Vilem Flusser, the 21st Century and the Interactive Technologies

When Vilem Flusser developed his idea of the technical \ud images, he could not foresee how far the technical development of producing images would go. The technical image has become an important part of the perception of the public, eventhough it still remains purely virtual. In the media the technical image is omnipresent and is also used as to manipulate society and its members in favor of political \ud mainstreams or to create an atmosphere for or against something or somebody. A future ideal society, the telematic society, is created out of the generation of information by technical images

Pleasure and meaningful discourse: an overview of research issues

The concept of pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural phenomenon in studies of media audiences since the 1980s. In these studies different forms of pleasure have been identified as explaining audience activity and commitment. In the diverse studies pleasure has emerged as a multi-faceted social and cultural concept that needs to be contextualized carefully. Genre and genre variations, class, gender, (sub-)cultural identity and generation all seem to be instrumental in determining the kind and variety of pleasures experienced in the act of viewing. This body of research has undoubtedly contributed to a better understanding of the complexity of audience activities, but it is exactly the diversity of the concept that is puzzling and poses a challenge to its further use. If pleasure is maintained as a key concept in audience analysis that holds much explanatory power, it needs a stronger theoretical foundation. The article maps the ways in which the concept of pleasure has been used by cultural theorists, who have paved the way for its application in reception analysis, and it goes on to explore the ways in which the concept has been used in empirical studies. Central to our discussion is the division between the ‘public knowledge’ and the ‘popular culture’ projects in reception analysis which, we argue, have major implications for the way in which pleasure has come to be understood as divorced from politics, power and ideology. Finally, we suggest ways of bridging the gap between these two projects in an effort to link pleasure to the concepts of hegemony and ideology

Health technology assessment: a sociological commentary on reflexive innovation

This study provides a sociological commentary on the current debates within health technology assessment (HTA), specifically in response to the approaches taken in France, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. It argues that HTA is part of a wider reflexive innovation system that seeks to order current and prospective technologies. The study discusses the socio-political process of HTA priority setting, the rhetorical role of HTA, the localised and contingent use of HTA, and the policy gap between guidelines and practice. It argues for the development of new types of methodologies for assessment and for a stronger social embedding of HTA practice

The constitution of risk communication in advanced liberal societies

This article aims to bring to the fore some of the underlying rationales that inform common conceptions of the constitution of risk communication in academic and policy communities. ‘Normative’, ‘instrumental’ and ‘substantive’ imperatives typically employed in the utilisation of risk communication are first outlined. In light of these considerations a theoretical scheme is subsequently devised leading to the articulation of four fundamental ‘idealised’ models of risk communication termed the ‘risk message’ model, the ‘risk dialogue’ model, the ‘risk field’ model and the ‘risk government’ model respectively. It is contended that the diverse conceptual foundations underlying the orientation of each model suggest a further need for a more contextualised view of risk communication that takes account not only of the strengths and limitations of different formulations and functions of risk communication, but also the underlying knowledge/power dynamics that underlie its constitution. In particular it is hoped that the reflexive theoretical understanding presented here will help to bring some much needed conceptual clarity to academic and policy discourses about the use and utility of risk communication in advanced liberal societies

Governance and Culture – a New Approach to Understanding Structures of Collaboration

The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of structures of collaboration and their underlying logic by combining theories on Governance and (Planning) Culture. By the introduction of an integrative approach, called the ‘The Culture-Based Governance Analysis’, aspects of both discourses are combined. Factors from the Governance discourse, providing analysis on the frameworks of collaboration, were integrated with factors from the Culture discourse, providing analysis of the underlying reasons for people collaborating or not. This novel approach provides a way to analyze and understand how existing collaborations have developed and the basis on which they operate. As a further step, it enables planners to use this knowledge for the establishment of future collaborations between already active as well as not yet involved actors, for example, in urban redevelopment processes