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Questions and Answers
What does 'Demos' refer to in the context of democracy?
Who is associated with the concept of the 'public sphere'?
What does the notion of citizenship derive from?
According to Habermas, which medium played a crucial role in the emergence of the public sphere?
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How is public opinion characterized in the provided content?
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What negative effect does the control of mass media corporations have on public opinion?
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What is suggested to be the bottom line for media corporations in the text?
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What aspect of public opinion does the text highlight as constrained in the past?
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What is the primary goal of participatory politics?
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Which of the following is NOT a form of participatory politics?
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What method is associated with the organization Anonymous to identify individuals?
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Participatory learning shifts the focus from individual literacy to which of the following?
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What characterizes a monitorial citizen compared to an informed citizen?
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What is a responsibility that comes with participatory learning?
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Which approach do monitorial citizens use to gauge public policy?
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How do participatory politics and learning evolve in today's digital culture?
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What is a significant consequence of weak public deliberation according to Nancy Fraser?
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What does Max Weber imply about the 'demos' in the context of democratization?
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How has the rise of the Internet impacted media democratization?
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Which principle is NOT associated with new media as mentioned in the content?
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What is one potential downside of media democratization as discussed by Henry Jenkins?
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What are blogs primarily associated with in modern communication?
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Which of the following statements best encapsulates the impact of new media on political engagement?
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What challenge does the concept of media democratization pose to traditional media?
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What distinguishes The Daily Show viewers from those who watch traditional news?
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What skill should the monitoring citizen develop according to the content?
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What effect do docudrama and parody programs have on viewers?
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According to the content, what is a downside of digital media's influence on democracy?
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What concern is raised regarding virtual gated communities in the content?
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What is implied as a responsibility of the media in public discourse?
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What is a characteristic of viewers of The Daily Show noted in the content?
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What does the content suggest about the nature of news presentation?
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What technology is used to create misleading deep fake content?
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What is a common use of deep fake technology mentioned in the content?
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What term did Stephen Colbert coin to describe the quality of seeming true without necessarily being true?
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How has social media contributed to the spread of misinformation?
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What challenge does the post-trust era present to traditional media?
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What does the phrase 'Who watches the watchmen?' suggest about societal dynamics?
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What is a potential consequence of deep fake technology in politics?
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What motivates social media platforms to prioritize certain types of content?
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Study Notes
Democracy and Citizenship
- Democracy, derived from Greek words “demos” (the people) and “kratos” (power), signifies rule by the people.
- Citizenship, originating from the Latin “civitas”, was a concept established in ancient Rome to represent the collective body of Roman citizens.
- Closely linked to the idea of “city”, “civitate”, citizenship reflected the community formed by all its citizens.
- According to Rousseau, the union of “cives” (citizens) constitutes a sovereign and independent political association.
Public Sphere
- Jürgen Habermas defines the public sphere as the emergence in the 19th century of a space where private individuals gather as a public to discuss and debate matters of common interest.
- This sphere emerged largely due to the rise of modern media, particularly newspapers and coffee houses in the 18th century.
- It serves as a platform for discussions about the common good and societal practices.
Public Opinion
- Public opinion represents the consensus, agreements, and shared views held by the public, encompassing the citizens of a specific society.
- It arises from dialogue and discussion, transcending the simple sum of individual opinions reflected in public opinion polls.
- Historically, access to the public sphere and participation in public opinion formation have been restricted and regulated by mass media corporations and governments.
Public Opinion, Democracy, and Mass Media
- For much of the 20th century, major media companies controlled the flow of information to the public.
- This “narrow pipeline” of information limited the transmission of ideas that challenged dominant interests.
- Media corporations, driven by profit, commodified media, prioritizing commercial interests over public service and public space.
- Audiences were sold to advertisers as commodities, diminishing the role of individuals as citizens.
- This situation resulted in a weakened public, whose participation in deliberations was confined to opinion formation, excluding decision-making.
Media Democratization
- The accessibility of the internet, abuses of private and public ownership, and the hypercommercialism accompanying globalization have fueled the emergence of alternative media organizations.
- Individuals silenced by corporate media have leveraged their computers as printing presses, fostering a diverse range of voices.
- This opportunity has benefited various groups, including revolutionaries, reactionaries, and racists, while raising concerns among traditional media intermediaries and their allies.
- Decreased barriers to media ownership due to the wider availability of communication technologies have enabled individuals with minimal skills and access to relatively inexpensive equipment to establish their own media projects.
- This participatory engagement in media is widely recognized as a democratization of communication or media democratization.
Democracy and New Media
- The diversification of communication channels is politically significant because it expands the range of voices that can be heard.
- New media brings the public space and the realm of politics closer to individuals' everyday lives.
