Wahrheit - Geschwindigkeit - Pluralität
Chancen und Herausforderungen durch den Buchdruck im Zeitalter der Reformation
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing!": Competence Fields as a Means of Establishing Political Leadership
Abstract: Competence fields are conceptualised as an alternative to the median-voter approach to the relationship between political leaders and constituencies. The notion of competence fields assumes that prospective political leaders need be...
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Abstract: Competence fields are conceptualised as an alternative to the median-voter approach to the relationship between political leaders and constituencies. The notion of competence fields assumes that prospective political leaders need be regarded as competent in order to convince constituencies of their leadership abilities. It is argued that competence is a constructivist concept – political actors invoke claims of competence, backed by more or less strong, contextually dependent reasons in speech acts, by means of which they attempt to convince the audience of their leadership abilities. It is also argued that the construction of competence becomes particularly problematic in times of crisis, when pressures from the social context onto the prospective leaders make their claims of competence generally less convincing. Leaders are then expected to resort to all sorts of rhetorical devices and draw public attention to those competence fields in which minimal costs are to be incurred in o
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De la concertation à la contestation: quand la peur de la rhétorique envenime les controverses sociotechniques
Abstract: Over the last few years, the organization of public debates in situations of socio-technical or socio-scientific controversy has increased considerably. This should lead to a certain form of social peace due to the fact that each of the...
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Abstract: Over the last few years, the organization of public debates in situations of socio-technical or socio-scientific controversy has increased considerably. This should lead to a certain form of social peace due to the fact that each of the stakeholders - including citizens associations - are able to express their ideas and make their voices heard. In such conditions, how can it be that these debates, instead of easing conflicts, are more likely to radicalize the positions of the various parties involved, and to give the groups opposing the projects the feeling of being exploited? Part of the answer lies in the numerous systems aiming at moderating discussions, which may have been set up by the debates organizers not so much in order to prevent participants from going off the rails, but rather to avoid the development of convincing arguments. Some fear of rhetoric would then be at work. The analysis of debates and consultations, institutionally organized as part of controversial coal-b
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Totalitarian Communication: Hierarchies, Codes and Messages
Abstract: Totalitarianism has been an object of extensive communicative research since its heyday: already in the late 1930s, such major cultural figures as George Orwell or Hannah Arendt were busy describing the visual and verbal languages of...
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Abstract: Totalitarianism has been an object of extensive communicative research since its heyday: already in the late 1930s, such major cultural figures as George Orwell or Hannah Arendt were busy describing the visual and verbal languages of Stalinism and Nazism. After the war, many fashionable trends in social sciences and humanities (ranging from Begriffsgeschichte and Ego-Documentology to Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis) were called upon to continue this media-centered trend in the face of increasing political determination of the burgeoing field. Nevertheless, the integration of historical, sociological and linguistic knowledge about totalitarian society on a firm factual ground remains the thing of the future. This book is the first step in this direction. By using history and theory of communication as an integrative methodological device, it reaches out to those properties of totalitarian society which appear to be beyond the grasp of specific disciplines. Furth
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