Internet involves possibilities for public debate and civic participation in democratic life. Space is provided on the World Wide Web for new communities and public discussions, both with and without explicit political intentions. The starting point of this study is that online discussions in everyday life, political or not, contribute to the reproduction of democratic and civic culture. The aim of the study is to analyze whether an un-political discussion forum in everyday life can be described as a public sphere and the discussion on hockey as communicative, democratic and deliberative. The data consists of contributions to the discussion from three seasons, 1999–2002, of the Swedish National Hockey League. The final sample, 3993 contributions posted during totally 149 days, have been undergone a content analysis. The results show that the discussion is open to anyone but dominated by one group of supporters and this status affect the discussion in several ways. The forum can be considered a public sphere principally because new areas and perspectives are continuously discussed. The participants cope well with language, truth and truthfulness but normative conflicts sometimes strongly challenge understanding. Yet communicative action is frequent enough to guarantee the survival of the discussion. The overarching character of the discussion is, due to its inequality, ordered structure and media dependency, a problem-solving democratic dialogue. Furthermore it is deliberative in several respects. Compared with political discussions on Usenet and America Online, the hockey supporters seek information and use arguments to a lower degree. On the other hand they interact much more frequent, incorporating and reflecting upon other contributions, and are much less homogeneous in their opinions than political debaters are. The conclusion is that an un-political discussion in the cultural public sphere shows even more deliberative merits than discussions in the political public sphere. In addition, by publishing new subject matters and perspectives and being a problem-solving dialogue with a potential for communicative action, the discussion is a soil for reproduction of civic and democratic culture for far more tangible reasons than just being an association of people in every day life, supposed to produce the more indeterminable qualities solidarity and social capital

Abstract: Title: The popular blog – on updating and its effects on vistor statistics Number of pages: 35 Author: Wilhelm von Sydow Tutor: Else Nygren Course: Media and Communication Studies C Period: Autumn 2006 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: To examine to which, if any, extent the update frequency of blogs affects their visitor statistics. Material/Method: Quantitative method, Swedish blogs, visitor statistics and updating frequency. Main results: No results could prove the causal effects of the relation between visitor statistics and updating frequency. A noticeable connection between the two variables could, however, be identified. Keywords: Blog, update frequency, visitor statistics, quantitative, Habermas, public sphere, Else Nygren, intranet, Matt Haig, business websites

La problématique de ce mémoire a pour point d’ancrage la conception antipolitique de la culture en Allemagne présentée par le sociologue allemand Wolf Lepenies. L’appel à la culture au-delà de la politique en RDA aurait bien survécu chez les intellectuels « officiels » est-allemands, d’où la survivance d’une tradition humaniste ancrée dans l’idéalisme allemand du 18ième siècle. Ce mémoire défend à titre d’hypothèses que le primat de la culture sur la politique en RDA n’était pas aussi omniprésent que ne le croit Lepenies, d’une part, et qu’il y a eu d’autre part instrumentalisation de la culture par le parti au pouvoir (SED), qui donna lieu à une idéologisation de l’héritage humaniste des classiques allemands et à une moralisation de la politique. En prenant en compte les intellectuels « inofficiels » est-allemands que Lepenies laisse dans l’ombre et à partir de la confrontation des idéaux-types de l’humanisme politique des Lumières, représenté par les groupes d’opposition qui œuvrèrent de concert avec les Églises protestantes, et de l’humanisme réel, compris comme un prolongement de l’idéologie matérialiste du marxisme qui inspira les politiques du SED et qui concorda avec une ritualisation du travail en RDA, ce mémoire explore l’antithèse de la démocratie et du totalitarisme à la lumière de deux types opposés d’Aufklärung : l’Aufklärung du citoyen et l’Aufklärung de l’homme. / The focus of this study is based on the antipolitical conception of culture in Germany presented by the German sociologist Wolf Lepenies. The appeal to culture beyond politics would have well survived amongst “official” East-German intellectuals, hence the survival of a humanist tradition anchored in the German idealism of the 18th century. This study argues by means of hypotheses that the supremacy of culture over politics in the GDR is not as omnipresent as Lepenies believes it is, on the one hand, and that there is on the other hand an instrumentalization of culture by the party in power (SED), which gave way to an ideologization of the humanist heritage of the German classics and to a moralisation of politics. By considering “inofficial” East- German intellectuals left aside by Lepenies and starting from the confrontation of the ideal-types of political humanism of the Enlightenment, represented by opposition groups which worked along with the protestant Churches, and real humanism, understood as an extension of the materialist ideology stemming from Marxism, which inspired SED politics and which corresponded with a ritualization of labour in the GDR, this study explores the antithesis between democracy and totalitarianism under the light of two types of Aufklärung : the Aufklärung of citizen and the Aufklärung of man.

