[Apologies for cross-posting]
Anchoring the Critical in Media Research
Special Issue of Javnost - The Public. Journal of the European Institute
for Communication and Culture
Guest Edited by Ilija Tomanic Trivundža and Nico Carpentier
Volume 23, Issue 1, 2016
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjav20/23/1
We're happy to announce the publication of the special issue of Javnost
- The Public, entitled "Anchoring the Critical in Media Research". Below
you will find the Table of Contents (including the link to one article
that is offered as open access) and all abstracts.
Nico & Ilija
++++++++++++++++
Grounding Communication Studies in Enlightenment Criticality: Scaling Up
Theoretical and Dialectical Ambition
Ed McLuskie
The New Spirit of Capitalism, Innovation Fetishism and New Information
and Communication Technologies
Marko Ampuja
Inequality and Liberal Democracy: A Critical Take on Economic and
Political Power Aspects
Paschal Preston
A Radical Democratic Reform of Media Regulation in Response to Three
Levels of Crisis
Hannu Nieminen
Beyond the Ladder of Participation: An Analytical Toolkit for the
Critical Analysis of Participatory Media Processes
Nico Carpentier
Open access >
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13183222.2016.1149760
Being (Truly) Critical in Media and Communication Studies: Reflections
of a Media Scholar Between Science and Politics
Kaarle Nordenstreng
++++++++++++++++
Abstracts
Grounding Communication Studies in Enlightenment Criticality: Scaling Up
Theoretical and Dialectical Ambition
Ed McLuskie
The Enlightenment produced theories of great ambition that aimed to
break from dogma, to put reason in the hands of humanity and to imagine
possible futures and then pursue them. The Enlightenment also brought
devastation to humanity in connection with research practices that grew
both abstract and narrow. Communication and media studies developed
largely outside theoretical debates surrounding restricted ambitions for
the scale of conceptual work, settling research into enclaved practices.
This article argues for a critical return to Enlightenment criticality
where an evolutionary perspective meets other ambitious attempts to
reach the scale of a philosophical anthropology in which “theory” aims
beyond the particular and the present. Three exemplars that lead to a
convergence of that aim are discussed, by characterising the work of
Jürgen Habermas, Harold Adams Innis and Thomas Piketty.
The New Spirit of Capitalism, Innovation Fetishism and New Information
and Communication Technologies
Marko Ampuja
The neoliberal developments over the past 30 years have received much
support from a set of ideas that can be defined as “the new spirit of
capitalism”. These ideas have offered powerful legitimisations of
neoliberalism, conceived as a progressive force that has replaced the
supposedly bureaucratic structures of earlier Keynesian welfare states
with market-driven network structures that allow innovations, creativity
and entrepreneurship to flourish. In this article, I will critically
examine the constituents of the new spirit of capitalism, in particular
its intimate association with liberal discourses of innovation. I will
then focus on how such ideas have come forward in recent information
society thinking via a discussion of Manuel Castells's influential
network society theory. This is followed by a critique of mainstream
understandings of innovation from a neo-Marxist perspective, with an eye
towards new information and communication technology and critical media
research in times of a growing contestation of neoliberal hegemony.
Inequality and Liberal Democracy: A Critical Take on Economic and
Political Power Aspects
Paschal Preston
After decades of benign neglect, the issues of economic and social
inequalities have re-entered the stage of mainstream political attention
and debate in the western heartlands of the capitalist system over the
past couple of years. On the face of it, this is no accident or
surprise. The renewed attention on economic and social inequality
unfolds against a background of very slow, partial and highly uneven
“recovery” from a major financial crash which emerged in the
north-Atlantic core in 2007–2008. In this setting we observe that the
growing attention to issues of inequality in recent times is not
unrelated to the manifest amplification of the longer-term trend towards
increased economic inequalities that has become more evident in the
period since 2008. This article will draw on (engage with) recent work
and debates in neighbouring academic fields (political economy, economic
sociology, political studies) concerning the sources, meaning and
implications of growing economic inequalities. It pays particular
attention to the high-profile work of Thomas Piketty on inequality
trends. The article will consider the implications of such research and
inequality trends for what now passes as liberal economic and political
theory and also for the study, forms, conceptualisations and practice of
political communication.
