Ruth Wodak & Veronika Keller (eds.), Handbook of communication in the public sphere. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. Pp. xx, 462. Hb. $257.
Year: 2010
Type: book-review
Abstract: The linguistic turn in media and communications has led "discourse" to become a key category for bringing together a variety of traditions in the field.Likewise, due to an expansion in applied linguistics in recent years, this field has also come to explore the extent to which communication in various public domains is typified by power patterns and asymmetries.Exploring the tensions surrounding definitions of the "public" or the nature of "participation" requires linking recurring communicative patterns to a variety of fluid societal practices; it requires making connections between institutional processes and ideological positions that prevail in mediated articulations of citizenship, domains of governance, and accountability.It is in this context that nineteen contributors from four continents and five traditions have come together to illuminate the diversity of discursive meaning in the public spheres of business, politics, and media.Each of these domains comprises chapters in intersecting area(s) of scholarship: organizational and corporate communication, political communication and rhetoric, philosophy of communication, media studies, and language and social interaction.From this variety of intellectual standpoints all of the essays touch upon debates in the public sphere, which are central to the democratic functioning of societies.Some essays address the troublesome ambiguity of the concept.Others offer renewed articulations of the "public" within emerging
Source: Language in Society
Author: Panagiota Alevizou
Institution: The Open University
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
OpenAlex ID: W2114267147