Session 2: Ethics in the Public Sphere
2nd Global Conference
Friday 12th March – Sunday 14th March 2010
Salzburg, Austria
Culture, Politics, and Ethics: Media Representation of Immigrants and Policy in Canada
Ritendra Tamang
Faculty of Communication Studies, Mount Royal College, Canada
Developments in media technologies and the recent trend toward centralizing both public and private information have transformed the political landscape in Canada. By centralizing information technologies such as the news media, the Canadian government is able to maintain its control over the information it disseminates to the public. Control over news media also allows the government to construct and maintain hegemonic representations of a shared national identity and culture. As a result of this control, the voices of subaltern groups such as immigrants, minority groups, and women are excluded from mainstream media. The rise in ethnic media in recent decades poses new challenges to these dominant representations. Together, these changes raise new questions about the politics involved in news media representation of immigrants and Canadian immigration policy. Within this framework, this paper seeks to analyze the politics involved in the representation of immigrants and immigration policy in news media, particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (“CBC”), and the consequences this has on shaping public ideas about immigrants and immigration policy. The paper also examines the roles the ethnic media play in endorsing and challenging these dominant discourses. This focus allows us to add further nuance to the intersection of culture, politics, and ethics both in the past and in the present. The insights generated from this study will be useful in the development of theories, analyses, and discussions regarding present and future immigration policies in Canada.
Italian Mafia in the Spectrum of Culture and Politics
Baris Cayli
Universita Di Camerino, Italy
The history of Mafia in Italy has long standing background which intersects mainly with the culture and politics of the country. This intersection has vital importance both to understand and examine the main reasons of arising and developing of mafia. Mafia is a term that takes its major power firstly from their members and networks, secondly from society to influence and illustrate their authority. Finally, their hidden power is essential in politics to make their position more powerful in concealing any illicit act.
Although the topic has been examined by a few scholars regarding to the concept of culture, there is need to elaborate the sociological situation of the Southern Italy, failing of cultural individualism and rising of mafia in terms of traditional structure of the region, prevention of individualistic values and abusing of politics and democracy for immoral benefits.
Under all these considerations, the paper will be focused on three main subjects. First, the failure of individualism in Southern Italy, secondly political-culture of the region and finally how these two elements which make mafia stronger affect the fight against mafia will be the main topics of the paper. During the discussions the theory of cultural collectivism and individualism will be integrated to the first part of the analysis which is regarded with failure of individualism in Southern Italy. In the evaluation of the political culture of the region the theory of political ethics will be main backbone of the interpretation of the last part.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
The Idea of the University: 10 years after the Bologna Process
Sonia Pavlenko and Cristina Bojan
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
One could argue that the university is an institution situated nowadays at a crossroads between politics, culture, ethics, and many others (such as business, sustainable development, or even philosophy). Nevertheless, one can still easily identify a host of old ideas alongside many new ones.
Sheldon Rothblatt credited the Romantic Movement from the end of the 18th century with the “idea of the idea of a university”. This “idea” caused the first major revolution in the field of higher education. Before the French Revolution, European universities (although divided by their dependence on Catholic or Protestant sovereigns) were organized in the same way and taught more or less the same branches of knowledge in 4 or 5 classical faculties. For instance, in 1772, J.J Rousseau was complaining that “[…] there are no longer any French, Germans, Spanish or even English, in spite of what they say: there are only Europeans. They all have the same tastes, the same passions, the same morals, because none of them has received a national moulding from a particular institution.”
At the beginning of the 19th century, two new university models appeared which opened the way to a fundamental reform of the traditional university, namely the French model and the German model. They led the way towards a wide diversification of the system both at national and international level. This diversification was so great that in the 20th century Jurgen Habermas argued that one cannot speak anymore about an idea of the university.
Another development process came about at the turn of another century, namely the Bologna process.
It is the purpose of this paper to try and identify the fundamental idea(s) and assumptions that may define the university and the “idea of a university” nowadays, (almost) 10 years into the Bologna process, taking into account as well the broader context that has an increasing influence upon the university itself.
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