På sociala medier såsom Facebook, Twitter och Instagram kan både förlag och författare informera om kommande boksläpp, specialerbjudanden och signeringar, och genom att ha en närvaro i dessa medier gör de sig utöver detta tillgängliga och synliga för människorna som köper och läser deras böcker. Författaren har dessutom möjlighet att skapa en relation till sina läsare som sträcker sig bortom böckerna och eventuella intervjuer i traditionella medier. Genom sociala medier kan läsarna följa författaren när hon får sin första recension, går på releasefester och skriver på sitt nya alster. Som följare kan man kommentera bilderna, ibland kan man också skicka direktmeddelanden och eventuellt få ett svar tillbaka. Den här uppsatsen tittar närmare på hur en svensk författare idag – Sara Bergmark Elfgren – förhåller sig till sociala medier i allmänhet och till Instagram i synnerhet i relation till sitt författarskap. Undersökningen behandlar också hur några svenska förlag ser på Instagram som ett sätt att marknadsföra sig och skapa intresse för sin verksamhet genom en närvaro på Instagram. Uppsatsen behandlar även den litterära offentligheten och diskuterar hur den idag sträcker sig längre än till dagstidningarnas kulturdelar och recensioner på teve.

This thesis shows how democratic politics requires a commitment to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other in their otherness. I contend that it is necessary to commit to such an idea of pluralism because of the problem of incomplete understanding. I establish this premise by drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Based on this premise, I argue that the instantiation of Gadamer’s principle of openness leads democratic politics to pluralism as engagement and encounter of the other. Further, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. In chapter 1, I establish discourse as a necessary element for democratic politics by drawing from the way Jurgen Habermas uses ‘discourse ethics’ to address the problems of understanding in plural societies. In chapter 2, I demonstrate how incomplete understanding poses a problem for discourse and gives rise to interpretive conflicts by drawing from Gadamer’s account of human finitude. Here I also develop an account of openness as a suitable principle for beings with incomplete understanding based on Gadamer’s idea of hermeneutical experience. In chapters 3-5, I develop accounts of asymmetric reciprocity, reflexivity, and agonism as modes of democratic politics that instantiate the principle of openness. I do so by drawing from Iris Young’s, John Dryzek’s, and Chantal Mouffe’s approaches to the problems that plurality poses to discourse ethics and democratic politics.

Ce mémoire offre une lecture des fondements épistémologiques de la modernité. Plus concrètement, il explore un dialogue entre Reinhart Koselleck et Jürgen Habermas. Ce dialogue a d’abord pour objet l’exposition d’une compréhension commune de ce que l’on appelle le moment épochal de la modernité : c’est-à-dire de l’espace historique à partir duquel les théoriciens ont conçu – et conçoivent encore aujourd’hui – la modernité. Pour révéler cet accord, nous offrons une analyse du concept de Neue Zeit, notamment dans son rapport à l’histoire prémoderne. Cependant, et malgré cette compréhension commune, nous soulignons que les auteurs diffèrent quant au rôle qu’occupe la Neue Zeit dans la formation de la modernité. Pour mettre en lumière ce désaccord, nous présentons le concept de modernité esthétique. Ce dialogue, présenté en deux temps, nous permet de révéler, dans un troisième, que si Koselleck fait de la temporalité un moteur de l’histoire, Habermas y voit là plutôt un effet du processus de rationalisation historique. La pertinence de cette recherche repose sur sa capacité à illustrer les différences substantielles quant aux justifications sollicitées par les deux auteurs lors du dialogue. Pour être plus précis, nous avançons que si un accord substantiel relie les deux auteurs quant à leur lecture de l’histoire prémoderne, que celui-ci est descriptif, et non théorique. Ce faisant, il est possible à notre recherche de spécifier pourquoi un accord relie les deux auteurs quant à leur théorisation de l’histoire prémoderne, mais non pas sur la modernité elle-même. / This research aims to circumscribe the epistemological foundations of modernity. It does so by an analysis of the crisis of modernity. To be more precise, we explore a dialogue between Reinhart Koselleck and Jürgen Habermas. The intent of this conversation is to show a common understanding of the epochal moment of modernity. That is, the theoretical boundaries in which the foundational moment of modernity was, and still is, theorized. To reveal this agreement, we analyze the concept of Neue Zeit in its relation to premodern history. In doing so, we show that both thinkers recognise the importance of a new time, understood as an open future. Moreover, both thinkers differ as to the role and position of the Neue Zeit in the foundation of modernity. To reveal this disagreement, we present the concept of aesthetical modernity. In doing so, our research shows that as Koselleck sees temporality as a driving historical force, Habermas disagrees and sees it rather as a result of a historical rationalisation process. Furthermore, our research reveals a substantial disagreement as to the reasons underlying this dialogue. Notably, we claim that the common ground that links both thinkers in their understanding of premodern history is descriptive, rather than theoretical. That is, it refers to the empirical content of history, and not to it’s underlying causes. With that claim in hand, we offer to explain why both thinkers agree on their understanding of premodern history, but not on modern history itself.

