scholarly journals Does really no one care? Analyzing the public engagement of communication scientists on Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Jünger ◽  
Birte Fähnrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Large Share ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Twitter Activity ◽  
The Impact

Recent publications question the public visibility of communication science as a discipline and its relevance for the broader society. To address this issue, we analyze the public engagement of communication scientists by using the example of their Twitter activity. We theoretically distinguish eight types of engagement and explore their empirical prevalence. The results show that a large share of communication is between peers, fulfilling social networking functions. Nevertheless, more than a quarter of the tweets are on political and social topics. In this way, communication scientists bring society into their scholarly community and thus act as bridge builders. They also reach diverse publics outside of science, such as followers from the field of economics. Our study thus highlights the diversity of connections between science and society and can offer a starting point to further research other fields of public engagement and the impact of the discipline on the public discourse.

scholarly journals A National Public Sphere? Analyzing the Language, Location, and Form of Newspapers in Finland, 1771–1917

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Jani Marjanen ◽  
Ville Vaara ◽  
Antti Kanner ◽  
Hege Roivainen ◽  
Eetu Mäkelä ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Mass Medium ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Newspaper History

This article uses metadata from serial publications as a means of modelling the historical development of the public sphere. Given that a great deal of historical knowledge is generated through narratives relying on anecdotal evidence, any attempt to rely on newspapers for modeling the past challenges customary approaches in political and cultural history. The focus in this article is on Finland, but our approach is also scalable to other regions. During the period 1771–1917 newspapers developed as a mass medium in the Grand Duchy of Finland within two imperial configurations (Sweden until 1809 and Russia in 1809–1917), and in the two main languages – Swedish and Finnish. Finland is an ideal starting point for conducting comparative studies in that its bilingual profile already includes two linguistically separated public spheres that nonetheless were heavily connected. Our particular interest here is in newspaper metadata, which we use to trace the expansion of public discourse in Finland by statistical means. We coordinate information on publication places, language, number of issues, number of words, newspaper size, and publishers, which we compare with existing scholarship on newspaper history and censorship, and thereby offer a more robust statistical analysis of newspaper publishing in Finland than has previously been possible. We specifically examine the interplay between the Swedish- and Finnish-language newspapers and show that, whereas the public discussions were inherently bilingual, the technological and journalistic developments advanced at different pace in the two language forums. This analysis challenges the perception of a uniform public sphere in the country. In addition, we assess the development of the press in comparison with the production of books and periodicals, which points toward the specialization of newspapers as a medium in the period after 1860. This confirms some earlier findings about Finnish print production. We then show how this specialization came about through the establishment of forums for local debates that other less localized print media such as magazines and books could not provide.

scholarly journals A Pilot Study on the Impact of Facebook on Perceptions of Police Force

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Wayne W. L. Chan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Online Social Networking ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Perceptions Of Police ◽  
The Impact

The legal authorities, particularly the police force, have been increasingly facing challenges given the popularity of social media [1, 2]. However, we know very little about how public perceptions of the police are being shaped by social media. In this context, this study attempted to investigate the impact of social media on young people’s perceptions of the police in Hong Kong. The focus of this study was placed on Facebook since it was one of the most popular social media platforms in the city. Facebook was not only conceptualized as a communication medium but also a social networking arena. In this connection, qualitative individual interviews were conducted to explore the online social networking on Facebook and its relation to the perceptions of police force. It was found that the Facebook users who were more likely to stay closely connected with other users with similar views would tend to form the politicized perception of police force. On the other hand, the Facebook users who were to be networked with some other users or real persons with dissimilar views would hold more neutral perceptions of the police. This study was the first of its kind to investigate the role of online social networking in the perceptions of the police, thus filling an important gap in our knowledge of the increasing impact of social media. Therefore, the results of current study were expected to contribute to society by avoiding the disproportionate public discourse about law and order. Keywords: Social Media, Online Social Networking, Public Perception, Police Force.

