Jernej Amon Prodnik | University of Ljubljana (original) (raw)

Videos by Jernej Amon Prodnik

Paper presentation at the "Words as a battlefield: persuasion in contemporary political and media... more Paper presentation at the "Words as a battlefield: persuasion in contemporary political and media discourse" conference, which took place at the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor (April 5-6, 2019). This paper was later published under the title "H kritiki mediatizacije: politično komuniciranje slovenskih političnih strank in njihovi odnosi z mediji" (Družboslovne razprave, 2019, vol. 35, no. 90, pp.: 29-55).

Abstract:
'In the last decade mediatisation has become “the key concept” (Lundby, 2014) for many scholars in the field of media and communication studies. The initial focus of this approach was on the mediatisation of politics, with the main presumption being that “media have become the most important arena for politics.” (Ampuja et al 2014) In this view, politics has largely lost its autonomy and became “dependent in its central functions on mass media.” (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999) Today, mediatisation refers to an even more general process of social change...'

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Paper presentation at the "Publicness and the public sphere under the threat of digital oligarchy... more Paper presentation at the "Publicness and the public sphere under the threat of digital oligarchy " international colloquium, which took place at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana (December 9th, 2022). The symposium took place on the occasion of Slavko Splichal’s publication of the book Datafication of Public Opinion and the Public Sphere (Anthem Press, 2022).

Abstract:
"In June 2020 Janez Janša, serving as the Prime Minister of Slovenia, achieved a significant feat. The total number of tweets on his Twitter account breached the 100.000 mark, in what is a significant amount for any user, not only for an active politician. In two years since, he added 70.000 more, despite actively serving as a PM for much of the time. His political communication on Twitter has attracted attention of Slovenian journalists and the general public..."

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Knjiga / Book by Jernej Amon Prodnik

Zbirka Javnost, 2014

Avtor izpostavlja, da prihaja v obstoječem družbenem kontekstu do množenja protislovij, ki pogost... more Avtor izpostavlja, da prihaja v obstoječem družbenem kontekstu do množenja protislovij, ki pogosto ostajajo nerazrešena, saj so sestavni del kapitalističnih družb. Protislovja se prenašajo in širijo tudi na raven komuniciranja in v komunikacijsko sfero, ki je v središču avtorjeve analize. Prav številna protislovja so razlog, da so nove informacijske in komunikacijske tehnologije lahko opredeljene kot orodja emancipacije, kar izpostavljajo evforične analize njihovih potencialov, in sočasno kot orodja nadzora in izkoriščanja. Avtor izpostavlja, da je družbene spremembe in komunikacijske tehnologije, ki jih ni mogoče misliti izven širših družbenih odnosov, zaradi tega potrebno preučevati zgodovinsko, v kontekstu obstoječih asimetrij moči in neenakosti ter z upoštevanjem ključnih vzrokov za njihov nastanek in specifičen zgodovinski razvoj.

Izhodišča monografije so v politični ekonomiji komuniciranja, ki je temeljni kritični pristop v komunikološkem raziskovanju. Avtor podaja kritiko poblagovljenja, ki se v tem pristopu opredeljuje ko ključen proces v kapitalističnih družbah. Ob tem izpostavlja, da prav politična ekonomija komuniciranja nudi edinstven in (posebej za slovenski raziskovalni prostor) izviren pogled na (množično) komuniciranje. Le ta raziskovalna tradicija namreč s svojim teoretskim vpogledom, izgrajenim pojmovnim aparatom in obstoječimi razlagami omogoča celovito obravnavo strukturnih zgodovinskih premikov in temeljnih družbenih odnosov s posebnim fokusom na komuniciranju, medijih in informacijah.

Analize se gibljejo med temeljnimi teoretskimi vpogledi, ki izhajajo iz kritičnih družboslovnih pristopov, ter aktualnejšimi tematikami. V knjigi je med drugim podan globok zgodovinski vpogled v procese poblagovljenja komuniciranja in v ekspanzijo kapitala nasploh, obravnavana so protislovja in omejitve na področju medijev, tehnologij ter komuniciranja, ki izhajajo iz kapitalistične blagovne proizvodnje, izpostavljena je protislovnost novih informacijskih in komunikacijskih tehnologij, ki vključuje tudi razprave o družbi nadzora in nadzorstvenem kapitalizmu, izpostavljeni pa so tudi razlogi, zakaj mediji v kapitalizmu prispevajo k ohranjanju obstoječe družbene ureditve.

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Contradictions of Communication: Towards a Critique of Commodification in Political Economy of Communication
(Faculty of Social Sciences Ljubljana Press, 2014).
In the current historical epoch contradictions, which often remain unsolved, have multiplied. We can attribute this to the fact that contradictions are a constitutive part of capitalist societies. The author emphasizes that in the current historical epoch contradictions also broaden and expand into communication and the communicative sphere, which lay at the centre of his analysis. Author points out that social changes and communication technologies, which cannot be analysed outside of the wider social relations, need to be analysed in a historical manner, in the context of the existing asymmetries of power, inequalities and by considering key reasons for their emergence and specific historical development.
The starting point of the monograph is in the political economy of communication, which is the key critical approach in media and communication studies. Author provides a critique of the process of commodification, which is defined (in the approach of political economy of communication) as one of the key processes in the capitalist societies, which is inherent to it. It is pointed out that political economy of communication offers a unique and (especially for Slovenian academia) original way of analysing (mass) media. Only this research tradition offers – with its theoretical insights, conceptual apparatus and existing explanations – a way of holistically analysing structural, historical changes and the most fundamental social relations, with special focus on communication, media, and information.
Analyses in the book move between fundamental theoretical insights that build on critical approaches to social sciences, and currently topical issues. A deep historical insight is offered in the processes of commodification of communication and in the expansion of capital as such. Contradictions and limits in the field of media, technologies and communication are thoroughly analysed, while different aspects of new information and communication technologies are analysed as well, because they make possible both new forms of social surveillance (and so-called surveillance capitalism) and emancipatory forms of political activism. Reasons, why media can contribute to the stabilisation of the existing order, are analysed as well.

Articles (in English) by Jernej Amon Prodnik

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 2024

Mediatisation has established itself in the last decade as a key approach in media and communicat... more Mediatisation has established itself in the last decade as a key approach in media and communication studies. Its aim is to explain the vast transformations of social relations caused by the growing power of the media. I provide a theoretical and empirical critique of this approach, with a particular focus on the institutionalist (strong) approach to mediatisation. As I argue, one of the biggest problems of mediatisation is that it perceives the power of the media in a wholly abstract manner. Even though authors advocating for the mediatisation approach typically preach about holism, their works often narrowly focus on the media, without embedding them in the social totality. This leads to a flawed approach, primarily due to the excessive media-centrism. For a critique of the ontological, epistemological and theoretical failures of mediatisation, I largely base the article on two critical approaches to the media and communication research: critical sociology of the media and political economy of communication. Empirically and mostly for illustrative purposes, the article is based on semi-structured interviews with representatives of Slovenian political parties. Three fundamental issues are identified based on this focus of the paper: mediatisation fails to distinguish between the form and content of communication; it does not make a proper distinction between public political communication and political activity; and it ignores the non-public parts of politics and deep inequalities, which influence the political process. Mediatisation generally bypasses these issues, in turn also ignoring the wider relations of power in capitalist society and how they change.

Critical Sociology, Dec 27, 2023

Sourcing practices are among the central research topics within the sociology of the media. Empir... more Sourcing practices are among the central research topics within the sociology of the media. Empirical studies have analysed what and who are the major journalistic sources, demonstrating that the selections journalists make not only depend on their subjective choices, but are connected to the norms and routines established in the profession. While invaluable, these studies are primarily media-centric and focused on small-scale investigations, meaning they regularly ignore the social totality in which sourcing is inevitably embedded. Such studies hence also pay too little attention to the external actors that provide ‘information subsidies’ to journalists. By employing the framework of the public sphere, we show that news sources should be viewed as a topic of central social relevance that touches on wider power relations within society. Sociological approaches should thus be complemented with other critical traditions, for instance the political economy of communication. The latter approach’s value is revealed in brief sketches that point to the possibilities of achieving deeper understanding of the topic.

tripleC, Apr 5, 2023

Capitalism has become so naturalised in recent decades that there seems to exist little to no alt... more Capitalism has become so naturalised in recent decades that there seems to exist little to no alternative to it. Common acceptance of this social formation begs the basic question of how particular systems are legitimised. In this paper, I look at some legitimation mechanisms at play by focusing on the capitalist tendency to ideologically appropriate criticism emerging from social struggles. I draw on the study The New Spirit of Capitalism by Boltanski and Chiapello and the cool capitalism thesis put forward by McGuigan. Both provide a basis for a case study of two advertising campaigns by Slovenia’s biggest mobile network operators. During the period of mass uprisings following the 2008/09 economic crisis, the two operators harnessed the symbolism of resistance in their advertising targeted at young people. In each case, the messages of the protests in the ads were deradicalised and largely stripped of any meaningful political content. While it is clear the advertising industry plays an important systemic role in capitalism, the two case studies hint at another way that advertisements can help perpetuate the system: by reinterpreting the critical messages emerging from within society, they become neutralised, with the critical voices thereby becoming more easily integrated into the capitalist social structure.

Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino / The Contributions to Contemporary History , 2022

In recent decades, memory studies have become a prominent interdisciplinary field of research, wi... more In recent decades, memory studies have become a prominent interdisciplinary field of research, with several studies focusing on the specifics of socialist Yugoslavia and its demise. Less attention, however, has been paid to the media and journalism in the life and functioning of the state. This study explores what role these central social institutions played in every- day lives of the population, what level of trust they enjoyed amongst them, and how they influenced the processes of forming collective and individual memory in socialist Yugoslavia. We consider these issues by analysing 96 semi-structured oral history interviews with media audiences. The interviewees had personal recollections of this era since they lived in socialist Yugoslavia for most of their lives and could thus provide unique and valuable insights not available by other means. Interpretative analysis was performed with deductive coding of the interviews and was separated into three parts: everyday media use; trust in the media and journalism; and perceptions of socialist Yugoslavia. This paper presents a short overview of the dataset and indicates its potential value for future research. The gathered data also reveal the interviewees’ understanding and evaluation of the Yugoslav regime and, in general, provide a much more nuanced view of the socialist past than is most often found in today’s polarised public debates.
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Spominske študije so se v zadnjih desetletjih razvile v plodovito interdisciplinarno raziskovalno področje, ki je veliko analitične pozornosti posvetilo tudi socialistični Jugoslaviji in njenemu razpadu. Kljub obstoju večjega števila študij o Jugoslaviji pa je vloga medijev in novinarstva v svojem delovanju bila deležna občutno manj raziskovalne pozornosti. V študiji raziskujeva, kakšno vlogo so te osrednje družbene institucije igrale v vsakodnevnih življenjih prebivalcev Jugoslavije, v kolikšni meri so jim zaupali in kako so vplivale na procese tvorjenja individualnega in kolektivnega spomina. Te problematike se lotevava prek analize 96 polstrukturiranih ustnih intervjujev z medijskimi občinstvi. Intervjuvanci so v socialistični Jugoslaviji živeli večino svojega življenja in so imeli nanjo osebne spomine, zaradi česar so lahko prispevali edinstvene in dragocene vpoglede v to zgodovinsko obdobje, ki bi jih le stežka pridobili na druge načine. Interpretativna analiza intervjujev je temeljila na deduktivnem kodiranju intervjujev, razdelila pa sva jo na tri dele: vsakodnevno uporabo medijev; zaupanje v medije in novinarstvo; ter dojemanje jugoslovanske družbe. Študija predstavlja prvi celosten kratek pregled zbranih podatkov in poudarja potencialno vrednost teh podatkov tudi za prihodnje raziskave. Zbrani podatki razkrivajo tudi, kako intervjuvanci razumejo in vrednotijo jugoslovanski režim, in na splošno zagotavljajo veliko pestrejši pogled na socialistično preteklost, kot ga je ta najpogosteje deležna v danes pogosto polarizirani javni razpravi.

Medijska istraživanja / Media Research, 2017

The paper analyses newspaper delivery labour by focusing on two Slovenian companies: the media co... more The paper analyses newspaper delivery labour by focusing on two Slovenian companies: the media company Dnevnik and the distribution company Izberi. In response to the enduring trend of declining readership, Dnevnik attempted to cut its delivery costs by transferring that activity to a rival company Izberi, a move met with resistance from deliverers adversely affected by the transfer. Using the methods of in-depth interviews and document analysis, the paper aims to identify the economic rationalisation techniques used to reduce the costs of delivery labour, discipline the workforce and respond to the newspaper deliverers’ resistance to these techniques.

Abstract: "The article examines current processes in institutional politics and the often discuss... more Abstract: "The article examines current processes in institutional politics and the often discussed tendency towards the professionalisation of political communication. It relates this tendency to the instrumentalisation of political life and its adoption of the commodity logic in public communication. The study proceeds from the perspective of critical theory and the political economy of communication. It connects this theoretical basis to Slovenian institutional politics with the aim to analyse whether and in which ways instrumental reason and commodity logic have been adopted in the political communication of political parties. The study is based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted with key representatives of seven parliamentary and three extra-parliamentary Slovenian parties or groups." ||| Keywords: political communication, instrumental reason, economic rationality, commodi cation, political branding, election campaign, professionalisation, critical theory, political economy ||| La strumentalizzazione della politica e politici-come-merce: Analisi qualitativa delle posizioni dei partiti Sloveni sulla communicazione politica ||| Sintesi: "Il contributo esamina gli attuali processi nella sfera politica istituzionale e la tendenza verso la professionalizzazione della comunicazione politica. Questi quesiti vengono collegati alla strumentalizzazione della politica istituzionale e alla sua accettazione della logica della merce nella comunicazione politica pubblica. Il contributo deriva dagli approcci della teoria critica e dell’economia politica della comunicazione, questa base teorica, invece, viene collegata nella parte empirica alla politica istituzionale slovena. Lo scopo del contributo è quello di esaminare se la razionalità strumentale e la logica della merce vengono assunti nella comunicazione politica dei partiti politici, e – se così fosse – in che modo. La ricerca si basa sulle interviste semi-strutturate approfondite con i principali rappresentanti dei sette partiti parlamentari sloveni e dei tre non parlamentari ovvero coalizioni parlamentari." ||| Parole chiave: comunicazione politica, razionalità strumentale, razionalità economica, merci cazione, branding politico, campagna elettorale, professionalizzazione, teoria critica, economia politica ||| Instrumentalizacija politike in politiki-kot-blaga: kvalitativna analiza stališč slovenskih strank o političnem komuniciranju ||| Pozetek: "Prispevek raziskuje aktualne procese v institucionalni političi sferi in težnjo po profesionalizaciji političnega življenja. Ta vprašanja povezuje z instrumentalizacijo institucionalne politike in njenim sprejemanjem blagovne logike v javnem političnem komuniciranju, ki vodi v ponotranjenje in normalizacijo političnega trženja ter znamčenja, javnomnenjskih raziskav ter prodajanja programov strank in političnih kandidatov. Prispevek izhaja iz pristopov kritične teorije in politične ekonomije komuniciranja, kar po eni strani nudi podlago za normativno razumevanje demokracije, po drugi pa odpira možnosti za kritiko instrumentalnega razuma in aktualnih procesov poblagovljenja. V empiričnem delu so ta teoretska izhodišča navezana na slovensko institucionalno politiko, pri čemer je cilj prispevka raziskati ali sta instrumentalni razum in blagovna logika bila prevzeta v političnem komuniciranju političnih strank v tem majhnem in perifernem političnem okolju, in – če je temu tako – na kakšne načine. Raziskava temeljni na polstrukturiranih poglobljenih intervjujih s ključnimi predstavniki sedmih parlamentarnih in treh izvenparlamentarnih slovenskih strank oziroma strankarskih koalicij. Čeprav institucionalna politika v Sloveniji predvsem zaradi finančnih omejitev ni celovito profesionalizirana, so intervjuvanci odkrito spregovorili o samopromociji v spletnem komuniciranju, permanentni kampanji, prodajanju stranke in njenega programa, tržnih nišah in možnostih znamčenja. V mnogih pogledih so torej ponotranjili in naturalizirali blagovno logiko, ki je prisotna v političnem marketingu, in jo pričeli dojemati za samoumevno. Glede na analizo je velik del trendov, ki so prisotni predvsem v zahodnih političnih okoljih, v občutnem obsegu mogoče zaznati tudi v slovenski politiki.

