Localism is a social movement often associated with “buy local” food initiatives or the prevention of big-box retail expansion. At its core, however, localism is also about fostering local independence by encouraging businesses to opt for local alternatives when making purchasing decisions. In this article, we develop and test hypotheses that organizations with stronger community-oriented identities are more likely to source locally and that this relationship is moderated by the importance of the focal firm’s purchasing decisions. Results support the strong (...) influence of identity but the conditional effect is unconfirmed. (shrink)

Today, the earth is an interconnected globe humming with electronic transmissions-a chattering planet nestled in the provident silence of space. The ethical question is whether this is contributing to authentic human development and helping individuals and peoples to be true to their transcendent destiny. The new media are powerful tools for education, cultural enrichment, commercial activity, political participation, intercultural dialogue and understanding. They also can serve the cause of religion. Yet the new information technology needs to be informed and guided (...) by solidarity in the service of the common good bridging the digital divide within and among nations. The value-laden message of Western secular culture to people and traditional societies in many cases ill-prepared to evaluate it leads to widespread crisis, for example, in regard to marriage and family life. This technology can be a means for solving human problems, promoting the integral development of persons, creating a world governed by justice, peace, and love. It also can help men and women in their age-old search for self-understanding. Like today's world itself, the world of media, including the Internet, has been brought by Christ, inchoately yet truly, within the boundaries of the kingdom of God and placed in service to the word of salvation. (shrink)

Higher education curricula are developed based on creating conditions for implementing many professional and universal competencies. In Russia, one of the significant competencies for a modern specialist is business communication in oral and written forms in the Russian language and a foreign language. Therefore, teaching students to write in a foreign language is one of the modern requirements for young specialists’ professional training. This article aimed to study the tools of online communication that are used in teaching foreign (...) languages. The article presents the results of an empirical study and analysis of factors of application of online communication technologies in foreign languages teaching, synchronous and asynchronous means used in online learning, and the advantages of integrating online communication tools into the educational process of teaching a foreign language. The study of the advantages and disadvantages of educational platforms is based on an analysis of information and online communication technologies used in the educational process. Based on the example of teaching a foreign language, the article shows how online communication platforms are involved in the educational process. Furthermore, the teachers’ and students’ opinions are presented on how online platforms are convenient. The survey involved 928 first-year students and 76 foreign language teachers of Volgograd State University (Volgograd), Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod), Tomsk Polytechnic University (Tomsk), Ural Federal University, named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin (Ekaterinburg). It was revealed that the integration of online communication tools has positive effects on the formation and development of written communication skills. (shrink)

Risk communication has been generally categorized as a warning act, which is performed in order to prevent or minimize risk. On the other side, risk analysis has also underscored the role played by information in reducing uncertainty about risk. In both approaches the safety aspects related to the protection of the right to health are on focus. However, it seems that there are cases where a risk cannot possibly be avoided or uncertainty reduced, this is for instance valid for (...) the declaration of side effects associated with pharmaceutical products or when a decision about drug approval or retirement must be delivered on the available evidence. In these cases, risk communication seems to accomplish other tasks than preventing risk or reducing uncertainty. The present paper analyzes the legal instruments which have been developed in order to control and manage the risks related to drugs – such as the notion of “development risk” or “residual risk” – and relates them to different kinds of uncertainty. These are conceptualized as epistemic, ecological, metric, ethical, and stochastic, depending on their nature. By referring to this taxonomy, different functions of pharmaceutical risk communication are identified and connected with the legal tools of uncertainty management. The purpose is to distinguish the different functions of risk communication and make explicit their different legal nature and implications. (shrink)

