Henry Loeser hloeser@tlu.ee The Nature of Broadcasting - A Theoretical Perspective ❖Past, Present and Future Natural Law ❖Structure of Nature ❖All living things seek utility ❖Nurture (Rationality) ❖Communication HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Philosophy ❖What does it mean to be human? ❖ Jeremy Bentham Human Evolution ❖Groups ❖Symbolic Interaction ❖Language HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Ontology ❖ - religion: faith ❖ - science: empiricism ❖ Forming Societies ❖Specialization ❖Communication ❖Greek – Metaphysics (Socrates, Plato) ❖Eastern – Muslim, India, Chinese Medieval Europe ❖Dual authoritarianism of monarchy and church ❖Religion (Aquinas, Bacon) ❖Rise of merchant class media ❖ Enlightenment ❖Science & technology ❖Secularism ❖Humanism (Hobbs, Descartes) ❖ HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Epistemology ❖ ❖ - knowledge ❖ - logic /rationalism ❖ - value ❖ - aesthetics Humanities ❖Language ❖Literature ❖Geography ❖History Modernity ❖Urbanization ❖Democracy ❖Mass Media forms ❖Sociology (Locke, Durkheim, Hegel, Marx) ❖ HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Social Sciences ❖Individual - Psychology ❖ ❖Groups - Sociology, Economics, Political Science ❖ ❖Positivist (Natural Sciences, mathematics) ❖Interpretivist (Symbolic interpretation / critique) HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Sociology ❖Structure ❖ - Spencer: ”each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system” ❖ - Giddens: “the pre-eminence of the social world over its individual parts (i.e. its constituent actors, human subjects)” ❖ ❖ HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Sociology ❖Agency ❖ - Parsons: “the capacity of individual "agents" to construct and reconstruct their worlds.” ❖ - Bordieau: "externalising the internal", and "internalising the external." ❖ - Berger & Luckman: Society forms the individuals who create society - forming a continuous loop in the “social construction of reality”. Conflict Theory ❖Dysfunctional society ❖Agency vs. Structure ❖Legal alternativism Conflict Theory ❖Horkheimer & Adorno: ❖In the “culture industries”, the rise of 20th century large cultural industry players had created a structured, supply-driven system that “integrates its consumers from above” and was negating the opportunities for individuals and small groups of producers to comprise “a more diverse and pluralistic platform for societal understanding" ❖Researching the development of public policy should include not just an examination of the actors' behavior, but also an exploration of the value systems upon which the actions were based The Public Sphere The Public Sphere ❖a participatory bourgeois public sphere of real discourse among equals that transformed into a site of spectator politics manipulated by elites who took control of the medium ❖the public sphere merged the private concerns of literate individuals regarding family and social integration with the larger public concerns of society ❖presented in spaces reserved for open discourse among citizens and delineated through argumentative discourse intended to identify and prioritize interests for the common good. Individuals could inform and influence public opinion, even if it was in opposition to the current political status quo. ❖ ❖ Alternative Press ❖Activist media Public Sphere ❖The degradation of the public sphere began in the late 19th century concurrent with the societal transition to a system marked by merging economic and political forces, the decline of the individual, and the manipulation of the culture industries Re-Feudalization ❖Newspaper conglomerates ❖Politicization HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png The Public Sphere ❖ ❖Habermas: “forum for culture and politics co-opted” ❖Edwards: “multiple public spheres” ❖Fraser: “issues of class & gender” ❖Foucalt: “multidirectional power generation from discourse” ❖Herbst: “mobilize political resources” ❖ Radio Television https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6PXORQE5-CY Terrestrial Paradigm ❖Public Service ❖Commercial ❖Alternative Civil Society ❖a segment of society apart from commerce and government occupied by individuals and groups in public life outside the home, encompassing their cultural, ethical, political, and/or religious interests ❖Culture ❖Politics HD-ShadowLong.png HD-ShadowShort.png Civil Society ❖ ❖ ❖Aristotle: “koinōnía politike” (society apart from family & government) ❖ Hegel: “burgerliche gessellschaft” (citizens’ society) ❖Heller: “mosaic of identities” ❖Habermas: “communicative action in possibility spaces” ❖Bordieau, Giddens: “media reproduces culture in civil society” ❖ Re-Feudalization II ❖Policy issues ❖Commercial conglomerates ❖Alternatives struggle IP - The Great Liberator? ❖One-to-many revolution ❖low barriers to entry ❖virtual democracy The Present: Content ❖Media Literacy! ❖Information ❖Opinion ❖Entertainment The Present: Your Data Re-Feudalization III? The Future ❖Beyond RF ❖Beyond streaming ❖Neutrality ❖Creative Commons ❖Policy reform ❖Funding solutions Human Evolution ❖Structural Functionalism? ❖The Public Sphere? ❖Broadcasting plurality? Thank You! http://media.voog.com/0000/0040/2233/photos/loeser2.jpg Henry Loeser is a research fellow in MEDIT and teaching member of the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School faculty. Dr. Loeser earned his PhD in 2016 for research into the societal attributes of Community Media at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, and holds a MA in European Politics, BS in Business Administration, and AS in Mechanical Engineering. He founded the Media Innovation Center at Masaryk University, establishing the new university broadcast operations of student radio and TV. He also is an independent media advocate, serving on the board of directors of the Community Media Forum Europe. Since 2003, he is founder and director of Radioexpert, an NGO that is active in Community Media projects worldwide.