Teorija in praksa (vol. 52, no. 4, pp.: 612-630), section on Confidential sources in journalism (available at: http://www.fdv.uni-lj.si/revije/znanstvene-revije/teorija-in-praksa/iz-vsebine/teorija-in-praksa-4-%282015%29), Sep 2015

The rapid development and penetration of new communication and digital technologies is also affec... more The rapid development and penetration of new communication and digital technologies is also affecting the transformations of journalistic procedures and practices within news production and the distribution and gathering of information. Journalistic communication and the protection of journalistic sources as one of the key mechanisms for establishing the news net and network of sources and for performing the function of reporting and fulfilling the role of 'watchdogs' is under threat. Analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with editors of key Slovenian media shows a lack of systematic protection of journalistic communication and a lack of editorial policy regarding communication with journalistic sources. Certain individual considerations and measures are taken, although systematic editorial policy is still missing along with education regarding safe communication.

Abstract: The paper challenges the theoretical assumptions of deliberative communication in onlin... more Abstract: The paper challenges the theoretical assumptions of deliberative communication in online contexts of two empirical case studies in the Slovenian Web sphere: a governmental portal Predlagamvladi.si (I proposetothegovernment.si) and a citizen portal Danesjenovdan.si (Todayisanewday.si). A common denominator of both portals, which were developed for online gathering of public proposals directly from the citizens, is in the combination of public dialogue and polling, the former preceding the latter, the whole process resulting in a final decision regarding the proposal. However, a more detailed analysis and comparison of both portals help to explain also the crucial differences between the institutional or strong public sphere on the one hand and the civic or weak public spheres on the other, which consequently limit the deliberation potentials in the digital context.

Special issue of Javnost - The Public "In the Eye of the Storm" (vol. 21, no. 4, pp.: 77-98), Dec 2014

The study indicates that political, economic and social faces of Slovenia have changed substantia... more The study indicates that political, economic and social faces of Slovenia have changed substantially during the half-decade of the crisis. While the ability of citizens to influence important political decisions has been curtailed on both the national and transnational level, instability has become endemic and social solidarity has been eroded. By using quantitative and qualitative content analysis the study analyses how the unfolding crisis has been communicated in the media in the 2008–2013 period with respect to the dynamics between structure and agency as well as regarding the key (inter)national features and contours of the crisis. The study indicates Slovenian news media hardly served as an integrative force and a common forum for an inclusive and open debate. Namely, results of the quantitative content analysis indicate that journalism communicated the “causes” for the crisis by portraying it as something purely accidental, while rarely pointing at the possibility of its systemic nature. Similarly, “solutions” have been predominantly portrayed within the prevailing paradigms or through the neoliberal prism favoured by holders of political and economic power. Qualitative content analysis of how Slovenian news media communicated the decisive breaks and formative moments of the unfolding crisis shows they mostly relied on event-orientation, simplistic juxtapositions and naturalization of the established power divisions on national as well as international levels.

Keywords:
Slovenia, news media, capitalism, global economic crisis, critical content analysis

Teorija in praksa (vol. 51, no. 6), pp.: 1222-1241, Dec 2014

The paper looks at the wider role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the con... more The paper looks at the wider role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of their use in global political struggles, but also on the back of their sweeping abuse for surveillance by global capitalist corporations and state institutions. A general question is raised: can the Internet and social media be perceived as a means of social progress or as mechanisms of oppression? The author proceeds from a critical perspective and emphasises that ICTs must be analysed as parts of the social totality. They cannot be understood in a dichotomous way, but only as being full of contradictions. Yet, contradictions do not entail relativism – class inequalities, exploitation and domination are filtered through ICTs together with the manifold antagonisms emerging from capitalist societies.

Info, vol. 16, no. 6, pp.: 35-47 (2014), 2014

Purpose – This article aims to highlight the main limitations of the emancipatory potentials of d... more Purpose – This article aims to highlight the main limitations of the emancipatory potentials of digital inclusion policies and information and communication technologies (ICTs). Increasingly, empowerment
is put forward as one of the main goals of digital inclusion. By applying user-centric and participatory approaches, assumptions are made that individuals will be empowered and, as such, will bere-included in society.

Design/methodology/approach – These assumptions, however, tend to ignore the social, economic, political and technical conditions within which individual choices are made and within which individuals must inevitably act. Instead of attempting to narrow the existing social gap between class-divided societies, and of probing the limitations given at the macro-level by questioning the wider social structure, digital inclusion policies tend to individualize problems that are in fact social in their nature.

Findings – This contribution will, therefore, aim to identify the key causes of structural (dis)empowerment and how these resonate to digital inclusion. The article positions itself within the political economy of communication research tradition and aims to confront the structural consequences of social inequalities, existing social hierarchies and power structures against mechanisms of digital inequalities and against the implementation of digital inclusion policies.

Originality/value – By proceeding from a critical perspective, it aims to demonstrate the limitations of user-centric and micro-level approaches, while questioning their normative interpretations of digital empowerment which tend to be reductionist in their essence and instrumental in their aims.

Special issue of tripleC journal entitled "Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Definitions, Dimensions and Forms", Sep 2, 2014

This special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique aims to contribute to buildin... more This special issue of tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique aims to contribute to building a theoretical framework for the critical analysis of digital labour, virtual work, and related concepts that can initiate further debates, inform empirical studies, and inspire social struggles connected to work and labour in and beyond digital capitalism. The papers collected in this special issue (a) provide systematic definitions of digital labour, (b) analyse its specific dimension, and (c) discuss different forms of digital labour.

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.: 142-168 (2014), 2014

Abstract: "The main goal of this paper is to conceptualize a seeping commodification. The auth... more Abstract:

"The main goal of this paper is to conceptualize a seeping commodification. The author of the paper claims we are in the midst of a considerable qualitative transformation in the processes of commodification that is, in large part, owed to an overwhelming capitalist enclosure of the wider communicative field. The key reason for what seems to be an important qualitative transformation in the commodification process lies in the fact that communication and information flows today run through most social relations and spheres – which non-critical approaches often explain with the concept of the ‘mediatization of society’. A materialist approach, distinctive of (critical) political economy of communication, enables an apt critique of these processes. In an epoch, in which capital has enclosed the wider field of communication, mediatization is in fact nothing else than a continuing commodification of our everyday lives. The author of the paper claims that commodification of communication and informational resources must be seen as a long-term process, which has accompanied the rise of capitalism. A considerable proliferation of the economic importance of communication, information, and culture has – to be precise – been enhanced in a large part by political interventions occurring in the last decades (which were a response to the economic tendencies and crises of the time). While the immediate results are observable especially in the proliferation of the new information and communication technologies and the global role of intellectual property rights, the wider social consequences of these developments have been much broader and more influential. This study proceeds from the perspective of historical materialism and adopts dialectics in an attempt to grasp contradictory social changes. The analysis is done through different methods of historicizing: firstly, by observing long-term changes in communication, information, and culture, as they have been slowly transformed into commodities produced for market exchange since the emergence of capitalism; and, secondly, by defining fundamental political and economic processes occurring in recent decades that help with an explanation of the rise in the influence of communication and information (as peculiar types of commodities) in the current epoch.

Keywords:
Commodification; Information Society; Enclosures; Capitalism; Intellectual Property Rights; Mediatization; Critical Media and Communication History; Political Economy of Communication; Critical Communication Studies"

Abstrakt:

"Namen prispevka je konceptualizacija pronicajočega poblagovljenja. Avtor v prispevku trdi, da smo priča občutni kvalitativni spremembi v procesih poblagovljenja, ki so v veliki meri odvisni od izjemnega kapitalističnega ograjevanja širšega komunikacijskega polja. Osrednji razlog za kvalitativno transformacijo v procesih poblagovljenja je v dejstvu, da se komunikacijski in informacijski tokovi danes pretakajo skozi večino družbenih odnosov in sfer, proces, ki ga nekritični pristopi občasno označujejo s konceptom ''mediatizacije družbe''. Materialističen pristop, ki je značilen za (kritiko) politične ekonomije komuniciranja, omogoča učinkovito kritiko te konceptualizacije in omenjenih procesov. V epohi, v kateri si je kapital priključil širše polje komuninacije, je mediatizacijo potrebno videti v luči nadaljnjega poblagovljenja naših vsakdanjih življenj. Avtor v prispevku trdi, da je potrebno poblagovljenje komunikacijskih in informacijskih virov videti kot dolgoročen proces, ki je spremljal razvoj in širitev kapitalizma. Občutna proliferacija v ekonomskem pomenu komunikacije, informacij in kulture je, če smo povsem natančni, bila spodbujena v veliki meri s strani političnih intervencij, ki so se odvijale v zadnjih desetletjih (in so bile odgovor na ekonomske tendence in krizo tistega časa). Medtem ko so neposredni rezultati vidni predvsem v proliferaciji novih informacijskih in komunikacijskih tehnologij in globalne vloge intelektualnih lastniških pravic, širše posledice teh sprememb pa so bile še precej širše in vplivnejše. Pričujoča analiza temelji v pristopi zgodovinskega materializma in uporablja dialektično mišljenje, da bi razložila protislovja družbenih sprememb. Analiza je narejena skozi različne metode zgodovinskosti: prvič, z opazovanjem dolgoročnih sprememb v komunikaciji, informacijah in kulturi, ki so bile spremenjene v blaga, proizvedena za tržno menjavo od začetkov kapitalizma; in drugič, z opredelitvijo temeljnih političnih in ekonomskih procesov, ki so se odvijali v zadnjih desetletjih in lahko pomagajo pri razlagi vzpona komunikacijskih in informacijskih oblik (posebnega) blaga ter njihovem izjemnem vplivu v obstoječi družbeni epohi."

triple-C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, special issue "Marx is Back" edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2012, pp. 274-301), 2012

"This text was published as a part of the special issue "Marx is Back" (edited by Christian Fuchs... more "This text was published as a part of the special issue "Marx is Back" (edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco) in the journal triple-C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2012, pp. 274-301).

Abstract

"The commodity-form played an important, if often overlooked, role in the studies of capitalism. Processes of transforming literally anything into a privatized form of (fictitious) commodity that is exchanged in the circulation process are of fundamental importance for the rise and reproduction of capitalism. At the same time the commodity, as the “cell-form of capitalism”, has played a crucial role throughout Marx’s oeuvre. The central aim of the paper is to demonstrate how the commodity-form develops in his works (both as a part of his “global” argument and in the context of historical changes) and what role it plays in some of the key works of critical theory. Furthermore, the aim is to show how this topic was approached in critical communication studies and has been analysed in the political economy of communication. The latter is done principally through a reappraisal of the “blind spot debate” initiated by Dallas W. Smythe and the audience commodity thesis, in which it was raised. This long-lasting debate, which at least indirectly continues to date, can be seen as an invaluable source for practices and ideas connected to both Marxian-inspired critical communication studies and to a serious analysis of the continuing commodification of different spheres of society and its increasing pervasiveness in contemporary life. In the last section, these findings are connected to some of the recent neo-Marxist approaches, especially to the findings of the authors coming from the autonomist (post-operaist) movement. Insights into this intellectual strand can provide an understanding of the ongoing commodification processes, while also offering possibilities of convergence with Smythe’s approach."

Abstrakt

"Abstrakt: Blagovna forma je igrala pomembno, čeprav pogosto spregledano vlogo v študijah kapitalizma. Procesi spreminjanja praktično vsega v privatizirane (fiktivne) oblike blaga, ki so izmenjane v menjalnem procesu, so ključnega pomena za vzpon in obnavljanje kapitalizma. Istočasno je blagovna forma, kot ''celična forma kapitalizma'', igrala pomembno vlogo skozi celoten Marxov opus. Osrednji namen pričujočega prispevka je prikazati, kako se je blagovna forma razvila v Marxovih delih in kakšno vlogo igra v nekaterih pomembnejših delih kritične teorije. Nadalje je namen pričujočega prispevka pokazati, kako so se s to tematiko ukvarjale kritične komunikacijske študije in kako je bila analizirana v politični ekonomiji komuniciranja. Slednje je doseženo z vnovičnim vpogledom v ''debato o slepih pegah'', ki jo je pričel Dallas W. Smythe s tezo o občinstvih kot posebni obliki blaga. Ta obsežna in dolgo trajajoča debata, ki vsaj posredno poteka še danes, s seboj prinaša neprecenljive vire praks in idej povezanih z komunikacijskimi študijami, na katere je imel vpliv marksizem, in k resni analizi nadaljnjih procesov komodifikacije različnih sfer družbe in njenega vztrajnega prodiranja skozi človeška življenja. V zadnjem delu so ugotovitve v prispevku navezane na nekatere nedavno objavljene neo-marksistične analize, predvsem na ugotovitve avtorjev, ki izhajajo iz avtonomističnega (post-operaističnega) gibanja. Vpogledi v ta paradigmatski pristop lahko podajo razumevanje nadaljnjih procesov komodifikacije, pri čemer ponujajo tudi možnosti za konvergenco s Smythovim pristopom."

Journal of Comparative Politics, 2011

In November 2009, the Slovenian government implemented a new participatory tool called “Predlagam... more In November 2009, the Slovenian government implemented a new participatory tool called “Predlagam vladi” (“I propose to the government”) in order to include citizens in the governmental policy process, which aimed to increase active citizen participationand connect citizens and civil society with the government. At a declarative level of the proponent (the government), the use of this e-tool promotes inclusion, openness, accessibility, and deliberative communication. Although the web portal received almost no publicity in the mass media, citizens largely grasped the new opportunity for broader access to the policy process. This study focuses mainly on the deliberative character of the governmental portal on three specic levels: structure and architecture, openness to citizens, and concrete proposals and comments. By critically evaluating deliberative communication and the role of new media in such practical projects, the authors explain how these new opportunities are limited and, by debating deliberation and public sphere, determine important obstacles that prevent such projects from being deliberately effective.

