• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.119-139
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• 2006

The main purpose of this study is to examine the implications of Habermas's Critical Theory, which has been considered as modern descendant of enlightenment thought, on the social work profession. The focus of this paper is a critical examination on expected perceptual and practical gain provided by communicative theory for the professional relations between social workers and clients. This paper proves that Habermas's theory has failed to sufficiently grasp the scope and functions of social work practice. First, in regard to perceptual gains, Habermas's theory commits some kind of reductionism which considers communicative behaviors as only and original one. It is likely to limit the scope and extent of the function and mission of social work into a kind of communication performed by humans with communicative ability. Second, in regard of practical gains, Habermas's theory does not provide detail procedure of power-free communication nor critical criteria to evaluate the degree of ideal speech situation. Without these ones, Habermas's critical theory might play a role of liberal conservatism, which is trying to replace the substantial contents with procedural formality. In sum, to be a adequate theoretical and practical framework for social work, Habermas's theory needs to combine additional humanitarian considerations into communicative paradigm with more detail requirements and preconditions for ideal speech situations between professional and clients.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.30
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• pp.89-119
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• 2005

The purpose of this essay is to converge the theory of communicative action Into the new paradigm of 'public relations democracy.' The notions of communicative action rationality, the public sphere, and deliberative democracy led new public relations paradigm approaches including meaning sharing, media access enlargement, and theoretical ramifications for the powerless. As Habermas prospected the power of comprehensive rationality to solve post-capitalist problems, the paradigm of public relations democracy visions the new era of public relations equipped with rhetorical and critical approaches. The new paradigm tries to overcome functional fallacy and embraces the concept of public interest. The paradigm of public relations democracy aims at integrating all three levels of public relations activities such as individual, organizational, and social levels, and pursues to enlarge the public sphere through increasing communicative actions and resolving social conflicts. Habermas's critical theory exhibits an opportunity for public relations theory building.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• no.120
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• pp.89-119
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• 2018

Among the controversial issues of Habermas/Luhmann-debate, the more important issue today is the achievement of the two scholars after the debate rather than confirming the old antagonistic framework of critical theory versus systems theory. 'Communicative action' and 'discourse' are such issues. Starting from these issues, Habermas established a theory of communicative action, and Luhmann regarded elements of social systems as communications and considered actions as elements of system's self-observation. In particular, Luhmann's work, which regards communication as a primary concept and action as a result of attribution to the actor, was a very productive conversion of sociological tradition. Nevertheless, this conversion lacks a solution of intensified attribution conflicts. I think it is necessary to pay attention to the '$Verst{\ddot{a}}ndigung$' in Habermas' concept of communicative action in order to solve the problem of infinitely repeated attribution conflicts.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.19
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• pp.295-327
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• 2002

Deliberative democracy places its great importance on the theory that the citizens should fill the role of conducting the principles of democratic society. This is divided into two main theoretical trends in modern political theories, a liberal theory advocated by J. Rawls and a critical one emphasized by J. Habermas. Mutual understanding between two scholars focuses on the responsibility of citizens; citizens should be the reflective persons who can accept the terms of just communication going beyond the preference of individual belief. It is not denied that the discussions of deliberative democracy guided by both Rawls and Habermas do not place emphasis upon mass media. Even though they seldom regard the argument how the current media can be a essential factor in encouraging deliberative democracy, they never close the eyes to the significance of communication. Rawls stresses the political freedom of speech as the very condition which leads to the citizens' autonomous participation in politics, while Habermas places his hope on the role of mass media that would amplify the citizens' will gushed out in public sphere.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.58
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• pp.178-200
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• 2012

This paper seeks to deal with the point that in order to perform meaningful communication, a conscious act of reflexion must be involved. In other words, performance of communication inevitably requires self-reflexion. It is known that rationality and dialogism function as necessary preconditions and as goals of communication. But these concepts are very ambiguous because the communicational paradox is not considered. The interaction model could be thought to solve the paradox problems, but such solution can ultimately be seen as a result of ignoring the point that personal reflexion is necessary or covering up the logical problem by depending on concepts such as 'legitimation' or 'ideal discourse situation.' Therefore this paper views that the theory of communication based on Luhmann's system theory and constructivism has a more meticulous logics, and considers that the concept of reflexion specifically supplements the interaction model also by examining Schmidt's concept of fiction and Grant's concept of porous communication.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.243-250
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• 2020