Combinatorial behavior involves combining different elements into larger aggregates with meaning. It is generally contrasted with compositionality, which involves the combining of meaningful elements into larger constituents whose meaning is derived from its component parts. Combinatoriality is commonly considered a capacity found in primates and other animals, whereas compositionality often is considered uniquely human. Questioning the validity of this claim, this multidisciplinary special issue of the International Journal of Primatology unites papers that each study aspects of combinatoriality and compositionality found (...) in primate and bird communication systems, tool use, skills, and human language. The majority of authors conclude that compositionality is evolutionarily preceded by combinatoriality and that neither are uniquely human. This introduction briefly introduces readers to the major findings and issues raised by the contributors. -/- . (shrink)

Cell communication plays a key role in multicellular organisms. In developing embryos as in adult organisms, cells communicate by coordinating their differentiation through the establishment and/or renewal of a variety of cell communication channels. Under both these conditions, cells interact by either receptor signalling, surface recognition of specific cell adhesion molecules or transfer of cytoplasmic components through junctional coupling. In recent years, it has become apparent that cells may also communicate through the extracellular release of microvesicles. They may (...) originate as either exosomes from the endosomal compartment upon fusion of multivesicular bodies with the plasma membrane or be shed directly from the plasma membrane via extensions of the cell surface. Microvesicles may disperse over long distances through body fluids and deliver their molecular cargo onto a variety of target cells. As a general rule, the metabolic fate of these cells is determined by the molecular nature of the vesicular cargo, while targeting itself depends on the affinity of the molecules expressed on the enclosing membrane. In this paper, we will be arguing that intercellular vesicular transfer is substantially different from other types of cell communication, allowing cells and molecules to interact on varying levels. Cells interacting via ligand signalling owe their specificity to the steric coupling with cognate receptor molecules. As such, it is a pure molecular process that affects target cells only upon integration into their responding repertoire. In this relationship, coupled cells are reciprocally adapted to each other through the selection of their respective signalling capacities, following exploration of their receptor specificity. Interaction by intercellular vesicles realizes a substantially different type of cell communication. Vesicular traffic allows donor cells to carry out a horizontal type of gene transfer and target this information over long distances via independently controlled mechanisms. Because of this independence, cells interacting via vesicular traffic are not expected to adapt their signalling correspondences, but to control instead the efficiency of their cargo delivery irrespective of the receptor repertoire expressed by the target tissue. In this paper, the multifaceted functions of the intercellular vesicular traffic will be discussed in a multilevel biosemiotic perspective with the aim of unravelling the cellular mechanisms devised by nature to accomplish communication. (shrink)

Addressing the critique that communication activities with regard to CSR are often merely instrumental marketing or public relation tools, this paper develops a toolbox of CSR communication that takes into account a deliberative notion. We derive this toolbox classification from the political approach of CSR that is based on Habermasian discourse ethics and show that it has a communicative core. Therefore, we embed CSR communication within political CSR theory and extend it by Habermasian communication theory, particularly (...) the four validity claims of communication. Given this communicative basis, we localize CSR communication as a main means to receive moral legitimacy within political CSR theory. A typology of CSR communication tools is advanced and substantiated by a review of case studies supporting the categories. Thus, we differentiate between instrumental and deliberative, as well as published and unpublished tools. Practical examples for the literature-derived tool categories are provided and their limitations are discussed. (shrink)

With online communication being of growing importance in the organizational context, the aim of this research is to measure its relevance and acceptance among Nigerian businesses and employees. Therefore, a case study focusing on Nigeria Breweries Plc. has been designed and conducted, permitting conclusions on the implementation, efficiency, overall perception, and challenges related to the use of online communication tools in the context of Nigerian businesses of today and tomorrow.

The paper focuses on demonstrating that, in spite of the controversies, lobbying has become an important political communication tool for churches and religious organizations in the United States and in the European Union as well. The American highly regulated lobbying system is compared to the lowly regulated system working at the level of European institutions. The following analysis highlights the differences that the two environments have generated in terms of the main issues and tools used by churches and (...) religious organizations in order to influence policy-making, mainly in the framework of the pluralist - corporatist dichotomy. While the American religious lobbying has been very efficient in influencing the public policy regarding issues like the health care reform, immigration, same-sex marriage, abortion etc., the most significant result of the European religious lobbying has been the recognition of religious communities as partners of dialogue for the European institutions. (shrink)

Wilkins & Wakefield are clearly right to separate linguistic capacity from communicative ability, if only because other animal species have one without the other. But I question the abruptness of the demarcation they make between a period when hominids evolved enriched conceptual representation for other reasons entirely, and a subsequent later stage when language use became an adaptation.

