Communicator Opportunities and Responsibilities in Volatile Times
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Communicator Opportunities and Responsibilities in Volatile Times Proceedings of the 2012 International Colloquium on Communication Eric E. Peterson and Annette Mönnich, Editors Virginia Tech, 2014 Communicator Opportunities and Responsibilities in Volatile Times: Proceedings of the 2012 International Colloquium on Communication Eric E. Peterson, Editor Annette Mönnich, Editor Department of Communication and Journalism Germanistisches Institut University of Maine Ruhr-Universität Bochum 5724 Dunn Hall GB 3/129 Orono, ME 04469-5724 44780 Bochum USA GERMANY 2014 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Contents 1. An Introduction to Communicator Opportunities 1 and Responsibilities in Volatile Times ERIC E. PETERSON AND ANNETTE MÖNNICH Contemporary Institutional and Social Struggles 2. Wearing the Trickster Mask in the Contemporary Social Movements 4 of Anonymous and Occupy ELIZABETH C. FINE 3. When Institutional Forgetting is Convenient: Economists and the Great Recession 19 TIMOTHY HEGSTROM Opportunity and Responsibility in Journalism 4. Argumentieren in „Sendekritiken“–Formen/Funktionen 30 EBERHARD WOLF-LINCKE 5. Member Comments on a Local Newspaper Website: 44 The Challenge of Moral Action in the Mediated Public Sphere ERIC E. PETERSON AND KRISTIN M. LANGELLIER Cultural Challenges in Volatile Times 6. Media Presentations of Alterity in Terms of Literary Stereotypes 51 and Prejudices: Zigeuner (Gypsy) Representations FRANZISKA KRUMWIEDE 7. Für Verstehen und Missverstehen in der interkulturellen Kommunikation 61 sensibilisieren – Anregungen für ein Training CARMEN SPIEGEL 8. Listening From the Dark Side 2 68 RICHARD D. HALLEY An Introduction to Communicator Opportunities and Responsibilities in Volatile Times Eric E. Peterson and Annette Mönnich ([email protected]; [email protected]) The 23rd International Colloquium on Hellmut Geissner, a founder and guiding light of Communication (ICC) was held on July 29 – the Colloquium for more than forty years of its August 3, 2012, in San Francisco, California. history. In his key contribution to the The conference theme focused on the proceedings of the 14th Colloquium, Geissner interwoven opportunities and responsibilities of (1995) claims that responsibility is not an communicators in a time of global volatility. As optional or accidental aspect of communication. the call for papers noted: “financial hazards, Instead, Geissner argues that responsibility is an climate change, political uprising in the Middle essential component of human communication. East and elsewhere, privacy threats, shifting As he concludes, “”there is no human balances of power worldwide, are just a few of perspective other than dialogical ethics that is the global issues that challenge contemporary founded on conversation and responsibility” societies.” Given the volatility of these times, it (20). To reach this conclusion, Geissner traces is important to ask about the responsibilities and the meanings of responsibility from their English opportunities of communicators. The use of the and German uses to their Latin and Greek roots. term “communicators” is understood to The root word “respond” in the English term encompass a broad range of agents ranging “responsibility” is not merely the simple from individual scholars and educators to reciprocity of “saying something in return” but is academic institutions, media organizations, the more profound reciprocity of communicative corporations, and governments. The 23rd accountability understood as “the mutual Colloquium was organized by Gary Selnow willingness to promise in return” (18; emphasis (U.S. Coordinator) and Annette Mönnich in the original). Communication entails both the (European Coordinator) with local arrangements ability to respond (response-ability) and the by Gary Selnow. mutual accountability for that interaction (re- sponse-ability). The concern with communicator opportunities and responsibilities grew out of the The parallel German word “Verantwortung” previous ICC, held in Vienna, Austria, in July suggests a similar ambiguity. Geissner points 2010. That colloquium focused on how new and out that the word “Verantwortung” combines the evolving media forms were changing society in noun “Antwort,” which incorporates the the 21st century. As Elizabeth Fine and Gary meanings of “answer” and “answer-ability,” Selnow, the editors of the 2010 Proceedings, along with a reference to the expected or point out, society was transformed by the finished action as captured by the prefix “ver-“. A introduction of radio, television, and the internet