Digital Transformations and the Ideological Formation of the Public Sphere: Hegemonic, Populist, or Popular Communication?

This paper elaborates on a theory of the ideological public sphere in the age of digital media. It describes the public sphere as an initially ascending and then descending communication process that includes both polarising and integrating publics, which are organised by antagonistic media and compromise-building mass media. This framework allows us to distinguish between hegemonic, populist, and popular-oriented flows of communication, as well as register changes in the interplay of different publics driven by digital media platforms. Digital transformations of the public sphere give rise to antagonistic and networked-individualistic flows of populist communication that put public hegemony under constant pressure. The challenge is to find ways to strengthen popular communications that enable democratic learning processes and the flourishing of communicative competences of all citizens

Surveillance, Classification, and Social Inequality in Informational Capitalism: The Relevance of Exploitation in the Context of Markets in Information

This contribution deals with classification processes as an element of surveillance in the context of the growing relevance of (online) markets in information and the blurring line between production and consumption in current informational capitalist societies. Using the example of social media, I argue that classification does not only appear as feature of the demand and supply side of information markets but is also an aspect of informational production. In doing so, the paper discusses insights from critical surveillance and advertising studies and relates it to important strands of class theory in order to learn about the social mechanism that establishes inequality between Internet service owners and users. The paper argues that a (revised) notion of exploitation and antagonistic social relations should not be omitted from theorizing the information economy. Exploitation establishes an antagonism between all Internet users and the owners of the means of communication, surveillance, and classification

A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere?: An Introduction

The political public sphere is important for democracy, and it is changing – this is how the quintessence of Jürgen Habermas’s monumental study on The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989) could be summarized in simple words. In the fields of political sociology and social theory, history, but also research on social movements, cultural studies, and media and communication studies, his conception of the public sphere as a sphere mediating between the state and civil society has had a decisive influence on the debate about the potential of collective reason for modern democracy. In this introduction we give a short overview of Habermas’s arguments on the rise and fall of the bourgeois public sphere, demonstrate the necessary link between the public sphere and democracy and, referring to the contributions to this special issue, sketch current transformations of the public sphere along three basic processes – digitalization, commodification, and globalization

Ideologische Öffentlichkeit: Zur Organisation gesellschaftlicher Erfahrung im Kapitalismus

Gesellschaftliche Erfahrung wird in einen aufsteigenden und einen absteigenden Kommunikationsprozess zwischen einfachen, mittleren und komplexen Teilöffentlichkeiten organisiert, der hier als 'ideologische Öffentlichkeit' bezeichnet wird. Deren Akteure sind eine Vielzahl antagonistischer Medien, deren unterschiedliche Positionen in den Massenmedien gemäß ihren unterschiedliche Machtressourcen verdichtet repräsentiert sind. Zudem gehören zur ideologischen Öffentlichkeit kompromissbildende Werte, wie etwa Unparteilichkeit, herrschaftsfreier Diskurs, Presseethiken, die eine überwölbende 'bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit' bilden. Deren Repräsentation nehmen die Massenmedien einerseits für sich in Anspruch; sie kann aber auch von den antagonistischen Medien der unteren Ebenen der Öffentlichkeit an ihnen vorbei in Anspruch genommen werden. Der Effekt dieser komplexen Anlage ideologischer Öffentlichkeit ist es, ein Gemeinwesen zu behaupten, wo dieses angesichts antagonistischer Sozialbeziehungen nicht existiert und so zur Reproduktion gesellschaftlicher Antagonismen beizutragen. Die emanzipatorische Form von Öffentlichkeit bestimmt sich dann als 'anti-ideologisch' und ist einem Erfahrungswachstum verpflichtet

Ideologie, Kritik, Öffentlichkeit: Verhandlungen des Netzwerks Kritische Kommunikationswissenschaft

Dieser Band ist im Nachgang der 2. Jahrestagung des Netzwerks Kritische Kommunikationswissenschaft entstanden, die unter dem Titel 'Ideologien & Ideologiekritik' vom 29. November bis 1. Dezember 2018 an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München stattfand

PACIENTE COM SÍNDROME MIELOPROLIFERATIVA E ALTERAÇÃO UNGUEAL

Uma mulher, de 66 anos de idade, está em acompanhamento no Serviço de Hematologia do Hospital de Clínicas da UFPR há 9 meses por síndrome mieloproliferativa. Realizou sessões de quimioterapia por dois meses, que foram posteriormente suspensas por toxicidade hematológica. Foi internada na enfermaria de Clínica Médica deste hospital por astenia e náuseas. Na admissão, apresentava hepatomegalia e esplenomegalia; hemograma que demonstrava hemoglobina de 4,1 g/dl, leucócitos de 11.170 por mm3 e plaquetas de 101.000 por mm3; bilirrubinas totais de 2,64 mg/dl, com fração indireta de 1,74 mg/dl; albumina de 3,1 g/dl e LDH de 1645 U/l. Abaixo a imagem das unhas da paciente

Comentários sobre “L’avventura”, de Giorgio Agamben: um ensaio sobre deuses, destino e literatura.

Publicado em junho de 2015, na Itália, pela editora Nottetempo, e ainda aguardando por sua publicação em português, este pequeno ensaio intitulado L’avventura, de Giorgio Agamben, não deixa de pagar tributo tanto aos propósitos warburguianos quanto ao seu constante diálogo com Heidegger. Agamben, neste ensaio, passa pelas “Saturnais” de Macróbio, assim como pela poesia cavalheiresca medieval, por Goethe, Dante, Simmel, Hegel e tantos outros, reconstruindo dessa forma os vários sentidos da palavra “aventura”. Aventura essa, que não é apenas um exercício estético, já que, nas palavras do autor, “aventura e palavra, vida e linguagem, se confundem e o metal que resulta da respectiva fusão é o destino”. Eis a proposta agambeniana: dar conta das várias formas (e corpos) que o termo “aventura” conserva, bem como articulá-la às constantes máscaras sob as quais os deuses se apresentam.