Gheorghe-Ilie Farte

The purpose of this study is to highlight the underlying themes or motifs that recur in Russian war propaganda in the context of the war in Ukraine. Using the method of thematic analysis, I analyzed the messages about the war in Ukraine that Russian opinion leaders and media institutions disseminated through the lens of the "principles of war propaganda" presented and illustrated by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli. Due to the language barrier and restrictions on access to Russian news sources, we limited our analysis to articles published on the TASS news agency website and Twitter posts, which reproduce and comment on the interventions of Vladimir Solovyov, considered by the United States State Department as "the Kremlin's most energetic propagandist." In total, I analyzed 58 articles from the website of the TASS news agency and 40 Twitter posts with excerpts from the show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" on the Russia-1 TV channel. The analysis highlights that the "principles" defined by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli govern Russian war propaganda, at least in part. Our analysis does not exclude the possibility that Russian propagandists may have used other leitmotifs or public communication themes. Their identification and presentation could be the subject of further research.

This article tries to present a possible way of proliferating bivalent, trivalent, etc. calculation. Beyond the controversies as to the effects that involve the presence versus the absence of the temporal factor, no significant attempts of adapting a bivalent logic to other pairs of values have been mentioned. Should the transformation of the alethiologic modalities into logic values be possible, five more bivalent calculations may be added to the classic bivalent calculation. All these new calculations are compatible with the traditional one, to the extent that they submit to the conditions of non-contradictoriness and exhaustibility, and the connectors receive, even if partially, the corresponding value interpretations.

This article highlights the underlying themes or leitmotifs that recur in Russian war propaganda. Using the method of thematic analysis, we analyze the messages related to the war in Ukraine that have been disseminated in mass media and social media by Russian propagandists through the lens of the „principles of war propaganda“ presented and illustrated by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli. More precisely, we will show that all the eleven recurrent themes of war propaganda defined by Ponsonby and Morelli intervene in the messages disseminated through two important media channels for the propaganda of the Kremlin regime: the TV show „Evening with Solovyov“ and the Russian news agency TASS. Misleading war propaganda is as lethal as weapons of mass destruction, and it is part of the arsenal of any aggressor country, including Russia. Through thorough knowledge of the underlying leitmotifs, it is easier to counter it.

This paper presents an analytical framework for analyzing how multimodal resources of emotion expression are semiotically materialized in discursive interactions specific to political discourse. Interested in how political personae are emotionally constructed through multimodal meaning-making practices, our analysis model assumes an interdisciplinary perspective, which integrates facial expression analysis – using FaceReader™ software –, the theory of emotional arcs and bodily actions (hand gestures) analysis that express emotions, in the analytical framework of multimodality. The results show how the multimodal choices that political actors make during discursive interactions allow them to build their political brand and make connections with the audience on an emotional level.

This paper aims to measure the quality of all Romanian cities’ websites in 2019 and 2022, before and after the disruptive event of COVID-19. Since the official websites are the core instrument of e-governance, the changes in the quality of Romanian cities’ websites reflect the changes in the development of urban e-governance in Romania. The COVID-19 lockdowns and contact restrictions and the moving of most activities into the online environment had the potential to impact the performance of Romanian cities’ websites significantly and catalyze the progress of local e-governance. The quality of Romanian cities’ official websites was measured using an adapted survey instrument proposed by Holzer and Kim and Manoharan, Melitski, and Holzer. The tool covers five critical criteria of website quality or performance: personal data security, usability, content, services, and citizen participation. The research results may seem contrary to expectations: the improvements of websites have been incremental rather than transformational. Although our research provides only a case study, we may assert that the reform of traditional administration remains a step-by-step process. Our study’s main contribution consists in showing that the progress of e-governance is an incremental process even in a situation of emergency that requires the moving of most activities into the online environment.

The aim of this study is to explore the effects of fake news on consumers’ brand trust in the food security context. The starting point of our research is the finding that issues related to food security cannot be addressed without the contribution of multinational food corporations. The efficiency of their intervention depends on their capacity to build and preserve their brand trust despite the multifarious fake news stories that contaminate the information flow. Is brand trust sensitive to fake news? In some cases, the spread of fake news in mass media and social media negatively affects food companies. In other cases, consumers’ trust remains relatively unchanged. These ambivalent reactions give us good reason to assess whether consumers’ exposure to negative fake news influences their trust in international food brands. Using a one-group pretest-posttest research design, we found that the effects of fake news on consumers’ brand trust are predominantly negative, but in a few cases, these effects can be neutral or positive. These results could be useful for PR and marketing researchers and professionals interested in fake news phenomena and brand trust because they shed light on the real threat fake news represents for multinational food companies.