This study’s aim was to explore how the social media Twitter is used by Swedish political leaders and how they manage the relationship between having both private and public conversations in a new public sphere, the social sphere. In Sweden, studies in this area are yet to grow. We achieved our aim by responding to our three questions at the issue: What kind of content is published in each of the politicians Twitter stream? Are the politicians private or public persons on Twitter? Are the politicians using Twitters interactive functions? We conducted our analysis by performing a quantitative content analysis. Our material consisted of Twits published by two selected Swedish politicians between September 1st to September 23rd, 2010. We based our study and results around the discussion of private, public and social spheres along with political communication. / Målet med denna studie var att undersöka hur det sociala mediet Twitter används av svenska politiska ledare och hur de hanterar relationen mellan privata och offentliga samtal i en ny offentlig sfär, den sociala sfären. I Sverige finns ännu inte tillräckligt många studier av detta slag. Vi uppnådde vårt mål genom att svara på våra tre frågeställningar: Vilken typ av innehåll publiceras i de respektive politikernas Twitterflöden? Är politikerna privata eller offentliga personer på Twitter? Använder sig politikerna av Twitters sociala funktioner? Vi genomförde vår analys med hjälp av metoden kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Vårt material bestod av Twitterinlägg publicerade av två utvalda svenska politiker mellan 1 september och 23 september 2010. Vi baserade vår studie och våra resultat på diskussioner kring privata, offentliga och sociala sfärer samt politisk kommunikation.

This thesis focuses on the architectural production of Red Vienna in 1920s to examine the bourgeois conception of social housing program in a governmental socialist understanding of housing. Having a structural transformation through the First World War, Vienna became the enclave of Socialist Democrat Party and thereafter underwent radical housing and cultural transformative programs. Within these programs, it was intended to give the working-class the accurate social position by means of provided accessibility to their own private and public spheres. Among a wide range of housing examples built during the governance of the party, Karl Marx Hof, one of the largest projects, has been chosen to examine the reflections of bourgeois conception of culture. Based on the contradictory discourse and practices in political, architectural and cultural realms, the aim of the research is to redefine the privacy of the dwellings and the public qualities of the common spaces and thereafter to situate the proletarian housing in relation to bourgeois spatial values within the history of domestic space in Vienna.

本文所要處理的問題為：「公共」的內容究竟為何？以及在福利國家的脈絡下公私之間如何互相滲透？本文採用Naomi Pfeffer與G. Majone的見解，將福利國家分為命令與控制型模式(command and control model)與規制型國家(regulatory state)。而這二種模式的差異可以由統治(government)和治理(governance)兩字得到說明，前者與命令與控制型相關，後者則與規制型相關。而所謂「治理」之概念，即一種國家權力向社會回歸的現象。本文以哈伯瑪斯《公共領域的結構轉型》為理論背景，探討現代國家職能由福利國家的興起與轉型之國家與社會關係與公私融合的過程。 / The main purposes of this thesis are: (1) discuss the transformation of the relationship of state and society under the process of “‘societalization’ of the state” and “‘stateification’ of society” through the rise and transformation of the welfare state; (2) examine the theories of “publicness”, “public/private distinction”, and the phenomena of “public-private mix” to study the mutual relation between the public and the private; (3) review and criticize the selected public policy. The public/private distinction has declined under the welfare state nowadays. On the topic of welfare state, this thesis applies the opinions of Naomi Pfeffer and G. Majone that divide the welfare state into the command and control model and the regulatory state. The words “government” and “governance” could interpret the difference of these two kinds of patterns: the former is relative to the command and control model, while the latter is relative to the regulatory state. In addition, the conception of “governance” indicates the process of authority returns from the state to the society. On the topic of public/private relation, this thesis adopts the theories of Jürgen Habermas in his book: The Structure Transformation of Public Sphere, through his ideas of public sphere and its relation among the intimate sphere and the state to explore the relation between the state and society. In practice, this thesis takes the case of turning the national university into the corporation (juridical person) in Taiwan, and introduces to the theories discussed above: see the university as a public sphere and its reform as the transformation of welfare state.

