This thesis examines the quality and effectiveness of online political deliberation, within the framework of Jurgen Habermas’ public sphere and discourse theories. The thesis analyzes a deliberative process that took place online, in June 2011, as part of the Liberal Party of Canada’s Extraordinary Convention, specifically through content and discourse analysis of data from online discussion platforms. The analysis sought to ascertain whether the objectives of the convention were met, measured the quality of discourse and identified insights to support the creation of more effective spaces for political deliberation online. Analysis of the results revealed a difference in the discourse quality for each platform, attributed to the synchronicity or asynchronicity of the platform. The thesis concludes with suggestions for a design that makes use of both the synchronous and asynchronous features of the online discussion platforms in order to more specifically target the objectives of the political process.

The aim of this study is to investigate how frequently religious actors participate in public debates, on what subjects and with what arguments. This is done by studying the debate pages of Sweden’s largest tabloid: Aftonbladet. Furthermore, the aim is also to study what forms of authority and arguments the religious actors use while participating in the public sphere. In order to answer the research ques-tions the author takes an abductive approach and uses the theories of deprivatiza-tion and mediatization to conduct a sequential mixed method study of Af-tonbladet’s debate page between the years 2001 and 2011. The results show that very few religious actors participate in public debates in Sweden, and that the small sample of articles signed by religious actors are dominated by the Church of Sweden. The Christian groups are represented by religious authorities to a much larger extent than the Jewish and Muslim groups. However, the arguments used by all groups are predominately secular, which would indicate an acceptance of the secular norm in the public sphere.

In this paper I explore how participatory journalism is changing organizational structure and production practices at the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto (CBC). Using practical action research I examine two sites of study that offer unique strategies on incorporating everyday citizens into the news production process: the use of citizen bloggers to supplement CBC’s coverage of the G20 summit in Toronto shows how diversifying storytelling improves the overall quality of news content; the mandate of Connect with Mark Kelly to democratize daily news by using ordinary people as sources and breaking traditional rules of production reveals a survival strategy for daily news shows. Through the lens of media logic, using the theories of convergence culture and the public sphere, I develop strategies to involve more citizens in the newsmaking process, thus invigorating public discourse and subverting news production that is designed to entertain instead of inform.

This study examined the civic properties afforded by Twitter and considered whether hashtag communities achieve issues-pluralism in order to facilitate at least some viewpoints to popular expression otherwise absent from print media. Data sources included Twitter hashtag communities that formed around the 2013 Alberta Budget and the associated print media coverage. This inquiry found that while diverse actors contribute to the formation of Twitter hashtag communities, the associated discussion failed to drive issues-pluralism. Twitter's most apparent value to civil society is information exchange--both in terms of tweet content and hyperlinked content and multimedia. In spite of this strength, Twitter is ill-suited as a communicative forum for civil society. Discussion uptake and opinion expression were relatively modest among participants, and the conversation was overwhelmingly dominated and driven by agents of traditional news media intent on perpetuating roles in content gatekeeping and who operated in the service of profits.

This thesis assesses the effectiveness of social media platforms, specifically Facebook and blogs, in facilitating women’s participation in the online public sphere in India. Discussion provides a literature review of the internet as a new public sphere and its impact and influence in enriching the existing public sphere in India. The study also reviews the relationship between the online public sphere and the role women play in this sphere through social media in India. The research is supplemented by a review study of the ‘India Against Corruption’ movement in order to demonstrate the case for the online public sphere. Moreover, the present study also provides a snap shot of how some blogs and Facebook pages are used by women. Taking as a case study the 2012 ‘Delhi gang rape’ incident, through a topical network analysis of the Facebook pages and blog articles, this research attempts to understand the role of these media in allowing women to discuss social issues and participate in the public sphere. Drawing from the analysis of blog contents and examining Facebook pages I demonstrate how the women’s voices inhabiting the online sphere are limited to a certain class and region. In the cases studied here respondents appeared to be predominantly urban and middle class. While the scope of the research is small, this is one of the first studies in the area, and the findings suggest that social media are becoming a significant communicative tool in India and that women are increasingly appropriating these technologies. The study also demonstrates that women are discussing issues which were previously considered as taboo like rape and sexual violence, albeit in small numbers. Lastly, I identify challenges limiting women’s participation in the emerging online public sphere in India.

Much recent scholarship celebrates the early modern period for its development of broader public political engagement through printed media and coffeehouse culture. It is the argument of this study that the formation in England under Charles II of a public sphere may be shown to have followed a reassessment of political discourse that began at Westminster during the troubled reign of that king’s father, Charles I. The narrative of parliament’s growth in this era from an “event to an institution,” as one historian describes it, tells of more than opposition to the King on the battlefields of the English Civil War. Parliament-work in the early years of England’s revolutionary decade also set new expectations for rhetorical deliberation as a means of directing policy in the House of Commons. The ideals of discursive politics that were voiced in the Short Parliament (May 1640), and more fully put into practice in the opening session of the Long Parliament (November 1640), were soon also accepted by politically-minded authors and readers outside Westminster. Prose controversy published in print and political poetry that circulated in manuscript both demonstrate that the burgeoning culture of debate outside parliament could still issue “in a parliamentary way.” Such promotion of productive textual engagements eventually constituted a wider, notional assembly, whose participants – citizen readers – were as much a product of deliberate education and fashioning as they were of the “conjuring,” “interpellation,” or “summoning” that recent scholarly vocabulary suggests. Following the spirit of reform in the English parliament, and subsequently developing through the years of partisan political writing that followed, public opinion, like the Commons, established itself in this era as an institution in its own right. These public and private assemblies disseminated the unprecedented amount of parliamentary writing and record-keeping that distinguishes the period under review, and this rich archive provides the literary and historical context for this study.