The Impact of Web 2.0 on Public Engagement in the Israeli Home Front (From the 2006 Lebanon War to the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict)

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Galit Margalit Ben-Israel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Home Front ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Asymmetric Conflicts ◽  
The Impact

This article deals with citizen engagement and public participation being in crisis on the Israeli home front, in the era of Web 2.0. Since 2004, Web 2.0 characterizes changes that allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, YouTube, hosted services, applications, WhatsApp, etc. Since 2006, Israel is involved in asymmetric conflicts. The research defines the impact of Web 2.0 on public engagement in the Israeli home front. The case studies examined in the research are: 1) The 2006 Lebanon War (July-August 2006); 2) The Gaza War (27 December 2008 and ended on 18 January 2009); 3) Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012); and 4) The 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.

Public Engagement and Policy Entrepreneurship on Social Media in the Time of Anti-Vaccination Movements

2020 ◽  
pp. 60-80
Author(s):  
Melodie Yunju Song
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Competing Values ◽  
Mmr Vaccine ◽  
The Public ◽  
Coverage Rates

North America has experienced a resurgence of measles outbreak due to unprecedentedly low Mumps-Measles and Rubella vaccination coverage rates facilitated by the anti-vaccination movement. The objective of this chapter is to explore the new online public space and public discourse using Web 2.0 in the public health arena to answer the question, ‘What is driving public acceptance of or hesitancy towards the MMR vaccine?' More specifically, typologies of online public engagement will be examined using MMR vaccine hesitancy as a case study to illustrate the different approaches used by pro- and anti-vaccine groups to inform, consult with, and engage the public on a public health issue that has been the subject of long-standing public debate and confusion. This chapter provides an overview of the cyclical discourse of anti-vaccination movements. The authors hypothesize that anti-vaccination, vaccine hesitant, and pro-vaccination representations on the online public sphere are reflective of competing values (e.g., modernism, post-modernism) in contemporary society.

Where Has Marxism Gone? Gauging the Impact of Alternative Ideas in Transition Bulgaria

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgy Ganev
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
First Century ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
The Public ◽  
Labor Theory Of Value ◽  
Labor Theory ◽  
Dominant Set ◽  
Theory Of Value ◽  
Post Communism ◽  
The Impact

Marxism dominated in Bulgaria for more than forty years until 1989 and then completely vanished from the public discourse within several years. Where has it gone? The present article addresses this question by noting that even if they are out of the public discourse, remnants of the previously dominant set of ideas should still be found in people’s thinking. It illustrates this general argument by outlining how the survival into post-communism of a pillar of Marxist economic theory—the labor theory of value—can explain several significant discrepancies between facts and perceptions, called the “experience gap,” shown to exist in Bulgaria at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On the other side, the presence of the experience gap in Bulgaria is a factor influencing the availability and the choice of policy options. Thus, the Marxist labor theory of value continues to live in people’s minds and still shapes today’s Bulgarian reality.

scholarly journals Prophetic witness: An appropriate mode of public discourse in the democratic South Africa?

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Second Step ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Church

The question asked in the heading was answered in this article in four steps. In the first step, an attempt was made to find an accurate account of biblical prophecy by means of a critical discussion of certain influential interpretations of it. In the second step, the extent to which biblical prophecy could serve as a model for contemporary Christians was discussed and an acceptable Christian model of prophetic witness was formulated by drawing on the views of different authors. In the third step, the impact of democracy on the prophetic witness of the church was discussed. The Dutch theologian, Gerrit de Kruijf’s view that the public prophetic witness of the church is not appropriate in democratic societies was criticised and the legitimacy of certain forms of prophetic witness in such societies defended. In the final step, a number of examples of the prophetic witness that is needed in the present democratic South Africa were provided.

scholarly journals Public Engagement - More than just fun

2020 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. 08025
Author(s):  
Greg Corbett ◽  
Ian Collier ◽  
Sophy Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Public Engagement ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Sustainable Culture ◽  
Computing Department ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
The Impact

Public Engagement (PE) with science should be more than “fun” for the staff involved. PE should be a strategic aim of any publically funded science organisation to ensure the public develops an understanding and appreciation of their work, its benefits to everyday life and to ensure the next generation is enthused to take up STEM careers. Most scientific organisations do have aims to do this, but very few have significant budgets to deliver this. In a landscape of ever tightening budgets, how can we develop a sustainable culture of PE within these organisations? UKRI/STFC’s Scientific Computing Department present how we have worked to embed a culture of PE with the department by developing our early career staff members; highlighting the impact PE makes at the departmental and project level; and linking PE to our competency framework. We will also discuss how our departmental work interacts with and complements STFC’s organisational-wide PE effort, such as making use of a shared evaluation framework that allows us to evaluate our public engagement activities against their goals and make strategic decisions about the programme’s future direction.