This thesis is a monograph on The Play about the Norberg Strike 1891–92, a pioneering project and performance relating to working-class cultural expressions. The project was initiated in the summer of 1975, and the first successful performances were held in June and July 1977. The democracy of cultural life was very positively manifested in The Play and in Swedish media, it was described as the first working-class play. It served as a model for other similar productions, set in many places in Sweden. The investigation began with field studies, which facilitated the choice of a suitable theory. A starting-point was that a specific working-class culture exists, subordinated to the dominant middle class culture. Social class distinction is an underlying concept for hegemony, and also for the spanning theoretical framework used in my investigation. It comprises a public sphere theory, formulated by Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge in their book Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung (1972). Their concept counter-public sphere is applied to The Play. The main purpose was to describe the characteristic features of The Play, by delineating and analysing the production phase, particularly the aesthetically elaborated parts, i.e. the script production, the staging, the performance, and the reception, all consistent with the working-class culture and the local conditions in Norberg. A more subordinated purpose was to complete the common definition of the term working-class play. The Play about the Norberg Strike succeeded in putting the negative influences of the bourgeois public sphere aside, replacing it with positive categories. The work processes were of vital importance, as was the forming of new platforms and communication channels based on the local working-class experiences and lives. Consequently, The Play became a genuine expression and a solid breakthrough for working-class experiences.

This dissertation is interested in how people talk about character in a variety of public spheres. Specifically, it explores the tangled relationship between authenticity and ethos, or what is taken as the distinction between intrinsic and constructed character. While this dissertation does not presume to settle the question of authenticity’s actuality, it does discuss the ways authenticity cues in rhetorical acts continue to influence how “sincere character” in those acts is understood, even as audiences exhibit shrewdness in recognizing that character is a purposeful manifestation of the rhetor. The fundamental phenomenon this dissertation seeks to describe is how people, with better and worse success, negotiate the dissonance between valuing character as authentic and as presentation and representation. Character in this view is a much richer and more paradoxical concept than many discussions of the term admit. A too-diluted study of ethos limited strictly to pinpointing credibility in an argument makes it difficult to articulate why an exhibition of character sometimes works and sometimes flops. Ethos in its fullest complexity is, and is not, constructed by any single act; it is the consequence of narratives, both of those narratives, and also what we say about those narratives; it is something we know about a rhetor, at the same time that it comes from what the rhetor claims to know; it is, most important, an appeal to authenticity, even when we know ethos is discursively, kairotically, and socially constructed. This dissertation offers an expanded definition of ethos as rhetorical transactions that rhetors and audiences mutually negotiate in order to determine the extent to which all sides will have their rhetorical needs met, and the extent to which all sides can assent to the those needs. The dissertation, using the works of Wayne Booth, Kenneth Burke, and Chaïm Perelman as its primary theoretical structures, offers pedagogic implications for these mutual negotiations. / text

In recent years, scholars have shown increasing interest in the concept of collective memory for structuring modern social understanding and political dialogue. However, surprisingly few studies have looked at the role that news media play the processes of collective political memory construction, reinterpretation, and change. This study contributes to the literature on collective memory construction, by helping clarify the means by which different news media serve as a site where collective memory is constructed, reinforced, and revised; and, 2) to identify which political actors and institutions act as sources to assert particular memory frames and what media subsidies they offer to influence the memory construction process. Specifically, the study undertook a two-stage longitudinal content analysis of news media to discern the ways former U.S. presidents (i.e., Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Ford) were memorialized in news media coverage at the time of their funerals, and then again in subsequent news media stories through 2012. The content analysis identified dominant news media frames and secondary attribute sub-frames as applied to former U.S. Presidents, and which news media sources and frame advocates are engaged in setting those frames. As a result, the study identified patterns of change and resilience in particular presidential memory frames as represented in news media, and found journalists—beyond other sources and frame advocates—play a significant role in both creating and revising those memories over time. A range of opportunities for further research are discussed. / text

The transnationalisation of economic relations and the emergence of supranational sites of policy-making and governance have been of concern both to 'affected publics' subject to the remote decisionmaking that such developments entail (and who have mobilised extensively to demonstrate their opposition to these bodies), and scholars keen to locate the possibilities for a democratic politics in the context of the state's subsequent diminishment (O'Brien et al., 2000; Scholte, 2001; Patomäki and Teivainen, 2004; Rittberger et al., 2008). One such group of scholars are public sphere theorists, who, taking up an ongoing concern with the conditions for, and criteria of, effective democratic participation in politically authoritative policy debates, and responding to these new dynamics, have begun to define a new research agenda in search of 'transnational public spheres' (Habermas, 1989; Fraser, 1991; Fraser 2007). That is, they have begun to look to the transnational for sites in which those affected by the exercise (or, indeed, absence) of political authority at this level strive to engage that authority in policy debate. In this thesis, I argue for the existence of one such transnational public sphere, which, being both provoked and constituted by the transnational peasant and small farmers social movement La Via Campesina, promises to be institutionally realised by the recently reformed United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Identifying and exploring key dynamics relevant to the CFS's aspirations for political centrality, inclusivity, and policy debate, moreover, I lay bare the challenges that confront the attainment of this promise.