This seminar, developed by ILE in collaboration with the Residencia de Estudiantes, continues the series held in 2021, 2022, and 2023 within its line of work on «Democracy and Tolerance». These seminars have addressed some of the challenges currently faced by our democracies, such as the rise of populisms or illiberal political action patterns, which are testing our resilience as free societies. This year, the focus will be on the transformation of political communication, analyzing how disinformation, polarization, tribalism, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence in the public sphere pose significant threats to democracy. The seminar will also evaluate whether promoting media literacy and civic education can be useful in confronting the digital age, advancing the development of a more rational and discursive society, and preserving democratic foundations in an ever-evolving environment.
+info, www.democracyandtolerance.org
· Partner Institutions: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Fundación Ortega-Marañón, and Residencia de Estudiantes.
good afternoon another Monday here at the in to continue on this Seminary on democracy and communication and in this case we can now frame the context with an example of communication and democracy that we have seen in our country in our own country and we are going to touch upon a central point during these weeks we have been seeing a series of distortions that took place in the public space in a very specific way we have touched upon some aspects that are cultural aspects as well we have been now digging deeper into that complex side of new technologies and how they influence in the way in which we communicate the political um aspects and how the political side of things is um is impacted how we disinform instead of inform through these new strategies and today we are going to be doing a politological um and serious analysis and intelligent analysis because the person that we have here today with us Marian Kya who uh I’m going to briefly introduce is um actually a representative of this sort of of focus of approach so Mariana and I have um known each other for a very long time we were together in the International Association for political science she was I believe um it was before she became the president of the International Association of politologists which is ipsa where she was um president for two years I believe in then two years after president and two two years before becoming a president is that correct yes but due to the pandemic it was actually three years yes so so two plus two well yes I wanted to start with that because it actually means that this is a person who has International recognition it is obvious she’s a very um she’s she’s a person who’s always interested but I think she has traveled a lot she will be speaking and perfect Spanish she’s a Cosmopolitan pologist but she’s also broker we could say in the best sense of the world of the word um she Brokers for um study centers investigation centers she was in hildesheim she is now doing it in from Dron she will now be at the Kell Institute um during a course in the US so she is a Restless person we could say who’s always Vigilant to everything that is happening and obviously her her topic is democracy democracy in all of its shapes and forms she has worked on case studies and I actually remember a magnificent text that you presented in the Spanish Association of political sciences in salanka that was then published in Systema and so you can read it if if you want to you could read it and she’s a person who is who’s always conscious of changes Transformations that are taking place in Democratic systems she forly has been integrated in her specialty in political science which we call compared politics although I think it has a component as any uh good um academic German academician she always has a theoretic philosophical component which is quite solid and I wanted to highlight it because the topic that we’re going to be touching upon today cannot be if it is not seen through that approach so since she has published so many articles I would rather not just read them all you can find it online and Maran thank you so much for coming you are a very busy person so thank you for finding the time to be here with us it is really privilege for all of us thank you the floor is yours well thank you so much for Fernando first of all I I believe you have your microphone yes I do have a microphone and I hope that you can hear me can you hear me yes okay good so first of all thank you thank you so much for your words too kind I have to say really too kind but since we’re friends we’re old friends I just want to thank you and I would also like to thank you for inviting me um I’m honored by by this by by this institution’s invitation a very impressive institution I would like to thank the director elisana Navas Elisa Navas and I would also like to thank you Fernando because you were the person who who connected me with them all so thank you and obviously it is a great pleasure to be here in Madrid it’s always a pleasure to be back in Madrid I always say go back because actually I do believe that this city this beautiful city is my second home so that is why I always say back and I don’t say visit I’m back in Madrid not visiting Madrid and I also wanted to thank you for coming thank you all for coming to these keynote presentation and thank you for being here to talk about this topic with me and I would like to thank all the participants who are online because I was told that there were quite a few so it is a day as Fernando bpin has very well said that is quite interesting isn’t it it’s a very important day and very much connected to what I’m going to be talking about today which is the public sphere and maybe we could also talk about it later on because obviously I had not uh prepared this this situation I mean I I I did not think that they would be presenting an example for me here in Spain but I do think that obviously we can talk about it later on if you want so in principle Fernando knowing more or less what it is that I am working on um I was asked to talk about deliberative democracy and the deviation of the ideal well the topic as it has been formulated um makes us wonder about two things what is the ideal and what is deviation and I would like here to talk about those two aspects although I can already reval feel that I’m going to be advancing um this argument which is the fact that we need new approaches to really um adequately understand the public sphere and its deliberative Dimension and I would also like to present the concept which I have developed together my with my colleague Lance Bennett so when we talk um actually I have to to move these presentation obviously yes I’m sorry about that so I’m multi multitasking as they say so when we talk about um the ideal for deliberation in avoidably we find ourselves with habas habas who is the uh creator of the influential theory of deliberation and the Democratic deliberation so there is an intense debate with habas Theory since he published his referential work in 1976 62 sorry and I promise you I am not going to reproduce it that’s good that yeah I think it’s good but I’m going to criticize it that’s for sure so and allow me please to do the following because I’m going to make an interesting observation because two years ago in the 60th anniversary of that work transformation on of the structure of public of public struct of public sphere so two years ago there was a sort of of of event to take stock where habas was also present and the consensus was that the reality had already become far from the ideal that habas had described and many apologists were actually talking about individual elements and proposing adjustments to the theory funnily enough although those authors could have agreed with the fact that it was necessary to correct the ideal described by habas at the same time they were producing um few um few ideas of A New Path to follow so not only do I want to show the argument U from a theoretical and from an