Reporting systems based on mobile technologies and feedback from regular citizens are becoming increasingly popular, especially as far as protection of environmental and cultural heritage is concerned. Reporting life-threatening situations, such as sudden natural disasters or traffic accidents, belongs to the same class of problems and could be aided by IT systems of a similar architecture. Designing and developing systems for reporting life-threatening situations is not a trivial task, requiring close cooperation between software developers and experts in different domains, who (...) could possibly find industrially recognized languages and notations difficult. Thus, the question is whether using simplified graphical domain-specific languages (SGDSLs) could help in creating a common communication platform. It has been revealed that domain experts have a preference for such languages as they offer good learnability, readability and ability to focus on the idea of application. The perspective of developers (technical persons) is introduced on the basis of feedback obtained from 84 students of Computer Science at the Lublin University of Technology, who attended comprehensive workshops followed by an anonymous survey. All participants received theoretical and practical training in modeling mobile software using the same set of languages as domain experts. An analysis of the results revealed that opinions expressed by technical and nontechnical persons concerning SGDSLs oriented on defining a flow of actions is consistent. Most respondents claimed that such languages might be valuable as tools for creating a common communication platform. (shrink)

This article aims to show how discourse analysis can help identify and reinterpret the communicative practices of individuals with autism spectrum disorder, presenting them as co-constructed by the neurotypical interlocutor. The data described in the article come from three interviews with autistic adolescents. The participants completed two tasks: picture description and narrative production. The interviews were further analysed with the use of discourse analysis. The study demonstrates how the participants oriented to the interviewer’s utterances and what communicative strategies they used (...) throughout the interview. Discourse analysis is presented as an approach to the study of autistic communication, which can substantially contribute to the current state of knowledge about autism spectrum disorder, and be an invaluable help for practitioners. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to review and critically assess the role that data visualizations played as communication media tools to help society during a worldwide crisis. This paper re-creates and analyzes several visualizations, critically and ethically assesses their strengths and limitations and provides a set of best practices that are informative, accurate, ethical and engaging at each stage in a reader’s interest. Design/methodology/approach The paper bases its methodology on the construct of “The Network Society” (Van Dijk, 2006; Castells, 2000, (...) 2006) by creating a series of social networked visualizations, identifying the challenges and pitfalls associated with this communication approach and suggesting best practices in information communication technology. The case study is COVID-19. Findings The research in this study found that visual data dashboards and interactive Web-based charts did play a significant role in helping society understand COVID-19’s impact to make better informed decisions about society’s health and safety. Research limitations/implications Visual expositions of data do have strengths and weaknesses depending on how they are designed, how they communicate the story and how they are ethically deployed. Best practices are provided to help mitigate these limitations. Practical implications Visualizations are certainly not new, but the technology for rapidly developing and sharing them is new. Visual expositions provide an effective media for communicating complex information to a networked society. Social implications Visual expositions provide an effective media for communicating complex information to a networked society. Originality/value This paper highlights the significance of the need to understand complex data in a crisis in a visual format and to communicate the information quickly, persuasively, effectively and ethically to a networked audience. (shrink)

Enhancing Communication & Collaboration in Interdisciplinary Research, edited by Michael O'Rourke, Stephen Crowley, Sanford D. Eigenbrode, and J. D. Wulfhorst, is a volume of previously unpublished, state-of-the-art chapters on interdisciplinary communication and collaboration written by leading figures and promising junior scholars in the world of interdisciplinary research, education, and administration. Designed to inform both teaching and research, this innovative book covers the spectrum of interdisciplinary activity, offering a timely emphasis on collaborative interdisciplinary work. The book’s four main parts (...) focus on theoretical perspectives, case studies, communication tools, and institutional perspectives, while a final chapter ties together the various strands that emerge in the book and defines trend-lines and future research questions for those conducting work on interdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