The Western liberal democracy is today challenged and criticised, mainly from a right-wing nationalist side, but also from a left-wing side. What both sides have in common is a disapproval of universalistic structures, which can be concluded as an opposition against a thinking derived from the modern Enlightenment era. This postmodern critique can be traced back to the 1960’s and the uprising of critical movements, such as poststructuralism. Michel Foucault, a significant postmodern thinker, identified his work to be linear to the work of Immanuel Kant – a highly anticipated Enlightenment thinker. How can this be? The aim of this study, based on modern and postmodern interpretations, is to analyse the roots of the Enlightenment in order to see if the postmodern critique is an extension or backlash to the tradition of Enlightenment and how it may affect the idea of liberal democracy. This can provide valuable insights whether the critique is an attempt to reform or destroy the tradition of Enlightenment, and ultimately, the liberal democracy of the west. The result states that the postmodern critique mostly has its origin in the Enlightenment and therefore, in most cases, should be seen as an attempt to reform rather than destroy Enlightenment thinking and the liberal democracy. However, despite providing unquestionable legitimate critique, the postmodern thinking does not offer a plausible alternative to the current system and should therefore remain as a tool of providing critique.

Public power in democratic society emanates from the citizens and is, in its turn, responsible to them. The citizens are entitled to observe, scrutinize and influence it. The public consists of private individuals actively engaged in public affairs and coordinating this activity with others. The present essay is concerned with Jürgen Habermasʼ concepts of the public in his The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Theory of Communicative Action, and Between Facts and Norms. At first, these works are interpreted and critically evaluated here. Then, the issue of the public is developed with special emphasis on the concept as it is elaborated in Between Facts and Norms. This essay tries to characterize the civil public and pursues the question how it is positioned in the larger frame of the civil society. The public is studied from the point of view of its influence in society. Habermas ascribes a substantial role to the public, for, according to his idea of the deliberative democracy, the public takes a part in the democratic processes of lawmaking and that by means of a dialogue with the public power. In this perspective, the public is conceived of as communicative power. This dissertation concentrates on the origins and forming of the communicative power and the ensuing process of its...

The aim of this study is to examine the Swedish social orientation law. The question that we seek to answer is “how the social communicators interpret the social orientation law?” The findings in this study are based on a qualitative method of semi-structured interviews and the study participants are six social communicators from six different municipalities. The data that we gathered was analyzed by Jurgen Habermas perspective of lifeworld and system. The main findings show that the nonspecific character of the social orientation law made the social communicator’s interpretation of the law highly subjective. With the use of Habermas, we interpreted this as a colonization of the system made by the lifeworld. Other findings show that the social communicators felt that they had too much of a scope in the shaping of the social orientation law and that they in many cases used their own past experiences as immigrants as a tool when teaching. At the same time, they felt that the role as a social communicator was not well defined and because of this they were not sure of what their work duties were. We hope that the findings in this study show that the lax approach that the Swedish government has had with the integration policy, may need some changes in the form of stronger directives.

