Geum.ru

И власть в истории цивилизаций

Вид материалаТезисы

Содержание


PANEL VII Modern Mass Media and Public Sphere: New Challenges and Opportunities for Democracy
Sergei V. Klyagin (Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia)
Tarmo Malmberg (University of Vaasa, Finland)
Подобный материал:
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   ...   18

PANEL VII




Modern Mass Media and Public Sphere:

New Challenges and Opportunities for Democracy



Convenor: Veronica V. Usacheva (Center for Civilizational and

Regional Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)


Globalization has created new challenges in information space. New models of communication have emerged. Their influence overcomes states’ borders and, what is even more serious, they have a great potential and capabilities for destroying the basis and cultural values of a society. In the classical interpretation by Jurgen Habermas the “public sphere” is the arena within which a debate occurs. It is the zone where access to information is sufficient for more probable rational discourse and looking for mutually acceptable public standards. The public sphere is where ideas, information and knowledge are shared, where ideas generated and opinions are constructed. Although real and experienced, the public sphere cannot be located in a particular place or identified as an object. It is not a physical spot where discourse has consequences. For Habermas, correctly functioning public sphere restricts state power and gives possibilities through which democracy could be realized. Ideally, the public sphere should be free from limitations, both private interests and state control. Nowadays the public sphere as a zone of modern discourse is distorted by unequal access to information, power and prosperity. What is the role of modern mass media in the public sphere's formation? What possibilities do they offer citizens to seek, receive, and impart information? How do mass media provide equal access to them for different social groups and individuals? Is equal access possible in the modern world? During the 20th century the state became a serious player on the public sphere stage, being sometimes authoritarian or totalitarian monopolist. Information control can serve as a part and parcel of nation-building. At the same time, media manipulation can become a weapon of mass deconstruction. What kind of public sphere can exist in the situation of increasing influence of the state and economic interests on mass media? Where is the solution to overcome the elitist character of the public sphere? The progress of communications gives new opportunities for people to overcome limitations and deficiencies, even social norms and social control. The many point out that new mass media are revolutionizing the nature of discourse. The crucial question is: Do people receive now more information than before? Do we have more zones for public discourse, than before? Are there any new possibilities for broad and unlimited freedom of expression, including critical to authorities? The panel will cover both theoretical and empirical approaches to the mentioned above problems and encourages papers that deal with the following: public sphere / public sphericules; modern mass media in maintenance the institutions of civil societies and democracy; public discourses, their competition and hierarchical relations.


Sergei V. Klyagin (Russian State University for the Humanities,

Moscow, Russia)

Mass Media and Society Today:

The Phenomena of Recovered Social Reality



It is obvious that the role of mass media in modern society has changed considerably. Today mass media are not only a tool of social interaction, media factor creates social reality on the whole. А number of consecutive ideas and stages, concerning this subject are represented in the concepts of J.Baudrillard, M.МcLuhan, P.Bourdieu, M.Castells, N.Nosov and other theoreticians. The latest stage in media-society system development follows the virtual type of constituting the social reality. Virtualization of society means the transition from social action to semantic information interactions. Moreover, it is important that this transition is certainly reflected in people’s minds. The latest stage in its turn manifests no reflected replacement of sociality by virtuality created by mass media. Returning, reverting, and recurring of the previously established virtuality form the recovered social reality. This idea shows the possibility of discovering new social ontology characterized by new configuration of matter, man, social action and media. Prerequisites of the recovered reality phenomena are caused by the power of the nowadays media. Not to mention the strengthening system integration of mass media into global production processes. There is a certain menace for man and society in spreading of the described phenomena. Paying attention to humane factor of policy and democracy (“democracy of feelings”, A.Giddens), putting forward new ideas for social dialogue, looking for the new effectiveness of non institutional social and personal identities – these are some of the measures to prevent future problems.


Tarmo Malmberg (University of Vaasa, Finland)

The Possibilities and Limits of Public Life: Habermas and the Mass Media



Ever since the East-European liberation movements leading to the upheavals of 1989-91, the problem of civil society in general and Jürgen Habermas’ theory of the public sphere in particular have been in the focus of political media theory. What has not been given sufficient attention to is the ambiguity of the concept of the civil society – in its liberal, Hegelian, and other connotations – , and the development of Habermas’ conception from Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), his first substantial contribution, to Facts and Norms (1992), his last major work. Habermas started from a Neo-Marxist rewriting of Hegel’s social philosophy, but he diverted from both Hegel and Marx in inspecting the social totality from the point of view of neither the state ,like Hegel, nor the economy (civil society), like Marx – but from that of the public sphere, which was an autonomous social entity the rising bourgeoisie generated. After he, at the mid-1970s, abandoned the Marxist framework altogether, Habermas had to change his conception of society, which was accomplished in Theory of Communicative Action (1981). The consequences of this reorientation for the theory of the public sphere were not explicated until the late 1980s and early 1990s. The new conception was a combination of liberalist, republicanist and avant-gardist ideas. The paper will try to analyse in some detail how, in this new conception compared with the old one, the media are invested with possibilities but also with strict limits as to the realisation of political democracy. In consequence, it is the moral sensitivity and civil courage on which, in the last resort, collective self-rule is based.