The main thesis of this article is that Western societies risk becoming Balkanized if they confront the superdiversity issue without sound management of intolerance. The Balkanization process has some essential features that allow the use of this term outside the area of origin (namely the Balkan Peninsula). Thus: It always affects a diverse political unit that comprises an inextricable medley of racial, ethnocultural, religious, ideological, or gender identities. It emerges only where neither the hegemony principle nor the confederacy principle can sustain a divided population’s peaceful coexistence. It entails “antagonistic and conflict-oriented relationships resistant to resolution” between the groups or classes dissociated from a diverse political unit. It increases the density of physical and psychological boundaries between the formerly associated parts. It is perpetuated by the great sponsors of the dissociated parts. Any diverse political unit can enter a process of Balkanization, regardless of its degree of culture and civilization. Balkanization does not have a fatal course. Just as there is no society immune to Balkanization, there is no diverse society doomed to Balkanization. Balkanization can be prevented, checked, stopped, or reversed, depending on society members’ individual and collective actions. To survive, the superdiverse liberal democracies from the Euro-Atlantic area need an agonistic public sphere, where actionable truths emerge from a genuine clash of educated opinions. If intolerance management is the first step in preventing the Balkanization of a superdiverse political unit, promoting social and political tolerance towards all people who express educated opinions is the best starting point to genuine tolerance. The return to Enlightenment rationalism values that underpinned our freedom of thought and expression will help us meet the challenges inherent in current and future superdiversity. By feeding enlightened conversations and debates with genuine, educated opinions, people learn to have tolerance for “unpleasant” pieces of knowledge. Then, they spread general tolerance – as a by-product – across the entire society.

Comme tous les autres projets humains, les politiques de santé publique sont souvent affectées par des imperfections et des erreurs. Cependant, elles sont mieux ancrées dans les résultats de la recherche scientifique que d’autres actions humaines en général, et politiques gouvernementales en particulier. D’une manière générale, les données sur lesquelles reposent les politiques de santé publique remplissent les conditions suivantes : méthodes de recherche rigoureuses, tests indépendants et précis, reproductibilité des résultats, mesure du taux d’erreur, capacité à écarter des hypothèses rivales et un degré d’acceptation satisfaisant au sein de la communauté scientifique. Les politiques de santé publique comprennent des campagnes de vaccination de la population, en particulier des enfants. Ces actions de vaccination sont considérées comme sûres et efficaces par les institutions publiques, les organisations de santé, les médecins et les chercheurs en santé. Malgré cela, un nombre croissant de parents choisit de ne pas vacciner leurs enfants. Les fausse nouvelles sur les vaccins publiées dans les médias, en particulier dans les nouveaux médias, par les influenceurs, ont contribué certainement à cette tendance. Ces influenceurs sont insuffisamment qualifiés ou totalement non qualifiés pour commenter l’innocuité et l’efficacité des vaccins dans les médias. Par conséquent, ils ne peuvent pas produire des données fiables et des opinions qualifiées, c’est-à-dire des informations indépendantes, précises, pertinentes, fiables et complètes. Cependant, ces influenceurs parviennent à influencer, dans une large mesure, le comportement des parents en matière de vaccination. La stratégie de lutte contre les fausses nouvelles en publiant des preuves contraires est évidemment nécessaire, mais pas suffisante parce que beaucoup de fausses infos sur les vaccins fonctionnent comme des mythes. Etant fixées d’une manière partiellement irrationnelle, les mythes anti-vaccination ne peuvent être démystifiés seulement avec les dernières preuves scientifiques. C’est pourquoi il est nécessaire d’envisager des stratégies de relations publiques capables d’influencer des opinions collectives irrationnelles.

In order to decide whether a discursive product of human reason corresponds or not to the logical order, one must analyze it in terms of syntactic correctness, consistency, and validity. The first step in logical analysis is formalization, that is, the process by which logical forms of thoughts are represented in different formal languages or logical systems. Although each thought can be properly formalized in different ways, the formalization variants are not equally adequate. The adequacy of formalization seems to depend on several essential features: parsimony, accuracy, transparency, fertility and reliability. Because there is a partial antinomy between these traits, it is impossible to find a perfectly adequate variant of formalization. However, it is possible and preferable to reach a reasonable compromise by choosing the variant of formalization which satisfies all of these fundamental characteristics.

The main goal of this study is to develop a conceptual framework meant (a) to present the essential traits of persuasion, (b) to explain resistance to persuasion (mainly when the persuader tries to shape, reinforce, or change an attitudinal response), and (c) to provide a feasible strategy to overcome the coping behaviors associated with resistance to persuasion. Defined as the communication process in which “someone makes other people believe or decide to do something, especially by giving them reasons why they should do it, or asking them many times to do it”, persuasion ensures a noncoercive social control by shaping, reinforcing, or changing target audience’s cognitions, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Persuasion involves volitional behaviors (that are inextricably intertwined with spontaneous, impulsive, mindless, or compulsive behaviors) and a significant cognitive load. Even if persuasion does not elicit negative feelings like various shortcuts to compliance (coercion, bribery, deception, manipulation of the dominant instincts, etc.), it generates ipso facto resistance to persuasion. Public relations specialists and other communication professionals can reduce or cope with resistance to persuasion by creating a low-pressure persuasion context, using evidential reasons, and following evidential rules.

