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Around the Bloc: Around the Bloc - Bulgarian MPs Pass Stringent Media Funding Law
Critics say law will do nothing to stem oligarch Peevski’s effective control over the newspaper business.
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Critics say law will do nothing to stem oligarch Peevski’s effective control over the newspaper business.
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The phenomenon of fake news is a very specific phenomenon and its significance is gaining momentum in the last few years. However, the phenomenon itself has its roots in a period as early as the antiquity. This article aims at defining the term “fake news” and at answering the question – how can a news be fake, how we can recognise it, what is it that makes fake news spread so fast and what are the ways and the measures that individuals, organisations and institutions can take in order to prevent and suppress disinformation.
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This paper analyses the use of Twitter among politicians, in particular with regards to whether it was actively used during the economic crisis to promote economic agendas or rather merely to inform people. Forty-three thousand tweets of EU15 governments were collected, analysed using qualitative data analysis (text mining) and computational linguistics, using R statistical packages, and interpreted. The results show that Twitter is used primarily to inform. Only in selected cases was the tool also used to more actively promote economic agendas. This article contributes to the field of political communication by providing, to the best of our knowledge, a broad analytical and comparative overview of Twitter activity for political purposes in Europe using text-mining methods.
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In Habermas' work Theory o f Communicative Activity the author discovers a basis for a normative founding of democracy he contemporary theory of democracy lacks reliable normative pivots which might help to explain the validity of democratic institutions. The remaining sources of binding norms can he found in the evolutionary degrees of growth that can be recognized In the historical process and in the layers of social and cultural traditions built into the so-called life-world. Following Habermas who finds presuppositions for an undistorted discourse free to show that the unaffected structures of the life-world can function as a normative orientation for the construction of democratic institutions.
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Lyotard asserts that different languages, those of science, literature etc. exist simultaneously, but are totally closed within themselves without mutual encounters. The consequence of this would be that a statement produced in one type of language or according 10 the rules of one linguistic game could not be translated into another type of language. The assertion about the enclosure of discourse within ns own linguistic game and about the impossibility of its semantic value to be transposed into statements of another linguistic kind is particularly noticeable when everyday communication is considered Standard language appears to be the locus where statements of different linguistic types meet the language of everyday living, standard language, is the locus where the basic meanings created in the various linguistic kinds come together, the relationship between everyday language and linguistic kinds does not flow in one direction. Everyday language is not just a passive receiver of impulses from particular languages, other verbal types depend in fact on everyday linguistic statements.
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Organizations whose main activity is public safety should in their strategy care about their surroundings, relations with surroundings, because in this field building the image of the organization and its reputation as well as relations with the society influence the ultimate shape of these organizations in the public safety field. Studying this field we should pay attention to issues associated with PR, marketing and the analysis of the information from the media, which have impact on shaping the image of organizations dealing with the public safety and social attitudes.
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The paper analyzes the limits and possibilities of journalism in the context of social development. The author starts from the modem definition of journalism as mass public communication of citizens — everybody, with everybody, about everything, with arguments, fully, and personally responsibly — and not as a one-way presentation of information to citizens by journalists. Reviewing the potential of such new journalism, transformed from a closed to an open and mass communicative activity, the author stresses the importance of public communication for the sustaining and acceleration of social development and progress in all spheres of human life and work. The old model of journalism, however, with its closed dissemination in the function of maintaining the control of the ruling oligarchies, has a retarding and detrimental effect on social development. Thus, the question of the role of journalism in social progress cannot be viewed one-sidedly; rather, it must be viewed dialectically, as an interaction of all the factors — social, communicative, educational, philosophical. Since the transformation of journalism from a closed into an open, mass communicative activity depends in the first place on the education of new profiles of professional people (communicators, presenters, editors, and regulators of public dialogue), the author concludes that the proposed changes should be accompanied by a new code of conduct for all participants in public communication (and not just journalists as is the case at present with the existing information codes).
