Democracy posits that broadly based participation in deliberative processes will lead to laws and policies that are more inclusive and more just than the measures enacted by monarchs or powerful elites (Hauser 1999:5). Jurgen Habermas (1964) propounded the theoretical concept of the public sphere as a “domain of social life where public opinion is expressed by means of rational public discourse and debate” (Papacharissi, 2013:113). It is on such a platform that democracy is seen in action. Changes in socio-economic structures of states and advancements in communication technologies that have occurred in the last decades have facilitated a transformation in the character of the public spheres. The explosion of new media technologies has made it possible for average consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content in powerful new ways, thus fostering a participatory culture (Jenkins et al :2004). This research analyses the extent to which six videos categorized under the banner, “Hug a Muslim” campaign utilize YouTube as a platform for opinion sharing and for promoting public awareness of negative, stereotypical representations of Muslims. Such representations promote mistrust, suspicion, fear and other prejudices that associate Islam and Muslims with discourses of terrorism. Through critical discourse analysis, this research discusses power dynamics and discursive elements underlying the videos in the sample. Applying Gerard Hauser (1998) ´s rhetorical model of the public sphere, this research explores the extent to which online viewer comments accompanying the videos on YouTube adhere to the five rhetorical norms that determine their effectiveness as public sphere discourse, thus helping in establishing whether or not YouTube functions as an effective rhetorical public sphere in the context of the “Hug a Muslim” campaign. This study revealed that 58% of the analysed YouTube viewer comments on the campaign were compatible with the five rhetorical norms and thus reflecting YouTube´s function as a rhetorical public sphere in the context of the “Hug a Muslim” campaign. In an effort to further understand the motivations as well as underlying processes surrounding the creation and sharing of the videos, online questionnaires have been administered to the content producers of the videos under analysis in this research.

Abstract Print media reports on the SABC suggest that the public service broadcaster (PSB) is undergoing a crisis in terms of fulfilling its PSB responsibilities. Hence, this study examines whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. In examining the SABC as a PSB, theories of media and democracy and critical political economy of the media are used. However, this study also engages with the corollary theories of the public sphere, the public interest, PSB, and development journalism. The study uses the PSB characteristics of independence, accountability, distinctiveness and finance as themes to ascertain whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. The methodology of this study consists of institutional analysis, document analysis (which is split into a policy analysis and an examination of print media reports on the SABC) and semi-structured interviews. The study finds that firstly, the SABC’s independence, both politically and economically, is eroded. Secondly, although the SABC is accountable to the state and ICASA, the institution is not adequately accountable to the public it claims to serve. Thirdly, due to the SABC’s reliance on commercial sources of funding, the institution is increasingly shifting towards commercialisation. Fourthly, due to the SABC’s increasing shift towards commercialisation, the institution’s high-quality content provision is being compromised. Hence, the SABC’s distinctiveness in comparison to other broadcasters is eroding. The SABC’s violation of the central tenets of PSB is indicative of a governance crisis within the institution, but most importantly, it indicates that the SABC is not a genuine PSB. A core reason for the SABC’s inability to fulfil the central tenets of PSB and the governance crisis that has befell the institution, are flaws in legislation. The legislation that governs the SABC does not adequately ensure the institution’s independence from the government or its accountability to the public. Consequently, legislation governing the SABC inhibits the institution from fulfilling its PSB responsibilities.

