General information
Code: P5-0051
Period: 4.4.2019
Project leader at FDV: prof.dr. Alojzij Slavko Splichal
Research activity: Social sciences
Abstract
The research programme is based on a comprehensive understanding of publicness, as advocated by the founders of the principle of publicness, Bentham, Kant, Marx, and Dewey, and further developed, analysed, and supplemented by many other authors. It is focused on six key theoretical dimensions and their empirical manifestations: (1) Visibility is the foundation of publicness as it brings to the forefront reporting on developments in the socio-political environment with important long-term consequences for citizens. (2) If actions of political authorities become visible, the public (as a social category and a "medium of publicness") can control political authorities and legitimacy of their decisions. (3) Citizens' access to the communication channels, which are necessary for their "public use of reason," encourages the formation and expression of public opinion. (4) Reflexive or critical publicity creates and cultivates democratic discursive order. (5) Mediation between the ruling and the ruled, between decision-making bodies and civil society is the foundation of freedom of the press, which, together with the right to public expression, is constitutive of the public. (6) Empowering the public through institutionally structured discourse enables the translation of public opinion into the formation of political will and its effective implementation. These dimensions also point to the key functions of media and journalism that our research will focus on in the period 2022-2028. Publicness, like its communication infrastructure, is not a static construct, but a dynamically structured process that is not external to other social changes, but is their (essential) part. While technology and software (e.g. algorithms, artificial intelligence) have a significant impact on the dynamic changes of publicness and journalism, which has played an important role throughout the history of publicness, they are not the only factors in its transformation. The transformation of publicness is the result of the interaction of new technologies (that enable and encourage changes in communication) and social actors who, with their needs, interests and values, also change the nature and functions of publicness. The nature of publicness does not change due to the technological characteristics of social networks such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, but depends on how they are used in society by individuals, and how society includes them in its development and accordingly regulates them. Based on these starting points, the research programme Mass Media, Public Sphere and Social Change will be conducted in the period 2022-2028 in four directions with four work packages: 1. Digitisation of publicness: theoretical (re)conceptualisations and empirical transformations, 2. Social consequences of algorithmisation and platformisation of communication, 3. Crisis of journalism in the relationship between government and the public and 4. Media regulation in the age of digitisation.
Research Organisation
https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/18991
Researchers
https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/18991
Citations for bibliographic records
https://cris.cobiss.net/ecris/si/en/project/18991
Back to list of projects