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The present paper discusses five phenomena: censored press, self-censored press, free press, free public, and different national, religious and political homogenization. The author’s central thesis is that political democracy presupposes a specific character of political action with its own phenomenological structure. The space of continued realization of political rights is a free public, as a space in which different political interests and options manifest themselves. A free public as a space for political action is threatened by those forces which try to annul or restrict that space, and not by the religious or national views of citizens who bring their persuasions into the political public. The political public is never faceless: it Is always shaped by the character of people, their religious, national or some other commitments (for instance, scientific or artistic traditions). In this part of the paper the author briefly argues for the compatibility of historical traditions and fundamental political rights of citizens.
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Referring to Hobbes and later Hegel, the author notes that a ruler's first task is to transform the state of necessity into the stale of wisdom and freedom. This can be achieved by a revolutionary change of the entire life, basing collective life on scientific insights, or by developing a law-based state of a parliamentary type rooted in public opinion. Obstacles to free journalism are posed by totalitarian political systems of the kind that expressed themselves in this country in the project of dictatorship of the proletariat. The task of journalism was seen as interpreting and implementing the guidelines issued by the all-powerful Party leadership. Journalism can be a factor of political unity, but for it to be this, certain elementary preconditions characteristic of a modem parliamentary state must be satisfied, including the rule of law as the foundation of a law-based state, recognition of the basic human rights of individuals in society, and division of powers in the state.
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In view of their importance and influence, mass media are often, wrongly, regarded as part of the slate power. However, their function is to provide objective and complete information even about the views of the minority and to make known the pros and cons of every' issue, thus helping to find proper solutions for particular problems. The crucial question is how this role of the media can be ensured, having in mind their technological capabilities and the political challenges of the anarchist and populist elements of the modem democracy to which they are exposed. Defining the concept of communication at different levels — primary, secondary and mass communication — the author stresses the role of cybernetics as a revolutionary skill of steering and technical control of communication systems. In the light of the influence that the media have in shaping the lives of people today, a new media policy is needed, as well as a more critical attitude and greater responsibility on their pan. The question of enrichment of contemporary culture, with fiction, imagination and fantasy serving as communication media, is left open.
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The findings of the 2012–2017 election cycles observations show that the normative framework formally provides a solid basis for holding free elections, but that its incomplete implementation and the lack of oversight during the pre-election campaign generate an increase in the inequality of the election participants and call into question the achievement of conditions for fair elections. In fact, the conditions are the worst in the so-called side electoral arenas: 1) the financing of the pre-election campaign is not transparent, and the inequality of the participants regarding the available funds increases, with the participation of the ruling parties exceeding 70%; 2) in the media sphere, in terms of ownership there is a financial and personal connection between the privatised local media and the parties, while in the electronic media with the national frequency and the most influential daily and weekly newspapers there are “two-floor elections” with complete domination of the Serbian progressive party and its president, party camera phenomenon, functionary campaign and the lack of critical role; and 3) observers regularly record dozens of cases of misuse of public resources for party purposes. There is no genuine oversight over the election process, since the Supervisory Board envisaged by the law has never been formed, while the regulatory bodies such as the Anti Corruption Agency and the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media are becoming more passive, working under the influence of the ruling parties and without the ability to prevent their abuses in the electoral process. The only aspect of the electoral process that is not under the full monopoly of the ruling parties is the Republic Electoral Commission, but observers recommend its professionalisation, which would de facto transfer the control over its work from the hands of all parliamentary parties and electoral lists into the hands of the ruling parties.
