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donate Media, politics and the tyranny of opinion
Eurozine debate series continues in Sofia
Europe's current crisis is about more than money. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, in his famous "battle for survival" speech, recently pointed not only to the crisis of the euro as a threat to the European integration project, but also to a European crisis of democracy, characterized by the rise of populism and a surge in "anti-politics".
Many analysts have identified the media as the single most important factor in a development that changes the rules of democracy. According to Bulgarian cultural anthropologist Ivaylo Ditchev, the marketization of the media combines with digital media technology to create a political order determined by public opinion. The permanent live communication between the governing and the governed leaves no space for the accumulation of authority. In political decision-making, the question whether opinion is right or wrong becomes secondary to its legitimacy as a form of feedback.
What does this mean for citizens' trust in the political system and for democracy as such?
DEMOCRACY LIVE
Media, politics and the tyranny of opinion
Speakers:
Judith Vidal-Hall (London)
Ivaylo Ditchev (Sofia)
Chair and introduction: Carl Henrik Fredriksson (Eurozine)
Language: English
Time: Monday 6 December, 7 p.m.
Place: The Red House, Lyuben Karavelov 15, Sofia
About the speakers
Judith Vidal-Hall is a British journalist and broadcaster. For 14 years, between 1993 and 2007, she was the editor of Index on Censorship. She was a founding editor of Guardian Third World Review, a monthly supplement in the London Guardian, launched in 1978. For the first time in the western mainstream media, this gave a voice to writers and journalists from the Third World to represent the reality of their own countries. Currently, she edits the series "Manifestos for the 21st Century" published by Seagull Books. She has been a regular columnist for the Times Literary Supplement and frequently appears on BBC radio and several TV channels, including CNN, BBC World and BBC 24.Ivaylo Ditchev is professor of cultural anthropology at the St Kliment Ohridsky University in Sofia, where he conducts research on cities, migration and practices of citizenship. He is a regular contributor to international journals such as the German edition of Lettre International and Eurozine. He also writes for the Bulgarian daily Sega and the weekly Capital. His most recent books are Citizens Beyond Places? New Mobilities, New Borders, New Forms of Belonging (2009) and Desire of Spaces, Spaces of Desire: Studies in Urban Anthropology (2005).
Europe talks to Europe
A polylogue on culture and politics
From Autumn 2009 to Spring 2011, Eurozine organizes a series of high-profile debates in different central and eastern European cities, including Budapest, Bratislava, Brno, Bucharest, Lviv, Sofia, Warsaw and Vienna. Making use of a well-established media platform and a wide-ranging network of editors, authors and intellectuals, the debates will make a substantial contribution to cross-border discussion on cultural identities and the European integration project.The Sofia debate, part of the series "Europe talks to Europe", is a cooperation between Eurozine and the ERSTE Foundation, realised together with Critique & Humanism and The Red House.
More information about the debate series Europe talks to Europe.With the financial support of the European Commission and the ERSTE Foundation.
Published 2010-09-17
Original in English
© Eurozine
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