Articles / Članki (in Slovene) by Jernej Amon Prodnik

Javnost: The Public, 2019

Povzetek: Pospeševanje je konstitutivni del moderne družbe, ki ga družboslovci opažajo že od... more Povzetek: Pospeševanje je konstitutivni del moderne družbe, ki ga družboslovci opažajo že od devetnajstega stoletja. V prispevku se pri holistični opredelitvi pospeševanja opiram na teoretski model Hartmuta Rose, ki razlikuje med analitično ločenimi, a vzajemno povezanimi dimenzijami pospeševanja. Med njimi je tehnološko pospeševanje, pri katerem sta na področju komuniciranja k njemu najočitneje prispevala telegraf in digitalizacija. Med najaktualnejše tehnologije s potencialom za velik družbeni vpliv lahko štejemo tudi algoritme. Njihove značilnosti v digitalnem kapitalizmu so (1) netransparentnost, (2) avtomatizacija, (3) podatkovljenje in (4) instrumentalna racionalizacija. Posledice teh značilnosti so večplastne, med njimi pa je tudi nadaljnja krepitev pospeševanja zaradi avtomatizacije. V nadaljevanju je obravnavan odnos med novinarstvom in časom, ki je neločljivo povezan z novinarskim delom. Potreba po takojšnjosti, naglici in aktualnosti ni le del novinarske prakse, temveč spada med temeljne ideološke kamne novinarske profesije. To ima posledice za normativno poslanstvo novinarstva, na katero bodo vplivali tudi algoritmi. Podana sta dva spekulativna scenarija: pesimistični, z dodatnim pospeševanjem novinarskega dela in množičnim odpuščanjem, kjer bi bili algoritmi zamenjava za novinarje, ter optimistični, kjer bi algoritmi lahko prevzeli najbolj rutinizirane oblike dela in dopolnjevali delo novinarjev, kar bi zaradi upočasnjevanja prispevalo k zviševanju kakovosti novinarstva.

Abstract (ENG): Acceleration is a constitutive part of modern society, which has been observed by social scientists already in the 19th century. The article is based on a holistic definition of acceleration that uses Hartmut Rosa's theoretic model in which he separates between analytically distinct, but mutually dependent dimensions of acceleration. Amongst them is technological acceleration, where in communications telegraph and digitalization have had the most notable impact. Lately algorithms are seen as technologies with potential for a vast social impact. Their basic features in digital capitalism include: (1) opacity, (2) datafication, (3) automation, and (4) instrumental rationalization. Consequences of these characteristics are multifaceted, amongst them further push for acceleration because of automation. I then assess the relationship between journalism and time, which is inseparable from journalistic work. The need for immediacy, instantaneousness and promptness is not only a part of journalistic practice, but also ideological foundation of journalistic profession. This has consequences for its normative presuppositions, which will also be influenced by algorithms. I propose two speculative scenarions: pessimistic one, with further acceleration of journalistic work and mass layoffs, where algorithms are a replacement for journalists, and an optimistic one, where algorithms take over routine tasks and supplement their work, leading to a rise in quality.

Družboslovne razprave, 2019

Towards a Critique of Mediatization: Political Communication of Slovenian Political Parties and t... more Towards a Critique of Mediatization: Political Communication of Slovenian Political Parties and their Media Relations

** English Summary **
The article provides an assessment of mediatization, which has established itself as “the key concept” (Lundby, 2014) and one of the central approaches in media and communication studies. Between 1990 and 2000 only 38 and 19 publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science mentioned mediatization. This was followed by an exponential growth between 2000 and 2017, with 3843 and 908 publications mentioning this concept, respectively. The main goal of mediatization is to explain the transformations of social relations because of the increased power of the media. Media are thus perceived as the cause of social changes, with different processes, institutions and actors either adapting to the media or changing because of them.
In the article I provide an overview of the approach, which has rarely been assessed in the Slovenian academic milieu despite being increasingly used by different researchers. I differentiate between the strong (institutionalist) and the weak (constructivist) approach to mediatization (largely based on Ampuja et al 2014). My primary goal is to provide theoretical and empirical critique, which is primarily aimed at the strong approach that presupposes a linear influence of the mass media on various institutions. In this approach, for example, mediatization of politics suggests that institutional politics increasingly has to adapt to the media logic, which is a set of typical rules and routines of the media that include simplification, visualization and personalization. In this sense, “media have become the most important arena for politics.” (Ibid.)
The article is empirically based on semi-structured interviews with representatives of Slovenian political parties, who were asked about the media and their power in setting the framework for politics. The paper looks at different inconsistencies present in the responses of the interviewees, which also point in the direction of blame-shifting and deeper power struggles within society. I thus try to modestly contribute to the existing research on political communication in Slovenia, but the interviews are mainly illustrative and the goal of my paper is not to provide a comprehensive overview of the relations between politics and the media. The interviews are used as a way of demonstrating fundamental fallacies present in mediatization, even if at first glance its validity may seem self-evident, especially taking into consideration the all-pervasiveness of the media in today’s societies. An in-depth inquiry indicates that mediatization remains a largely undeveloped approach that lacks real explanatory value. As I point out, its main problem is that it perceives power of the media in an abstract manner. Even though authors advocate a holistic analytical approach, writings on mediatization are in fact narrowly focused on the media and their relations with particular parts of society, with no intention of embedding media in the social totality. As I argue further, the reasons for these problems are ontological, epistemological and theoretical fallacies. Since ontological deficiencies have been criticized by other authors, I point out three fundamental epistemological and theoretical issues:
(1) Mediatization does not differentiate between form and content of communication in the media, consequently failing to acknowledge that changes in the form of communication (influence of the media logic) do not automatically lead to changes in the power relations, especially when it comes to amplification of particular voices through the media. By contrast, authors focusing on the media sources have for decades emphasized vast inequalities when researching which social groups are used as journalistic sources. As noted by Schudson (2011: 13), one of the reasons “people tend to exaggerate media power is that they do not distinguish the media’s power from the power of the people and the events the media cover.”
(2) Mediatization fails to make a proper distinction between public political communication and political activity, thus conflating changes in the form of political communication with changes in politics as such. While political communication should indeed be seen as an important part of institutional politics, it is unacceptably reductionist to simply equate the two. As noted by Van Aelst et al (2014: 207): “The media logic definitely affects what politicians talk about, but there is much less proof that it influences what politicians actually do.”
(3) Mediatization ignores non-public parts of politics and inequalities in social relations of power. Since mediatization focuses almost solely on the media, it fails to notice that not all political activity is public, often intentionally so. Taking into consideration increased global inequalities and the power of corporate capital, there are many other actors, processes and institutions that influence the political process. Similarly, attempts at controlling public communication go far beyond politics and the media and include systemic propaganda, corporate public relations and pressures of socially powerful groups.
Mediatization more or less bypasses all of these issues, meaning it wants to discuss increased power and influence of the media without asking the question that necessarily follows: what are the wider relations of power in capitalist society and how are they changing?

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IZVLEČEK: Mediatizacija se je v zadnjem desetletju vzpostavila kot osrednji pristop v raziskovanju medijev in komuniciranja. Njen cilj je razlaga sprememb, ki naj bi jih zaradi naraščajoče moči na družbi povzročali mediji. Cilj članka je teoretska in empirična kritika institucionalističnega (močnega) pristopa k mediatizaciji, pri čemer se opiram na poglobljene polstrukturirane intervjuje s predstavniki slovenskih političnih strank. Kot ugotavljam, je osrednja težava mediatizacije dejstvo, da moč medijev dojema povsem abstraktno, sočasno pa ignorira širše odnose moči v družbi. Kljub zagovarjanju holizma so avtorji ozko osredotočeni le na medije, ne da bi jih umeščali v družbeno totaliteto. Ontološke, epistemološke in teoretske težave pristopa predstavljam na konkretnih primerih, pri čemer se opiram na sociologijo medijev in politično ekonomijo komuniciranja.

KLJUČNE BESEDE: mediatizacija, politično komuniciranje, medijska logika, politične stranke, sociologija medijev, politična ekonomija komuniciranja

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Zbirka Javnost, 2014

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tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 2024

Critical Sociology, Dec 27, 2023

tripleC, Apr 5, 2023

Prispevki za novejšo zgodovino / The Contributions to Contemporary History , 2022

Medijska istraživanja / Media Research, 2017

Special issue of Javnost - The Public "In the Eye of the Storm" (vol. 21, no. 4, pp.: 77-98), Dec 2014

Keywords:
Slovenia, news media, capitalism, global economic crisis, critical content analysis

Teorija in praksa (vol. 51, no. 6), pp.: 1222-1241, Dec 2014

Info, vol. 16, no. 6, pp.: 35-47 (2014), 2014

Special issue of tripleC journal entitled "Philosophers of the World Unite! Theorising Digital Labour and Virtual Work - Definitions, Dimensions and Forms", Sep 2, 2014

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.: 142-168 (2014), 2014

Abstract: "The main goal of this paper is to conceptualize a seeping commodification. The auth... more Abstract:

Abstrakt:

triple-C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, special issue "Marx is Back" edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2012, pp. 274-301), 2012

Abstract

Abstrakt

Journal of Comparative Politics, 2011

Javnost: The Public, 2019

Družboslovne razprave, 2019

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KLJUČNE BESEDE: mediatizacija, politično komuniciranje, medijska logika, politične stranke, sociologija medijev, politična ekonomija komuniciranja

Teorija in praksa, Dec 2018

POVZETEK Časnik Slovenski narod je pričel izhajati leta 1868 in 1873. postal prvi dnevnik v slov... more POVZETEK
Časnik Slovenski narod je pričel izhajati leta 1868 in 1873. postal prvi dnevnik v slovenskem jeziku. Kot velik del preostalega časopisja, ki je izhajalo v devetnajstem stoletju, je bil aktivno vpet v politične boje. V prispevku sem se osredotočil na njegovo vlogo pri zamišljanju in širitvi slovenske nacionalne identitete. Pri tem sem se oprl na proces zamišljanja skupnosti prek oblikovanja specifičnih solidarnosti (Benedict Anderson), izpostavil pa sem tudi neposredno vsebinsko promocijo nacionalne ideje prek časopisov. Slovenski narod sem v prispevku obravnaval v kontekstu vzpona nacionalizmov, ki so zaznamovali devetnajsto stoletje, časopise v slovenščini pa sem postavil v odnos s periodiko iz drugih okolij. Zanimalo me je, če so nacionalistične težnje obstajale drugod – analizo sem vpel v širši mednarodni kontekst – in v kakšni meri so mogoče posplošitve. Ker so v prispevku obravnavani čas zaznamovali globoki družbeni prelomi, ki so presegali lokalne okvire, sem obravnavane institucije in procese umestil v kontekst t. i. dolgega devetnajstega stoletja.

English title of the article: "The Role of Newspapers in the Emergence of Nationalisms: The Newspaper Slovenski narod in the Context of the Long 19th Century"

ABSTRACT
The newspaper Slovenski narod (Slovenian Nation) was initially published in 1868 and became the first daily paper to be published in the Slovenian language in 1873. Like most other newspapers published in the 19th century, it was firmly entrenched in political struggles. The paper focuses on its role in imagining and expanding the Slovenian national identity. The study is based on the process of how communities become imagined through the construction of specific solidarities (Benedict Anderson), while also focusing on the direct promotion of national identity via nationalistic content in newspapers. Slovenski narod is analysed in the context of the rise of nationalisms that characterised the 19th century, with newspapers published in the Slovenian language related to periodicals released in other comparable states and milieus. I was interested in whether similar tendencies existed elsewhere – thus enabling a wider, international perspective – and whether any generalisations are possible. Because the 19th century was defined by deep social transformations that went beyond local frameworks, the analysed institutions and processes are dealt with in the context of the long 19th century.

Javnost, Vol. 22, Supplement, pp.: 66-77, Dec 2015

Abstract: The aim of this article is to situate the report of the International Commission for th... more Abstract: The aim of this article is to situate the report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems Many Voices, One World (more commonly known as the MacBride report) within its historic, social, political-economic and intellectual context. The report is regarded as one of the seminal interventions in the field of international communication, and aimed to reduce inequalities in the access to means of communication between countries as well as within countries. The article argues that critical thought and its practical application are necessarily conditioned by the wider social context. This is evident in the case of the MacBride report as well as in the development of political economy of communication, which formed the basis of the call for a New World Information and Communication Order and of its most important document, the MacBride report. /// Povzetek: Namen prispevka je umestitev poročila Mednarodne komisije za proučevanje komunikacijskih problemov Mnogo glasov, en svet (bolj znano kot MacBrideovo poročilo), v zgodovinski, družbeni, političnoekonomski in intelektualni kontekst njegovega nastanka. Poročilo velja za eno najpomembnejših intervencij na področju mednarodnega komuniciranja, ki si je za cilj postavilo zmanjševanje neenakosti v dostopu do komunikacijskih sredstev tako med državami kot znotraj držav. Prispevek izhaja iz predpostavke, da je kritična misel in poizkus njenega prenosa v praktične rešitve neizogibno pogojen s širšim družbenim kontekstom. To se kaže tako v primeru MacBrideovega poročila kot v razvoju politične ekonomije komuniciranja, ki je tvorila temelje za pobudo po Novi svetovni informacijski in komunikacijski ureditvi, katere najpomembnejši dokument je prav MacBrideovo poročilo.

Časopis za kritiko znanosti / Journal for the Critique of Science (ISSN 0351-4285), May 2015

English title: A Call for The New International Information and Communication Order and Report of... more English title: A Call for The New International Information and Communication Order and Report of MacBride’s Commission: Historical Contextualization

Abstract: The article presents the efforts to establish a new international (later: world) information and communication order. The flourishing of the political economy of communication in the seventies, when issues of global inequality of information and communication flows and their role in the strenghening of the global hegemony of American capitalism came to the foreground, has contributed significantly to the establishment of these demands. Under the influence of the non-aligned movement, demands for a more democratic information and communication order were an important topic of discussion in UNESCO in the latter half of the seventies. Yet the aggressive reaction of the USA and Great Britain, which withdrew from UNESCO as a sign of protest against its treatment of issues of information and communication, has thwarted these efforts.

Keywords: Keywords: New international economic order, MacBride commission, New world information and communication order, political economy of communication, history of communication research, right to communicate

Povzetek: V članku predstaviva prizadevanja za uveljavitev nove mednarodne (pozneje: svetovne) informacijske in komunikacijske ureditve. K oblikovanju teh zahtev je pripomogel razcvet politične ekonomije komuniciranja v sedemdesetih letih 20. stoletja, kjer so v ospredje med drugim prišla vprašanja globalnih neenakosti v informacijskih in komunikacijskih tokovih in njihova vloga pri zagotavljanju globalne hegemonije ameriškega kapitalizma. Zahteve po bolj demokratični informacijski in komunikacijski ureditvi so konec sedemdesetih let predvsem na pobudo gibanja neuvrščenih zavzele pomembno mesto v Unescu, vendar so bile kmalu zatrte predvsem zaradi ostrega odziva ZDA in Velike Britanije, ki so, prav zaradi nestrinjanja z načinom obravnave informacijske in komunikacijske problematike protestno izstopili iz Unesca.

