Pseudo Events

Social acceleration may be described through the analogy of software updates. That is, updating to the latest requires some sort of forgetting of the former. This article argues that knowledge is increasingly severed from learning and thinking, following Bauman's (2005) insight that contemporary society no longer produces a culture of learning but rather a culture of forgetting, disengagement and discontinuity. First, I will review the development of the knowledge society and its promise, which social acceleration will let us forget that the same promise is still pending in contemporary discourse. Then I will address the problem of disengagement, or fear of involvement, which consequently alters the relation people have with each other and learning. Discontinuity is when society loses its connection with its past and future alternatives. Time ceases to be inscribed in duration to become scattered moments, drifting loose with the relentless overflow of information. However, learning takes time; it is a built-in property that was also forgotten alongside the 'updating' of the contemporary conceptions of knowledge. One needs time to think and connect what was, what is and what could be to foster imagination and creativity, to figure out that society could be otherwise and become an object of critique, and most importantly, an object of involvement and learning.

This book bridges a gap between discussions about truth, human understanding, and epistemology in philosophical circles, and debates about objectivity, bias, and truth in journalism. It examines four major philosophical theories in easy to understand terms while maintaining a critical insight which is fundamental to the contemporary study of journalism. The book aims to move forward the discussion of truth in the news media by dissecting commonly used concepts such as bias, objectivity, balance, fairness, in a philosophically-grounded way, drawing on in depth interviews with journalists to explore how journalists talk about truth.

For the Routledge Research in Journalism Series.

When it comes to postmodernity, confusion arises. The main reason for this confusion lies under the main differentiation between postmodern sociology and sociology of postmodernism. This difference affects many fields and public relations is one of them. In this study, I follow the path of postmodern public relations which deals with postmodernism as an era not an epistemo-logy. Therefore in this article, the transformation and new characteristics of public relations in the postmo-dern era was discussed. The main claim of this article is that in the postmodern era, public relations can be used a mean for enchantment. Also, pseudo-events turned into an essential tool for public relations since organizations need to be more visible in this era in which images turned out to be more vital than realities. PinkorBlack night arranged by Unilever was analyzed as a pseudo event. Event's videos, written material and social media accounts were examined by using descriptive analysis. As a result, it is seen that Magnum used this pseudo-event to create both visual simulation and a " dialogue " simulation not just for raising awareness about its new products but also strengthen the image of hyper-real " Magnum Woman ". With this event Mag-num positioned not just like an ice-cream, but also sophistication , energy, pleasure and beauty. Öz Postmoderniteden bahsedildiğinde bir kafa karışıklığı yaşandığı görülmektedir. Bu karışıklığın temel nedeni " postmodern sosyoloji " ile " postmodernizmin sosyoloji-si " arasındaki farkta yatmaktadır. Bu fark diğer alan-ları olduğu gibi halkla ilişkileri de etkilemektedir. Bu çalışmada, postmodern sosyoloji yolundan ilerlenmiş; postmodernite bir epistemoloji olarak değil, bir dönem olarak ele alınmıştır. Bu nedenle makalede, halkla ilişkilerin postmodern dönemde yaşadığı dönüşüm ve yeni özellikleri tartışılmıştır. Makalenin temel amacı, postmodern dönemde halkla ilişkiler bir " büyülüme aracı " olarak işlev görebildiğini tartışmaktır. Pseudo-event de imajların gerçeklerden daha önemli hale gel-diği bir dönemde, daha görünür olmak isteyen örgütler için önemli bir araçtır. Makalede Unilever tarafından düzenlenen PinkorBlack gecesi bir pseudo eveny olarak ele alınmıştır. Etkinliğin videolaro, yazılı materyaller ve sosyal medya hesapları betimsel analiz yoluyla ince-lenmiştir. Sonuç olarak, Magnum'un bu pseudo-event'i hem göresel hem de diyalog simülasyonu olarak kul-landığı görülmüştür. Bu etkinlik sadece yeni ürünleri ile ilgili farkındalığı artırmak için değil, aynı zamanda hipergerçek Magnum kadının imajını güçlendirmek için de kullanılmıştır. Entelektüellik, enerji, haz ve gü-zellik gibi değerler vurgulanmıştır.