Migration is a recurrent phenomenon of human history because it is a successful adaptive strategy of human beings. Although migration today is not of a greater magnitude than in the past, it attracts a great deal of media and academia attention. The present wave of non-Western immigrants into the United States and Europe caused, apart from myriad economic, social and political problems, an ideological dispute between globalism and right-wing populism. Both ideological approaches attract many zealots who spread extreme opinions and poison the whole political life. Using the scholastic method, I examined some opposing points of view of globalists and right-wing populists on several topics regarding non-Western immigration: border control, illegal immigration, limitations of legal immigration, refugee relocation quotas and cultural integration of immigrants. The globalists’ and right-wing populists’ theses and arguments were checked in regard with established authorities, available factual data and human reason. Highlighting some important topics relating to immigration problem and weighing the main arguments used by globalists and right-wing populists, I also indicate several points of compromise that could help people to moderate their political opinions.

The vertiginous rise of right-wing populism, especially in its “nationalist, xenophobic and conservative form”, and some “racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and sexist” drifts associated with this phenomenon – whether real or perceived as such – make the mainstream media play a double role. On the one hand, the mainstream media reflect the struggle for political hegemony between different vested interests; on the other hand, they engage in the fight against right-wing populism blasting both right-wing populist candidates and their voters or supporters. Many mainstream journalists ask citizens to realize a “sanitary cordon”, a “wall” or a “republican front” to block far-right populism and preserve liberal democracy. Moreover, they urge people to be wary of all attempts to “dediabolize” or “normalize” some tokens of right-wing populism. The main idea of this article is that right-wing populism is more harmless than is generally believed and, if excessive, negative media coverage doesn’t baffle but feed it. Populism is essentially a latent side effect of liberal democracy. Populism rises and becomes obtrusive only if a significant part of society perceives a regime of illiberal majoritarianism instead of one of liberal democracy. Right-wing populists are chiefly frustrated “ci-devants” who feel dispossessed of their past, identity, properties, qualities, privileges or titles. Inasmuch as the causes of collective frustration are many and varied (e.g. the real or just perceived corruption of the elites, the “system”, the deep state, the relocation of jobs, immigration, national sovereignty, national identity, communitarianism, radical Islamism, the status of some traditional institutions, some chapters of official history, etc.), there will always be right-wing populists, whether they are self-declared or covert. By adopting David G. Hackett’s thesis that the media are “agents of hegemony”, we applied the critical analysis of discourse to a set of 346 media articles in order to reveal the discursive sources of power, domination, inequality and partiality. The articles appeared in The New York Times and Le Monde during the period 2016-2017, at the time when the presidential elections took place in the United States and France. The articles were selected according to the occurrence of the keywords “Donald Trump” – “populism” and “Marine Le Pen” – “populisme” within the titles. The analysis of these articles reveals a divisive discursive structure that correspond to a real political cleavage in society. It is true that populism presents a “Manichean outlook”, in which there are only friends and foes” and no compromise is possible. It is also true that mainstream media reinforce this Manichean perspective on society and make populists feel marginalized and politically disempowered. The mainstream media may appease right-wing populism if they treat its followers as legitimate and equal political actors. For this, they have to give up the narrative structures that underscore insurmountable divergences and irreconcilable interests. In a liberal democracy, mass media should chiefly play the role of mediator. They may not aim to defeat or re-educate certain categories of citizens just because they advocate “wrong” political solutions.

The aim of this conceptual paper is to discuss the issue of managing fake news in the online environment, from an organizational perspective, by using reactive PR strategies. First, we critically discuss the most important definitions of the umbrella term fake news, in the so-called post-truth era, in order to emphasize different challenges in conceptualizing this elusive social phenomenon. Second, employing some valuable contribution from literature, we present and illustrate with vivid examples 10 categories of fake news. Each type of fake news is discussed in the context of organizational communication. Based on existent literature, we propose a 3D conceptual model of fake news, in an organizational context. Furthermore, we consider that PR managers can use either reactive PR strategies to counteract online fake news regarding an organization, or communication stratagems to temporarily transform the organization served into a potential source of fake news. The existing typology of reactive public relations strategies from the literature allow us to discuss the challenge of using them in counteracting online fake news. Each reactive PR strategy can be a potential solution to respond to different types of online fake news. Although these possibilities seem to be extensive, in some cases, PR managers can find them ineffective. In our view, this cluster of reactive PR strategies is not a panacea for managing fake news in the online environment and different strategic approaches may be need, such as communication stratagems. In this context, communication stratagems consist in using organization as a source or as a vector for strategic creation and dissemination of online fake news, for the benefit of the organization. We conclude that within online environment PR managers can employ a variety of reactive PR strategies to counteract fake news, or different communication stratagems to achieve organizational goals.