Ključne besede: nova mednarodna ekonomska ureditev, MacBridova komisija, Nova svetovna informacijska in komunikacijska ureditev, politična ekonomija komuniciranja, zgodovina komunikologije, pravica do komuniciranja

Javnost - The Public (Vol. 19, No. 5 - 2012), pp: 1-17

"Foundations of the political economy of communication and the tendencies of media in capitalism"... more "Foundations of the political economy of communication and the tendencies of media in capitalism"

ABSTRACT: In the first part of the article, the basic presuppositions and characteristics of the political economy of communication are defined. This is a research area that lacks adequate theoretical foundations in Slovenian research sphere. In the second part of the article, emphasis is put on the key points made by the authors that can be seen as providing the constituents for political economy approach to media (namely Marx, Bücher, and Sinclair). In the last part of the article, the key tendencies of media in the capitalist political economic context are laid out by providing a historical contextualization of their development, basing it especially on the role of the advertising in their transformation since the start of the 20th century. One of the main goals of the article is to demonstrate how the anonymous mechanisms of commodity exchange in the capitalist media market are at least as important in reinstating the social consensus and (re)production of the existing class and ideological relations as the (presumably intentional) role of the media owners in influencing (the content or ideology of) the mass media.

KEYWORDS: Political economy of media, political economy of communication, critical theory, critical communication studies, capitalism, advertising, commodity form.

ABSTRAKT: Prispevek v prvem delu opredeljuje temeljne predpostavke in karakteristike politične ekonomije komuniciranja. Gre za področje, ki je v slovenskem raziskovalnem prostoru brez primerne teoretske utemeljitve. V drugem delu so izpostavljeni ključni poudarki avtorjev, ki jih je mogoče označiti za intelektualne predhodnike politično-ekonomskega pristopa k medijem: Marxa, Bücherja in Sinclairja. V zadnjem delu so na podlagi zgodovinske kontekstualizacije izpostavljene tendence medijev v kapitalizmu, pri čemer je fokus predvsem na vlogi oglaševanja pri zgodovinskih spremembah medijev. Eden izmed ciljev prispevka je pokazati, da so anonimni mehanizmi blagovne menjave na kapitalističnem medijskem trgu vsaj tako pomembni pri vzpostavljanju družbenega konsenza in (re)produkciji obstoječih razrednih in ideoloških odnosov, kot je (potencialno namerna) vloga lastnikov medijev pri vplivu na vsebine, ki jih posredujejo množični mediji

Ključne besede: Politična ekonomija komuniciranja, politična ekonomija medijev, kritična teorija, kritična komunikologija, kapitalizem, oglaševanje, blagovna forma.

Teorija in praksa (vol. 51, no. 6), pp.: 1321-1343., Dec 2014

English title of the paper: Self-promotional News Media? The Websites' Analysis of Slovenian Poli... more English title of the paper: Self-promotional News Media? The Websites' Analysis of Slovenian Political Actors

Abstract in English language:
"The article reflects the findings of a quantitative analysis of the websites of Slovenian political institutions regarding three different but related aspects. In accordance with the functionalist model in classical communication theory – 'Who communicates what in what way?' – the analysis focuses on the online informational and communication patterns of political institutions. Conducted in March 2014 on a sample of 63 websites, the study included governmental, legislatorial institutions and the sphere of civil society before an election for the European Parliament, and offers a comparative view of the biggest political actors in the Slovenian online political space. By accommodating the Habermasian model of political arenas of communication, the study enables a comparison between weak and strong politics and between individualised politics of personas with institutional politics. The results show that the websites of political institutions are less politically structured and more media-oriented: participatory forms of online behaviour are less present than the expansion of news, video contents and other visual promo tional materials. However, the evident move by political actors into online social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is still not built on the potential for the greater participation of citizens and their inclusion in political decision-making. Such findings demand a critical understanding of political actors and their role in the online construction of 'digital citizens' today. "

Keywords Institutional politics, online websites, public sphere, digital citizens, participatory communication, social media

Povzetek:
"Prispevek predstavlja rezultate kvantitativne analize spletnih mest slovenskih političnih institucij, in sicer s treh različnih, a med seboj povezanih vidikov. Skladno z v komunikologiji tradicionalnim izhodiščem funkcionalnega modela – 'Kdo sporoča kaj in na kakšen način?' – analiziramo informacijske in komunikacijske vzorce političnih institucij na spletu. Raziskava, opravljena v marcu 2014 na vzorcu 63 spletnih mest, ki je vključevala izvršno, sodno, zakonodajno oblast in civilnodružbeno sfero političnega prizorišča v Sloveniji pred kampanjo za volitve v Evropski parlament, omogoča primerjalni vpogled v delovanje slovenskih političnih akterjev na spletu. Ta skozi nadgradnjo Habermasovega modela aren političnega komuniciranja ponuja kontrastiranje t. i. močne politične sfere s »šibko« politiko in primerjavo med t. i. individualizirano »politiko oseb« in institucionalno politiko. Rezultati kažejo, da postajajo spletna mesta političnih institucij vse manj politično in vse bolj medijsko strukturirana: programske in participatorne oblike delovanja prehiteva razmah novičarstva, videovsebin in drugih vizualnih promocijskih mehanizmov. Premik akterjev v spletna omrežja ob tem ni nujno utemeljen na možnostih za večjo participacijo državljanov in njihovo vključevanje v procese odločanja, kar zahteva ponovni premislek o razumevanju političnih akterjev in njihovi vlogi pri ustvarjeni podobi državljanov v digitalnem okolju."

Ključne besede: institucionalna politika, spletna mesta,javna sfera, digitalni državljani, participatorno komuniciranje, družbeni mediji

¡No Pasaran!: Zapisi z antifa seminarja -- ¡No Pasaran!: Notes from the antifa seminar, Apr 2013

* * * A Note on Fascist Practices (and the Emergence of Neo-Fascism) * * * The author provides a ... more * * * A Note on Fascist Practices (and the Emergence of Neo-Fascism) * * * The author provides a theoretical analysis of the concept of fascism, which he then applies to the present political-economic and political circumstances. He proposes that to understand fascism it is important to separate it from the historical context, while it is at the same time of crucial importance to embed it into the current historical processes in the society. Only this kind of abstraction will enable us to consider fascism in a patently changed, but in many ways similar social context. Furthermore a differentiation is suggested between a completely formed fascist order on the one hand, and fascist institutions, processes, practices and discourses on the other. This can provide a possible distinction between a macro-level perspective, which focuses on the wider social structures and systems, and micro-practices and micro-politics, which operate at the level of everyday activities. Such differentiation is important because a suitable social context is always a prerequisite for a totally integrated (fascist) order. It is always the social context that helps to transfer fascist micro-practices into the wider and often institutional social level (for example into a broadened complex of fascist apparatuses and institutions on the national or supra-national level that potentially enable the establishment of a fascist order). This also helps us to redefine the hard and sharp opposition between fascist and non-fascist societies: in different historical moments the movement from seemingly benign fascist practices toward a proto-fascist social context and finally to a totally constructed fascist system is always possible. Defined and rethought in this way, fascism can be observed and analyzed as a movement and a process, not only as a (fully constructed and stable, often de-contextualized) structure.
* * * Keywords: fascism, neo-fascism, fascist practices, neoliberalism, capitalism, post-democracy. * * *

Časopis za kritiko znanosti (no. 242, pp. 109-124), 2010

"Abstract Cloakroom Communities and Cyberspace: Towards a Concept of “Pseudo-Environmental” Ni... more "Abstract

Cloakroom Communities and Cyberspace: Towards a Concept of “Pseudo-Environmental” Niches

In the advent of the internet one can recognize a familiar pattern. New technologies are regarded either as potential saviors or, in a more dystopian view, as something that will only worsen social conditions. This paper rejects these technological-determinist ic views as inadequate and analyzes broader social transformations in post-Fordist capitalism, that influence the stability of relations and communities. In the author's view the so called virtual community does not exist, but – similarly as pessimistic outcries to return to traditional community - functions as a mystification of social antagonisms, inherent to capitalism. The reanimation of democratic life and the quest for safety and liberty of an individual
through community can be a dangerous substitute for political action.

Key words: cloakroom communities, imagined communities, identity, pseudo-environment, worldliness, myth, post-Fordism, Zygmunt Bauman, Paolo Virno.

Povzetek:

Z nastankom interneta se je ponovil že znani vzorec, po katerem nove tehnologije bodisi prinašajo številne možnosti reševanja družbenih tegob bodisi delujejo na te razmere skrajno negativno. Prispevek zavrne te tehnološko-determinističn e pristope kot neustrezne ter prouči širše družbene spremembe v postfordističnem kapitalizmu, ki vplivajo na stabilnost odnosov in trdnost skupnosti. Tako imenovana virtualna skupnost po mnenju avtorja ne obstaja, ampak, podobno kot pesimističen poziv po vrnitvi k tradicionalni skupnosti, služi kot mistifikacija za (kapitalizmu inherentne) družbene antagonizme. Oživljanje demokratičnega življenja ter iskanje rešitev za varnost in svobodo posameznika skozi skupnost je nevaren substitut za politično delovanje.

Ključne besede: garderobne skupnosti, zamišljene skupnosti, identiteta, psevdookolja, svetnost, mit, postfordizem, Zygmunt Bauman, Paolo Virno""

Tematska številka "Transformacije dela" (Časopis za kritiko znanosti, št. 244, urednika številke Andrej Kurnik in Jernej Prodnik), 2011

"A Contribution to a Conceptualisation of the Common in Bio-Linguistic Capitalism Abstract ... more "A Contribution to a Conceptualisation of the Common in Bio-Linguistic Capitalism

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to make a contribution to understanding the idea of the common in the existing historical framework. The author points out the wide range of meanings that must be taken into account when one attempts to conceptualise the common, or at least when one wishes to achieve a more or less comprehensive understanding of it. Specifically, this concept must not be understood only in association with common resources, fields or goods, that is, in the sense of that which is most commonly understood as common ownership or common »property«. The common is first and foremost a concept which cannot be conceived without the social relations that constitute an inseparable part of it. The narrow or limited approach mentioned above, which is particularly characteristic of a political economy perspective on the common, may of course provide one of the keys to understanding the diversity of the common and the techniques used to exploit it in the age of bio-linguistic capitalism; however, an exclusive focus on this meaning reduces the complexity of both the concept itself and the society in which it emerges, and thus presents a risk of naturalising certain parts of the social. The first part of the text is therefore dedicated to a clarification of the wide range of faces and approaches through which it is possible to observe the common; only in the second part is this followed by a tentative attempt at a political-economic typologisation of the common. In this part, two mostly »intangible« forms of the common which have become »victims« of new processes of enclosure and privatisation are highlighted. In both cases information itself, which is characterised by a non-rival logic and low subtractivity, is privatised, creating new monopolies on knowledge which directly impact the functioning of society as a whole. These processes are enabled through extra-economic interventions, in particular through the enforcement of intellectual property, which is expanding on the global level through new rigid ownership systems (such as the TRIPS system) and enabling owners to restrict access and thereby potentially accumulate »profit which is becoming rent«. The author approaches the common from the radical position of alternative modernity and posits the urgency of absolute democracy in the administration, establishment and understanding of the common.

Povzetek

Namen članka je prispevati k razumevanju ideje o skupnem v obstoječih zgodovinskih okvirih. Avtor opozarja na množico pomenov, ki jih je treba upoštevati, ko poskušamo poskušamo konceptualizirati skupno, vsaj če ga hočemo razumeti kar se le da celovito. Tega koncepta namreč nikakor ne smemo dojemati le v povezavi s skupnimi viri, področji ali dobrinami, torej v pomenu tega, kar se najpogosteje dojema kot skupna posest ali skupna »lastnina«. Skupno je namreč predvsem koncept, ki ga je nemogoče misliti brez družbenih odnosov, ki so njegov neizogibni del. Omenjeni ožji oziroma zamejeni pristop, ki je značilen predvsem za politično-ekonomski pogled na skupno, je sicer lahko eden izmed ključev za razumevanje raznolikosti skupnega in s kakšnimi tehnikami se v epohi biolingvističnega kapitalizma eksploatira, vendar bi ekskluzivno osredinjanje le na ta pomen reduciralo kompleksnost tako samega koncepta kot tudi družbe, v kateri nastaja, s čimer bi lahko tvegali naturalizacijo nekaterih delov družbenega. Zato je prvi del članka namenjen razjasnitvi množice obrazov in pristopov, iz katerih je mogoče opazovati skupno, čemur šele v drugem delu in s pridržki sledi poizkus politično-ekonomske tipologizacije skupnega ...

V Časopis za kritiko znanosti, številka 244, letnik XXXVIII (2011), str.: 23-47."

Družboslovne razprave (2012, no. 70, vol. 28, pp. 51-70), 2012

Oblak Črnič, Tanja in Jernej Prodnik - Pristranosti interneta in (ne)moč spletnih občinstev. T... more Oblak Črnič, Tanja in Jernej Prodnik - Pristranosti interneta in (ne)moč spletnih občinstev.

This article was published in the journal Družboslovne razprave, številka 70, letnik XXVIII, str. 51-70, september 2012.
Weblink: http://druzboslovnerazprave.org/clanek/2012/70/3/

ENGLISH:

Title: The biases of the internet and the (un)power of web audiences.

Abstract:
The main purpose of this article is to lay out the main limitations when it comes to the »emancipatory« potentials of the Internet, and to show certain biases of this technology in regards to the audiences and individual agency online. The text first conceptualizes cyberspace as an assemblage of material infrastructure, public representations and everyday practices, which enables to differentiate key levels through which relations between different actors on the Web are formed. After that, authors provide a critique of technological determinism by focusing on their own model of material, incorporated, and structural biases that constrain the power of audiences and possible emancipatory potentials that could develop online. While material biases derive from the technical infrastructure of the web that is based in network structure and web links, embedded biases are referred to digital competencies, homogenization of choice, and mechanisms of authority. When it comes to structural biases a crucial point is assigned to commodification, privatization, and concentration, which are transmitted both on the technical infrastructure as well as on content and applications. Authors conclude with consideration of possible consequences of such findings for understanding of complicated relations when it comes to studying audiences on the Web.

EXTENDED SUMMARY:

The present article lays out main limitations of the “emancipatory” potentials of the Internet as a medium, which was throughout its history presented in mostly utopian terms. It was commonly considered as a medium that will bring positive social and political change that will enable equality between users, non-hierarchical relations and consequently also new potentials for fully developed democracy. Article demonstrates certain biases of this new technology in regards to the audiences and individual agency on the Net, by providing a critique of the before mentioned simplistic notions of its possible use and development in a wider social context. These biases are either connected to the material limitations and are therefore dictated by the technical biases of technology as such, or reflect wider socio-structural limitations that are mirrored through the Net. The Internet, being a part of wider social relations, much like other technologies either enables or constrains audiences and their autonomy.

On the basis of these preliminary presuppositions, authors first conceptualize cyberspace as an assemblage of material infrastructure, public representations and everyday practices, which enables them to analytically differentiate key levels through which relations between different actors are constituted. After this initial clarification, authors provide a critique of technological determinism, which presents technological changes as independent, neutral and autonomous from society. This approach is connected to the “ideology of technology”, which can be seen as providing an influential interpretations of technological and social changes, especially of its supposedly positive outcomes (which seem necessary and inevitable in this interpretation). As an alternative, authors present Innis’s theory of the biases of communication, which was often accused of technological determinism. They demonstrate that a closer interpretation of this theory can offer a much more nuanced and complex picture of the role technology plays in society. This offers a solid ground for authors to focus on their own model of material, embedded and structural biases of the Internet that constrain and limit the power of audiences on the Internet and with it also possible emancipatory potentials that could develop through the use of this new technology.