This special issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics presents so-called ethical tools that are developed to support systematic public deliberations about the ethical aspects of agricultural biotechnologies. This paper firstly clarifies the intended connotations of the term “ethical tools” and argues that such tools can support liberal democracies to cope with the issues that are raised by the application of genetic modification and other modern biotechnologies in agriculture and food production. The paper secondly characterizes the societal discussion (...) on agricultural biotechnology and defends the thesis that normative perspectives fuel this discussion, so one cannot come to grips with this discussion if one neglects these perspectives. The paper thirdly agrues that no such thing exists as “one” societal debate in which these issues should be discussed. There are several interwined debates, and different actors participate in different discourses. Some practical instruments are necessary in order to include the right issues in these debates. These instruments will be coined as “ethical tools,” since they are practical instruments that can be used (tools) in order to support debates and deliberative structures for a systematic engagement with ethical issues (hence, ethical tools). Finally, the paper clarifies the ethics of these ethical tools and presents the tools as discussed in the remainder of this special issue: 1) tools to include ethical issues in public consulation and involvement; 2) tools to support systematic reflection upon ethical issues in decision-making; and 3) tools to support explicit communication about values in the food chain. (shrink)

The Patients Changing Things Together (PATCHATT) programme supports individuals with a life-limiting illness to lead a change that matters to them. Individuals join a facilitated online peer support group to identify an issue they feel strongly about, plan for change and take action to bring that change about. The programme is developed and guided by a Programme Advisory Group with clinical and lay membership. This article charts the trialling of the patients changing thing together ethics pack, designed to support all (...) members of the Programme Advisory Group in taking an equal role in ethical decision-making as they guide the programme's ongoing development. As a trial of its efficacy, the pack was used by the author to consider an ethical dilemma at the heart of the development of the Patients Changing Things Together programme, that is, is it ethical to offer a community palliative care programme which has the potential to bring participants harm as well as good? The author reports a strong ethical argument for offering this programme, while concluding the need for the Programme Advisory Group to make the final decision, using the Patients Changing Things Together ethics pack to consider the results of the evaluation of the programme's pilot. The article concludes that this pack provides an effective tool to guide ethical novices through the ethical complexities of developing a community-based palliative care intervention programme. It raises the issue that such inclusivity is achieved through a normative decision-making process which denies the fluidity and creativity which may inform the best ethical decision-making practice. (shrink)

The article presents social simulation from theoretical and philosophical perspectives as a prognostic tool for researching, analysing and anticipating communication and other processes in social environments. The first part discusses the phenomena of ontological and epistemological simulation, treating social simulation processes as epistemological ones. The second part analyses the attitude of the French sociologist and media philosopher Jean Baudrillard towards social simulation, which he himself treats as ontological one. The counterarguments to introduce Baudrillard’s unidentified distinction between ontological and (...) epistemological simulation processes are presented. The third part deals with the principles of the functioning of social simulations as a prognostic tool and provides analytical possibilities for various social environments, communication and other processes. At the end of the article, it is concluded that Baudrillard’s concept of ontological simulation, which annihilates classical Western metaphysics, erroneously reduces the difference between ontos and epistēmē. (shrink)