The aim of this article is to depict as accurately as possible the ideological conflict between liberal democracy and an insidious present-day version of communism, namely cultural socialism. Obviously, it is not easy to describe the essential relationships between two complex phenomena that evolve nonlinearly within a hypercomplex environment. The ideological systems of liberal democracy and cultural socialism involve both objective and subjective facts, material and immaterial components, neutral and emotion-laden aspects, deliberate and unintentional behaviors, linear and nonlinear effects, and planner-dependent and observer-dependent events. They affect each other and also fall under the influence of different non-political factors that characterize the Euro-Atlantic societies. In order to cope with the complexity of this research object we adopt the methodological dualism and a praxeological approach. The system of discursive liberal democracy can be seen – from a praxeological perspective – as a spontaneous order generated and maintained by three classes of attractors: the attractors of democracy (inclusion, political equality, high level of political participation, and majority rule), the attractors of liberalism (rule-governed political agency and the right to reasonable self-determination), and the attractors of public rationality (publicness, objectivity, verifiability, and revisability). Liberal democracy subsists in any society only if a sufficient number of its members reproduce the corresponding attractors in their political (and non-political) conduct. It is important to note that it is much easier to reproduce the attractors of democracy than the attractors of liberalism and rationality. Maybe because of that the socialists strive to undermine the system of liberal democracy by perverting – in the first instance – the standards of (public) rationality. One of the most important ingredient of cultural socialism is so-called "political correctness", by means of which people are prevented from expressing genuinely and politely certain beliefs or doubts in the public sphere even if they profess the standards of objectivity, verifiability, and revisability. Under the pressure of political correctness the attractors of public rationality tend to wither, the liberal dimension of the political system disappears too, and democracy becomes a sheer tyranny. Choosing a form of political organization is not a scientific, but a socio-political matter. It is not the job of social scientists to recommend or impose political goals in general and a specific political system in particular. However, inasmuch as some goals are set, social scientists can indicate the most appropriate means of meeting them. If the Euro-Atlantic societies still value liberal democracy and want to preserve it, it is important to teach them how to reproduce its attractors and to counteract the pernicious effects of cultural socialism.

The central thesis of this article is that populism is a side effect of liberal democracy and a reliable indicator of the relationship between liberal democracy and its polar opposite ‒ illiberal majoritarianism. As long as liberal democracy prevails over illiberal majoritarianism, populism remains dormant. Populism rises and becomes conspicuous only if certain manifestations of illiberal majoritarianism or illiberal elitism reach a critical point in terms of number and impact. More exactly, populism becomes active when there are too few reasonable and effective responses to the growth of illiberal majoritarianism. Illustrating the defense mechanism of compensation, the rise of populism correlates with a cluster of exaggerated or overdone reactions to actions inspired by illiberal majoritarianism. These reactions vary sharply from one society to another according to (a) the specific challenges of illiberal majoritarianism, (b) the reactivity of people who bear the liberal democratic values, and (c) the credibility enjoyed by the mainstream liberal democratic forces in that society. In brief, although illiberal majoritarianism sets off a cluster of populist reactions in any society, the rise of populism always takes distinct forms. Thus, it is confirmed the status of populism as a chameleonistic phenomenon. The argumentative thread has four main parts. Firstly, it is developed a constitutive model of liberal democracy as an ideal political system that is underpinned by the following organizing principles or attractors: inclusiveness, political equality, political participation, predominance of concurrent majority, the containment and predictability of the government power, and the enforcement of the non-aggression principle. Secondly, the attractors of liberal democracy are contrasted against the recent state of affairs in the Euro-Atlantic space to illustrate the assertion presented here that today illiberal majoritarianism tends to prevail over liberal democracy. In the third step, it is argued that the countless definitions of populism only emphasize different symptoms of the rise of populism, depending on the particular circumstances in which society evolves. Finally, it is substantiated the claim that populism and populists can and should be integrated into the democratic political system, in particular into the democratic public sphere.

