Splichal’s book argues that the attempts at erasing “the public” from the map of publicness inevitably lead to blunting the intellectual power of critical theory; thus, much of the work presented in this book is aimed at “rehabilitating” the notion of “the public” in critical theory, as well as its French and German (alongside with British-American) godfathers. Splichal sets out to restore the almost forgotten figure of the public and the neglected idea of publicness to the core of debates on the future of the public sphere. The result is an exhilarating intellectual journey that combines a masterful history of these ideas in motion, as responses to the emergence of democratic nation states, with a trenchant discussion of the challenges they now face in a world system where issues around cosmopolitanism, regional integration, and global governance are moving to centre stage.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30762333
In the last few years, a new practice known as semi-investigative reporting has appeared in Slovenian journalism. This article presents a study of the strategies used by reporters to construct an image of investigative reporting and of reporters' own interpretations of this practice. A critical discourse analysis of reports of institutional scandals in the Slovenian quality daily press during a four-year period is combined with in-depth interviews with reporters. Textual analysis revealed four strategies used in the majority of reports: factism; extensive citing of authoritative official sources; reliance on faceless (secret) sources; and appealing to common knowledge and common sense. The interviewees justified semi-investigative reporting via the changes in contemporary journalism, the tastes and desires of their readers, and market-driven pressures from editors. Semi-investigative reporters do not uncover failures in societyćs systems of regulation, but in truth they stabilize relations of power within society. In the long term, this practice is harmful to the readers who are exposed to the agendas and frames of official sources under the veil of investigative reporting, which diminishes the credibility of quality media, which are supposed to make those holding power accountable.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30331997