Novel communication barriers, innovative obstacles to mutual understanding that deviate from the norms of the actual world, are a recurring yet understudied presence in aesthetic worlds of all kinds. Some examples of this are Dana’s twentieth-century way of speaking that travels back in time with her in Kindred, or Americans under Japanese occupation struggling to speak through cultural and linguistic barriers in an alternate historical timeline in The Man in the High Castle, or the unique obstructions to communication in the alien encounters of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness or Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life.” In certain works, communication barriers carry such a novel character and occupy such a prominent place in the narrative that they call out for interpretation at a metadiegetic level. In previous scholarship, linguistic inventiveness has been studied primarily for the ways it speaks to science fiction genre distinctions. This essay aims to reveal how the recurrence of this foregrounded literary mechanism points to a transcultural and transhistorical tendency that goes beyond science fiction. With the aim of proving its usefulness in world literature studies, the goal is to analyze the presence of the novel barrier in seven different texts and how it projects a certain theory of the world. Using Darko Suvin’s concept of the novum and Eric Hayot’s metadiegetic structures I argue that novel communication barriers have in their nature a foregrounding effect that projects a kind of worldedness that accounts for the way communication is conceptualized and experienced. Using Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communication to substantiate this worldedness, I demonstrate how the motivation toward rational consensus on truth claims behind each act of communication has a world-creating effect which is articulated by the novel communication barrier in these texts.

Uppsatsen handlar om hur välfärdsstaten förändrats sedan slutet av nittiotalet. Arbetet fokuserar på frågor om arbetsmarknad, arbetslöshet och arbets- marknadspolitik men även på hur sociala investeringar kan förstås som ett nytt sätt att se på sociala insatser. Det teoretiska ramverket utgörs av Jürgen Habermas arbeten om det senkapitalistiska samhällets framväxt, välfärdsstatens förutsättningar och begreppen legitimitet och legitimitetskriser. Uppsatsens syfte är att visa hur man med hjälp av Habermas teorier om det senkapitalistiska samhällets utveckling, legitimitet och legitimitetskriser kan förstå en välfärdsstat under press och framväxten av en aktiveringspolitik. Som en del av detta undersöks i arbetet sociala investeringar som ett socialt fenomen. Arbetet är en litteraturstudie med en teoretisk inriktning och inspiration har tagits från ett kritiskt, undersökande arbetssätt. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är att sociala investeringar kan förstås som en legitimerande insats och som en reaktion för att hantera minskad tilltro till välfärdsstaten.

Det demokratiska projektet har pågått i tusentals år. En av dess uttolkare och teoretiker är Jürgen Habermas som med sina teorier om deliberativ demokrati och Public Sphere formulerat teorier om mer jämlikhet och rättvisa grundat i den mänskliga kommunikationen. I detta arbete prövar vi Habermas teorier i modern kontext och utreder om informationsteknologin besitter kvaliteter för att möjliggöra denna kommunikation. Utifrån kritisk teori, datavetenskap och en demokratisk modell utreder vi även hur tanken om det gemensamma förhåller sig till en digital kontext och analyserar hur privat eller statlig äganderätt begränsar information som skulle kunnat komma alla tillgodo. Arbetet visar att informationsteknologierna blockchain och sociala medier besitter några av de demokratiska kvaliteter Habermas formulerat, men också att informationsteknologin brister på vissa andra bärande punkter. / The development of democracy is an old ongoing project. One of its main interpreters and theorists is Jürgen Habermas, who with his theories about deliberative democracy and Public Sphere formulated theories of more equality and justice based on human communication. In this work, we test Habermas' theories in a modern context and investigate whether information technology has qualities to enable this communication. Based on critical theory, computer science and a deliberative democratic model, we also investigate how the idea of the common works in a digital context. We also reflect and analyse how private or state ownership restricts information that could benefit everyone. The work shows that information technologies like blockchain and social media possess some of the democratic qualities Habermas formulated, but also that information technology lacks some other key points.

One of the most defining moments in the histories of British satire and the public sphere took place in the late 1790s in an abandoned house in Piccadilly. Here George Canning and several fellow conservatives began writing and circulating their weekly newspaper the Anti-Jacobin. Although the periodical has been critically neglected, it is a valuable model for exploring how literary (partisan) politicians attempted to form a rational and critical public sphere through their satiric poetry. Founded by George Canning and edited by William Gifford, the Anti-Jacobin seems to reflect a reactionary conservative's ideology and has been summarily dismissed because of this one-sided nature. In this essay, I suggest a more nuanced reading of both Canning's biography and his Anti-Jacobin poetry that will give a fuller and more accurate version of Canning, one that illustrates a moderate reformer who is concerned with centralizing the extremism of the 1790s.