The Public Interest in Romanian Parliamentary Debate

AbstractFrom a discourse analysis standpoint, the contemporary administrativist approach and the discursive perspectives on the concept of “public interest” were brought together by Jacques Derrida (1967), as the deconstruction of discourse provides the researcher with the opportunity to identify the meaning or the purpose of discourse, having as starting point the meanings assigned by society to specific words or concepts. Consequently, the priority axis of our analysis revolves around the intentionality of political discourse, based on the assumption that the three basic elements (cf. Derrida) of discourse are intention, method and ideology, with public interest being a prerequisite for the democratic public sphere. The issue of discourse intentionality is the subject of pragmatic approach, as intentionality essentially defines the manner in which a discourse agent represents a specific matter (cf. Searle, 1983); it is thus understood in the context that the force of representation is intrinsic to the intentionality process of speech acts. The second core dimension specific to our study encompasses the social conditions which characterise the use of words/concepts, and the role played by the latter in determining discourse effectiveness, starting from the paradigm of illocutionary force (cf. J.-P. Austin, 1969, 1975) as well as from the significance of discourse context in relation with the paradigmatic competences of “the language of institution” or “authorized language” (cf. P. Bourdieu, 1975/2001). In practical terms, our study is concerned with the occurrences and manners of (re)presentation which are specific to the syntagm “public interest” in the context of deliberative discourse; thus, our study comprises an analysis of the political debates in the joint meetings of the Parliament of Romania between January- December 2012 – i.e. 24 meetings – and seeks to identify operational definitions for the syntagm concerned

Social Science Journals in Interwar Romania and the U.S. Model of Sociology

In her article Social Science Journals in Interwar Romania and the U.S. Model of Sociology Valentina Pricopie analyzes the US-American presence in two journals of the Bucharest School of Sociology between the two world wars, as well as the information provided by US articles with regard to the US-American sociological model and its developments. Pricopie\u27s analysis suggests strong academic connections, cooperation, and consistent exchange of academic knowledge between the two schools of thought. The analysis is based a quantitative study of the archives including the frequency of occurrence of items in thirty-one issues of Arhiva pentru Ştiinţa şi Reforma Socială (Archive for Science and Social Reform) and twenty-six issues of Sociologie Românească (Romanian Sociology). Pricopie\u27s conclusion is that the development of the Romanian school of sociology was in line not only with what was happening in schools of sociology in Europe, but also with the theoretical developments of U.S. sociology

THE VOICE OF FOREIGN GUESTS IN THE ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT (2007–2013). DISCURSIVE REPRESENTATIONS ON THE EUROPEAN DEMOCRATIC IDEAL

This paper focuses on discourse analysis of a comprehensive corpus which consists of ten speeches presented by foreign guests in the plenum of Romanian Parliament, between 2007 and 2013. We talk about European officials and representatives of other States or international organizations, other than the EU, which emphasize the democratic ideal thesis in argumentative discourses of authority, oscillating between representations on values and principles of democracy in Europe and their concrete manifestations in today`s Romania. The theoretical and methodological framework is provided by the argumentation theory and new rhetoric perspective on deliberative discourse, with focus on the current practice of public diplomacy at the European central leve

LUMINIŢA ROŞCA, Transformations of Journalism in the Republic of Moldova: Discourses, Actors and Professional Identity

This study aims to identify the indicators of the transformation of journalism as profession in the Republic of Moldova. It focuses on the practitioners'anticipation of a stable professional configuration and identity in the context of a potential liberalization of the media market in this country

Noua politică de comunicare a administraţiei centrale europene. Documente programatice

Transversal studies on emerging European communication are quite few in number, while the approach to the policies and strategies launched by the European Commission ever since 2005 is still very specific or contingent. Our aim is to conduct a comprehensive study on what are still the early stages of the concept of ‘emerging European communication’. The article investigates four programmatic documents of the European Commission, the White Paper on a European Communication Policy, the Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe, the Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, and the Strategy Europe 2020, as well as one resolution of the European Parliament, Journalism and new media – creating a public sphere in Europe, all describing the new European communication policy. The analyzed key-directions relate to the reference point of all these debates and initiatives – the Eurobarometer, an unbiased tool of sociological measurement, which fully confirms the communication breakdown between European citizens and the institutions which represent them – the ‘favorable’ premise of a communication policy for the European Union.</p

Colette BRIN, Jean CHARRON et Jean DE BONVILLE (dir.), Nature et transformations du journalisme. Théories et recherches empiriques

Jean Charron et Jean de Bonville ont lancé le débat scientifique sur les transformations du journalisme par la création en 1993 du Groupe de Recherche sur les Mutations du Journalisme (GRMJ) à l’Université Laval et ensuite par la publication (1996) de deux articles significatifs (encadrés ultérieurement comme chapitres distincts et remaniés dans l’ouvrage que nous présentons). L’objectif annoncé par les auteurs de ces recherches vise à « proposer des voies de solution à certains problèmes thé..

Structural Transformation of Romanian Journalism before the Adhesion to the European Union

AbstractThis paper analysis the structural transformation of Romanian daily newspapers during the time of Romania's integration (2002-2006) in the European Union, namely the introduction of specific columns and thematic pages dedicated to the European Union and the adhesion process, which proved certain continuity after January 2007. We interrogated a selective corpus of six Romanian newspapers that introduced, at specific moments of the pre-adhesion process, thematic columns, pages or supplements dedicated to Europe, in order to identify the way Romanian journalism adapted and integrated the European perspective as emerging actuality. This study proposes a retrospective view that focuses on the most ‘visible’ element of the Romanian daily newspapers ‘formal structure in transformation – thematic columns on European issues, via the methodological framework of journalism mutations paradigm

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND PUBLIC OPINION IN EUROPE. A PRELIMINARY STUDY

This study aims at identifying, starting from the questions and response variants proposed in the questionnaires of the Eurobarometer surveys, the forms of operationalisation of the concepts specific for the scientific research, that have been\ud used from 1973 until 2011, without a preliminary preparation of the sample investigated in this respect. The main objective of this approach is to identify the evolution of the specialised vocabulary of the Eurobarometer, which accounts to a great extent for the forms of ambiguisation of the European discourse on scientific\ud research and its results. Our concern is also to identify the intrusion of the scientific vocabulary in the European common language, which is in fact an unavoidable perspective, given the EU approach at interrogating the frontiers of knowledg

Policy Dialog: the Missing Link in the 2008 Romanian Human Papillomavirus (Hpv) Vaccination Program

<p>The model of the traditional decision – making deciding behind the closed doors ofpower is strongly eroded by the new perceptionof democracy, as it is gradually replaced by amodel dominated not by managers, but by themanagement of decision. This article analyzesfrom the social sciences perspective a) why theRomanian 2008 HPV vaccination campaign turnedout to be a failure, b) what generated the strongpublic rejection of a policy that the Ministry of PublicHealth supposed would be easily accepted by thepopulation, and especially by the targeted group– the 10-11 years old girls and their parents. Thearticle also seeks to offer recommendations, fromthe public communication perspective, regardinghow policy dialogue and public participation mightsupport the promotion of large-scale policies byinvolving the stakeholders at all stages of thedecision-making process, and hence, avoidingunfounded social tensions and waste of valuableresources.</p