2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The link between the media and democracy is often understood in the liberal-democratic tradition to be self-evident. However, the relationship between the media and democracy is often complicated, critiqued and varies from context to context. The relationship between the media and democracy in established democracies in the Global North is often taken as an example that has universal relevance, while the specifics of the South remains under-researched. This paper aims to provide an illustration of how the link between media and democracy is manifested in some African contexts, and how political communication takes a variety of forms in these settings, which may not always correspond to the dominant notions of political communication in the Global North. First, a brief background of democratization in Africa, as well as the media’s role in relation to democratization processes, is provided. The paper then goes on to discuss the reasons why alternative forms of political communication have been emerging in Africa. Lastly, two examples of alternative types of political communication in Africa are given — firstly, the use of satire to critique hegemonic political power, and secondly, the use of alternative platforms to critique the mainstream media itself. Through these examples, the paper aims to illustrate why it is important to consider political communication on a theoretical level beyond the boundaries of established, liberal-democratic countries.
Keywords: African contexts, democracy, media, political communication
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The purpose of the article is to present the communication strategies of the subjects organizing or managing awards and scholarships for journalists in Poland in the period from 1989 to 2018. The channels of external and internal communication, tools and techniques of promotion, factors of the strategies’ effectiveness are to be the subject of analysis. The empirical basis of the article consists of the internet pages for twenty-five national awards and five scholarships, and press releases. Awards and scholarships in Poland have a tradition dating back to the 20s of the XX century, but their importance has grown only in a free media market. The context of an award and scholarship’s function is formed by debates on the topic of pauperization of the journalistic profession and the weak level of media, which is associated with the dominant laws of the economy. In the study of communication strategies for Polish journalistic awards and scholarships, communication strategy is understood as a comprehensive information system that uses effective marketing tools to enhance interaction with the audience of the media. The goal of the strategy is to promote quality journalism. The information process includes the following communication participants: editors, journalists, media workers, media educators, students and graduates of journalistic specializations. It is possible to distinguish specialized groups among the audience. Channels of information are traditional media and the internet. The sender of the message are subjects, organizing and managing awards and scholarships. Among these subjects it is possible to identify industry publishers, professional associations, foundations, and media organizations. The recipients of the messages are journalists (internal communication) and media audience (external communication). The content of the messages indicates the names and patrons of awards and scholarships, the jury. The effectiveness of communication strategies is measured using marketing tools employed in business communication.
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The article analyzes the reaction of the city community to the demolition of an unfinished TV tower in Yekaterinburg. In the course of collective storytelling about the tower, an extensive archive of verbal narratives was formed. This archive has become the object of analysis focused on the interrelated problems manifested in the competition of narratives about the fate of the tower. These problems represent a harmonization of urban communications and the adequacy of technocratic rationality in understanding the values of urban development. The paradox of the Yekaterinburg case is that a sharp controversy involving the authorities, business and city communities broke out around the ruins — a “useless” object from the point of view of technocratic rationality. The analysis of competing narratives of the tower in the article is based on the concept of urban narratives as a constructive element of the urban environment. The article attempts to highlight the main master narratives that formed the basis of controversy around the tower. While the authorities appealed to the urban community from the standpoint of the modernist narrative of a “bright future,” the citizens opposed this technocratic rational narrative with an array of personal stories. These stories are united by a master narrative, which could be tentatively defined as poetic. An important role in substantiating the value of the tower was played by the master narrative of the greatness and mysteries of the mythologized Soviet past. The history of the tower has clearly demonstrated the clash of rational and symbolic order in the development of the modern city and illustrated the value and persistence of the symbolic. The city community rallied to defend the “useless” object in spite of the authority’s rational arguments since the tower had become a significant symbolic locus of the city, the generator of city stories.
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The article is a theoretical inquiry into the category of literacies. It is understood here as common cultural abilities and competences to communicate by the media that allows its users to maintain and build social imaginary and practices. In order to adapt this abstract category to the modern digital revolution, the article offers a distinction between analogue and digital media literacies and competences. Analogue media is linked with mass media and the mass communication era of analogue media such as books, television, radio and press. Digital media is still developing as our societies and cultural frameworks are dealing with new media, Internet, interfaces and new imaginary around them. It is here that theoretical propositions are confronted with digital media practices. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, the concept map and definitions of the categories of communicative competences and literacies are presented. In the second part, the author analyses two interpenetrating media cultures with overlapping technological media: analogue and digital, and the literacies: Gutenberg’s and network-digital coupled with them. In the third part, the article focuses on the selected elements of this interpenetration: a clash between the traditional hardware and the new order of interfaces and software, visual culture and post-media entities, and on the competition between the logic of “reading” and “writing” the media. The discussion in this part is summed up with the analysis of the hybrid format of info-aesthetics.