Firstly, material biases develop from the technical infrastructure of the Net that is based in network structure and web links. This bias shows a tendency towards the politics of winners-take-all (e.g. the concept of “Googlearchy”), while autonomy of audiences can also be limited through choices of architecture or design of specific medium or technology (and may seem self-evident or even natural when they are completely implemented). Secondly, embedded biases are connected to digital competencies, homogenization of choice, and mechanisms of authority. These biases can change with use and practice of audiences, but nevertheless seriously constrain activities of individual users. They are connected to the wider social relations, for example to the social norms, regulation, hierarchies or social inequalities. A crucial part when it comes to the third type of biases, the structural ones, is assigned to commodification, privatization, and concentration on (and of) the Internet. These processes are transmitted both on the technical infrastructure of the networks (privatization) as well as on the content and applications running on this material basis. The Internet is a part of capitalist societies, which produce serious inequalities, while there is also a constant tendency toward monopolization. These processes reinstate new (old) hierarchies and (re)produce concentration of power both through the Net and on it.

Authors claim that all these biases and their different levels of influence seriously impede possibilities for possible autonomy of audiences and users when it comes to their activities and choices on the Internet. They note that particular biases are usually at the same time in complex reciprocal relation with one another and can either enhance or even contradict each other. While a certain bias of new technology can provide new means of autonomy (e.g. reduction of exclusivity when it comes to the production of content), others can seriously impede such possibilities (e.g. new monopolies and economic elites, concentration of the web-traffic, or privatization of technological infrastructure and large parts of the Web). It is therefore possible to see several contradictions and antagonisms at work both within the Internet and within society, which fully normalized this new technology. Authors conclude their article with a consideration of possible consequences of these findings for understanding of complicated relations when it comes to studying audiences on the Web, by pointing at different possibilities of political empowerment.

Keywords: biases and cyberspace, web-audiences, the web and the Internet, inequality and hierarchies, concentration of power

Povzetek
Namen prispevka je pokazati na omejitve »emancipatornih« potencialov interneta kot medija in opozoriti na svojstvene pristranosti, ki zmanjšujejo avtonomijo pri delovanju ter izbirah posameznikov na spletu. Avtorja najprej konceptualizirata kibernetski prostor kot skupek materialne infrastrukture, javnih reprezentacij in vsakodnevnih praks, kar jima omogoči, da analitično razmejita ključne ravni, prek katerih se vzpostavljajo razmerja med spletnimi akterji. V nadaljevanju prek kritike tehnološkega determinizma predstavita lasten model materialnih, vgrajenih in strukturnih pristranosti. Medtem ko materialne pristranosti izhajajo iz same tehnične infrastrukture interneta, ki temelji v mrežni strukturi in spletnih povezavah, so vgrajene pristranosti povezane z digitalnimi veščinami, homogenizacijo izbire in mehanizmi avtoritete. Pri strukturnih pristranostih igrajo ključno vlogo komodifikacija, privatizacija in koncentracija, ki se prenašajo tako na tehnično infrastrukturo samih omrežij kot na vsebine in aplikacije, ki tečejo na omenjeni materialni platformi. Avtorja članek skleneta z razmislekom o posledicah teh ugotovitev za proučevanje spletnih občinstev.

Ključne besede: pristranosti in kibernetski prostor, občinstva, splet in internet, neenakosti, hierarhičnost, koncentracija moči

Tematska številka "Transformacije dela" (Časopis za kritiko znanosti, št. 244, urednika številke Andrej Kurnik in Jernej Prodnik), 2011

"The Permanence of Primitive Accumulation, or: On the Private Property, Commodification and Retur... more "The Permanence of Primitive Accumulation, or: On the Private Property, Commodification and Return of the Rent."

Abstract

In his analysis of current social antagonisms, the author starts from a critique of political economy and focuses on two historically and politically/theoretically important concepts, without which it would not be possible to understand the development of the capitalist system and the way it currently functions: primitive accumulation and modern private property. Newer interpretations of the process of primitive accumulation (Perelman, DeAngelis, Harvey) start from the premise that primitive accumulation is not just a historical period belonging to the past, but a necessarily present part of capital in its expansion and search for news ways out of recurring crises. This permanence of primitive accumulation, which Harvey refers to as accumulation-by-disposses sion, in which a key factor is the difference between the generation and existence of capital, helps us to understand the ever present processes of capital expansion and their often violent incorporation of various fields. Although these processes are an always-already-present characteristic of capitalism, by manifesting themselves, they have marked the past decades, when capital has attempted to resolve its own profitability crisis through financialisation and privatisation. At the same time, because the existence of the modern form of private property has appeared as an important condition for capitalist accumulation and as that element which facilitates the effective functioning, development and expansion of capitalist relations of production, at the beginning of the article, this socially constructed phenomenon of modern society, which, through a process of reductionism, makes it almost impossible to consider different forms of ownership such as common forms of property, is analysed. And these starting points provide a suitable foundation for understanding historical and current processes of the expropriation of the common and the transformation of commonly held fields into various forms of commodities which can be exchanged and sold on the market. It is the consequences of these processes for the common – both on the »practical« (i.e. expropriation) and »theoretical« levels (an ever greater inability to reflect on the common – beyond the public and the private) – that form the backdrop as well as the fundamental guiding principal of this text. In the last part, the discussed dilemmas are applied to the phenomenon of the rise of the rent, which has become crucial for understanding the functioning of postfordist capitalism and new forms of (fictitious) commodities.

V Časopis za kritiko znanosti, številka 244, letnik XXXVIII (2011), str.: 89-109.

AI for Everyone? Critical Perspectives, Sep 20, 2021

This chapter details the key characteristics of algorithmic systems in their current hegemonic so... more This chapter details the key characteristics of algorithmic systems in their current hegemonic social form, which helps to shed a light on the reasons for their increasing social influence. These characteristics include: opacity/obfuscation, datafication, automation, and instrumental rationalisation. Because technologies are inevitably embedded in – and influenced by – the social context in which they develop, the author’s analysis considers these systems as a part of competitive and inherently unstable capitalist society, or to put it more narrowly, as a part of digital capitalism. This provides a critical analytic framework that points to the fact there is nothing ‘natural’ in these characteristics of algorithmic systems, while making it possible to delineate both the structural reasons for their development and their social consequences. On this basis it is claimed we can denote a specific algorithmic logic in digital capitalism that continuously reinforces itself

Social Media and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (eds. Paweł Surowies and Václav Štětka), 2018

"This chapter explores the personalization strategies of political parties by focusing on the uti... more "This chapter explores the personalization strategies of political parties by focusing on the utilization of Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, during the 2014 Slovenian parliamentary election campaign. Political parties differ in their motivations for adoption and utilization of technological innovations. The 'new' democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) were quick to utilize television for political purposes in the early stages of democratic consolidation in the 1990s. In the case of 2014 Slovenian national election, personalization represented a logical consequence of a dealignment and the emergence of new political parties. The political strategy of the latter was focused on recognizable party leaders, which also meant that form dominated over the actual substance of political communication. An important element of using Twitter in election campaigns was that the parties communicated messages to voters and other relevant actors. Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS) was distanced from promoting interaction and social conversation on Twitter and did not use retweets to share information."

V senci digitalnih velikanov, 2021

Ekskluzivnost in aktualnost sta med najbolj cenjenimi novinarskimi vrlinami, pogosto pa sta pogoj... more Ekskluzivnost in aktualnost sta med najbolj cenjenimi novinarskimi vrlinami, pogosto pa sta pogojeni samo z enim: s hitrostjo. V novinarstvu biti pravočasen nemalokrat pomeni, da si bil prepozen.

V senci digitalnih velikanov, 2021

Usmerjenost spletnih medijev v šokantne naslove, s katerimi hočejo premamiti čim več bralcev, se ... more Usmerjenost spletnih medijev v šokantne naslove, s katerimi hočejo premamiti čim več bralcev, se pogosto povezuje s pojavom metrik za spremljanje branosti, ki so se razmahnile v digitalnih okoljih. Vsak klik je mogoče natančno izmeriti, ga včasih tudi povezati z drugimi podatki o uporabniku, to pa prinese nekaj centov oglaševalskega denarja. Boj za klike je na svetovnem spletu še posebej neprizanesljiv, saj so internetna prostranstva obsežna, porazdeljenost oglaševalskega denarja pa nadvse neenaka. Večina ga odteče k največjim internetnim gigantom, zato so drugim namenjene le drobtinice. /.../ Senzacionalistični in zavajajoči naslovi so postali splošnejša težnja, ki jo v bolj ali manj izraziti obliki izkazujejo številni mediji.

Premisleki o prihodnosti javnih medijev, Aug 31, 2020

"Kakovostno novinarstvo, ki deluje v javnem interesu, je med raziskovalci medijev prepoznano kot ... more "Kakovostno novinarstvo, ki deluje v javnem interesu, je med raziskovalci medijev prepoznano kot eden izmed temeljev modernih demokratičnih ureditev. [...] Ne samo, da aktualni vladni predlogi nove zakonodaje teh težav ne odpravljajo, v resnici jih niti ne obravnavajo in v nestabilen ekonomski položaj postavljajo celo javno radiotelevizijo. Že na srednji rok bi implementacija takšne zakonodaje imela negativne posledice za demokratičnost slovenske družbe. Ob tem predlogi povečujejo odvisnost javne radiotelevizije od oglaševanja, torej prav od tistega finančnega vira, ki v zadnjem desetletju usiha in na katerega bodo tradicionalni mediji vedno težje računali."

Populist Political Communication in Europe

A chapter on populist political communication as political marketing in Slovenia. A part of an ed... more A chapter on populist political communication as political marketing in Slovenia. A part of an edited volume "Populist Political Communication in Europe", edited by Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, Jesper Stromback, Claes De Vreese (Routledge, 2016).

Abstract of the volume: "In an increasing number of countries around the world, populist leaders, political parties and movements have gained prominence and influence, either by electoral successes on their own or by influencing other political parties and the national political discourse. While it is widely acknowledged that the media and the role of communication more broadly are key to understanding the rise and success of populist leaders, parties and movements, there is however very little research on populist political communication, at least in the English-speaking research literature."

Abstract: The last two decades have been awash with interpretations of the changes brought about ... more Abstract: The last two decades have been awash with interpretations of the changes brought about by digital technologies and online social media. Many non-critical accounts have been quick to emphasize how these developments have empowered users by bringing possibilities for participation, global connectivity and generation of content that can seriously counter the formerly entrenched inequalities. By challenging such celebratory accounts in four areas, we suggest in this chapter an alternative, critical approach to user participation. We maintain that relating user participation to digital labour substantiates the critical approach since it allows speaking of user participation as exploited and participating in the reproduction of social inequality. We map two influential critical accounts to user exploitation in informational capitalism. Finally, we apply the suggested critical perspective to the concrete example of social media usage by taking Marx’ understanding of the mode of production into account and situating the business model of social media within.

Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism (eds. Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco), 2015

This is a book chapter published in the volume entitled "Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism", ... more This is a book chapter published in the volume entitled "Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism", edited by Christian Fuchs and Vincent Mosco.

Abstract: The commodity-form played an important, if often overlooked, role in the studies of capitalism. Processes of transforming literally anything into a privatized form of (fictitious) commodity produced for market exchange are of fundamental importance for the rise and reproduction of capitalism. At the same time, the commodity, as the “cell-form of capitalism”, has played a crucial role throughout Marx’s oeuvre. This chapter aims to contribute to a large body of academic work dealing with commodification and commodity-form by directing focus on the field of communication in the widest sense of this word. Commodity-form and commodification are analysed from a theoretical, conceptual and historical point of view. Main consequences for society and social relations that emanate from the global universalisation of the commodity-form are emphasized. In the conceptual and theoretic part this chapter analyses how the commodity-form was analysed by Marx throughout his oeuvre, how this corresponds to the wider constitution of capitalist society, and how critical authors analysed these processes. It is claimed there is now an enduring global commodification of everything, including culture, creativity, information, and diverging types of communication; these social categories are becoming fundamental in what could also be called capitalist informational societies. Historical dialectical approach is used in the historical part of the chapter to make sense of this on-going contradictory social transformation, which manifests itself simultaneously as continuity of capitalist social relations and discontinuity of the means of production (because of the strengthened influence of information in the present historical epoch). Commodification of communication and information is analysed in deeply historical manner by looking at how these resources have been subjugated to capitalist market relations since the capitalist economic system first emerged several centuries ago. It is claimed, however, that especially political incentives and interventions led to the increasing social, economic and political significance of the information and communication systems and resources we have been witnessing in the last few decades. A seeping commodification as a historically novel type of commodification, which trickles throughout society, is conceptualized in the final part of the chapter. This is done by referring to the long historical transformations and to two strands of thought that offer several converging points between them: a) to critical communication studies, more specifically to political economy of communication (through a reappraisal of the “blind spot debate” initiated by Dallas W. Smythe and his audience commodity thesis); and b) to some neo-Marxist approaches, especially to the findings of the authors basing their research in the autonomist (post-operaist) movement (that defined the present transformations through concepts such as communicative, bio-linguistic capitalism, and social factory). The concept of a seeping commodification indicates we are witnessing a qualitative transformation in the commodification processes that is, in part, owed to an overwhelming capitalist enclosure of the wider communicative field, which accompanied its increased economic importance.

Keywords: Commodity-form, Commodification, Abstraction, Political economy of communication, Critique of political economy, Social factory, Audience commodity, The Internet, Communication capitalism, Capitalism, Critical communication studies, Information Society, Enclosures, Intellectual Property Rights, Critical Media and Communications History.

Marx Geri Döndü: Günümüz Eleştirel İletişim Çalışmaları Açısından Marksist Kuram ve Araştırmanın Önemi , 2014

Full source: Prodnik, Jernej (2014): Sürüp Giden Metalaştırma Süreçleri Üzerine Bir Not: İzleyici... more Full source: Prodnik, Jernej (2014): Sürüp Giden Metalaştırma Süreçleri Üzerine Bir Not: İzleyici Metasından Toplumsal Fabrikaya. Mosco, Vincent, Christian Fuchs ve Funda Başaran (Türkçe Yayinin Derleyeni). Marx Geri Döndü: Günümüz Eleştirel İletişim Çalışmaları Açısından Marksist Kuram ve Araştırmanın Önemi. 1. baski. Ankara: Notabene, 301-366.

