The purpose with this thesis is divided. First, it is to examine the online information traffic trends related to political communication and if the Internet is considered to be under surveillance. Second, it is to examine if the Internet can be regarded as a medium for Public Spheres. The thesis only focuses on the Philippines and takes the approach of the Internet users with focus on young Filipinos that are engaged citizens in the society.      The method of the study has been qualitative semi-structured interviews. A total amount of eight interviews have been conducted.   Using Bordewijk’s and Van Kaams model and terminology, the study’s results show that the users exhibit strong allocution and consolation trends but vaguer conversation and registration trends. The Internet was not thought to be under surveillance or monitored. Internet does not work as a medium for creating one holistic, or several smaller, Public Spheres in the Philippines today – foremost due to the harsh Internet environment that for example includes cyber bulling.

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Les critères d’accès à la citoyenneté « moderne » qui ont été élaborés pour les colonisé·e·s après la seconde guerre mondiale, comportent dès le départ une forte dimension genrée. Bien que ces normes voient le jour dans un contexte réputé pour son ouverture à une relative libéralisation de la vie sociale et politique, les restrictions qu’elles comportent et les mécanismes de leur mise en œuvre mettent à jour le souhait des autorités coloniales de contrôler un changement devenu inévitable. Elles instituent alors une sphère publique dans laquelle, elles sont garantes de la légitimité des interlocuteurs.trices qui y officient. Les soubassements disqualifiant qui régissent la participation politique moderne à l’origine, ont eu un effet durable sur la manière dont ce processus est investi par les autorités, les populations et l’historiographie. Ainsi, dans le cas du Cameroun, la construction genrée de la citoyenneté abouti d’une part, à une présence marginale des femmes au sein des instances politiques – et dans l’espace politique conventionnel, de manière générale – et, d’autre part, à leur sous-representation dans l’historiographie politique du Cameroun. Pour autant, cette sous-représentation des femmes dans l’histoire et la vie politique ne traduit pas une participation politique négligeable, mais, plutôt, une visibilité différenciée des hommes et des femmes dans la sphère publique. Ce travail vise alors à démontrer que des Camerounaises manifestent constamment la volonté de s’imposer comme agentes politiques. Dans une approche qui étend le périmètre de la participation politique à des modes d’action ne relevant pas uniquement de la modernité occidentale, cette recherche éclaire les actions politiques plurielles (collectives ou individuelles) de ces femmes. / Since the beginning, the access requirements to the “modern citizenship” developed for colonized people after the Second World War have a strong gendered dimension within their configuration. Although theses norms and regulations are emerging in a context renowned for its opening to a relative liberalization of social and political life, the limitations they contain plus the mechanisms of their implementation shed some light on the desire of the colonial authorities to seriously consider the inevitable change. They then set up a public sphere in which they guarantee the legitimacy of the interlocutors presiding there. The disqualifying underpinnings of the modern political participation have had a lasting effect on how the whole process is invested by authorities, populations and historiography. Thus, in the case of Cameroon, the gendered construction of citizenship lead to a marginal presence of women in political bodies – and more precisely in the formal political field –, as well as in the country’s political historiography. However, this underrepresentation within political space and history does not mean that women involvement in politics is insignificant. It reflects, rather, a visible distinction of men and women in the public sphere. So, this work aims to prove that Cameroonian women stand out as political agents on a constant basis. By extending the perimeter of political participation to actions, not being only derived from Western modernity, this research reveals the varied political actions (collective or individual) taken by these women

The city of Valparaiso is an incredibly complex city with multiple actors each with a different cultural agenda. Compounded by the unclear laws and politics surrounding the 2003 UNESCO world heritage designation, it is an urban center brimming with tension. Within this space, graffiti articulates an unmediated, anti-hegemonic voice within the public sphere. The tactics and strategies used to disseminate this cultural expression have allowed graffiti to find a tenuous, if ever present existence in the city. Paradoxically, as the individual authors tactically and strategically align to produce a forceful graffiti movement, they have also put themselves and their graffiti in a position where it can be usurped and used for the purposes of promoting Valparaiso as a hip, bohemian site of authentic, consumable culture. Graffiti can be read as a written signal of disaccord, yet its move into the codified gallery spaces of Chilean government re-inscribe graffiti within a historical cannon determined by cultural and government authorities. By exploring graffiti in São Paulo as a parallel to graffiti in Valparaiso and the Expo Graffiti Porteño, I problematize the practice of delineating graffiti into categories of art verses vandalism. This division is polemical and divisive and obscures the significance of all and any graffiti within the public sphere. Ultimately, this project seeks to examine graffiti’s marginal position and the consequences of its acceptance by institutions that confer artistic or cultural legitimacy. / text

This thesis examines the emergence and current situation of community radio stations in Taiwan, which have been perceived as an important part of a media public sphere for people to access and participate in. It therefore needs to consider community and community radio stations in both Western and Taiwanese contexts, and work by Habermas and others concerning the `public sphere' with reference to the current situation. In-depth interviews, content analysis and document analysis have been used in collecting research data. The factors which influence the development of community radio stations as an aspect of the public sphere in Taiwanese society are shown to be the impact of the state, in the first place, and then commercial market pressures. In addition, the development of communication technology has shown its potential effects by re-defining the meaning of `community' and `radio station'. The research goes on to examine the institution and output of the community radio stations, their interaction with society, and their relationship with their users. We find that the development of community radio stations in Taiwan is characterised by diverse formations: they are public spaces for the members of community to share and discuss public issues; they are hybridised public spheres for people to share personal emotion and talk about private affairs; they are also an expansion of the broadcasting market to further commercial interests. However, this development of community radio stations reflects the social reality of the existing and necessarily plural public spheres