Moral distress is a pervasive phenomenon in healthcare for which there is no straightforward “solution.” Rhetoric surrounding moral distress has shifted over time, with some scholars arguing that moral distress needs to be remedied, resolved, and eradicated, while others recognize that moral distress can have some positive value. The authors of this paper recognize that moral distress has value in its function as a warning sign, signaling the presence of an ethical issue related to patient care that requires deeper exploration, (...) rather than evidencing identification of the “right” course of action. Once the experience of moral distress is identified, steps ought to be taken to clarify the moral issue, and, if possible and reasonable, the patient’s values ought to be prioritized. This paper offers concrete actions steps, drawn from theory, which can be used in clinical practice to provide peer support or to facilitate self-reflection for morally distressed individuals. This approach empowers morally distressed individuals to explore ethical issues, identify concrete steps that can be taken, and mitigate feelings of powerlessness that are often associated with moral-constraint distress. The questions guide individuals and peers to reflect first on the micro-space and then more broadly on the institutional culture, facilitating meso- and macro-reflection and action. (shrink)

Automatic screening tools such as plagiarism scanners play an increasing role in journals’ efforts to detect and prevent violations of research integrity. More than just neutral technological means, these tools constitute normatively charged instruments for governance. Employing the analytical concept of the digital imaginary, this contribution investigates the normative concepts that play a role in journals’ use of automatic screening. Using survey data of journal editors, as well as guidance documents by academic publishers and the Committee of Publication Ethics, it (...) traces how editors normatively situate their (non-)use of automatic screening tools in two opposing imaginaries of academic publishing: One that portrays academic publishing as a small and safe community, and one that sees it as a vast and dangerous space. These imaginaries reflect the social and epistemic characteristics and publication cultures in different academic fields, and both entail different modes of control. Additionally, they are shaped by a focus on plagiarism screening as a specific form of automatic screening that critically hinges on the issue of size of the publishing space, which exemplifies the mutual constitution of a specific problem, an imaginary where this problem becomes meaningful, and the availability of a tool that targets this problem. (shrink)

A growing body of research is exploring corporate communication in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on social media (SM). Nonetheless, while these studies have shown that SM communication may be an effective tool for reaching and engaging various stakeholders, how the design of corporate CSR communication engenders trustworthiness has yet to be examined. To address this gap, we suggest that SM communication may include important signals related to trust; thus, we investigate whether companies (...) use sources of trustworthiness (reputation, performance, and appearance) while communicating with stakeholders and the response of the latter to such communication. Our empirical analysis is based on a database containing over 66,000 CSR-related messages from eight companies focusing on communication extracted from Twitter. These data are coded according to three sources of trustworthiness and two dimensions of CSR communication (social and environmental). Our findings indicate that all three attributes of trustworthiness are used by companies in their CSR social media communication. We also document how corporate efforts to use CSR communication that engenders trustworthiness influence stakeholder engagement. Our study therefore contributes to the literature on trust in relation to CSR by illustrating the importance of signaling that includes different sources of trustworthiness or their combination in corporate communication. By analyzing how the various trust attributes included in CSR communication affect SM reactions, we also identify which attributes lead to greater stakeholder engagement overall, particularly for the two analyzed dimensions of CSR communication. (shrink)

Explicitly considering human values in the design process of socio-technical systems has become a responsibility of designers. It is, however, challenging to design for values because (1) relevant values must be identified and communicated between all stakeholders and designers and (2) stakeholders’ values differ and trade-offs must be made. We focus on the first aspect, which requires elicitation of stakeholders’ situated values , i.e. values relevant to a specific real life context. Available techniques to elicit knowledge and requirements from stakeholders (...) lack in providing the context and means for reflection needed to elicit situated values as well as an explicit concept of value. In this paper we present our design of a tool to support active elicitation of stakeholders’ values and communication between stakeholders and designers. We conducted an exploratory user study in which we compared the suitability of methods used in social sciences for (1) eliciting situated values, (2) supporting people’s expressions of values and (3) being implemented in value elicitation tool. Based on the outcomes we propose a design for a value elicitation tool that consists of a mobile application used by stakeholders for data collection and in-situ self-reflection, and a website used collaboratively by designers and stakeholders to analyse and communicate values. Discussion focuses on contributions to value sensitive design. (shrink)