By exercising their (imperfect) capacity to discriminate, people try to recognize and to understand some important differences between things that make them prefer some things to other. In this article I will use my ability to discriminate between people and societies according to a principle which plays the role of attractor, both at individual and societal levels, namely the principle of peaceable conduct. This principle allows us to discriminate at the civic level between the people who have a civilized conduct and those who manifest an aggressive conduct. The category of civilized people includes individuals who (a) respect the life and bodily integrity of their fellows, (b) practice self-control, not control over others and (c) do not claim, through coercive means, the goods that their fellows have obtained by making free and peaceful use of their own faculties and capabilities. The category of aggressive people reunites (a) murderers (those who endanger the lives of their fellow), (b) tyrants (those who beslave their fellows by taking control of some of their faculties) and (c) thieves (those who claim the goods of their fellows without their consent). The civilized conduct requires high standards of action of the people who embrace it and, implicitly, considerable physical and psychical costs. The primary impulses originating in our lower Self blatantly contradict the respect for life, liberty and property of our fellows, so that it seems impossible for them to be controlled only by personal effort. Therefore, it is vital that the energy allotted to peaceable conduct by our higher Self be superior to the energy which it spontaneously mobilizes in support of the primary impulses of our lower Self. This can be achieved by feeding the people with the social energy of certain social emotions in the process of internalizing the norms of peaceable conduct. Among these emotions, contempt and shame, respectively anger and guilt stand out through the predominance of the moral dimension and force of shaping human conduct. They underlie two different moral systems – “shame morality”, and “guilt morality” respectively – that support our peaceable conduct and, ipso facto, our civilized life.