Özet: Meta-biçimi. çoğu zaman göz ardı edilse de. kapitalizm üzerine çalışmalarda önemli bir rol oynadı. Hemen her şeyin eksiksiz bir biçimde dolaşım sürecinde mübadele edilen özelleşmiş (hayali) bir meta biçimine dönüştürme süreçleri, kapitalizmin doğuşu ve devamı açısından temel önemdedir. "Kapitalizmin hücre-biçimi" olarak meta, aynı zamanda Marx'ın tüm çalışmalarında, başından sonuna kadar can alıcı bir rol oynamıştır. Bu çalışmanın asıl amacı. meta-biçimin Marx'ın çalışmalarında (gerek genel argümanının bir parçası olarak, gerekse de tarihsel değişimler bağlamında) nasıl geliştirildiğini ve eleştirel kuramın bazı temel çalışmalarında nasıl rol oynadığını göstermektir. Bundan başka, çalışmanın diğer bir amacı, metaya eleştirel iletişim çalışmalarında nasıl yaklaşıldığını ve bunun iletişimin ekonomi politiği içinde nasıl çözümlendiğini ortaya koymaktır. Bu, özellikle. Dallas W. Smythe tarafından başlatılan "kör nokta tartışması'Yıın ve bu tartışma içinde gündeme gelen izleyici-ınetası tezinin yeniden ele alınması yoluyla yapılmaktadır. Dolaylı da olsa bugüne kadar devam eden bu uzun-soluklu tartışma, gerek Marksizm'i temel alan eleştirel iletişim çalışmaları açısından gerekse de toplumun farklı alanlarında devam etmekte olan metalaştırma sürecinin ve bunun çağdaş topluma sürekli nüfuz edişinin ciddi bir çözümlemesiyle bağlantılı düşünce ve pratikler açısından son derece değerli bir kaynaktır. Son bölümde, elde edilen bulgular bazı son dönem neo-Marksist yaklaşımlarla, özellikle de otonomisi (post-operaist) hareketten gelen yazarların bulgularıyla ilişkilendirilmektedir. Bu düşünsel akım içindeki kavrayışlar. Snıythe'nin yaklaşımıyla olan yakınsamanın olanaklarını sunmakla birlikte, devam etmekte olan metalaştırma süreçlerinin anlaşılmasını da sağlayabilir.

Anahtar kavramlar: meta-biçimi, metalaştırma. soyutlama, iletişimin ekonomi politiği, ekonomi politiğin eleştirisi, toplumsal fabrika, izleyici metası, internet, iletişimsel kapitalizm, kapitalizm, eleştirel iletişim çalışmaları.

In Christian Fuchs and Marisol Sandoval (Eds.), Critique, Social Media and the Information Society. Routledge, New York., 2014

As five young scholars from Europe and one from North America, we first met each other at a confe... more As five young scholars from Europe and one from North America, we first met each other at a conference in Uppsala, Sweden called “Critique, Democracy, and Philosophy in 21st Century Information Society. Towards Critical Theories of Social Media” (see http://www.icts-and-society.net/events/uppsala2012/). For us it was a new and inspiring experience to have discussions with other emerging critical scholars in an international context and to discover that cooperation through joint projects can be an appropriate answer to feelings of isolation and marginalisation. This chapter is a first outcome of our cooperation and reflects our subjective experiences and basic views as emerging scholars. In what follows, we first want to point to the value and the importance of a critical approach to informational capitalism (section 1). We then (section 2) identify principal challenges for critical thinking in today’s higher education sector and in section 3 we describe struggles against this situation and point to prospects that arise therein.

Cybercultures: Mediations of Community, Culture, Politics (edited by Harris Breslow and Aris Mousoutzanis), 2012

his is a post-print*, author-amended PDF of a chapter accepted for publication in the following b... more his is a post-print*, author-amended PDF of a chapter accepted for publication in the following book edited by Harris Breslow and Aris Mousoutzanis: "Cybercultures: Mediations of Community, Culture, Politics," published 2012 at Rodopi (Amsterdam/New York), pages 75-100.

The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available through the publisher, more information on the book: http://www.rodopi.nl/s... (see also: http://www.amazon.com/...

Prodnik, Jernej. 2012. Post-Fordist Communities and Cyberspace: A Critical Approach. In Breslow, Harris and Aris Mousoutzanis (eds.), Cybercultures: Mediations of Community, Culture, Politics, pp. 75-100. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi B.V.

Abstract
This chapter approaches from a critical perspective questions regarding so-called ‘virtual communities.’ Because the origins of every community arise from language and communication it is impossible to distinguish between ‘genuine,’ communities, and imaginary, or even ‘fake,’ communities. It is, however, possible to discern both their (changing) stability and solidity within specific social conditions and the ways in which these communities are imagined. This social-constructivist approach is further developed by proposing a three-fold construction of community, while simultaneously demonstrating the falsehood of the ‘virtual’ versus ‘real’ dichotomy. Throughout the chapter, determinist paradigms are questioned and demystified by demonstrating how both optimistic and pessimistic technologistic currents fail to acknowledge wider structural changes in capitalism, and attempt to depoliticise these developments by providing escapist or unitary solutions to social antagonisms. Because technology is neither autonomous nor neutral, and always develops within a complex conjuncture of power relationships, there is a need to look beyond views that solely blame technology for social transformations. In the time of ‘liquid modernity’ and post-Fordist capitalism, temporary cloakroom communities have become a rule, and this chapter aims at revising our understanding of their role in society.

*see RoMEO: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeoinfo.html

Nov(o) državljan(stvo). (volume edited by Cirila Toplak and Žiga Vodovnik), 2011

Hipertextos, 2022

Resumo. Nos últimos anos, a pesquisa em ciências sociais e campos acadêmicos relacionados tem atr... more Resumo. Nos últimos anos, a pesquisa em ciências sociais e campos acadêmicos relacionados tem atribuído importância crescente aos algoritmos e seu impacto nas relações sociais e em nossa vida cotidiana. Parece haver pouca dúvida de que os algoritmos desempenham agora um dos papéis centrais em quase todas as esferas da sociedade, da política e economia à cultura e às relações interpessoais. Neste capítulo não vou explicar os algoritmos individuais de forma abstrata, mas me concentrarei em suas principais características centrais e conseqüências sociais de tais conjuntos de algoritmos em sua forma social hegemônica atual como parte da sociedade capitalista competitiva e inerentemente instável (Streeck 2012), ou, dito de forma mais restrita, como parte do capitalismo digital (Fuchs e Mosco 2015; Fuchs 2019). Este trabalho, portanto, visa fornecer algumas respostas sobre como os algoritmos funcionam no capitalismo digital, quais são as principais razões e qual é o seu impacto para a sociedade em geral. O foco no capitalismo digital envolve uma estrutura teórica da economia política de comunicação, que aponta para as assimetrias de poder na sociedade global, enquanto assume o fato de que não há nada “natural”; sobre essas características dos algoritmos. Ele também ajuda a levar a análise para além das noções abstratas que têm um valor explicativo limitado em contextos históricos específicos. O objetivo não é procurar características universais de algoritmos, mas compreendê-los como parte da época histórica existente, na qual eles estão agrupados em vastos conjuntos digitais sobrepostos, predominantemente sob o controle de poderosas corporações capitalistas. Não para interpretá-las como construções técnicas ou matemáticas, mas através de suas causas, propósitos e conseqüências sociais quando implementadas e executadas (cf. Mittelstadt et al. 2016, 2-3).

Medijska istraživanja / Media studies, 2017

An introduction to the thematic issue Production in the media and journalism / Proizvodnja u medi... more An introduction to the thematic issue Production in the media and journalism / Proizvodnja u medijima i novinarstvu: Uvod u tematski broj (in Croatian and Englih).

Pogovor v okviru Fotografije na kavču, Cankarjev dom (2016) - Ilija Tomanić Trivundža, Jernej Amo... more Pogovor v okviru Fotografije na kavču, Cankarjev dom (2016) - Ilija Tomanić Trivundža, Jernej Amon Prodnik, moderator Jan Babnik.

Objavljeno v reviji Fotografija, št. 69/70, str. 28-33, 2016.

This is work in progress, I will appreciate any comments or critiques of the paper. I would howev... more This is work in progress, I will appreciate any comments or critiques of the paper. I would however like to ask you not to cite or quote this version of the paper. Please also note this version has not been proofread yet.

Časopis za kritiko znanosti / Journal for the Critique of Science, May 2015

Iz uvodnika: "Prav v teh okoliščinah je še toliko pomembnejše, da politično ekonomijo komuniciran... more Iz uvodnika: "Prav v teh okoliščinah je še toliko pomembnejše, da politično ekonomijo komuniciranja vnovič vzpostavimo kot temelj kritičnega (če že ne celotnega) komunikološkega raziskovanja. Razlog ni le v dejstvu, da kritična komunikologija – s tem pa tudi politična ekonomija komuniciranja – vprašanj, povezanih z mediji, komunikacijskimi sistemi, informacijskimi tehnologijami ali komunikacijsko sfero ne obravnava zaradi njih samih, temveč zaradi njihove konstitutivne vloge, ki bi jo morali igrati v demokratičnih družbah. Še pomembnejši vzrok je: a) v fokusu tega pristopa, ki je odločno usmerjen v proučevanje asimetrij moči, globokih družbenih razkolov in skrajnih neenakosti v nadzoru nad proizvodnimi sredstvi, ter b) v njegovih temeljnih izhodiščnih značilnosti, ki jih v prevedenih besedilih omenjajo tako Meehanova, Mosco in Waskova kot McChesney, torej v zgodovinski perspektivi, združevanju in preseganju ločnice med teorijo in prakso, izhajanju iz družbene totalitete in moralni filozofiji oziroma normativnih predpostavkah, zaradi katerih je pristop odkrito političen. Ta izhodišča so še zlasti pomembna v času globoke krize, saj je skrajni čas, da se domnevno kritični del znanstvene sfere začne zavedati svojega poslanstva in se preneha pretvarjati, da je lahko izločen iz družbenih bojev."

PhD Thesis at University of Ljubljana, Nov 26, 2013

The initial goal of this dissertation was to substantiate political economy of communication, the... more The initial goal of this dissertation was to substantiate political economy of communication, the fundamental critical approach in communication studies. I have placed the research approach in a historical context of structural transformations of capitalism while I also tried to explain those same transformations with the use of analyses that are included in the said approach. The political-economic research tradition, together with its theoretical insight, a well structured "categorical apparatus" and the existing interpretations, enables a comprehensive consideration of historical structural transformations by bringing a broader communication sphere and its internal changes into focus.

This dissertation helps expanding the critical theoretical power of such approach, one that this type of research tradition has, historically spoken, possessed since the very beginning. Apart from that I also tried to demonstrate the extent of explanatory powers that this approach has regarding the understanding of our society in the current time period. Since there have been very few articles dealing with scientific argumentation of political economy of communication published in the Slovenian research area - at least at the theoretical level - this dissertation can be regarded as a starting point for a debate about the research role of this communication approach and also as an initiative (and an incentive) for consolidating the research area in the future.

Within the scope of deep historical transformations this dissertation emphasizes the commodification, an essential process inherent to capitalism. It is also a key process analyzed by political-economic approach in communication research. In my historical analysis of these processes I have not only discussed in general the expansion of commodification throughout our society but I also focused on the problems of the commodification of communication sphere: the long revolution of integrating areas of culture, information, media and communication into the frames of capitalist accumulation and production. Those are the topics, on which I have directly or indirectly focused throughout the dissertation.

Consistently with the main goal of this assignment (the theoretical argumentation of political economy of communication) I have set three general research questions for my research. First: I wanted to know what is the role and the significance of the political economy of communication for understanding of the society and the expansion of the commodification in the current social era and the current stage of capitalism. Second: How to understand, expand and strengthen the explanatory powers of this research approach within the current historical context. Third: What were the structural transformations that capitalism went through at the material level and how did those shifts consolidate the importance of the critical approach to political economy of communication.

The research foundations of this dissertation lie in the historical insight that offers support at all levels of the analysis: Everything from understanding the long-term changes in social structures to historical placement and contextualization of key social processes which help preserve and expand certain social formations and the historical discussion of the discipline and its authors, who constitute this research approach.

A large portion of this dissertation is reserved for a detailed analysis of the research starting points and presumptions that are often merely implicated in one’s research (although they present a constant part of every research analysis). At the level of metatheory I have, on the one hand, used the approach of critical realism, and on the other hand materialism, with various interpretations of Marxist philosophy serving as the basis. At the social ontology level I presumed that a man is essentially a political animal due to his generic faculty of language, while communication along with labor (co-)creates the social reality. With the materialistic perception of this presumption I tried to emphasize how much the actual means of communication and the communication sphere itself depend on the broader social context, the power relations and the general social relations of production. Means of communication are in concrete historical circumstances always closely related to the social totality in which they have developed.

My ontological comprehension of society is relational: It is the people who preserve and transform the society, while societies are products of human activity. Yet different societies and the changes within them are always based on pre-existing societies and social relations (material continuity). At the level of loose "method" I was proceeding from dialectical reasoning that includes abstraction and the need for a deep historical perspective. I have defined open dialectics as an open, dynamic approach to studying social processes and their associated changes and also contradictions within the society. This approach is also very historical in its nature. At the axiology level my approach can be defined as critical towards the existing social order. Paradigmatically, I was proceeding from critical theory of society, especially from various interpretations of (neo)marxism, while trying to find mutual cross-sections and common points between different theoretical approaches and traditions. These common points enable the foundation for mutual criticism of the existing social relations and help explain the studied subject matter more precisely.

These basic presumptions offer a basis for critical analyses of the society, among them the criticism of processes of commodification, which are not only essential for the functioning of capitalism but also for its expansion. It is one of the preliminary conditions for preserving this political-economic order, since without growth the capitalist system is essentially faced with crisis. Therefore it is not unusual that during the twentieth century those processes have expanded notably through the communication sphere, which has become extremely important in the current stage of capitalist development. Although these tendencies within capitalism have long been present, namely for commodification of communications, information and the whole cultural sphere, which the capital wanted to subdue to its logics, those processes became especially noticeable during the last few decades. It should also be noted that commodification never happens without resistance, which is why those processes are often based on direct violence and political interventions (such as political construction of private property or primitive accumulation). This also applies to transforming information, culture and communication into a special type of commodity, a process for which political institutionalization of intellectual property was of fundamental importance. General trading agreements at the transnational levels enabled a consolidation of free markets in this area and also its almost complete commodification, together with the possibility for their privatization. The reasons why the so-called "information society" as well as new information and communication technologies have so radically expanded in the last decades should be sought for in political interventions, especially when considering the extremely high (public) financial investments into those areas. An important figure for enabling accumulation of capital in this new "information" area was also the (American) government, not only the capital itself.

One of the findings of this dissertation is that capital in the current time period is not colonizing merely one single thing, sphere or area. On the contrary, there is almost no process or activity left that cannot be subject to commodification and therefore be susceptible to processes of capitalist exchange of commodities (these processes presuppose a real abstraction, equivalence among unequal things and calculated rationalization). This dissertation contributes to the understanding of these social processes by introducing the concept seeping commodification. The term itself suggests that the capital colonization of elements of society and human lives - which are in one way or another linked to communication that dominates every aspect of our lives - brought on a significant qualitative leap in the expansion of commodification. The characteristics of communication, which cannot be completely limited and often knows no usual boundaries or "physical" limitations, enable a potential seeping of commodification into every pore of society and human lives. This is mostly reflected by the commodification of various types of information and the access to them.