communicator’s responsibility is thus to both over the past 100 years. Whereas the 22nd answer to and to be accountable for one’s own Colloquium focused on the social consequences speech and to the other’s answer (18). In this of these emerging media forms, the 23rd way, the dialogical character of communication Colloquium shifts focus to explore the particular and responsibility is brought forth. As Geissner responsibilities and opportunities that summarizes: “the ability to converse communicators face in such turbulent times. (“Gesprächsfähigkeit”) is the essence of human beings interconnected with the ability to be In taking up the issue of communicator responsible (“Verantwortungsfähigheit”) (19). responsibility in volatile times, Colloquium participants follow the path marked out by Communicator Opportunities and Responsibilities in Volatile Times: Proceedings of the 2012 ICC 1 The contributions in the Proceedings of the of social phenomena is not merely a positing of 23rd International Colloquium on Communication “what exists” but also a complex and ambiguous illustrate the complexity of this dialogic description of both text and context. understanding of responsibility: that is, to render an account of society in volatile times and to be The two essays in the second section, accountable for that account to both society and “Opportunity and Responsibility in Journalism,” to ourselves as participants in an ongoing focus on the possibility of self-reflexive critique dialogue. The essays in this volume have been in production and reception. Eberhard Wolf- organized to crystalize three aspects of a Lincke explores how television journalists dialogic approach to responsibility. The first incorporate critique into their production section, “Contemporary Institutional and Social practices. Little research exists on how Struggles,” focuses on responsibility in the broadcast journalists practice what is commonly sense of providing an account of society in understood as a goal of “journalistic excellence.” volatile times. The second section, “Opportunity Wolf-Lincke carefully analyzes the and Responsibility in Journalism,” focuses on organizational practices of a specific broadcast responsibility in the sense of accountability or organization to review how journalistic practices “answerability” in our own communication can both enact and frustrate the pursuit of such practice such as the production and reception of excellence. His empirical analysis suggests the journalism. The third section, “Cultural importance of critique for responsible Challenges in Volatile Times,” focuses on professional practice. The second essay in this responsibility in the sense of accountability for section, by Eric Peterson and Kristin Langellier, and to the other in the dialogic practices of focuses on the reception of journalism by representation, mis/understanding, and listening. newspaper readers. They examine how online comments made by readers on a local Two essays comprise the first section on newspaper website can contribute to “Contemporary Institutional and Social responsible dialogue in reception. Following the Struggles.” Elizabeth Fine analyzes the use of work of Roger Silverstone on ethics in the the trickster archetype in contemporary mediated public sphere, they use a specific case Anonymous and Occupy social movements. study regarding the deportation of a local Somali These social movements enable ordinary people resident in Lewiston, Maine, to illustrate three to “turn a trick” on oppressive forces of moral obligations: proper distance, responsible corporations and corrupt politicians. Fine draws listening, and truthfulness. on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin to draw out the ambiguous complexities that accompany the The final section, “Cultural Challenges in infusion of the carnivalesque into protest Volatile Times,” explores the responsibilities to strategies and tactics. The turns and re-turns of and for the other that communicators take up in the trickster create opportunities for activists at different forms of dialogue. Franziska the same time that they raise new questions Krumwiede analyzes media representations of about the responsibility of such efforts. the figure of “the Gypsy.” She situates her Whereas Fine analyzes the communication of analysis in the context of the opening in 2012 of the marginalized, Timothy Hegstrom shifts a Berlin memorial to the Sinti and Roma critical attention to the work of economists within persecuted during the Third Reich. Krumwiede the mainstream of policy discussion. In examines the operation of pejorative terms particular, he describes how these established (such as “Zigeuner”) on cultural identity