2023-09-18

Communication is the sphere where the dynamics of the transformation of symbolic power can best be seen: it can be the domination of the majority over the minority, the minority over the majority, the media over the political sphere, and the political sphere over the media. New information and communication technologies are affecting the boundaries and quality of public discourse, causing not so much a disintegration as an unsealing of the modern symbolic universe. Old distinctive principles are operating in the new communication environment, adapting to new mechanisms for generating and selecting information, as well as managing attention. Symbolic authority has become more diffuse, but also more difficult to grasp. In a digital society, most relationships are reflexive. Influencers and their observers, politicians and their constituents, producers and consumers, parents and children all influence one another. Socially normalized hierarchies are reversed and/or flattened.  

The development of communication media has made the communication space seemingly more open, diffuse, and inclusive. Many topics and social actors can emerge in the new public sphere of social media and the broader space of the Internet. The rules of symbolic power, although operating under new conditions, still work most effectively when they are least visible. Communicating social actors do not just transmit information, but also strategically formulate their message, which can easily become a tool of manipulation. Communication also loses its innocence when a gap appears between those who understand new technologies and can use them and those who do not. The question of who (or what) are those who control communication and have the power to shape and exclude from the sphere of communication still seems relevant. As is the question of what are the barriers, blockages, and distortions of society-wide public debate, when we observe rather sectoral discussions based on attracting attention and evoking strong emotions among different participants or different audiences.

In the planned issue of “Culture and Society,” we would like to consider topics related to the transformations of symbolic power and changes of its holders. We invite authors to submit articles referring to the following issues:

- old versus new symbolic elites (continuity of power or changes in hierarchy);

- current manifestations of symbolic violence and transformations of norms and ethics of communication;

- democratization, manipulation, and control - the new balance of communicative power;

- ethical and political implications of manipulation, control, and domination in communication;

- changes in communication competence and related educational challenges; 

- invisible power – rules of symbolic domination in the new context;

- ways of symbolic creation of social hierarchies, forms of classification, ordering and ranking;

- the complex relationship between contemporary public and colloquial discourse;

- mechanisms of opinion formation and public counter-opinions;

The problems presented are intended to stimulate discussion of changes in symbolic power in the field of social and political communication. Authors are encouraged to explore different contexts, perspectives, and implications of these changes in articles submitted to the journal. Please submit texts by January 15, 2024.

The issue is co-edited by the Section of Social Communication Studies of the Polish Sociological Association. 

If you have additional questions, please contact the co-editors:

Barbara Markowska-Marczak (barbara.markowska@civitas.edu.pl) i Anna Radiukiewicz (anna.radiukiewicz@ifispan.edu.pl).