These topics are closely related to political economy of communication that enables an explanation of structural limitations which derive into society from the functional principles of the capitalist market. The primary intention of political economy is exactly to analyze the material level and the relations which are a part of it: The ownership structures and production and the relations of production, which act as solid frameworks within which every individual media, information and cultural capitalist industry has to function (as well as all the actors that function within those industries). This approach helps to identify which types of pressure affect the production of media messages already at this basic level and by doing so (perhaps even unintentionally and completely indirectly) also affect the actual contents that are being produced. The approach also answers the questions regarding why and who produces and distributes these contents so effectively that they exert the biggest social influence; what is the correlation between the means of communication and the general means of production within capitalism; how the communication power is distributed within the society and...

IAMCR. Crises, ‘Creative Destruction’ and the Global Power and Communication Orders: Papers presented at the 2013 conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research., Oct 28, 2013

The main goal of this paper is to conceptualize a seeping commodification . Author claims we are ... more The main goal of this paper is to conceptualize a seeping commodification . Author claims we are in the midst of a considerable qualitative transformation in the processes of commodification that is, in large part, owed to an overwhelming capitalist enclosure of the wider communicative field. The key reason for what seems to be an important qualitative transformation in the commodification process lies in the fact that communication and information flows today run through most social relations and spheres—which non-critical approaches often explain with the concept of ‘mediatization of society’. A materialist approach, distinctive of political economy of communication, enables a critique of these processes. In an epoch, in which capital has enclosed the wider field of communication, mediatization is nothing else than a continuing commodification of our everyday lives. Author claims that commodification of communication and informational resources must be seen as a long-term process, which has accompanied the rise of capitalism. A considerable proliferation of the economic importance of communication, information, and culture has however been enhanced by political interventions occurring in the last decades (which were a response to the economic tendencies of the time), and while the immediate results are observable especially in the proliferation of the new information and communication technologies and the global role of intellectual property rights, the wider social consequences of these developments have been much broader and more influential. This study proceeds from the perspective of historical materialism and adopts dialectics in an attempt to grasp contradictory social changes. The analysis is done through different methods of historicizing: firstly, by observing long-term changes in communication, information, and culture, as they have been slowly transformed into commodities produced for market exchange since the emergence of capitalism; and, secondly, by defining fundamental political and economic processes occurring in recent decades that help with an explanation of the rise in the influence of communication and information in the current epoch.

New media and the politics of online communities. (edited by Aris Mousoutzanis and Daniel Riha, pp. 99-106), 2010

Prodnik, Jernej. 2010. Cloakroom communities and cyberspace : towards a concept of pseudo-environ... more Prodnik, Jernej. 2010. Cloakroom communities and cyberspace : towards a concept of pseudo-environmental niche. In: Mousoutzanis, Aris, Riha, Daniel (eds.). New media and the politics of online communities, (Critical issues). 1st ed. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp. 99-106.

Abstract

Debates about the so-called ‘virtual’ communities most of the time revolvearound questions of disintegration, spread of cynicism, in-authenticity, andthe likes. Authors that base their theories primarily on the new technologiesoften tend to point at the social isolation of the individual (brought by technology) which presumably leads towards increase in individualisationand has long-term devastating influences on what is traditionally thought of as community. Such outlooks are overlooking other aspects of social life andshould be subject to serious criticism about technological determinism. Oneof the main purposes of this paper is to present a wider outlook on the newtechnologies through changes in production and contemporary capitalism. Itis urgent to ask ourselves whether the individualised instrumentalnetworking, which mostly forms fragile communities and offers severaloptional and changeable identities, is perhaps a symptom of other vast socialchanges in post-Fordist capitalism. Can this be seen only as a radicalizationin the development of these processes? In the second part a concept of pseudo-environmental niche is proposed, which could be useful forunderstanding contemporary changes and reactionary communitarianresponses that are proposing a return to ‘genuine’ communities. This is donethrough theorisation of ‘worldliness’ as lately conceived by Paolo Virno. Thisis followed by deconstruction of mythological aspects of community life anda proposition to revise our understanding of community. The question of community is, in the author’s view, an eminent question of politics

Public sphere reconsidered : theories and practices. Covilhã: LabCom Books, 2011. (edited by João Carlos Ferreira Correira), 2011

Prodnik, Jernej. A public sphere without public(s)? Publics and counterpublics in post-fordist c... more Prodnik, Jernej. A public sphere without public(s)? Publics and counterpublics in post-fordist capitalism. In: Correira, João Carlos Ferreira (ed.). Public sphere reconsidered: theories and practices. Covilhã: LabCom Books, 2011.

Also available via: http://www.livroslabcom.ubi.pt/pdfs/20111222-public_sphere_reconsidered_ebook.pdf

Abstract

The author of this text questions conceptualizations of the public sphere that take its existence for granted, without reflecting what in fact constitutes this public discursive field (or public “infrastructure”). It is argued that when considering the idea of the public sphere, it is public(s) that should first and foremost play the crucial role in determining how we understand and characterize it and how it should develop in practice. This epistemological presumption raises an important prerequisite for all more comprehensive debates on the public sphere, as it is the emergence (or eclipse) of public(s) that constitutes fully-working, active, and democratic public sphere. Even though public(s) have largely been ignored in the last two decades this concept has again been gaining in prominence (e.g. Angus, 2001; Gilman-Opalsky, 2008; Hind, 2010), especially with social transformations and bottom-up social developments. This reinvigoration of critical-theoretic discourse was also partially prompted by the new media technologies which opened up possibilities for transnational connections that can possibly influence wider society. Earliest normative approaches regarding the question of the public (and publics) are followed up in this paper, concentrating especially on John Dewey’s (1927/1989) seminal work “The Public and its Problems” and C. Wright Mills's (1956/2000) “The Power Elite”. This presents a suitable basis to connect them to later developments in theorizing this important concept and for analyzingcounterpublics, which were perhaps most notably described by Nancy Fraser (1991), but later-on furthermore developed by several other authors. Author’s reconsideration of the public sphere through focus on publics and counterpublics is theoretically based in the project of alternative modernity (Negri and Hardt, 2009), through which post-modernistic approaches can be rejected, but which also provides foundation through which this concept can be detached from some of the questionable influences of modernistic line of thought. It is claimed that changes and developments in the material basis of society should not be neglected when approaching these issues. This is achieved through contextualization of the Imperial governance and post-Fordist capitalism.

60 let kasneje: UL FDV od A do Ž, Sep 2021

Objektivno in vrednotno nepristransko novinarstvo je splošno dojeto kot stanovska in izobraževaln... more Objektivno in vrednotno nepristransko novinarstvo je splošno dojeto kot stanovska in izobraževalna norma modernega novinarstva, ki je preteklosti na kritike še najpogosteje naletelo iz akademskih krogov. Prav zato se je vzpostavljanje močno pristranskih in politično opredeljenih medijev, ki so prišli najbolj do izraza z množično širitvijo dezinformacij in nato izvolitvijo Donalda Trumpa za predsednika Združenih držav Amerike, dojemalo kot deviacija od standarda, ki naj bi mu zvesto sledil novinarski poklic. Zaradi njene samoumevnosti je preprosto spregledati, da se je ta norma dokončno institucionalizirala šele z množičnimi mediji v začetku dvajsetega stoletja, v nekaterih okoljih pa celo občutno pozneje.

Intervju z Bogdanom Osolnikom, osrednjim pobudnikom institucionalizacije univerzitetnega izobraže... more Intervju z Bogdanom Osolnikom, osrednjim pobudnikom institucionalizacije univerzitetnega izobraževanja novinarstva v lokalnem okolju nedanje socialistične Jugoslavije in angažiran raziskovalec medijev in komunikacijskih procesov v mednarodnem prostoru. Odigral je temeljno vlogo pri ustanovitvi in razvoju Katedre za novinarstvo na takratni Visoki šoli za politične vede in bil član v mednarodni komisiji za raziskovanje komuniciranja, tako imenovani MacBridovi komisiji, ki jo je uveljavljeni komunikolog Daya Thussu označil za morda “najpomembnejšo multilateralno intervencijo v zgodovini mednarodnega komuniciranja”.

tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Jan 30, 2014

This paper presents an interview with Janet Wasko. She is a Professor and Knight Chair in Communi... more This paper presents an interview with Janet Wasko. She is a Professor and Knight Chair in Communication Research at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication and widely considered as one of the key authors working in the tradition of the political economy of communication. Currently she is serving as the President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), one of the key international associations in the field of media and communication studies. She previously held several other positions in the IAMCR and served as the head of the Political Economy-section, which she also helped to establish. Professor Wasko published several influential books on the film industry, especially on Hollywood and the Disney Corporation. We talked especially about the influences on her approach, about her position in the IAMCR, her understanding of how the cultural and media industries work, the political economy approach in media and communication studies, and issues related to the film industry, which she mostly tackles in her own research.

tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-operation (Vol. 10, No. 2, 2012, pp. 771-774), 2012

This article is a review of Thomas Allmer’s book “Towards a Critical Theory of Surveillance in In... more This article is a review of Thomas Allmer’s book “Towards a Critical Theory of Surveillance in Informational Capitalism”. The book was published in 2012 by the publishing house Peter Lang (in Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, New York, Oxford […]). In the start of the article the author also poses the question whether there is a new school of thought emerging, namely the “Austrian School of Critical Political Economy”.

This review was published in journal tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, Vol 10, No 2 (2012), pp. 771-774. This text is also available through the following link on the tripleC website: http://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/452/0

tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-operation (Vol. 10, No.1, 2012, pp. 92-99), 2012

"This article is a reflection on the book (edited volume) "Internet and Surveillance: The Challen... more "This article is a reflection on the book (edited volume) "Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media" (published in New York by Routledge in 2012). It was edited by Christian Fuchs, Kees Boersma, Anders Albrechtslund, and Marisol Sandoval.

Reflection was published in journal tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, Vol 10, No 1 (2012), pp. 92-99. This text is also available through the following link: http://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/342"

Teorija in Praksa, 2020

"Populizem brez dvoma sodi med pojme, ki so tako v medijskem kot v akademskem diskurzu v zadnjih ... more "Populizem brez dvoma sodi med pojme, ki so tako v medijskem kot v akademskem diskurzu v zadnjih letih med najbolj prisotnimi. Je kot prazna posoda, v katero vsakdo nalije, kar hoče, zato lahko služi za razlago pogosto celo nasprotujočih si družbenih fenomenov. Uporablja se ga za označevanje politikov skoraj vseh provenienc, ideoloških usmeritev in svetovnih nazorov, vseuporabnost pa sega celo onkraj politične sfere. [...] Populizem se torej uvršča v neslavno druščino pojmov, s katerimi se hoče razložiti skoraj vse."

Teorija in praksa, Dec 2018

Alan Rusbridger je eno najbolj znanih imen britanskega novinarstva, saj je bil kar dve desetletji... more Alan Rusbridger je eno najbolj znanih imen britanskega novinarstva, saj je bil kar dve desetletji, med letoma 1995 in 2015, urednik časopisa The Guardian. Neposredno v novinarsko delo je bil vpet štiri desetletja, po odhodu iz Guardiana pa je postal vodja vplivnega Reutersovega inštituta za preučevanje novinarstva na Univerzi v Oxfordu (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism). Nobenega dvoma torej ni, da je njegova osebna zgodovina idealna za razlago epohalnih sprememb, ki so jih v zadnjih desetletjih doživeli mediji in novinarstvo.

Družboslovne razprave (2012, no. 70, vol. 28, pp. 120-122, Sep 2012

Lani izdani zbornik o prekernem migrantskem delu v Evropi raziskuje obstoječe nacionalne politike... more Lani izdani zbornik o prekernem migrantskem delu v Evropi raziskuje obstoječe nacionalne politike na področju migracij, migrantskih delavcev in njihove integracije v družbo. Izšel je pri Mirovnem inštitutu, kjer je potekal projekt PRIMTS (kratica za »Prospects for Integration of Migrants from ''Third Countries'' and their Labour Market Situations: Towards Policies and Action« -več informacij o projektu, ki ga je financirala Evropska komisija, koordinirala pa Mojca Pajnik, je mogoče najti na http://primts.mirovni-institut.si), v okviru katerega je potekala tudi raziskava o omenjenih vprašanjih. Poleg kritičnega uvoda urednic prinaša monografija šest prispevkov s perspektive šestih nacionalnih kontekstov: Nemčije, Italije, Cipra, Slovenije, Madžarske in Finske. Kot nakazuje kratica raziskovalnega projekta, se je raziskava fokusirala predvsem na migrantske delavce tako imenovanih »tretjih držav«, posredno pa se dotika tudi bolj splošnih sprememb na trgih delovne sile. Kljub temu da med državami obstajajo razlike, je mogoče med njimi najti dovolj stičnih točk. V primeru migrantskih delavcev »tretjih držav« gre praviloma za najbolj izkoriščane delavce v lokalnih ekonomijah, z najmanj pravicami, najslabšimi delovnimi in bivalnimi pogoji, najbolj prekernimi zaposlitvami, delo pa morajo iskati na najbolj fleksibilnih trgih dela, ki največkrat nudijo le slabo plačane začasne zaposlitve za krajši čas. Ti delavci opravljajo najbolj umazana in družbeno nezaželena dela, ki se gibljejo od prostitucije do začasnega industrijskega dela, domačega gospodinjskega in skrbstvenega dela, sezonskega dela, gradbeništva itd. Ta obči presek dokazujejo tudi prispevki v zborniku, pri čemer velja opozoriti, da je v nekaterih primerih ekskluzivna »primernost« umazanih zaposlitev za migrantske delavce »tretjih držav« posredno kodificirana kar skozi nacionalne politike: v Nemčiji tako imenovani »priority principle« »domačim« delavcem na trgu daje očitno prednost pred migrantskimi delavci »tretjih držav«; slednji namreč lahko dobijo službo le, če je Nemci nočejo (podobno velja za Italijo). Ostanejo jim torej predvsem slabe zaposlitve, zaposlitve z ekstremnimi pogoji za delo (v Nemčiji na primer prostitucija, ki je od leta 2002 legalizirana, z izjemno slabimi pogoji za delo) ali zaposlitve, ki potrebujejo nekvalificirano delovno silo. Številne države sicer poizkušajo »uvažati« visokokvalificirano delovno silo (t. i. kraja možganov), a je teh delavcev bistveno manj, zagotavljati pa jim morajo tudi boljše pogoje za delo.

Družboslovne razprave (no. 65, pp. 91-93), 2010

Žiga Vodovnik: Anarhija vsakdanjega življenja: zapiski o anarhizmu in njegovih pozabljenih pritok... more Žiga Vodovnik: Anarhija vsakdanjega življenja: zapiski o anarhizmu in njegovih pozabljenih pritokih. Ljubljana: Založba Sophia, 2010. 184 strani (ISBN 978-961-6768-16-0), 17,80 evra

Časopis za kritiko znanosti (2010, no. 242, pp. 169-174), 2010

Christian Marazzi, italijanski politični ekonomist, ki trenutno deluje v Švici, je znan predvsem ... more Christian Marazzi, italijanski politični ekonomist, ki trenutno deluje v Švici, je znan predvsem po svojem udejstvovanju v tako imenovanem italijanskem postfordističnem krogu in po vplivnih besedilih, ki jih s pridom uporabljajo predvsem avtorji, ki se ukvarjajo z nematerialnim kapitalizmom. A z malce daljšim zgodovinskim vpogledom bi ga vsekakor bilo bolj smiselno povezati z operaizmom in delom italijanskega avtonomističnega gibanja sedemdesetih lwt 20. stoletja, ki ga je surovo prekinil državni represivni aparat. Do osemdesetih let je bilo v zapore za očitno nedoločen čas stlačenih 1500 intelektualcev in delavskih aktivistov, ko je moderni Suveren, da bi odstranil Rdeče brigade, najprej nasilno homogeniziral, nato izenačil z Rdečimi brigadami in končno tudi eliminiral različna gibanja, ki so v družbi opozarjala na nove politično-ekonomske konflikte. Kako eksplozivna so bila ta leta v državi tik ob »železni zavesi«, kjer so svoje neredko teroristične akcije često izvajali skrivni vojaški odposlanci svobodnega sveta (npr. Natovo omrežje s kodnim imenom Gladio), pove že dejstvo, da je bila Italija edina država kapitalističnega Zahoda, ki je imela v tem času celo več političnih zapornikov kot Sovjetska zveza.