Adjustments of everyday life in order to prevent disease or treat illness afflict partly unconscious preferences and cultural expectations that are often difficult to change. How should one, in medical contexts, talk with patients about everyday life in ways that might penetrate this blurred complexity, and help people find goals and make decisions that are both compatible with a good life and possible to accomplish? In this article we pursue the question by discussing how Habermas’ theory of communicative action can (...) be implemented in decision-making processes in general practice. The theory of deliberative decision-making offers practical guidelines for what to talk about and how to do it. For a decision to be rooted in patients’ everyday life it has to take into consideration the patient’s practical circumstances, emotions and preferences, and what he or she perceives as ethically right behaviour towards other people. The aim is a balanced conversation, demonstrating respect, consistency and sincerity, as well as offering information and clarifying reasons. Verbalising reasons for one’s preferences may increase awareness of values and norms, which can then be reflected upon, producing decisions rooted in what the patient perceives as good and right behaviour. The asymmetry of medical encounters is both a resource and a challenge, demanding patient-centred medical leadership, characterised by empathy and ability to take the patient’s perspective. The implementation and adjustments of Habermas’ theory in general practice is illustrated by a case story. Finally, applications of the theory are discussed. (shrink)

A psychiatric advance directive (PAD) is a communication tool that promotes patients’ autonomy and gives capacitated adults who live with serious mental illnesses the ability to record their preferences for care and designate a proxy decision maker before a healthcare crisis. Despite a high degree of interest by patients and previous studies that recommend that clinicians facilitate the completion of PADs, the rate of implementation of PADs remains low. Research indicates that many clinicians lack the necessary experience to (...) facilitate the completion of PADs and to use them, and, as a consequence, do not effectively engage patients about PADs. This study developed practical recommendations for clinicians to improve their ability to communicate and facilitate PADs. We (1) thematically analyze definitions of PADs published in 118 articles across disciplines, and (2) present our recommendations for enhanced communication in clinical practice that emphasize patient-centeredness, usefulness, and clarity, aligned with evidence-based practices that put patients’ autonomy and understanding first. While there is no one-sizefits- all script to engage patients in complex conversations, our recommended strategies include an emphasis on patients’ autonomy, the adaptation of word choices, the use of metaphor not simile, and checking for patients’ understanding as effective methods of clinical communication. (shrink)

The only subtype of epistemic agent currently recognized within scientonomy is community. The place of both individuals and epistemic tools in the scientonomic ontology is yet to be clarified. This paper extends the scientonomic ontology to include epistemic agents and epistemic tools as well as their relationship to one another. Epistemic agent is defined as an agent capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements. These stances must be taken intentionally, that is, based on a semantic understanding of the epistemic (...) element in question and its available alternatives, with reason, and for the purpose of acquiring knowledge. I argue that there can be both communal and individual epistemic agents. Epistemic agents are linked by relationships of authority delegation based on their differing areas of expertise. Having established the role of epistemic agents in the process of scientific change, I then turn to the role of epistemic tools, such as a thermometer, a text, or a particle accelerator in epistemic activities. I argue that epistemic tools play a different role in scientific change than do epistemic agents. This role is specified by an agent’s employed method. A physical object or system is an epistemic tool for some epistemic agent if there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of the agent. An agent is said to rely on such a tool. (shrink)

This article introduces the important issue of communicating with small firms about ethical issues. Evidence from two research projects from the U.K. and Spain are used to indicate some of the important issues and how small firms may differ from large firms in this area. The importance of informal mechanisms such as the influence of friends, family and employees are highlighted, and the likely ineffectiveness of formal tools such as Codes and Social and Ethical Standards suggested. Further resarch in the (...) area of small firms and ethics is essential. (shrink)