- New media operates with different principles than mass media, emphasizing access, participation, reciprocity, and peer-to-peer communication.
Blogging
- Blogs, short for weblogs, serve as a form of grassroots communication, involving summarizing, debating, and scrutinizing information.
- They are typically linked to other websites.
Participatory Politics
- Participatory politics involves interactive, peer-based actions through which individuals and groups seek to express their views and influence issues of public concern.
- Examples include:
- Sharing information through social media.
- Engaging in online conversations through forums, blogs, and podcasts.
- Creating original content, like online videos or memes, to comment on current issues.
- Using Twitter and other microblogging tools to mobilize communities for collective action.
- Building databases for investigating concerns.
Anonymous
- Anonymous, a collective characterized by the use of Guy Fawkes masks from the movie “V for Vendetta”, utilizes the internet to hold alleged offenders and the criminal justice system accountable.
- The movement has been involved in numerous high-profile criminal cases in Canada and the United States.
- Anonymous identifies individuals through a process called “doxing”, which involves online searches for clues across various platforms, including Facebook and comment boards.
- Information from different sites is interconnected.
Participatory Learning
- Today's networked world necessitates a new set of skills, social relationships, and literacies.
- Participatory learning involves a shift from literacy as an individual skill to a skill that focuses on connecting with others in a community and involves creation, sharing, collaboration, and networking.
- Thriving in a digital culture involves learning how to circulate information.
- Participatory learning enables individuals to participate in larger social networked systems.
- It also brings responsibility for the information produced and shared due to its potential impact on individuals in networks.
The Monitorial Citizen
- There is a transition from the individualized informed citizen to the collaborative monitorial citizen.
- Informed citizens followed public policy debates due to the information revolution at the beginning of the 20th century.
- Monitorial citizens engage in environmental surveillance beyond information-gathering.
- They possess expertise in certain areas, awareness of others, and operate within a context of mutual trust and shared resources.
- Monitorial citizens need to develop critical skills for assessing information.
Entertaining the Monitorial Citizen
- Viewers of "The Daily Show" demonstrate greater interest in the presidential campaign, higher education levels, younger age, and more liberal political orientation compared to average Americans.
- However, these factors do not explain the higher level of campaign knowledge among "The Daily Show" viewers compared to those who watch national news or read newspapers, even after accounting for education, party identification, political interest, cable news consumption, online campaign information access, age, and gender.
- "The Daily Show's" blend of interviews and spoof segments demands active and alert viewers to distinguish between fantasy and fact.
- Traditional news conventions reassure viewers that they have received all necessary information to understand the world, presenting information in a seemingly "fair and balanced" manner.
- Docudrama and parody programs, conversely, encourage viewer skepticism due to the unstable and fluid balance between competing regimes of truth.
The Downsides of Digital Democracy
- The new political culture reflects the struggle between commercial and grassroots media.
- Commercial media systematically monitor alternative media channels to identify content for appropriation and circulation.
- Old media retains gatekeeping power through its ability to amplify some user-generated content while ignoring others.
Virtual Gated Communities
- These communities allow users to select media content that aligns with their assumptions and political beliefs.
- A society where small groups easily indulge their tastes may find it challenging to achieve broader unity.
Deep Fakes
- Deep fakes involve the use of artificial intelligence software to create deceptive falsified videos, audio files, or images.
- It is nearly impossible to discern the authenticity of such content.
- This technology can be misused in various contexts, including politics and personal realms.
The Spread of (Mis)Information Online
- Social media provides opportunities for finding and accessing information that confirms pre-existing beliefs and forming communities based on those beliefs.
- Biased narratives, misinformation, conspiracy theories, mistrust, and paranoia spread readily through social media platforms.
- While traditional news outlets are not entirely objective, they have filters in place to establish a level of validity, unlike online media content, which can be produced by anyone without a guarantee of validity.
- Socially media algorithms encourage users to access information reaffirming their beliefs, as attention translates into revenue.
Post-Trust Era and “Truthiness”
- In 2005, US comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term "truthiness" to describe the tendency of politicians and others to abandon "facts" in favor of "truth".
- "Truthiness" is now more broadly understood as the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily accurate.
- For traditional media, this challenges journalistic ethics and practice, leading to a renewed emphasis on fact-checking.
- The underlying issue is a decline in trust in institutions.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- "Who watches the watchmen?"
- This question becomes increasingly relevant in a world where participatory culture is becoming prevalent.
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Description
Test your knowledge on democracy, citizenship, and the public sphere. This quiz explores foundational concepts from ancient Rome to the theories of modern thinkers like Jürgen Habermas. Discover how these ideas shape our understanding of society and political interactions.
