Suchergebnisse

Soziale Bewegungen werden als "Herausforderer" politischer Entscheidungsprozesse begriffen, die über keinen direkten institutionalisierten Zugang zu Machtmitteln verfügen. Sie versuchen daher, politischen Einfluß indirekt über Publizität in den Massenmedien zu gewinnen. Als kollektive Akteure arbeiten sie strategisch auf die Erreichung dieses Zieles hin. Die Mechanismen des Mediensystems eröffnen sozialen Bewegungen verschiedene Möglichkeiten darauf Einfluß zu nehmen, ob und wie sie Teil der "konstruierten Realität" der Massenmedien werden. Die wichtigste dieser Optionen ist die Initiierung von spektakulären "Pseudo-Ereignissen" mit hohem Nachrichtenwert. In ihrem Bemühen, die Aufmerksamkeit der Massenmedien auf sich zu lenken und ihre politische Sicht in den Medien zu verankern, sehen sich soziale Bewegungen mit etablierten politischen Akteuren konfrontiert, die gleichfalls versuchen, den Prozeß des "agenda building" zu beeinflussen. Es entsteht eine als "publizistischer Konflikt" charakterisierte Konstellation, ein Wettbewerb zwischen verschiedenen politischen Akteuren, bei dem es um die Aufmerksamkeit der Massenmedien und die Wahrnehmung politischer Realitäten in der Öffentlichkeit geht. (ICEÜbers)

AbstractAccording to normative theorists, informal conversations between strangers are the most basic manifestation of the political public sphere and truest to the deliberative democratic ideal. Yet systematic empirical evidence on citizens' everyday political talk outside their social networks is largely missing. Using a unique survey, we examine citizens' access to the public discursive sphere of political talk with strangers, as well as the frequency and disagreeableness of the conversations held in this arena of the deliberative system. Although widespread and frequent engagement is desirable from a normative point of view, we find this discursive sphere to be considerably smaller in scope and less vibrant than the private and semi-public discursive spheres of political talk within strong and weak network ties. Contrary to theorists' equation of strangeness with difference, political conversations between strangers also appear rather harmonious. Furthermore, our findings show that psychological dispositions, most notably social trust and conflict orientations, are important drivers of individuals' involvement in political conversations with strangers. Their impact exceeds the influence of political dispositions, opportunities, and skills. Some aspects of our results raise doubts about the deliberative quality of these conversations.

AbstractAs deliberative democracy is gaining practical momentum, the question arises whether citizens' attitudes toward everyday political talk are congruent with this 'talk-centric' vision of democratic governance. Drawing on a unique survey we examine how German citizens view the practice of discussing politics in everyday life, and what determines these attitudes. We find that only a minority appreciates talking about politics. To explain these views, we combine Fishbein and Ajzen's Expectancy-Value Model of attitudes toward behaviors with perspectives from research on interpersonal communication. Individuals' interest in politics emerges as the only relevant political disposition for attitudes toward everyday political talk. Its impact is surpassed and conditioned by conflict orientations and other enduring psychological dispositions, as well as contextual circumstances like the closeness of social ties and the amount of disagreement experienced during conversations. The beneficial effect of political interest dwindles under adverse interpersonal conditions. The social dimension of everyday political talk thus appears to outweigh its political dimension.