Public art with religious themes or inspiration often represents, promotes, or challenges the concerns, values, characteristics, and/or history of the community in which this art is situated. This dissertation explores the contribution of public religious art to generating dialogue about social issues, in particular homelessness. It builds on scholarship indicating that publicly engaged art is a catalyst for promoting mutual understanding among diverse stakeholders with differing worldviews and joins an ongoing scholarly debate about the place of religion in a secular democratic society. As a case study, I use Timothy Schmalz’s bronze sculpture entitled Homeless Jesus, as an example of public art intended to generate public awareness about social marginalization and homelessness. Situated within the critical paradigm, this dissertation uses a case study methodology to explore the ways faith-based organizations and secular media elicit and use meanings through the representation of sculpture in public and mediated spaces. To gain multiple vantage points for examining the meanings and uses of Homeless Jesus, this case study draws on interviews with faith leaders at organizations who have a replica or are located near the replica in Hamilton, Ontario (n=12), online news articles that reference it (n=85), and photos of replicas in six urban locations. Data analysis proceeded through three stages: an iconography, a narrative inquiry, and a thematic analysis. This case study culminates in insights on the relationship between public religious art and public dialogues on social issues, such as homelessness. Findings indicate that public religious art is a mode in which faith-based organizations seek to contribute to public dialogues about social issues in a manner that is accessible and acceptable to those with differing worldviews. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Public art with religious themes or inspiration can represent, promote, or challenge the concerns, values, identity, and/or history of the communities in which it is situated. Using Timothy Schmalz’s bronze sculpture entitled Homeless Jesus, as an example of public religious art intended to generate awareness about homelessness, this dissertation explores the contribution of public religious art to public dialogues about social issues. To understand how faith-based organizations and secular media interpret and use Homeless Jesus, I analyze photos of replicas, online news articles that reference it, and interviews with faith leaders at organizations that have a replica or are located near the replica in Hamilton, Ontario. Findings indicate that faith-based organizations use art to contribute to public dialogues in a manner they hope is accessible to and respectful of those with differing worldviews.

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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. / Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)

This study seeks to understand public and institutional uptake of the public hearing genre. More specifically, this study examines how public hearing genre conventions are established and how those conventions inform and often govern tensions that arise in public discourse about a contested environmental project. In my research, I analyzed a corpus of public comments from two Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) 401 Water Quality Certification public hearings that were held in August 2017 and hosted by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ). Additionally, I conducted interviews with 13 community members and two state representatives who spoke at one of the two hearings. This approach led me to several important findings. Most significantly, I found that while many community members understood VA DEQ's stated purpose of the public hearings, they prepared comments that spoke to an entirely different purpose because they were responding to a different kind of problem than that of VA DEQ. This finding is crucial to understanding the other tensions and ideas of consensus that occur among citizens and VA DEQ representatives since the kind of problem informs the uptake of the public hearing and the overall interpretation of the public hearing genre. My dissertation thus argues that there are ways we might reimagine ideas of effectiveness, consensus, and the public hearing genre, specifically in the case of the 401 Public Hearings and more generally in other public hearings where public discourses center on a contested environmental project like the MVP. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study examines the role and effect of public hearings and the tensions that sometimes arise within them. More specifically, I analyze transcripts from the two 401 Water Quality public hearings about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). These hearings occurred in August 2017 and were hosted by Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ). Additionally, I conducted interviews with 13 community members and 2 state representatives who spoke at one of the two hearings. This approach led me to several important findings. Most significantly, I found that while many community members understood VA DEQ's stated purpose of the public hearings, they prepared comments that spoke to an entirely different purpose because they were responding to a different kind of problem than that of VA DEQ. This finding is crucial to understanding the other tensions and ideas of consensus that occur among citizens and VA DEQ representatives since the kind of problem informs how people prepare for and engage with the public hearing and the overall interpretation of the public hearing as a genre. My dissertation thus argues that there are ways we might reimagine ideas of effectiveness, consensus, and the public hearing genre, specifically in the case of the 401 Public Hearings and more generally in other public hearings where public discourses center on a contested environmental project like the MVP.