Our earliest tools are our bodies. Our hands raise and turn and toss and carry and push and pull, our legs walk and climb and kick allowing us to move and act in the world and to create the multitude of artifacts that improve our lives. The list of actions made by our hands and feet and other parts of our bodies is long. What is more remarkable is we turn those actions in the world into actions on thought through (...) gestures, language, and graphics, thereby creating cognitive tools that expand the mind. The focus here is gesture; gestures transform actions on perceptible objects to actions on imagined thoughts, carrying meaning with them rapidly, precisely, and directly. We review evidence showing that gestures enhance our own thinking and change the thought of others. We illustrate the power of gestures in studies showing that gestures uniquely change conceptions of time, from sequential to simultaneous, from sequential to cyclical, and from a perspective embedded in a timeline to an external perspective looking on a timeline, and by so doing obviate the ambiguities of an embedded perspective. We draw parallels between representations in gesture and in graphics; both use marks or actions arrayed in space to communicate more immediately than symbolic language. (shrink)

According to the Green Paper presented by the European Commission in July 2001, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis (Commission of the European Communities, 2001b, p. 6). On this basis, in 2002, the Italian Government, and especially the Italian Ministry of Welfare, launched an initiative called CSR-SC (social commitment) in order to foster the proactive social role of (...) Italian enterprises, with great attention on SME involvement. The technical partner of the Italian Ministry of Welfare for this initiative is Bocconi University. The goal of this contribution is to present the main results of CSR–SC research project developed by Bocconi University. The paper provides a detailed picture of the general scheme designed to carry out the research project and a review of the different methodologies used to support the solutions proposed. (shrink)

This article reviews suggestions for how ethical tools are to be evaluated and argues that the concept of ethical soundness as presented by Kaiser et al. is unhelpful. Instead, it suggests that the quality of an ethical tool is determined by how well it achieves its assigned purpose. Those are different for different tools, and the article suggests a categorization of such tools into three groups. For all ethical tools, it identifies comprehensiveness and user-friendliness as crucial. For tools that (...) have reaching a decision in a democratic context as a main purpose, it identifies transparency, guiding users toward a decision and justification of the decision-supporting mechanism. For tools that aim to engage the public, it identifies procedural fairness as essential. It also notes that the scope of use for ethical tools is limited to the same moral community, and that this feature is frequently overlooked. (shrink)

This analysis shows how P4C can be used as a tool to enhance greater intercultural sensitivity. A group of young Maltese university seekers and teenage unaccompanied minor asylum seekers engaged in dialogic inquiry, in the process changing the way in which they see their individual subjective identities. The analysis moves away from the application of P4C in formal educational settings and also moves away from its application in childhood settings. In this manner, it aspires to advance knowledge of how (...) P4C can be creatively applied to generate such values as understanding, empathy, dialogue, acceptance of self and others, and sharing. It also shows how people can heal certain past hurts through sharing and also help them to generate hope of a brighter future. Their formation into a community of inquiry is an outward manifestation of their inner quest for a greater understanding of their own realities and their desire to understand people of other cultures. Through providing an account based on listening to the voices of the young asylum seekers, the analysis is informed by the transience of lived experiences and the youthfulness of the asylum seekers. It is based on an inter-disciplinary blend of psychoanalytic, socio-cultural, and philosophical thinking. (shrink)

While to political theorists in the United States ‘community radio’ may seem a quaint holdover of the democratization movements of the 1960s, community radio has been an important tool in development contexts for decades. In this paper I investigate how community radio is conceptualized within and outside of the development frame, as a solution to development problems, as part of development projects communication strategy, and as a tool for increasing democratic political participation in development projects. I want (...) to show that community radio is an essential tool of democratization and democracy outside of the development frame. To do so, I will bring out the conceptual and structural dimensions of community radio through examples of existing community radios, both those which are independently created and those which have been created as development projects. These structural and conceptual elements provide community radio the potential to realize the goals of development practice while avoiding characteristic pitfalls. These ‘pitfalls’ of development are also pitfalls of democratization and democracy in existing democratic states, and include: depoliticization, limited participation, particularly of marginalized groups. (shrink)