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The author analyzes some of the reasons why social media did not significantly influence the results of the Serbian presidential elections held in April 2017 and why the influence was largely negative. The internal political and foreign policy factors are noted that contributed to the predictable outcome of the elections and frustrated anti-regime activism. Putting an emphasis on the activities of supporters of the opposition candidates on Twitter, the author presents their discourse and highlights the reasons for it leading to destructive polarization and, in essence, making the task of the candidate of the ruling coalition easier. Even when it comes to the most wired segment of the urban population, the abundance of insults and ugly words, often aimed not at the candidate of the ruling coalition but at regime’s supporters and other opposition candidates, was an important feature of the engagement that was more focused on raising social capital and reinforcing autoorientalist markers of distinction rather than on meaningful struggle for change. A set of factors is highlighted that contributed to the increasingly important social media social capital acting as an obstacle to democratization, effective political engagement and the badly needed change of political culture. In the specific nature and dynamics of the political scene shaped over the past decades and the anti-social flip-side of social media, the author finds the reasons for pessimism when it comes to the possibility of social media getting a more constructive role in the election campaigning in Serbia. The paper focuses on Twitter, the elite-tilted social network of choice in electoral campaigns worldwide, to examine the role of a set of key factors that both frustrated and contributed to negative effects of social media campaigning of the anti-regime activists. First, combination of strong distinction-reinforcing and auto-orientalist drives further marginalized and self-ghettoized oppositional activism, simultaneously provoking the strong anti-elitist and populist backlash, which favored the ruling coalition’s candidate. Second, the regime skillfully cornered both pro-Western and pro-Russian alliances and sentiments, leaving almost no space for meaningful campaigning to unimaginative opposition candidates, who saw Serbia’s future in autocolonial terms, as outsourcing of the state’s sovereignty in exchange for material and political benefits from either Russia or one of the Western metropolitan states. In given circumstances, opposition activists’ campaigning on social networks degenerated into a combination of sullied intra-oppositional “civil war“ and anti-political diary of insults, directed more at the regime impoverished supporters than at the regime’s candidate himself. What the resilient, authoritarian but not repressive regime might have felt as little more than a mildly irritating “white noise”, general public largely experienced as a narcissistic and vulgar enterprise detached from their concerns and aspirations.
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In recent years a process of opening up social communication has been taking place in this country, 'litis is a precedent of a certain kind within socialist countries which, like self-menagemeni, will be a landmark for other socialist countries. The causes for this phenomenon can be shown on the basis of empirical research: a new revolutionary generation has taken over power, the economies (and the elites) have been divided within the country, a social and economic crisis for which the current elite cannot find a quick solution is at work, and, finally, the relationship between politicians and journalists has changed as a result of all those shifts. An open flow of communication is an indispensable condition for a normal development and for the adaptation of the economic system to internal and external changes.
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Postojeća ekonomska i društvena kriza rezultat je, između ostaloga, znatnog broja pogrešnih kadrovskih odluka. Na odgovorna radna mjesta ne mogu se probiti sposobni ljudi, pravi stvaraoci i organizatori; upravo takvi često ostaju anonimni i bez prave mogućnosti društvene afirmacije. Sveopću i jedinstvena kadrovska evidencija i dokumentacija (kadrovski informacijski sistem), mogla bi to radikalno promijeniti. Kad bi, naime, biografski, socijalni, obrazovni, radni i drugi podaci o svakom građaninu bili poznali, i kad bi se na toj osnovi vršili izbon na odgovorne funkcije, postojale bi znatno veće šanse da "pravi ljudi dođu na prava mjesta". Odluke o uspostavljanju takvog sistema odavno su donesene, ali uglavnom nisu provedene. Pored tehnoloških razloga, za to treba vjerojatno okriviti postojeću atomiziranu i feudaliziranu situaciju u društvu.
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Resistance can be defined as all forms of behaviour (of individuals and groups in society) which slow down, obstruct, prevent, or do not contribute to the spreading of informatization throughout Yugoslav society. It is not a specific Yugoslav phenomenon that the spreading of new technologies, in the foundations of which resides the information revolution, should encounter opposition. In the present moment in the life of our society we understand informatization as a process which opens up and creates the possibilities for a more rational use of existing human, material, and energetic resources. Therefore, resistance to informatization today blocks in fact the way of the crisis; the future consequences of this might mean a catastrophic deterioration on all the levels of social living. A systematic study of the sources, causes, forms of this resistance, as well as the possibilities to overcome it requires an interdisciplinary approach. The tasks of communicology in the study of the resistance to the informatization of society can be summed up in the following: - to study the dominant features of the cognitive maps of individuals and of social groups as potential sources of resistance, - to establish the ways in which behaviour according to existing cognitive maps does not correspond to the behaviour required for a faster informatization of society, - to identify and classify the forms of resistance so that they can be more easily recognized and influenced, - to study ways in which resistance may be overcome through various forms of communication activity. Empirical data in these areas are very scarce and communication practice is not sufficiently sophisticated. All this indicates that the phenomena discussed need to be systematically researched, especially with a view of establishing a basis for such communication practice in which factors resisting the informatization of society would be reduced to a tolerable measure.