We are at a particular moment in history where new technologies are changing the way films are made, distributed, and screened, as well as how audiences interact with documentary texts and discourses. This dissertation project questions documentary's instrumentality in the public sphere in two parts. Using the response to Ken Burns' The War, as a point of departure, it first addresses the lacuna of theory and scholarship on documentary films, owed largely to its nascent arrival in academia as a dedicated field of study. Using the films and the public response around the films, I point out the problems with how documentary has been understood in both public and academic thought, with particular emphasis on truth claims, subjectivity narratives, and audience identification, as well as production techniques as rhetoric. Secondly the project takes two cases studies to examine these issues in documentary discourse and to exemplify the ways technology is changing documentary as we know it, one a reality television show focused on teenage mothers and the other Michael Moore's well known film Fahrenheit 9/11. Ultimately I argue that we are in a new era of documentary production that may be characterized by its interactivity between films, publics, and discourses. It is my hope that by combining my practical knowledge of documentary production for film and television with academic scholarship I will provide a valuable text for documentary theorists and rhetoricians alike. / text

This study investigates the emergence of civil society in China. The existence and sustainability of civil society in China has bearing on the countrys further economic, political and social development. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, this study employs secondary statistical data as well as individual and focus groups interviews to address the emergence of civil society and intellectuals in China. The position of this paper is that Chinese civil society has developed in fits and starts since the beginning of economic liberalization in 1978. This contributed to changes in the political and social spheres, allowing more autonomous bodies to grow out of society as well as state structures, and facilitating the emergence of Chinese civil society. Intellectuals in particular have been able to exercise their autonomy in the Chinese policy process, influencing the direction of state policy towards their own interests, and consequently strengthening the public sphere and civil society.<p> Chinese civil society is punctuated by the influence of the historical, cultural, and political factors that constitute the form of its institutions, organizations and associations, as well as how these social actors communicate in the public sphere. It differs from that generally found in western countries. Unlike the west, it does not exist in opposition to the state. Instead, Chinese institutions of civil society also exist at the interstices between state and society and across them as well. This entwining entanglement of civil society with the state is indicative of the specific social, political, economic, and cultural conditions that have contributed to its development.<p> As it continues to emerge, Chinese civil society is increasingly becoming a sphere of identity formation, social integration, and cultural reproduction.

This study investigates the emergence of civil society in China. The existence and sustainability of civil society in China has bearing on the countrys further economic, political and social development. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, this study employs secondary statistical data as well as individual and focus groups interviews to address the emergence of civil society and intellectuals in China. The position of this paper is that Chinese civil society has developed in fits and starts since the beginning of economic liberalization in 1978. This contributed to changes in the political and social spheres, allowing more autonomous bodies to grow out of society as well as state structures, and facilitating the emergence of Chinese civil society. Intellectuals in particular have been able to exercise their autonomy in the Chinese policy process, influencing the direction of state policy towards their own interests, and consequently strengthening the public sphere and civil society.<p> Chinese civil society is punctuated by the influence of the historical, cultural, and political factors that constitute the form of its institutions, organizations and associations, as well as how these social actors communicate in the public sphere. It differs from that generally found in western countries. Unlike the west, it does not exist in opposition to the state. Instead, Chinese institutions of civil society also exist at the interstices between state and society and across them as well. This entwining entanglement of civil society with the state is indicative of the specific social, political, economic, and cultural conditions that have contributed to its development.<p> As it continues to emerge, Chinese civil society is increasingly becoming a sphere of identity formation, social integration, and cultural reproduction.

This dissertation is concerned with the impact online news readers comments have on the role of journalists and the implication it carries in shifting private sentiments onto a public space. Online news readers comments have recently grown in popularity and journalists across the United States are divided on how best to host this new public space. Drawing perspectives from new forms of journalism, sociological studies in race and gender, critical race and feminist studies, this dissertation focuses on a) the challenges of news organizations as hosts of this new public space and b) the racist and sexist discourse generated by audiences of certain online news stories. This dissertation employs a multi-method research design that combines a large scale survey of journalists in the United States, in-depth interviews with journalists, content analysis and a discourse analysis of online news readers comments from five selected news stories with strong race and/or gender elements in order to 1) gain journalists’ perspectives in this new electronic landscape and 2) examine the content of the comments that pose the most challenges to journalists in terms of hosting this space. The survey and interviews revealed how journalists are divided in wanting to serve their public by providing a space for dialogue but yet refusing to host hate. Faced with this challenge within the new electronic landscape, a majority of journalists are left on their own to determine how best to handle this new public space with hardly any guidance or support from news managers. The analysis of the comments showed that the articulations of race and gender in the discourse were not erratic expressions of a minority but instead repertories of racism and sexism that mirrored the string of findings from race and gender scholars. This dissertation finds that online news readers comments section have emerged as the space for unconstrained expressions to flourish without the constraints of political correctness and within the safe confines of anonymity. / text

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