Although the intrinsic physicality of human beings has not changed in millennia, the species has managed to profoundly reconstitute the physical and social world it inhabits. Although the word “profound” is insufficient to describe the vast changes our world has undergone, it is sufficiently neutral to encompass both the opportunities—and the challenges—that our age provides. It is a premise of my work that technology, particularly information and communication technology (ICT), offers spectacular opportunities for humankind to address its collective problems. (...) The problems themselves are equally spectacular that is war and militarism, poverty, environmental depletion and destruction, disease, etc., and lack of successful alleviation may prove catastrophic. Humankind’s problems will not be solved by elite fiat, by chance, or as a side-effect of the “free market.” To address these challenges effectively and appropriately, “civic intelligence” will be required. This paper is designed to explore the relation between community networks and the nascent concept of civic intelligence. Civic intelligence describes the capacity of society to consciously adapt to its environment and shape a future environment that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable. Although individuals contribute to civic intelligence, the concept describes a phenomenon that is collective and distributed. This paper argues that community networks were an important manifestation of civic intelligence in the early days of the Internet revolution. It further argues that a theory of civic intelligence can be used to account for the declining influence of traditional community networks and to provide useful prescriptions for renewed vitality and influence of community networks in the future. (shrink)

Social media have become a standard in contemporary communication. That is especially true for business which jumped at the opportunity to con­nect with current and prospective customers allowing them to integrate with their favourite brands and products even further. This trend, however, seems to be absent in the public domain. Local authorities notice social media but attempt to use it in a one-to-many format, which is incompatible with the interactive nature of the new medium. Cities can strongly benefit from (...) an active presence in the social sphere as it opens new paths to co-governance and better communication. (shrink)

: Antiracist white feminists and ecofeminists have the tools but lack the strategies for responding to issues of social and environmental justice cross-culturally, particularly in matters as complex as the Makah whale hunt. Distinguishing between ethical contexts and contents, I draw on feminist critiques of cultural essentialism, ecofeminist critiques of hunting and food consumption, and socialist feminist analyses of colonialism to develop antiracist feminist and ecofeminist strategies for cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural feminist ethics.

_Purpose__._ This article aims at outlining the socio-communicative prerequisites for the influence of personality on the acquisition of rigorous scientific knowledge. _Theoretical__ basis__._ The communicative foundations of an individual’s activity in general and the functioning of his consciousness in particular were laid by the philosophy of Edmund Husserl, primarily due to his introduction of the concepts of "intersubjectivity" and "lifeworld". From these positions, attempts were made to understand the discussion of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn regarding the role of the (...) individual in science, in particular, the concept of a "normal scientist" as a participant in the lifeworld of scientists who support special intersubjective norms of reproduction of this lifeworld through scientific communication. The concept of "communicative mind", correlated with the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas, best expresses the rational and argumentative principles of achieving consensus in science. _Originality__._ Social anthropology reveals the constitutive significance of teamwork in science as a way of achieving rigorous scientific knowledge. Social phenomenology concretizes this by emphasizing the need for constant improvement of the rules of this communication. The verification of scientific knowledge by facts is strictly determined by the observance of community-recognized scientific tools for achieving such verification, in particular, the conventional agreement within a certain community of scientists regarding the language of science, which is used to describe verification, falsification, and other procedures for organizing scientific knowledge into a system. _Conclusions._ Verification of the obtained scientific knowledge critically depends on the formulation, dissemination and observance of certain institutional rules of scientific communication. This applies, in particular, to the conventionally recognized rules for the verification of scientific knowledge by empirical facts: it is not an isolated scientist who should identify, verify, organize and evaluate empirical facts, but a community of scientists who conduct scientific research in an organized manner. Team scientific work is a special case of collective action, which is characterized by a high level of reflection and application of critical thinking on a communicative basis. In particular, the legitimation of acquired scientific knowledge occurs in the process of scientific research due to the observance of procedural rules and careful work with empirical facts. (shrink)