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Precise communication suits the ascending society of science and information. The precision in question is most fully achieved through written communication. Yet communication is increasingly electronic: the so called compunication secures both depth and breadth of argumentation at the same time. Because of social, political, or personal prejudices many proven advantages of communication through contemporary electronic devices are not used sufficiently. The author believes that their use cannot be postponed if we wish to move from democratic outvoting to anthropocratic argumentation. However, in this process priority must be on the side of self-knowledge and the communication of insights and not on that of a fetishism of technology and the media.
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The Stalinist layer of a state-party elite shaped itself into a real "state-bureaucratic" caste and transformed communication into agitprop activity. Thus society loses its self-reflexivity as an analytical, critical, and innovational flow stimulating the morphogenesis of the system. Research proves that when the principle of a pluralism of interests has been accepted, as is the case in our society, the working people offer a critical evaluation of the communication channels on the republican, regional, and organisational levels. They maintain that these do not study economic and political problems with sufficient objectivity, that they advocate only the attitudes of the political leadership of a particular republic and that they do not name those that are responsible for negative social phenomena. Therefore, the system of information and communication must develop into an open, democratic, and critical mechanism, in which no covering up of information, reporting from the position of political bodies only, or distortioning of facts can be acceptable.
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The author analyse« the position and significance of communicology from various aspects, and in particular from the position of the structure and the function of self-managing socialist society. In this connection he criticizes the model of a one way deductive dissemination as inappropriate to sell-managing society and advocates the two way system of public communication in which all citizens can communicate with anybody and on anything. Adequate production forces for this model exist, or more precisely, there exists an adequate hardware system of electronic communication which is a precondition for the building and further development of two-way communication. The author, in his interdisciplinary analysis of the role and position of communicology - as a science of the optimalization of communication - puts a special stress on the functional connection between communicology and politology. For it is through their working together that it is possible to overcome the macrocommunication model of total political acting according to the Freund-Feind (friend-enemy) formula, inappropriate to the historical moment and to existing hardware means for more direct and free communication between people.
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Thanks to certain laws, existing radio-television institutions in Yugoslavia have a monopoly that allows them to obstruct or completely to prevent the founding of new organizations in that field. Experience proves though that the introduction of "alternative" channels of communication enlives social communication and can stimulate existing communication systems to react more adequately to the needs of the receivers. The tendency exists to interpret this type of reissuance as traditional conflicts between the ruling class and the working class. Obviously however, it is a matter of conflict within the same class, namely with those who possess monopoly over the media and pretend to be the sole representative of general interests. In order to end this conflict in a manner acceptable to the self-managing socio-political system it is necessary to coordinate some of the existing laws in that area with the Constitution and to regulate this area through legal acts that do not yd exist at the moment.
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Mass communication media primarily serve for the creation of an escapist world of imaginary entertainment and of a fictitious "macrocosmic" happening. Through this they contribute to a distancing from the tensions arising in the working world or in the family. Nevertheless they gradually and in the long run produce changes in the citizen's political and cultural profile. The content of the message transmitted by the mass media can be divided into two large groups: a) the group that affirms cultural values and genuine information in the service of the furthering of self management and b) the group that transmits commercial, indoctrinating, and manipulating contents. The programmes transmitted by the mass media should be as fully as possible directed towards a), but for that purpose it is necessary that the family, the school, and the socio political system should cooperate, as the effects depend on the "soil" into which such messages are planted. The growth of an active self-managing personality would require a reversed pyramid of influence; this would signify a genuine democratization of mass media.
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