Das Anliegen der vorliegenden Studie ist der Entwurf eines wirklichkeitstreuen Modells der Kommunikation. Ebenfalls hat uns interessiert, die konstitutiven Regeln der Kommunikation zu bestimmen und einige Wirksamkeitsnormen und moralische Normen, die mit wünschenswerten sozialen Kommunikationsformen assoziierbar sein könnten, zu identifizieren. Die Kommunikation ist ein facettenreiches und zugleich interpretationsoffenes Phänomen, welches zahlreiche unterschiedliche theoretische Modelle erlaubt. Sie kann von den Psychologen als selbstständigen Verhaltenstyp, von den Soziologen als entscheidenden Sozialisierungsfaktor, von den Anthropologen als kulturhervorbringendes und -verbreitendes Mittel, von den Semiologen als Prozess der (Um-)Konfiguration der verschiedenen Bedeutungen von Bedeutungsträgern usw. gedeutet werden. Das vorliegende Interpretationsmodell der Kommunikation ist allgemein, zum Teil auch hermeneutisch, indem es a) den Kommunikationsprozess als solchen und nicht etwa als eine gesonderte Instanz desselben berücksichtigt, b) eine einzige, nämlich die interaktive Perspektive auf die Kommunikation hervorhebt und c) zweckgemäß die Kommunikation in einen normativen, intelligiblen Rahmen überträgt, wobei sich eine empirische Beschreibung der Kommunikationsfakten zwecks Feststellung allgemeingültiger Gesetze von selbst erübrigt. Diesem theoretischen Modell entsprechend ist die Kommunikation eine Interaktion oder eine wechselseitige semiotische Interaktion, innerhalb derer die involvierten Personen mithilfe von Zeichen komplementäre Verhalten manifestieren, die bestimmten (sozialen) Regeln unterworfen sind. Demzufolge ist die Kommunikation kein individuelles Spiel, sondern ein Team-Spiel. Ihre Protagonisten spielen alle genauso wichtige Rollen, und von ihrer Teilnahme hängt beides, Gelingen und Misslingen der Kommunikation, gleichermaßen ab. Nachdem wir den Begriff der Kommunikation im allgemeinen erklärt hatten, galt unser Interesse der Definition und der Klassifizierung der exklusiven Ausführungsmittel des oben beschriebenen Prozesses, das heißt, der Zeichen. Die semiotische Literatur behandelt die Zeichen sowohl als (stoffliche, mentale oder gemischte) Objekte als auch als Funktionen. Für unsere Demarche haben wir es vorgezogen, die Zeichen als in Wirklichkeit existierende Reize zu beschreiben, die auf Grund von sozialen Konventionen stets auf „etwas Anderes” als auf sich selbst hinweisen. Dieses gemeinte „Andere“, die Bedeutung des Zeichens, ist nichts anderes als die Gesamtheit seiner Anwendungen. Die Natur des Verhältnisses von Zeichen und (willkürlicher, notwendiger, durch Analogie oder Ähnlichkeit begründeter) Bedeutung hat uns dann erlaubt, vier Zeichenkategorien auszumachen und zu beschreiben: Wörter, Indizien, Bilder und Sinnbilder. Was die Erläuterung der konstitutiven Faktoren der Kommunikation anbetrifft, haben wir im Einklang mit den Forschungen angesehener Semiotiker mit sechs grundlegenden Parametern gerechnet: Sender, Empfänger, Mitteilung, Code, Kommunikationssituation und Kommunikationskanal. Doch war das wirklich die einzige treffliche Option? Hätte der Kommunikationsprozess nicht ausgehend von anderen – wenigeren oder mehreren – Faktoren analysiert werden können? Gewiss kann die Kommunikation auch mittels weiterer Variablen verstanden werden – und die Fachliteratur ist nicht müde geworden, die Vorzüge anderer Beschreibungsmuster zu zeigen –; von den sechs semiotischen, von Roman Jakobson eingeführten Parametern kann man indes nicht wegsehen. Sie erlauben allemal eine ziemlich genaue Bestimmung der durch die Protragonisten der Kommunikation durchgeführten Handlungen. In Übereinstimmung mit der allgemeinen Methode der Handlungstheorie haben wir jeden konstitutiven Faktor der Kommunikation mit je einem Handlungspaar korreliert, zum einen beim Sender, zum anderen beim Empfänger. Die Berücksichtigung der Sprache und implizite der Kommunikation im Kontext der Handlungstheorie ist keine bahnbrechende Unternehmung, da sie unter anderem schon John Austin, John Searle und Jürgen Habermas als Ausgangspunkt ihrer Analyse der Sprechakte gedient hat. Auch die Korrelation der Kommunikationsparameter mit einer Handlung ist kein Novum, indem sie auf analoge Weise bereits durch die Versuche einiger Semiotiker wie Roman Jakobson und Karl Bühler, die Funktionen der Sprache bzw. des linguistischen Zeichens zu systematisieren, unternommen wurde. Unser origineller Beitrag besteht aus der Korrelation jedes Faktors der Kommunikation mit einer Interaktion, das heißt mit einem Paar von komplementären Handlungen, so dass jeder Handlung des Senders eine Handlung des Empfängers entspricht. In diesem Sinne haben wir Sender, Empfänger, Mitteilung, Code, Kommunikationssituation und Kommunikationskanal in spezifischen Interaktionstypen (Sichentlarven – Nachvollziehen, Einflussnahme – Antwort, Sendung – Empfang, syntaktische Informierung – syntaktisches Verständnis, Bezeichnung – „Mitbezeich-nung“ bzw. Anknüpfung einer soziale Beziehung – Beibehaltung einer soziale Beziehung) inszeniert. Nachdem wir den Kommunikationsprozess als Totalität von sechs Interaktionstypen beschrieben hatten, haben wir auf drei mögliche Ordnungen der Kommunikationsformen verwiesen, wobei die Einteilungskriterien jeweils die verschiedenen gebrauchten Zeichentypen, die Art der Beziehung zwischen Sender und Empfänger bzw. der sich spontan manifestierende soziale Abstand zwischen den Kommunizierenden waren. Indem unsere Demarche darauf abzielte, die Eigentümlichkeiten verbaler vs. nonverbaler, formaler vs. informaler, der individuell, gruppenweise oder öffentlich stattfindenden Kommunikation auszumachen, haben wir die Akzente auf die Pragmatik der Kommunikation gesetzt und somit einige Hinweise auf den Erwerb spezifischer Kommunikationsfähigkeiten geben können. Das von uns vorgeschlagene theoretische Modell hat also nicht nur ein besseres Verständnis der Kommunikation beabsichtigt, sondern auch die Feststellung eines vollständigen Regelwerks der Kommunikation. Diese Regeln wurden als Formen des zu erwartenden sozialen Verhaltens behandelt – sowohl im normativen als auch im antizipativen Sinne – und wurden im Gefolge von John Searle in zwei Hauptklassen eingeteilt: konstitutive und normative Regeln. Die konstitutiven Regeln bestimmen die von ihnen logisch-abhängigen Verhaltensweisen und legen die Bedingungen der Kommunikationsakte fest, während die normativen Regeln die vorgegebenen, unabhängigen Verhaltensweisen berücksichtigen und die wünschenswerten Bedingungen für ihre Vollziehung festlegen. Um die konstitutiven Regeln ausmachen zu können, sind wir davon ausgegangen, dass der Prozess der menschlichen Kommunikation kein naturhafter, sondern ein institutioneller ist. Mit anderen Worten ist die Kommunikation das Ergebnis einer sozialen Vereinbarung und eben kein unabhängiges Phänomen, das nur von außen zu beschreiben wäre. Je nachdem, wie die notwendigen Regeln, welche die soziale Vereinbarung definieren, respektiert oder verletzt werden, haben wir fünf mögliche Situationen identifiziert: die vollkommene Kommunikation, die teilweise geglückte Kommunikation, die Nonkommunikation, die relative und die absolute Antikommunikation, wobei man hinzufügen muss, dass die erste und die letzte Situation Grenzerfahrungen ohne jegliche Referenz darstellen. Die konstitutiven Regeln der Kommunikation wurden mit allen sechs spezifischen Interaktionstypen korreliert (Sichentlarven – Nachvollziehen, Einflussnahme – Antwort, Sendung – Empfang, syntaktische Informierung – syntaktisches Verständnis, Bezeich-nung – „Mitbezeichnung“ bzw. Anknüpfung einer soziale Beziehung – Beibehaltung einer soziale Beziehung), so dass sie wenigstens aus einem bestimmten Gesichtspunkt ein konsistentes und vollständiges System bilden können. Im Unterschied zum System der konstitutiven Regeln sind hier die Kommunikationsnormen nicht erschöpfend behandelt worden. So wurden aus der Vielfalt der Vorschriften, die zu erwünschten Ergebnissen in der Kommunikation führen könnten, nur einige im Rahmen der vorliegenden Studie angegangen. Diese betreffen die Wirksamkeit und die moralischen Aspekte der Kommunikation und wurden ihrerseits mit den oben angeführten sechs Interaktionstypen korreliert. Dabei waren nicht so sehr die unausweichlichen Lücken im Inventarisieren der Normen, welche die Genauigkeit und die Ökonomie der Kommunikation gewähren, am problematischsten, sondern vielmehr der Grad an moralischer Relevanz, den die Kommunikationsakte beanspruchen können. Wir sind fest davon überzeugt, dass die Handlungen der Kommunizierenden eher davon abhängen, inwiefern sie moralische Verpflichtungen eingehen, und eben nicht davon, was für einen Gewinn sie dadurch erzielen, da keine der berücksichtigten Handlungen sich der Moral gänzlich entziehen können. Ob „neutrale Metaregeln“ für den Fall, dass einige moralische Eingrenzungen mit den Wirksamkeitsnormen kollidieren, vonnöten sind, sei dahin gestellt. Ein theoretisches Modell kann nur dann als nützlich bezeichnet werden, wenn es neue Forschungsansätze bringt und neue Forschungswege ermöglicht. Unter diesem Blickwinkel hat die vorliegende Studie zwei mögliche Fortsetzungen: die Ergänzung der Gesamtheit der normativen Regeln der Kommunikation (im allgemeinen), bzw. das Unterteilen des allgemeinen Modells der Kommunikation in stereotypen Mustern wie der politischen oder didaktischen Kommunikation usw. Schließlich hängen Gelingen und Anwendbarkeit der vorliegenden Studie in pragmatischer Sicht eben davon ab, inwiefern sie dem Leser / Benutzer als Wekzeug zur Verbesserung seiner Kommunikationsleistungen dienen kann.