The Mesocyclone process of social media communication is applied to the Saint Edmund for England campaign, intended to restore Edmund as national patron saint. The 2012-2014 campaign was the second attempt at restoration, but it was the first with the opportunity to utilize social media. The Mesocyclone helps explain why the campaign failed, notably because few social media messages were made, there was a lack of engaging visuals, and few opportunities for buy-in.

O presente trabalho aborda o astroturfing, compreendido como uma prática de propaganda que consiste na criação de uma manifestação de um público simulado. Apesar da crescente importância do assunto no mundo contemporâneo, os poucos estudos comunicacionais sobre o tema adotam, em geral, um enfoque dominado por um viés determinista, no qual generalizações sobre motivos e efeitos da prática evocam uma causalidade linear calcada na unilateralidade. Ao contrário desses, a presente dissertação reflete sobre a prática a partir de uma perspectiva relacional da comunicação, entendendo-a como uma complexa e aberta tentativa de influenciar a opinião pública. Para tal, identificamos na literatura de propaganda algumas lógicas que perpassam o astroturfing para, em seguida, refletir sobre a forma com que elas se materializam na dinâmica da prática, partindo para tanto do aporte teórico do acontecimento e dos quadros de sentido. Ao final, apresenta uma análise do caso Eu sou da Lapa, percebendo por meio da mesma como as lógicas identificadas anteriormente estão presentes.

Social acceleration may be described through the analogy of software updates. That is, updating to the latest requires some sort of forgetting of the former. This article argues that knowledge is increasingly severed from learning and thinking, following Bauman's (2005) insight that contemporary society no longer produces a culture of learning but rather a culture of forgetting, disengagement and discontinuity. First, I will review the development of the knowledge society and its promise, which social acceleration will let us forget that the same promise is still pending in contemporary discourse. Then I will address the problem of disengagement, or fear of involvement, which consequently alters the relation people have with each other and learning. Discontinuity is when society loses its connection with its past and future alternatives. Time ceases to be inscribed in duration to become scattered moments, drifting loose with the relentless overflow of information. However, learning takes time; it is a built-in property that was also forgotten alongside the 'updating' of the contemporary conceptions of knowledge. One needs time to think and connect what was, what is and what could be to foster imagination and creativity, to figure out that society could be otherwise and become an object of critique, and most importantly, an object of involvement and learning.

This article introduces a journalistic intervention into routinized political ‘pseudo-events’ that can lull reporters and citizens into stultified complacency about public affairs while facilitating highly disciplined politicians’ cynical messaging. The intervention draws on non-representational theory, a style of research that aims to disrupt automatic routines and encourage people to recognize possibilities for change from moment to moment. The article details the author’s coverage of a routine political rally from a perspective untethered to normalized journalistic or political cues of importance, to generate affective and possibly unpredictable responses to the content.

In this paper I will primarily focus on one of the cases from the 2009 scandal series, based on more or less socially “embarrassing“ incidents, related to stimulants possession and public indecency in Japanese entertainment world (namely the scandals of monster-stars Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Manabu Oshio and most importantly of Noriko Sakai). I will demonstrate certain (more or less culture-specific) features of scandal mediation in a case study of Noriko Sakai super-scandal case – the incident that had invited more than the usual scrutiny and lead into a media event/process that received 3 times as many hours of TV coverage as the 2009 national election. The celebrity scandals (not only in Japan) have minimal social relevancy but surprisingly high public involvement and this was also the case of Noriko Sakai´s scandal where the Japanese public felt so heavily involved/invested in the development of this story. I will elaborate on the combination of incendiary elements that made her case a super-scandal in terms of media coverage (e.g. the expectancy violation of her constructed star image and the consequent social fallout). Finally I will put the case study into a wider theoretical context while illuminating the role of Japanese media in investigating, uncovering, and mediating scandals, followed by a structural model of the scandal mediation process, consisting of 1) transgression of leaks to media, 2) scandal processing, 3) transgression of leaks to the public, and 4) scandal climax.