linguistic means with the strongest communicative and stylistic charge, because they support her desire for self-expression and attract the attention of others; needless to say they often include invective. The rejection of normative expressive means is also due to the deliberate or spontaneous intention of the speaker to humiliate, ridicule, or offend the interlocutor and assert herself, which is much easier to do with invective vocabulary. Looking at the functions of the invective, its paralinguistic and linguistic features, and the intentions of the speakers, the article describes the invective genres of hating and flaming. Hating is viewed as a deliberate communicative action aimed at discrediting a person or at her social stigmatization. Flaming is characterized by spontaneity and is due to the speaker’s communicative emotionality, asociality, and propensity towards conflicts. The author determines risks of using verbal abuse, invective genres, and pejoratives in public discourse, emphasizing the importance of regulating these through relevant legislation, since, as experience shows, invective may become a form of expressing linguistic extremism and lead to physical violence. The author discusses the immediate need of introducing mandatory moderation (both automated and manual) of chats on social networks, forums, public websites, messengers, TV shows and other media in order to prevent negative consequences of invectizing public discourse and to ensure linguistic security for communication participants.

scholarly journals Prekäre (Kultur-)Kämpfe?

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (160) ◽  
pp. 361-376
Author(s):  
Magdalena Freudenschuß
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Societal Changes

Precarity became an issue in public discourse in German speaking media throughout 2006. In this article the author takes a closer look on the symbolic negotiations on precariousness/precarity and its references to neo-conservative reasoning undertaken in the public media discourse. Who is designated as the precarious subject -- and to what extent do discursive designations legitimate social inequalities? Public discourse is to be understood as an ambivalent and multifaceted field of negotiations on society and social justice. As such, it is a field where interpretations of societal changes try to gain a hegemonic position and where they are at the same time challenged, disrupted and irritated. Thus, the article points out some hegemonic and counter-hegemonic moments within the public discourse on precarity.

The Role of Burke's Four Master Tropes in Scientific Expression

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Tietge
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Scientific Concepts ◽  
Scientific Explanations ◽  
Linguistic Understanding ◽  
Incompatible Modes ◽  
Rhetorical Tropes

The role of literary and rhetorical tropes in scientific discourse is frequently overlooked, largely because “rhetoric” and “science” seem to be incompatible modes of expression. However, if we look closely at scientific explanations—especially those designed to inform a general public—we find that they are as reliant on, if not more so, than more “subjective” forms of public discourse. In A Grammar of Motive, Kenneth Burke posits that all forms of discourse rely heavily on the “four master tropes” of metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony to express ideas, and science is not an exception. This article outlines the processes behind the four master tropes and demonstrates instances where these tropes occur in the expression of scientific concepts found in such fields as biology, physics, and even mathematics. The purpose is to show that, contrary to what many members of the scientific (and lay) community suppose, rhetorical and literary tropes are necessary components to a linguistic understanding of complex scientific concepts; that such tropes do not hinder our understanding, but are in fact necessary to it.

Heckling in Hyde Park: Verbal audience participation in popular public discourse

1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul McIlvenny
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Video Data ◽  
Audience Response ◽  
Audience Participation ◽  
Group Affiliation ◽  
Political Speech ◽  
Sequential Organization ◽  
Tools And Methods

ABSTRACTSpeakers' Corner is a multicultural setting in a London park at which the general public can actively participate in popular debate. A successful “soap-box” orator should attract and keep an audience, elicit support from the crowd, and gain applause; indeed, a mastery of the crowd, the discourse, and the message is highly valued. However, although talk resources are deployed sensitively by speakers to elicit group affiliation and response, they are also exploitable by hecklers as resources for launching heckles and disaffiliative responses. Audiences at Speakers' Corner are not passive receivers of rhetorical messages; they are active negotiators of interpretations and alignments that may support, resist, or conflict with the speaker's and other audience members' orientations to prior talk. Using transcribed examples of video data recorded at Speakers' Corner, the timing, format, and sequential organization of heckling are described and analyzed with the tools and methods of conversation analysis. (Conversation analysis, audience response, popular public discourse, political speech, heckle)

scholarly journals Food for social change in Peru: Narrative and performance of the culinary nation

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 520-537
Author(s):  
Raúl Matta
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Food Cultures ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
And Performance

This article discusses the most relevant scholarship produced on the rise of Peruvian cuisine and Peru’s gastro-politics. It focuses on the contexts, processes and protagonists behind the attempt to heal and re-found the nation through food after a period of decline and terror, and on the formulation of ideas of social change aimed at shaping and promoting Peru as an entrepreneurial, vigorous but also more equal and fairer society. It also considers the smaller societal changes that nurtured these ideas, which are varied in nature and scope. Methodologically, the article explores the semantics, practices and ideologies at stake as expressed in public discourse, media content, gastronomic trends and restaurant sourcing. By unfolding central processes of the culinary project: high-end cuisine, the refiguring of indigenous people as producers and the use of cultural identity as an authenticating force, it offers a critical reading of the so-called gastronomic revolution, highlighting the ways in which claims to unity and reconciliation, particularly in the incorporation of indigenous people and their food cultures, smooth over ongoing inequalities.

scholarly journals Wagner & Hayes Repressive Moralism 10

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Wagner ◽  
Nicky Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Discourse ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
The Way

The past decade has seen a shift in the way that minorities exert their influence in society. Where in previous decades the emphasis was on winning the hearts and minds of the population at large, a recent strategy has been to ignore general public discourse and only to target specific influential bodies, along with an emphasis on victimhood. In this paper we use the example of transgender issues to analyse the socio-psychological dimensions of this approach. We show that where possible, those promoting these issues eschew a wider social discourse and debate in the mass media, and how their strategy rests on a self-construction as victims of the hetero-normative society, with a concomitant appeal to moral rather than factual argumentation. This is combined with a programme of aggressive challenge to opponents through social media, which effectively closes discussion on the topic. We conclude that these methods have much in common with the oppressive politics of undemocratic rule.

„Ein modernes Verdeutschungs-Unternehmen“. Über die historische Semantik der Buber-Rosenzweig-Bibel

Naharaim ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inka Sauter
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
German Language ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
The 19Th Century

Abstract This article traces a debate on Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig’s Germanization of the Bible. The trigger of the debate was Siegfried Kracauer’s infamous critique entitled “Die Bibel auf Deutsch” (“The Bible in German”), published in April 1926 in the Frankfurter Zeitung. In his harsh review of the first volume of the translation, Kracauer regards the use of the German language by Buber and Rosenzweig as an archaization. Relying in part on unpublished letters, this paper presents and explores the different perceptions of the translation, which embody the depths these fault lines penetrated both in general public discourse and, more specifically, in German-Jewish circles. This article also points towards the change of the German language in the 19th century that is embedded in the historical semantics of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible.

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