Suchergebnisse

Campaign advocacy is a common but rarely researched practice in British tabloid journalism. Newspaper campaigns give an account of 'public opinion' to politicians, make explicit claims to speak for 'the public' and authentically represent them, and also address readers in an unconventional way in order to recruit their support. This article therefore examines the effect to which agency is attributed to readers and other publics in two such campaigns, and argues that publics were portrayed as active only in relation to the newspaper's activity, and as primarily as reacting emotionally to the problem. The campaigning press promote themselves commercially and politically as quasi-representatives who challenge distant and 'out of touch' political representatives with the populist impulses of 'public' demands, but without enhancing the democratic process, or publics' position within it.

European Institutions, especially the European Parliament, are venues of access for digital activist networks wishing to influence policymaking on issues of intellectual property rights, internet regulation and the respect of civil rights in digital environments. We refer to these networks as "digital activism". They are more or less loosely rooted in hacker culture and are intensively making use of online tools to organize and consolidate a collective identity and build a transnational public sphere. This study focuses on the "no software patents" campaign led by this movement that aimed at influencing the directive on the patentability of computer implemented inventions (2002-2005). By discussing the advocacy techniques—both online and offline—that were developed by this digital activist network, we provide an insight into power struggles that are currently taking place in Europe, but also in other regions of the world.

Die rasante ökonomische Entwicklung Kasachstans in den vergangenen Jahren hat sich neben der Rohstoffwirtschaft vor allem im Finanz- und Bausektor ausgewirkt. In den großen Städten des Landes investierte besonders der neue Mittelstand in den groß angelegten Bau von Eigentumswohnungen, dies nicht zuletzt auf Pump. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeichnet das Schicksal der von der jetzigen Krise hart getroffenen privaten Anteilszahler nach und fragt nach einer möglichen politischen Wirkung der von ihnen gegründeten Interessengemeinschaften.