In this paper we propose to present from a new perspective some loci comunes of traditional logic. More exactly, we intend to show that some hypothetico-disjunctive inferences (i.e. the complex constructive dilemma, the complex destructive dilemma, the simple constructive dilemma, the simple destructive dilemma) and two hypothetico-categorical inferences (namely modus ponendo-ponens and modus tollendo-tollens) particularize two more abstract inferential structures: the constructive n-lemma and the destructive nlemma.

The main purpose of this article is to tackle the problem of living together – as dignified human beings – in a certain territory in the field of social philosophy, on the theoretical grounding ensured by some remarkable exponents of the Austrian School − and by means of the praxeologic method. Because political tools diminish the human nature not only of those who use them, but also of those who undergo their effects, people can live a life worthy of a human being only as members of some autarchic or self-governing communities. As a spontaneous order, every autarchic community is inherently democratic, inasmuch as it makes possible free involvement, peaceful coordination, free expression and the free reproduction of ideas. The members of autarchic communities are moral individuals who avoid aggression, practice self-control, seek a dynamical efficiency and establish a democratic public discourse.

La communication politique peut être entendue comme action sémiologique collective qui se réalise dans le contexte de l’acte de gouverner une société et aussi bien comme acte d’exercice du pouvoir politique en ne faisant recours qu’aux signes. Actuellement la communication politique apparaît surtout sous la forme spécialisée du marketing politique et elle est centrée sur le but de gagner les élections. La “nouvelle” communication politique soulève quelques questions épineuses: (a) la carrière de l’homme politique dépend dans une trop grande mesure de son équipe de consultants; (b) les médias exercent une influence déterminante sur la vie politique; (c) l’activité politique este devenue extrêmement coûteuse; (d) l’image politique est plus importante que l’homme politique réel; (e) les électeurs sont devenus versatiles et sujets à des goûts changeants; (f) presque tous les hommes politiques pratiquent la démagogie. Quelle que soit l’idéologie professé, les politiciens composent et transmettent des messages qui laissent voir une pensée partisane, collective, dissimulée, rationnelle et mise en service du pouvoir. Ces cinq traits dominants peuvent être reconnus aussi dans le cas des messages d’auto-présentation (nom, logo, statut et programme politique), que dans le cas des messages persuasifs (audience accordée à la population, discours prononcé aux réunions du parti, discours électoral, slogan, affiche politique, réclame politique, communiqué politique, interview, conférence de presse et débat télévisé). En faisant usage des messages politiques en tant qu’instruments pour gagner et gérer le pouvoir, les participants à la communication politique accomplissent, dans une mesure plus ou moins large, les actions suivantes: (a) la connaissance du contexte politique (qui contient les règles du jeu politique, les adversaires et les alliés actuels et potentiels, l’état de l’électorat ‒ surtout l’électorat-cible ‒ et les canaux de transmission virtuelle des propres messages politiques), (b) l’octroi d’une image politique convenable (qui réunisse au moins trois qualités majeures: la crédibilité, l’attractivité et la puissance), (c) la sélection des thèmes et des catégories de messages capables de les incarner), (d) la “modalisation” de la campagne de communication (“de notoriété” versus “persuasive”), (e) la transmission des messages politiques (visant le niveau le plus haut des standards d’adéquation et d’efficience) et (f) le monitorage des résultats de la communication politique. Dans la mesure où toutes ces actions sémiologiques sont accomplies à un niveau satisfaisant, la communication politique (qui les englobe) mène à une compétition au pouvoir bienfaisante pour la société toute entière. Une telle compétition ne divise pas la classe politique en vainqueurs et vaincus, mais en rivaux, chacun apportant sa pierre à la construction et la sauvegarde du bien commun.

Discursive liberal democracy might not be the best of all possible forms of government, yet in Europe it is largely accepted as such. The attractors of liberal democracy (majority rule, political equality, reasonable self-determination and an ideological framework built in a tentative manner) as well as an adequate dose of secularization (according to the doctrine of religious restraint) provide both secularist and educated religious people with the most convenient ideological framework. Unfortunately, many promoters of ideological secularization take too strong a stance against the manifestation of religiosity in the public sphere. They claim that people may discuss, debate or adopt (coercive) laws and regularities only by means of secular public reasons and secular motivation. We argue that these secular restraints on the ideological framework are unfairly biased against religion, counterproductive and unreasonable. The exaggerated secular restrictions create a strict secular public sphere that appears to be a Pickwickian world suitable just for inoffensive, dull and lethargic people. Deliberately separated from the idea of truth, secular public reasons cannot sustain a complex adaptive system like discursive liberal democracy. Liberal democracy needs citizens with a strong sense of truth and with a sufficient will-power to follow both a personal ideal and a collective ideal. Religious beliefs provide people with just such a sense of truth and with the desire to have a certain kind of character. In the secularized public sphere of liberal democracy, people can manifest just educated religious beliefs that correspond to the real world and respect the principle of peaceable conduct. In the final part of the article we support the assertion that believers could and should educate their religious belief before expressing them in the public sphere. Educated religious beliefs have a wide enough propositional content, obey the moral imperative of William Clifford, are purged from all propositional components against which there is strong evidence and are consciously cultivated by the mechanism of suggestion.

La signification est un phénomène social qui ne peut être compris de manière satisfaisante que par rapport à deux entités duales : une communauté et un langage. Elle se manifeste dans la sphère publique en tant que réponse discriminative à un stimulus sémiotique, c'est-à-dire en tant que réaction typique à un stimulus vicariant (qui rend possibles les expériences indirectes). Les modèles ou les schémas d’action sémiotique émergent de la conformité générale des membres d’une communauté à certaines conventions de langage. Si les réactions à un stimulus semblent contingentes ou complètement imprédictibles, on peut en déduire qu’aucune signification n’a été (re)produite. Les significations ne sont pas de propriétés des signes et ne sont pas déterminées causalement par ceux-ci. Par conséquent, elles ne peuvent pas être transférées d’une personne à l’autre en même temps que la transmission des stimuli sémiotiques. Lorsque les membres d’une communauté font l’effort de se conformer – en tant qu’agents rationnels normaux – aux conventions linguistiques en vigueur, ils (re)créent le significations à un niveau syntactique, sémantique et pragmatique, aussi bien au niveau du langage qu’au niveau du métalangage. De plus, ayant en vue les circonstances de la communication, ils préfèrent un certain degré de socialisation des significations véhiculées ; ce degré est situé entre le niveau strictement personnel des idiosyncrasies et le niveau conformiste des significations standardisées. Les communicateurs performants essaient d’éviter les deux extrêmes à la fois, étant suffisamment coopérants pour renforcer les conventions de langage existantes, qui rendent possibles les conventions de langage existantes, tout en rendant possible la compréhension ; en même temps, ils sont suffisamment hétérodoxes pour se rapporter à des significations qui stimulent leur ouverture, leur curiosité et leur flexibilité.