In the movie <12 Angry Men>, the prejudiced gaze of each jury with the title of "reasonable discussion" or "positive critical rationality" based on the theory of public opinion of Habermas constantly appears. Prejudice is a concept that cannot be judged right or wrong in itself, but as a current social and historical atmosphere, it is judged to be a hindrance to communication in the process of communication and public opinion and often causes social problems. Therefore, in this paper, the concept of prejudice is ultimately investigated by projecting Habermas' theory of public sphere in the movie, looking into the prejudices, and examining the prejudice through the discussion of the jury, that is, the process of resolving the conflict. We are going to draw realistic implications through the mediator of film about how to solve problem of 'prejudice' in the real world. As a result of the study, Habermas' ideal public opinion on the 'consensus for the community' and 'universal rationality' according to the theory of public sphere in Habermas appeared in the film, but partially from the complete prejudice by the 'wall of reality' in the film. It has been found that freedom from prejudice is difficult and that prejudice is a necessary evil in terms of mutual understanding and publicity.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.604-626
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• 2008

In recent years, the formation of identity has drawn much attention in urban development strategy. This has a dual implication for normative rehabilitation of lost traditional identity for ontological security of human being, and for strategic improvement of newly urban images in order to gain superiority in urban competitions. This duality is reflected on the debate between postmodern theorists, such as Lacan, Foucault and Deleuze, criticizing modem identity, and Arendt and Habermas, suggesting alternative formation of identity through public space. This paper considers some implications of identity for urban development policy, while criticizing urban development strategies which justify themselves with enhancing urban identity but which distort or erode it actually. In particular, this paper argues that the perspective of postmodern theorists is suitable for criticizing pseudo-identity in reality, while critical theoriests' suggestion of formation of authentic identity through and in public space can be understood as an ethical alternative to urban development policy.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.70
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• pp.189-218
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• 2015

This article examines not the term "the public" or "publics"-which has various meanings-but its particular meaning, which is a group of citizens who engage in political discussion and debate with fellow citizens in order to form shared understandings and common judgments with regard to contemporary affairs and public issues. The goal of this article is to show the importance of this concept in critical studies of media and society and to analyze how this concept has been accepted in South Korean critical communication studies. In this article, critical communication studies refer to communication studies that aim to explore social meanings of communication phenomena. This article argues that little attention has been paid to the concept of the public as agreement-oriented discursive political participants in South Korean critical communication studies.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.50
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• pp.5-28
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• 2010

The theoretical scope of the public sphere has been dramatically expanded as a result of new academic inquiries into the nature of the political and the public in contemporary societies. While appreciating the value of the concept of the public sphere for understanding democratic roles of the media, scholars began to raise questions on Habermasians' exclusive focus on news and public affairs programs, arguing that various entertainment programs also can invoke political deliberation. Terms like affective public sphere, emotional public sphere, aesthetic public sphere, expressive public sphere were used to capture this new conception. To comprehend the theoretical and practical implications of the conceptual expansion of the public sphere for media studies, this study attempted to provide a typology of media-public sphere relationships. By using public-private and rational-emotional axes as two criteria for classification, we created four prototypes of the public sphere (i.e., political public sphere, populism, difference pluralism, and intimacy/privacy) and discussed the characteristics of each type. After setting out media communication as a form of meta-public sphere that mediates and coordinates the four different types of the public sphere, we presented public service broadcasting as an exemplar meta-public sphere in the contemporary society of multiple social antagonisms and differences.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.267-302
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• 2013

In recent years, partnership has become a central strategy for welfare provision worldwide. Particularly, civil society organisations have obtained considerable attention as the most accountable and democratic partner for public welfare delivery. Yet the mainstreaming of civil society into welfare policies challenges the conventional nature of civil society as an independent sector, and brings into critical question, how the political position of the civil society sector could be redefined in the new era of multi-sectoral partnership. The purpose of this study is to explore the current debates of state-civil society partnership and to propose three theoretical viewpoints (i.e. the mainstream, critical and alternative perspectives) regarding the role of the civil society sector in partnership. In doing so, this article introduces the key literature and scholars in partnership debates and provides analytical frameworks that researchers can use in examining state-civil society partnership cases.