The notion of a nascent Arabic public sphere vis-à-vis the region s transnational news networks has been at the centre of much debate. However, this debate is met with little empirical grounding as well as a conceptual limitation to discussing political publics. This thesis seeks to contribute to and inform current debates by means of an empirical exploration of Arabic public spheres across the mediated-political realm of news media as well as the performative-cultural sphere of interactive theatre. The Jordanian parliamentary elections of November 2007 offer a framework for the research which is made up of two case studies. The first case study examines the portrayal and representation of Jordanian citizens in the news coverage of the parliamentary elections. Four transnational broadcasters (al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, al-Hurra and JTV) were monitored during the lead up to and post the elections (over a month s duration) and different modes of participation were identified in the coverage. The second case study explores the ways in which Jordanian citizens participated in interactive theatre performances about the elections across Jordan. The performances were specifically developed to ellicit responses from audiences in the form of discussion as well as role playing (in which the audiences assume the roles of citizens in a town hall meeting). Results from the two case studies revealed significant differences in the ways in which citizens participated, or were portrayed as participating, across the political and cultural spheres. The transnational media portrayed citizens largely as observers of the political process and, less frequently, as commentators on issues of public concern. The mediated public sphere was also found to be gendered and afforded Jordanian women less presence and access to participate. On the other hand, the cultural public sphere afforded citizens spaces to discuss issues of public concern as well as contest dominant and exclusionary narratives within their societies. Jordanian women were also found to negotiate change through the reinterpretation of the symbolic. These findings demonstrate that confining our understanding of Arabic public spheres to the political-mediated marginalises the diverse ways in which citizens do participate, particularly so in the case of women.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-47).

With more political and social discourse taking place online, particularly on social media, theorists have started labeling digital communicative realms as “online public spheres.” However, with the modern public sphere comes modern challenges to political communication; a core antagonist of which is political bots. Political bots are automated accounts that produce content and interact with individuals on political topics on social networks. In this thesis, I analyzed the presence of political bots on Twitter during the 2022 Swedish general election, and by examining the content posted by the bots, I investigated whether they jeopardized democratic functions of the online public sphere by publishing misrepresentation (i.e., artificially increasing the popularity of political actors and political ideas). The analysis uncovered significant bot presence during the 2022 Swedish general election; more than one-fifth of all election-related content was produced by bots, ~90% of which produced misrepresentation. I concluded that political bots jeopardized democratic functions of the online public sphere during the 2022 Swedish general election.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the People’s House in Bromölla as an arena for a plebeian public sphere. More specific, the analysis revolves around how the labour movement created a plebeian public sphere, the construction of the very arena and the activities there, including study circles, labour library, theatre plays, film showings, dance evenings and other amusements as parts of adult education among the working class people. It also comprises examinations of the labour movement’s acting in the local political arena, the labour movement’s connections with the local bourgeoisie on matters concerning politics and the People’s House. The main theoretical perspective is based on Jürgen Habermas’ theory of bourgeois public sphere, reformulated to a plebeian public sphere. The adult education in study circles mainly focused on subjects related to the work in the local politics and in the trade union, i.e. for the activities in the public sphere. These parts of the adult education were primarily a matter for the male part of the labour movement. This mirrors the situation in politics and in the trade union, where foremost men were engaged. Beside the trade union and political studies, subjects like Swedish, English, Esperanto, mathematics and literature were common. From time to time socialism and Marxism were studied. The women mainly studied humanistic subjects with individual development and hold thus the vision of the education ideologists within the labour movement. In the 1940’s the study circles decreased, and finally, in the end of the 1950’s almost ceased. Despite this the education did not cease, but were replaced by music, singing, dancing and machine sewing courses arranged by commercial companies and aesthetic associations. The People’s House was from the beginning open even for associations outside the labour movement. In the 1940’s and, in particularly, the 1950’s the People’s House became an assembly hall for a huge range of associations. Among the tenants were Free Church parishes, athletic associations, hobby associations, temperance societies, political parties from left to right, trade unions, authorities, companies, and the municipal of Bromölla. People’s house was also a place for wedding and birthday celebrations and other private parties. Among the more frequent tenants were Free Churches and music, singing and athletic associations, beside Bromölla municipal, which were a permanent tenant, for instance for the municipal library. The amount of associations from outside the labour movement among the tenants exceeded for some years in the end of 1950’s the labour movement’s meetings. This cross class policy was a conscious strategy by the People’s House association, in order to be a cultural institution for all inhabitants in Bromölla. The municipal council of Bromölla was even a part of this policy when subsidizing the People’s House association. It was in accordance with the cross class and consensus policy which the social democratic movement by this time was an exponent of. The People’s House in Bromölla was thus an arena not only for the labour movement, but also for the entire society.