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The article is dedicated to the problem of rhetorization of modern public space associated with the search for new forms of communication by the author and addresant, the expanding complexity of media discourse representation, the increasing number of ways to receive and process information, and the attempt to determine the vector of personality development and the nature of its existence in a changing socio-cultural reality. The modern media system is currently subject to significant and deep transformations, whose origins are not only in the intensification and complication of the technological communication component of media reality, but also in the aspiration of the latter to cross-cultural realities, to the dominance of the author’s pole, the author’s consciousness, reflecting reality in speech practice. The form of the author’s verbal behavior, his media image, also participate in these processes in the same way. They adapt to new conditions, actualizing the need to talk about the modern rhetorical status of medialism. The relevance of this area of the research is due to the fact that rhetoric as a whole and its aspects again become the subject of reflection of pedagogical and scientific thought, therefore the concept of a rhetorical code is relevant and significant for the analysis of the current existing mass media discourse, because of its discreteness and polycodularity, which is the most powerful channel for mediaising society. As a result, an attempt has been made to justify the problem of the rhetorical code as a mental paradigm that is realized in linguistic patterns, and it is also assumed that the analysis of mass media texts in the rhetorical aspect will expand and clarify the idea of the nature of the mediatisation processes of modern journalistic discourse.
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The article analyzes one exemplary edition of “Wiadomości” — a news service of Polish public television. The program is framed as a medium implementing the information policy of their administrator, i.e. the policy of power. The focus was placed on evaluation as the most expressive linguistic mechanism of strategic communication. The analysis of evaluation, defined as a mechanism of audience acquisition, allowed the author to identify the values referred to by the government of the Republic of Poland in the process of creating the narratives ultimately shaping its image. The values of ‘success’ and ‘patriotism’ have become the basis for popularizing the narrative of the government as the entity with patriotic motivations, which prove successful. The mechanism of audience acquisition is implemented into two planes of text functioning which are the content plane and the expression plane. In the case of selected object of study, speaking about the content plane, it is necessary to pay attention to the choice of topics covered in the analyzed information program, their characteristics and the reasons for which these topics were raised. At the same time, speaking of the expression plane, it is necessary to discuss the use of techniques that contribute to the acceptance of a certain narrative about Poland (namely the Polish government) and the use of different ways of evaluating the reality that is the subject of the speech. In addition, the author of this article draws attention to the relationship between the concepts of strategic communication, public relations and propaganda.
2019
№ 4
(Vol. 6)
The aim of this article is the analysis of the main subgenres of commercial communication unfolding in the media environment. The author has explored a number of modern Russian and foreign sources; also she has presented the results obtained from personal professional experience. The subjects of this investigation are commercial internet communication subgenres such as as by-liner, lead magnet, landing, tripwire and feedback comment. David Crystal’s theory is chosen as a starting point for this investigation. D. Crystal identified five basic Internet communication genres in 2001. The author has shown that the variety of genres has increased and subgenres appeared for the last 18 years. Her work proves that the Internet communication genres diversity exceeded the limits of D. Crystal’s system substantially. As a result, the author concentrates on commercial e-communication, because it has not been sufficiently considered previously. The communicative aims of the subgenres under review as well as corresponding types of text structure are examined in detail. The author has demonstrated the certain communicative tasks solved by every commercial text element. The classification criteria of web-texts, together with those of Internet communication are presented as well. The author, using the mentioned classification criteria system, has attempted to organize considered commercial e-communication subgenres and to identify their place among the others. From her point of view, the most significant criteria are communicative situation, function, relevant web-technology and search engine focus degree. Following the results of this investigation, a conclusion about communicative situations uniformity has been drawn. Also, the author has emphasized that all the considered subgenres had been focused on the readers, not the search engine. At last, she has revealed the disparity of their functions.