Essay Instructions: In Questions answer layout please answer 41 questions based on the readings/books attached for each part.
APA referencing where needed ( please list page number as part of in-text citing when quoting from one of the readings)...
Attached readings/books for this part of the questions
1. Habermas, Jürgen (1996), Civil Society, Public Opinion and Communicative Power, Between Facts and Norms: Toward a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge Mass., The MIT Press, pp. 359-387 (excerpt)
2. Habermas, Jürgen (2001), Learning from Catastrophe? A Look Back at the Short Twentieth Century, Max Pensky (trans/ed.), The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, Cambridge UK, Polity, 38-57.
Questions
200 words
1. Is Habermas' idea of democratising the welfare state unrealistic? If so, does this make it any less valuable for us to think about?
2. Do we need utopian thinking?
3. What kind of conception of democracy does Habermas have in mind here?
4. What does Habermas mean by a two-tiered public sphere?
5. What do you think Habermas meant when he entitled his book Between Facts and Norms ...?
200 words
6. What is being said here? (What is the author saying in the two readings?).
7. Why does what is being said matter to a course concerned with the public sphere? (Why was this reading set for this course?)
8. What do I think about this connection between the reading and the public sphere?
Attached readings/books for this part of the questions
Cox, Eva (1995), A Truly Civil Society, Sydney, ABC Books. (Note: All six chapters of this book are required reading. They are listed separately under Cox in e-Reserve. You will need to access all six to complete the required reading).
Questions
200 words
1. What does Cox see participation as the key to, and what does she mean?
2. What are the two main kinds of social capital identified by Putnam and what is the difference between them? How does Cox' understanding of social capital differ from Putnam's? Do you think a developed sense of group identity is necessary for bridging to occur?
3. How does Cox define the process of making connections between the individual, the local and wider society? Is this metaphor helpful? Does it have any advantages over Habermas' representation? Where and what is the centre of Cox's conception? Why does she think society needs this kind of centre? Where does voluntarism fit in?
4. An example of the kind of 'contract' which Cox critiques can be seen in Mr Howard's promotion of 'work for the dole' in his Federation Address (1999):
'...it is fair and reasonable to ask unemployed people to participate in an activity which both helps to improve employability and makes a contribution to the community in return for payments of unemployment benefits.'
Why does Cox think there is something wrong with this seemingly reasonable idea?
5. Latham and others claim Cox relies too much on the capacity of government in her account of the task of rescuing the ‘truly civil society.’ Why does Cox think we need to look (in the final analysis) to the state to rescue the truly civil society?
6. What is the relationship between 'social capital' and the public sphere?
7. What is the role of trust in Cox?
8. What does Cox mean when she describes her book in terms of 'politics with a small 'p'' (Cox 1995: 4)?
200 words
9 Summarise what is the author is saying in the reading?).
10. How does the readings relate to the public sphere?
11. What do you think the connection between the readings and the public sphere is?
Attached readings/books for this part of the questions
1. Berlant, Chip and Matthew N. Lyons (2000), Introduction, Right-Wing Populism in America, New York and London: The Guildford Press.
2. Berlant, Chip and Matthew N. Lyons (2000), Conclusion, Right-Wing Populism in America, New York and London: The Guildford Press.
3. Furedi, Frank (2004), The Diminished Self, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, London and New York: Routledge.
Questions
200
1. De Tocqueville comments favourably on what he calls 'commerce' because he thinks that it encourages freedom as well as prevents revolution: 'Commerce renders men independent of one another, gives them a lofty notion of their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from revolutions' (Vol II: 268). This was a popular argument in the eighteenth century. What might be some of the implications of this argument in a society where the market has such dominance?
2. Have you had experience of being involved in a campaign for something, however small? How did it start? How did you know what to do? Did it involve drawing a distinction between your group and 'others'? Who was 'the other'?
3. Can populism be a force for democratic change? Can you provide some examples and speculate on how they have avoided the us and them problem?
4. Who is telling us that we are enfeebled as individuals and in need of therapy? What is their agenda?
200 words
5 Summarise what is the author is saying in the three books?).
6. How does the readings relate to the public sphere?
7. What do you think the connection between the readings and the public sphere is?
Attached readings/books for this part of the questions
1. Miller, Daniel (2011), 'Fifteen Theses on What Facebook Might Be', Tales from Facebook, UK, Polity.
2. Buchstein, Hubertus and Dean, Jodi (1997), 'Democratizing Technology/Technologizing Democracy', Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 4(2): 205-7.
Questions
200 words
1. Is the internet a friend or foe of the public sphere?
2. Why might organizations want a Facebook identity, and why might they want us to go to it?
3. Can you think of examples of the way the existence of a technology compels you to do things, or do things in a particular way? Are there positive as well as negative aspects to this?
200 words
4 Summarise what is the author is saying in the two books?).
5 How does the readings relate to the public sphere?
6. What do you think the connection between the readings and the public sphere is?
Attached readings/books for this part of the questions
1. Jones, Paul and Pusey, Michael (2010), ‘Political communication and ‘media system’: the ‘Australian Canary’, Media, Culture and Society, 32(3): 451-471.
2. Crabb, Annabelle 2011, 'An audience, an audience, my kingdom for an audience, The Drum, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-19/crabb-an-audience-my-kingdom-for-an-audience/3578344
Questions
200 words
1. What is the function of the media?
2. How does the media understand 'democracy'?
3. Can the media's role simply be that of publicizing diverse interests? In what way would this serve democracy?
4. There are those who argue that with the growing professionalization of political advocacy, 'the media has become the SPACE of contemporary politics, rather than ... the medium' (Crozier 2004: 2). The consequences of this are that the political public sphere envisioned by Habermas is largely outmoded. 'Where once party forums, pressure groups and other intermediary actors contributed to policy development and offered conduits for the expression of societal concerns, the new professionals access society directly through highly recursive [repeated application of a procedure or rule to successive results of the process] survey techniques and feed them into policy, which is immediately sensitized to media strategy' (Crozier 2004: 2). Is even the public forum provided by the media now gone? What might be the consequences?
5. Can the media act as a Habermasian public sphere? Can you give an example?
6. Has your understanding of democracy changed since the beginning of this course? How has it changed (if it has)?
200 words
7 Summarise what is the author is saying in the two books?).
8. How does the readings relate to the public sphere?
9. What do you think the connection between the readings and the public sphere is?
There are faxes for this order.