Teorija in praksa (2010, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 193-197), 2010

Izhajanje iz medijskih in komunikacijskih študij pri preučevanju demokracije ni nov pristop. Da j... more Izhajanje iz medijskih in komunikacijskih študij pri preučevanju demokracije ni nov pristop. Da je demokracija v prvi vrsti vprašanje medsebojnega sporazumevanja in komuniciranja, je bil prepričan že John Dewey. Temu bi lahko rekli osnovna (zdi se, da za demokracijo vedno pomembnejša) komunikološka perspektiva, ki se je v

Družboslovne razprave (2011, no. 67, vol 27, pp. 99-101), 2011

Kirn, Gal (ur.): Postfordizem: razprave o sodobnem kapitalizmu. Ljubljana: Mirovni inštitut. Inšt... more Kirn, Gal (ur.): Postfordizem: razprave o sodobnem kapitalizmu. Ljubljana: Mirovni inštitut. Inštitut za sodobne družbene in politične študije, 2010.

Sobotna priloga (Delo), 2021

V slovenskem medijskem prostoru je zaradi zgodovinskih pa tudi političnih razlogov skoraj vsak ne... more V slovenskem medijskem prostoru je zaradi zgodovinskih pa tudi političnih razlogov skoraj vsak neposreden uredniški poseg v novinarjevo delo opredeljen za cenzuro. Tudi stvari, ki so v drugih razvitih medijskih okoljih relativno samoumevne, na primer upoštevanje osnovnih okvirov uredniške politike ali urednikov poseg v naslov prispevka, so pri nas jasen znak, da mora javnost začeti biti plat zvona. Alarm, alarm, vračamo se v totalitarizem!

Večer, 2020

Ameriški predsednik je volitve leta 2016 zmagal zato, ker je tako učinkovito in spretno nagovarja... more Ameriški predsednik je volitve leta 2016 zmagal zato, ker je tako učinkovito in spretno nagovarjal volivce prek interneta. Vsaj tako pravijo številne zgodbe o njegovi izvolitvi, ki bi jih zagotovo podprl tudi sam. Poleg tega, da je najpametnejši in da so njegovi predlogi najboljši, je pač mojster politične komunikacije in na Twitterju mu nihče ne seže do kolen.

Večer (V soboto), 2020

V prvi polovici 19. stoletja, ko je izšla študija Demokracija v Ameriki, si mladi Francoz Alexis ... more V prvi polovici 19. stoletja, ko je izšla študija Demokracija v Ameriki, si mladi Francoz Alexis de Tocqueville ni mislil, da bo še dve stoletji kasneje njegova analiza veljala za temeljno delo politične teorije. Prepričan je celo bil, da bo knjiga njegovega prijatelja Gustava de Beaumonta, s katerim je obiskal Ameriko, veliko pomembnejša. Beaumont je popisal suženjstvo in rasizem v tej mladi državi, vendar ga danes ne pozna skoraj nihče več. Tocqueville po drugi strani velja za enega izmed prvih pravih družboslovcev, mimo katerega še danes ne morejo številne družboslovne discipline. V impresivnem popisu demokracije, tega nenavadnega političnega sistema, ki je bil za večino sveta takrat povsem nedoumljiv, najdemo tudi podrobne popise novinarstva in živahne širitve časopisov, ki je bila posledica uzakonitve svobode tiska. Tocqueville je menil, da je svoboda tiska neločljivo povezana z demokracijo, vendar se je tudi tega fenomena lotil skeptično. V prvi knjigi je celo zapisal, da do svobode tiska ne goji "tako brezpogojne ljubezni, kot jo naklanjamo stvarem, ki so dobre po svoji naravi". Nadaljeval je: "Veliko bolj jo imam rad zato, ker preprečuje zlo, kot zato, ker dela dobro."

Večer, 2016

Pred desetletjem se je na takrat šele leto dni starem omrežju Youtube svetu prvič predstavila Bre... more Pred desetletjem se je na takrat šele leto dni starem omrežju Youtube svetu prvič predstavila Bree. Šestnajst let staro dekle z vzdevkom Lonely-Girl15 je pričelo objavljati videoposnetke, na katerih se je uporabnikom hitro prikupilo z izpovedmi o življenju v manjšem in po njenih besedah dolgočasnem ameriškem mestu. Njeni posnetki so hitro dosegli vrtoglavo število ogledov, osamljeno dekle pa je postalo ena prvih spletnih videozvezdnic, z množico rednih gledalcev. Vendar niti Bree niti njen prijatelj Daniel, ki je bil pogosta tema njenih izpovedi, niti njeni z vero obsedeni starši v resnici niso obstajali. /../

Večer, 2017

"V Rusiji ti gledaš televizijo, v ZDA pa televizija gleda tebe." Tako gre šala, ki te dni kroži p... more "V Rusiji ti gledaš televizijo, v ZDA pa televizija gleda tebe." Tako gre šala, ki te dni kroži po spletnih družbenih omrežjih in le še dodatno podžiga besedne boje med zagovorniki ruskega medveda in največje demokracije na svetu. V času komunizma so tovrstne obrnjene šale letele predvsem v nasprotno smer. Češ, kot v Orwellovi mori naj bi za železno zaveso tudi televizija imela oči. Na primer: v Ameriki ti izbereš vlado, v Sovjetski zvezi pa vlada izbere tebe. Ali pa aktualnejša: v Ameriki ti gledaš Big Brotherja, v Rusiji pa Big Brother tebe. Vendar se bistroumnost tokratne izvedenke šale skriva v njeni dvoumnosti. Dodan ji je element samorefleksije. Že drži, da Rusom ne ostane nič drugega, kot da spremljajo Putinovo propagando, ker drugih informacij pač nimajo na voljo. Ampak njih vsaj ne nadzorujejo prek njihovih lastnih televizijskih sprejemnikov. Wikileaks je namreč razkril, da ima ameriška Centralna obveščevalna agencija tehnične zmožnosti za vdiranje v novejše televizije in druge »pametne« naprave. Meni nič, tebi nič jih lahko uporabi za prisluškovanje. /../

Večer, 2017

"Kako veš, da si drugačen? Tako, da nekatere stvari zadržiš zase. Čuvaš jih v sebi, kajti če jih ... more "Kako veš, da si drugačen? Tako, da nekatere stvari zadržiš zase. Čuvaš jih v sebi, kajti če jih ne, med zunaj in znotraj ni nobene razlike. Zaradi skrivnosti veš, da sploh imaš notranjost." /.../

Večer, 2017

"Medijski operativec, tudi ti si mudžahid." Ta neposredni apel je naslov uradnega medijskega prir... more "Medijski operativec, tudi ti si mudžahid." Ta neposredni apel je naslov uradnega medijskega priročnika ekstremistične organizacije Islamska država (IS), ki je na svetovnem spletu dostopen borcem samozvanega kalifata. Na naslovnici tega 55 strani dolgega dokumenta je računalniška grafika z obrisi dveh borcev v urbani džungli. Levo je do zob oborožen zamaskiranec, na desni je kronist, ki borcu sledi s kamero in očitno vestno beleži njegove podvige. Predstava večine ljudi o barbarskih militantnežih, ki v imenu izkrivljene interpretacije islama domnevnim brezbožnežem sekajo glave, se le težko sklada z njihovo napredno uporabo moderne tehnologije, kaj šele z visoko usposobljenim in racionalnim propagandnim aparatom, ki služi "medijskemu džihadu". Težko je namreč sprejeti, da je mogoča kompatibilnost med skrajnim fundamentalizmom in nazadnjaštvom te organizacije in njenim pretanjenim izkoriščanjem najnovejših informacijskih tehnologij. Vendar IS ne govori tekoče le jezika novih medijev, od twitterja in instagrama do profesionalnih youtube videoposnetkov, ki bi glede na vizualno dovršenost lahko bili posneti za glasbeni spot kakšnega zvezdnika. Izkorišča in sprevrača tudi osrednjo značilnost množičnih medijev: njihovo nenasitno in neusahljivo žejo po spektaklih. /.../

Večer, 2017

"Ima tale možakar kaj denarja?" je po pisanju Nicka Daviesa tipično vprašanje, ki ga v Veliki Bri... more "Ima tale možakar kaj denarja?" je po pisanju Nicka Daviesa tipično vprašanje, ki ga v Veliki Britaniji odvetniki medijskih hiš postavijo novinarjem, ko pišejo prispevke o posameznikih, ki bi medij lahko tožili zaradi obrekovanja. Če gre za nepomembneže, ki si ne morejo privoščiti odvetnikov in tožb, je objava prispevka varna. Mediju ni treba skrbeti zaradi morebitnih visokih odškodnin, saj ne bo prišlo niti do tožbe. Pri vplivnih posameznikih je, nič kaj presenetljivo, zgodba ravno nasprotna. Zakon o obrekovanju se namreč nanaša na vse, kar bi lahko negativno vplivalo na ugled prizadetega. /.../

Večer, 2018

V najstniških letih sem prišel na bistroumno idejo, kako se udeležiti olimpijskih iger in si s te... more V najstniških letih sem prišel na bistroumno idejo, kako se udeležiti olimpijskih iger in si s tem zagotoviti večno slavo. Odgovor? Curling! Ta igra je podobna balinanju, le da gre za zimski šport, pri katerem tekmovalke in tekmovalci mečejo gladko izbrušen kamen, ki drsi po ledeni ploskvi kot po maslu. Če se mogoče začudeno sprašujete, ali je curling zares olimpijski šport, naj vas obvestim, da je bil prisoten že na prvi zimski olimpijadi leta 1924 v francoskem Chamonixu, kjer je bil eden izmed le petih športov iger. Po vmesni odsotnosti se je igram znova uradno pridružil konec devetdesetih v japonskem Naganu. Curling še zdaleč ni najbolj eksotičen olimpijski šport. Moštveno vlečenje vrvi je bilo stalnica iger do leta 1920, hitrostno plezanje po vrvi pa se je z občasnimi prekinitvami pojavljalo še dlje, vse do leta 1932. /.../

Večer, 2018

Pozabite na banke, naftarje, kokakole in hamburgerje. Lansko leto se je pet od šestih največjih p... more Pozabite na banke, naftarje, kokakole in hamburgerje. Lansko leto se je pet od šestih največjih podjetij na svetu ukvarjalo z informacijami.

Večer, 2018

Pred časom sem še kot raziskovalec opravljal intervjuje z najvišjimi predstavniki slovenskih poli... more Pred časom sem še kot raziskovalec opravljal intervjuje z najvišjimi predstavniki slovenskih političnih strank. V raziskavi nas je med drugim zanimal odnos strank do medijev, poglobljeni pogovori pa so bili poučni, saj so pokazali, da je med strankami več paralel, kot bi si mislili na prvi pogled. V spomin se mi je najbolj vtisnilo dejstvo, da z delovanjem najvplivnejših medijev ni bil zadovoljen nobeden izmed sogovorcev. Tako bi ne nazadnje tudi moralo biti, saj jih mediji nadzorujejo. Vendar je kar nekaj ugovorov bilo vsebinskih in so se skladali s tem, kar z izdelanim pojmovnim aparatom pojasnijo bolj ali manj pomanjkljive medijske teorije. Med bolj zanimivimi kritikami je bila predpostavka, da so v resnici mediji postali tisti, ki diktirajo delovanje politikov in s svojo močjo določajo, katere bodo osrednje politične teme in kako jih bomo dojemali. Trditev je zanimiva, saj hkrati poslušamo, da so tudi najvplivnejši mediji v Sloveniji (na primer Pop TV) brez moči in bi jim morali pustiti nadaljnjo horizontalno in vertikalno tržno integracijo. /.../

Večer, 2018

Nedavni sobotni Utrip, pregled osrednjih dogodkov tedna na javni televiziji, se je zaključil z re... more Nedavni sobotni Utrip, pregled osrednjih dogodkov tedna na javni televiziji, se je zaključil z retoričnimi vprašanji, med katerimi je bilo tudi: Kaj je lepšega kot biti ponosen na to, da si Slovenec? Kot vemo vsi, je namen retoričnega vprašanja, da nanj ne odgovarjamo. Ne gre zares za vprašanje, temveč za zaključeno misel, katere poanto naj bi ta govorna figura le še dodatno poudarila. Če na retorično vprašanje odgovarjaš, lahko v očeh tistega, ki ga je postavil, v najboljšem primeru izpadeš nerazgledan, v najslabšem pa še kaj slabšega./.../

eJournal of eDemocracy and open government, 2015

The paper challenges the theoretical assumptions of deliberative communication in online contexts... more The paper challenges the theoretical assumptions of deliberative communication in online contexts with two oppositional empirical case studies in the Slovenian web sphere: the governmental portal "Predlagam vladi" ("I propose to the government") and the citizen portal "Danes je nov dan" ("Today is a new day"). The common characteristics of both portals, which were intentionally developed for the online gathering of public proposals directly from the citizens, lie in their combination of public dialogue with polling that results in final decision-making. However, a more detailed analysis and comparison of both portals also helps explain the crucial differences between the institutional or strong public sphere on one hand and the civic or weak public spheres on the other, which consequently limit the democratisation of public engagement in a digital context.

Text in Portuguese. Abstract in English. TITLE: Online Campaigns, Political Participation and the... more Text in Portuguese. Abstract in English. TITLE: Online Campaigns, Political Participation and the Public Sphere: The Case of the Open Government Plan in the 2010 Brazilian Elections..ABSTRACT: This paper aims at examining the online political discussions which took place on the website Proposta Serra , an open government plan initiative launched by the Brazilian Social Democracy Party´s candidate José Serra during the 2010 Brazilian presidential elections. The Proposta Serra´s purpose was to engage voters and campaing agents in political discussions in order to create a collaborative government plan. The project´s website reproduces some of the features of social network sites, such as public or semi-public profiles, photo albums and blogs. The Proposta Serra s singular characteristic was to give voters the opportunity to create thematic online forums turned to debate issues such as agriculture, housing, urban and rural public infra-structure and education. Through content analysis, we evaluated the deliberative quality of (N=200) messages exchanged by the participants in 4 different forums. Five analytical categories taken from the current online deliberation literature were used: Reciprocity, Reflexivity, Respect, Justification and Information. The results show high ratings of deliberation in the political discussions, demonstrating the forums´ usefulness to promote qualified cognitive exchanges. However, the lack of transparency in the selection process of voters suggestions decreased significantly the user sense of political efficacy