Pedagogic practice often involves preparing the student for different roles in society as well as personal development. The aim of the thesis is to investigate how the concept citizen is understood by single individuals and is shaped in pedagogic practice. Its theoretical starting points are taken from sociological theories about society and from theories about education. It is primarily Jürgen Habermas’ theories about society and communication that provide the framework for this investigation and discussion. Even the criticism which Habermas has received is presented and discussed. Society is presented as divided in a private and a public sphere where the individual fulfils the role as a citizen by acting in the public sphere. Four empirical studies are carried out; interviews with single individuals, observations at a folk high school, observations in study associations and analysis of reports from European projects where folk high schools and study associations participated. The public sphere that is most apparent is an every day, local public sphere where single individuals and participants in folk high school and study associations discuss common matters. In the discussion there are few references to public political discussions on national or international level. Assuming that citizen is defined broader than as a relation between the individual and the state, the study presents and discusses a variety of ways to act as a citizen within and outside pedagogic practice, and also the obstacles. The thesis provides arguments for a discussion about the concept citizen and citizen action within pedagogic practice. There are also arguments for independent citizen actions outside the pedagogic context. Thereby the citizen action can be brought back to the pedagogic discussion for reflection.

This thesis examines online journalism in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and its role in political debate in this emerging democracy. It also focuses on the role of the internet in the public sphere, explores the historical context in which Kurdish online journalism has developed and compares mass media in the Kurdistan region to that in other newly democratic countries, in addition to the mass media landscape, human rights conditions and political system in the Kurdistan region and Iraq overall are explored. Data has been collected through in-depth interviewing of journalists, both independent and affiliated with political parties, as well as media academics and other educators. Moreover, as a case study, a qualitative thematic analysis has been carried out on opinion articles in online news sites to search for key themes and messages published and explore the limits of free discussion online. The thesis argues that although there are many barriers to media work and freedom of expression, online journalism in the Kurdistan region is an alternative tool for expression and constitutes a better medium for promoting freedom of speech than mainstream media outlets. It then suggests recommendations for conducting further studies about the development and influences of online journalism and social media on Kurdish society.

110f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-04-16T16:21:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Ilca Menezesseg.pdf: 651126 bytes, checksum: 7317e68c70bdedb293ee0c1dd982092d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Meirelles(rodrigomei@ufba.br) on 2013-05-11T15:20:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Ilca Menezesseg.pdf: 651126 bytes, checksum: 7317e68c70bdedb293ee0c1dd982092d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-11T15:20:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Ilca Menezesseg.pdf: 651126 bytes, checksum: 7317e68c70bdedb293ee0c1dd982092d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / A esfera pública é um tema polêmico. Desde sua origem na sociedade burguesa, o ideal de espaço discursivo e deliberativo, em que todos podem participar, fazendo uso de uma razão esclarecida, exercendo influência sobre o sistema político, é fundamental para a democracia. Mas há grupos excluídos, e a mídia de massa, que exerce influência sobre a opinião pública, com freqüência atende a interesses privados, provenientes de grupos, partidos políticos, e pessoas com poder econômico e de influência. Na sociedade contemporânea, essas questões críticas permanecem e a democracia precisa de seus fundamentos básicos. Em vista disso, Habermas pretende reabilitar o conceito de esfera pública, na complexa sociedade. Ele nunca abandona a questão do caráter normativo da comunicação pública esclarecida em relação à integração social e ao controle das ações políticas. As teorias da ação comunicativa e da ética do discurso, em Habermas, valorizam a racionalidade comunicativa, inerente à esfera pública. Essa racionalidade tem potencial normativo para a auto-regulação dos sujeitos e também para a manutenção da ordem social, porque as leis são fundamentadas através do discurso argumentativo. Habermas teoriza sobre a relação entre a normatividade da comunicação intersubjetiva e o sistema de direitos, do Estado democrático, que exerce controle sobre a sociedade civil e o Estado. A política democrática deliberativa surge dessa relação, e configura, na sociedade contemporânea, o ideal de esfera pública. / Salvador

Reader comment forums of online newspapers, a relatively new feature of online journalism, have been called spaces of public deliberation. At their inception among large newspapers just five years ago, the forums were heralded as a new way for the public to advance public dialogue by sharing opinions in an unconstrained way, promoting the democratic principles of the newspaper institution itself. Rampant incivility, however, has since become one the forums' chief defining characteristics. By content analyzing comments from online newspapers that allow anonymity, this research confirms anecdotal evidence from journalists that Latinos are regularly debased in the forums by commenters following news on immigration. This study also compares the civility of anonymous comments following news on the Tea Party movement, a non-racialized but also controversial topic. Finally, civility is measured in the comments following news on immigration from online newspapers that have disallowed anonymity. In all, more than 22,000 comments from nearly 200 news stories in more than a dozen online newspapers were collected between 2010 and 2012, and a sample of 1,350 was coded. The analysis shows that online newspaper discussion boards that allow anonymity and that follow news about immigration predominantly contain comments by those who support tough immigration laws and who express themselves with emotionally laden, uncivil comments directed at Latinos. Similar discussion boards that disallow anonymity predominantly contain comments by those who support tough immigration laws and who express themselves with emotionally laden yet civil comments directed at Latinos. Overall, this research demonstrates that a racialized topic is apt to draw more uncivil anonymous comments than a non-racialized one and that removing anonymity elevates the level of dialogue. Building on the theories of the public sphere, reduced cues in anonymity and critical race theory, this paper demonstrates that in their new role in creating a new public square of open discussion, newspapers are sometimes creating forums for hate speech while also publishing content that is perpetuating negative portrayals of Latinos. Findings reveal that a new public sphere created by online newspapers, meant to promote democracy, is actually having the opposite effect for some minority groups.