A Radical Democratic Reform of Media Regulation in Response to Three
Levels of Crisis
Hannu Nieminen
In the development of modern states, the media’s role has been
fundamental, as the organisation of national interests was their central
function. From this viewpoint, the media and its pivotal role in the
construction of “imagined communities” can be compared with other major
nation-building institutions, such as the education system, churches,
national army and civil service. These can be characterised as epistemic
institutions, creating and reproducing a form of knowledge that is
centrally constructed around national concepts and symbols. When
thinking how to revitalise democracy and create conditions for a new,
transnational political agency, we have to address the ways and means by
which the media are regulated today. If we accept the idea that informed
and active citizenship is at the core of functioning democracy, we need
to ask the role of the media in its production. The problem is that all
criteria promoting and providing democratic citizenship are already
stipulated in a number of international agreements and conventions as
well as in national constitutions; what is missing is a binding global
regulatory framework that would guarantee that they are not only
formally adapted to national and international laws, but also enforced
in practice.
Beyond the Ladder of Participation: An Analytical Toolkit for the
Critical Analysis of Participatory Media Processes
Nico Carpentier
Open access >
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13183222.2016.1149760
Participatory research is facing three challenges—how to deal with the
theoretisation and conceptualisation of participation; how to support
the research with analytical models; and how the evaluate the research
outcomes. This article aims to address these three problems by
distinguishing two main approaches (a sociological and a political) in
participatory theory and developing a four-level and 12-step analytical
model that functions within the political approach. In this analytical
model, a series of key concepts are used: process, field, actor,
decision-making moment and power. The normative-evaluative problem is
addressed by reverting to the critical perspective to evaluate the
societal desirability of particular participatory intensities. This
critical perspective—potentially—adds a 13th and final normative layer
to the analytical model.
Being (Truly) Critical in Media and Communication Studies: Reflections
of a Media Scholar Between Science and Politics
Kaarle Nordenstreng
This article is based on the author's contribution to the 2014 EURICOM
Colloquium with its call for “reflections about critique and its
conditions of possibility in the academic field of media and
communication studies”. The article intends to review the context and
nature of critical media and communication studies, seen through the
author's personal experience in national as well as international
spheres. While the testimony is autobiographical, an attempt is made to
contemplate career development from the outside unlike in conventional
memoires. This article is a prelude to a reflective review of the
author's professional and political life story, forthcoming as a book in
Finnish. The introduction gives examples of the use of the term
“critical” in the field of media and communication studies, followed by
a review of different ways in which the critical concept is used in the
literature of the field, leading to a reflection on the precarious
relationship between the intellectual and the political. A personal
testimony by the author then provides a case illustrating how a scholar
becomes critical under the influence of philosophical, political and
international factors. The discussion at the end offers some concluding
reflections.
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Nico Carpentier
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Uppsala University
Department of Informatics and Media
Kyrkogårdsgatan 10
753 13 Uppsala
Sweden
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) - Free University of Brussels
&
Charles University in Prague
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New article (open access):
Beyond the Ladder of Participation.
An Analytical Toolkit for the Critical Analysis of Participatory Media
Processes
Javnost - the Public, Vol 23, Iss 2 (2016)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13183222.2016.1149760
----------------------------
New article (open access):
Différencier accès, interaction et participation
in Pierre Morelli, Nathalie Pignard-Cheynel and Didier Baltazart (eds.)
Publics et TIC: Confrontations conceptuelles et recherches empiriques (2016)
http://nicocarpentier.net/2016_DifferencierAccesInteractionParticipation_Carpentier.pdf
++
English version:
Differentiating between access, interaction and participation
Conjunctions, Vol 2, No 2 (2015)
http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com/article/view/22915
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DESIRE
Centre for the study of Democracy, Signification and Resistance
http://researchcentredesire.eu/
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International Association for Media and Communication Research
http://www.iamcr.org/
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ECREA mailing list
http://commlist.org/
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European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School
http://www.comsummerschool.org/
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E-mail (UUppsala): [log in to unmask]
E-mail (VUBrussels): [log in to unmask]
T (UUppsala): +46 (0)18 471 6341
Room (UUppsala): Ekonomikum building E329
Web: http://nicocarpentier.net/
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