scholarly journals Delving Into the Details of Evaluating Public Engagement Initiatives Comment on "Metrics and Evaluation Tools for Patient Engagement in Healthcare Organization- and System-Level Decision-Making: A Systematic Review"

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-249
Author(s):  
Marion Danis
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Support ◽  
System Level ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Evaluation Tools ◽  
The Public

Initiatives to engage the public in health policy decisions have been widely endorsed and used, yet agreed upon methods for systematically evaluating the effectiveness of these initiatives remain to be developed. Dukhanin, Topazian, and DeCamp have thus developed a useful taxonomy of evaluation criteria derived from a systematic review of published evaluation tools that might serve as the basis for systematic evaluation. In considering the application of such a taxonomy, it is important to appreciate the political space in which health policy decisions occur. In this context, public engagement initiatives are likely to have a modest and unpredictable impact on policy decisions. Other goals, aside from influencing policy decisions, such as informing the public about issues, identifying the public’s values, enhancing public support for decisions, and promoting public discourse, are likely to be more feasible. While Dukanan and colleagues did not aim to do so, future efforts to align guidance for planning public engagement initiatives with evaluation tools would be useful to promote the success of public engagement initiatives.

scholarly journals HOLDING UP A MIRROR TO APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA: PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON THE ISSUE OF OVERCROWDING IN SOUTH AFRICAN PRISONS 1980 TO 1984 – PART 2

Obiter ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Allister Peté
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Apartheid Regime

During the first half of the 1980s, the issue of chronic overcrowding within the South African penal system formed part of an intense ideological struggle between those who supported and those who opposed the apartheid regime. Public debate around this issue acted as a mirror, reflecting early cracks which were beginning to appear in the edifice of apartheid. Since the prisons were the ultimate instrument of social control within the apartheid system, the ongoing crises caused by chronic overcrowding within these institutions served as a kind of “canary in the mine” for the apartheid system as a whole. The debates which took place during the early 1980s around overcrowding are also important because they form part of a common theme running through South African penal discourse as a whole. This article seeks to show how the debates on prison overcrowding which took place in the first half of the 1980s fit into a long-term pattern of recurring ideological crises surrounding this issue. The article is divided into two parts. In Part One, the above themes were explored through the public discourse surrounding the Steyn Commission of Enquiry into the public media, as well as the Hoexter Commission of Enquiry into the structure and functioning of South Africa’s courts. Whereas Part One deals only with certain early debates arising out of the Hoexter Commission – up to February 1981 – Part Two takes this as a starting point and traces a number of further themes which arose in the debates surrounding the Hoexter Commission between February 1981 and April 1984, when the Commission delivered its report.

scholarly journals Is there an I in Impact? Considering the two-way process of public engagement.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-93
Author(s):  
Isabelle Heyerick
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Personal Beliefs ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Society Research

This article is a critical reflection on public engagement and the concept of impact in UK research institutions, based on a recent experience. The UK impact agenda, driven by the Research Excellence Framework (REF), requires researchers to engage with the public in order to potentially have an impact on society.  This, I argue, constitutes the implicit directionality of impact as a one-way process. Recently, I provided a workshop for Flemish Sign Language (VGT) interpreters entitled ‘I interpret, therefore I am’ at the Faculty of Arts of the KU Leuven (Antwerp, Belgium). The aim of the workshop, in line with the impact agenda, was to increase participants’ awareness about the interpreting process and change their perception of how an interpreter’s personal beliefs potentially influence his/her linguistic choices. However, interacting with the participants also had an impact on my current research design and me as a researcher. This particular experience led me to reconsider the implicit idea of impact as a one-way process. In what follows I argue that, impact can and - in my opinion - should be a two-way process, encouraging interaction with the public in order to have a valuable impact on society, research and the researcher.

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