empirical point of view um states that we cannot understand reality with habam mass concept but um differently to other works I would go a step forward and I will um expose to you an enlarged and realistic Concept in the sense that we can um use it empirically to analyze the deliberative field so what is the ideal and let’s summarize a bit what what the concept is what a habas theory is I am sure that you all already know this Theory but just just um um summary to be sure first of all uh openness obviously um equality of all of us of all the citizens with regards to communication that is very very important then the norms and the rules for the participation especially um inclusion being civil and so on and then the nucleus of it all of the theory of habas which is the strength of the reasoning so obviously L he always thinks that uh deliberation will be based on reason and those deliberations lead later on to results that will be rationally uh um exact or certain that is the nucleus or the core of the theory then it’s also very important for habas the civil society which has to have a certain freedom uh with regards to the entrepreneurial and state um forces and should also be capable of producing information and obviously all of that will allow us to fight for Democratic objectives to solve differences and political conflicts so there are always conflict um political conflicts in habas as well but they are solved via uh that reasoning and that those uh re rational deliberations with a public opinion that is independent and the citizens action is always informed so that is the ideal to summarize it um in a few words so as as I mentioned already the most uh the newest works uh suggest that current current democracies and it’s not difficult to show and to see are further from the um habas ideals than that he formulated in the 60s than we were in the 60s so we’re further now than we used to be and we shouldn’t me mention the reasons because obviously um there are more inequities in neoliberal societies due to the globalization there is a fragmentation a social fragmentation as well and and obviously that is an important reason of in this presentation will the increase of the media of the digital media that are altering in a significant way our debate our public our public debate okay so now that we’re talking about that digital sphere we could also talk about A disruption an additional disruption which has been mixed to this whole series of of things that habas was describing so he calls this the third transformation because what he described in the 60s was the second transformation according to him and now he was talking about the third transformation of the uh public sphere well we once again listen to habas and what he says about this third transformation well first he says that there is an expansion a centrifugal expansion of communication towards um that is accelerated an expansion that is uh pushing all the users to become independent authors we know that we see that in platform s but and this is something that he thinks is very important uh platforms themselves are not responsible for the content and the intermediaries or the interfaces these intermediaries do not have any responsibility with regards to the content that they publ that they publish in those platforms so we have non-regulated content and above all we are lacking professional filters and editorial filters to to correct and to review to um to increase the quality so there are two effects seen by habas himself on the one hand he talks about the democratizing effect because obviously the um these this allows for all citizens to participate that is democratizing to him but on the other hand there is no substitute for the professional selection and to check there is no verification of the contents and that clearly is a problem okay so up till here I think we all agree because it’s quite an accurate description and it’s it is actually agreed upon this description of digital communication but there is an open question with what sort of public sphere are we’re dealing then today and with what sort of public sphere are we going to be dealing in the future and to to give an answer to that question I think that habas is quite mute he does not give really an answer and it surprises me it surprises me well he’s old well he’s old well yes he’s old but uh nonetheless he did receive the Nobel Prize uh for political sciences two weeks ago the yonit um award so I mean in any case it’s surprising to see that habas does not give us an explanation with regards to the consequences this may have and that is also the the starting point for me because I I do think that we have to abandon the idea the habas idea that there are only liberal democracies because he always obviously a public sphere liberal public sphere that he talks about exists in a liberal democracy obviously but we have to to understand that’s my argument that we have we have to understand that there are only liberal democracies with liberal de liberal communication where there is Hab Mass deliberation so in other words not only habit mass and his followers but also his critics usually consider that democracies uh provide those liberal spaces for deliberation but on the other hand I believe that that does not correspond with the reality because we have strong Dynamics within the democracies themselves that are still democracies but with democ with Dynamics and we have to take into account or we have to think about Concepts that take into account those Dynamics as well so the starting point would be the following if there is a public sphere that is a liberal public sphere according to habas the habas public public sphere then maybe that will not be the only variant the only way we suggest that in the first place there is an anti-liberal public sphere that should also be considered together with a liberal public sphere and secondly the second argument is that we think that this anti-liberal type is quite prosperous in the uh current um conditions of digital communication in the 20 first century and those public um illiberal spheres illiberal public spheres as we call them modify the conditions of deliberation so the concept that we have developed is opposed to to that I illiberal sphere as a concept to that Ideal World that habas created that habam has created Okay so why why does that seem more useful to us why is it more useful to talk about illiberal public spheres and to say farewell to that to that normativity that um habas has and had in his ideal first of all because as I said already what we observe we don’t have that pure Democratic public sphere and because habas is too descriptive and he but he does not speak when we talk about the the analysis and the consequences Etc and also what’s a problem with habas is that his concepts are quite static they cannot capture those dynamics that I is talking about so I do think that we have to review that in depth and I’m really sorry but now since this is part of a publication that we have um that we have drafted Lance benett my colleague and I and that is already published in English I have uh shown the table here in English I hope you don’t mind and there and we have to understand that this column here is the ideal Hass world of the uh liberal sphere Democratic liberal sphere and these are the principles that we have opposed to it with regards to the public illiberal sphere so starting with the openness to participation what habas thinks is the ideal of obviously for all groups to participate we talk about an exclusion about an intentional exclusion of the others by by groups that are that want to exclude minorities mainly or religious minorities or sexual minorities racial minorities Etc and that exclusion entails a a non-recognition and a lack of Civility so those are the participation rules or the exclusion um rules and the role of the media in the public illiberal sphere are based on on concentrating the information in extremist groups that um are circul ating the information on digital platforms and also it is based in il liberal leaders Who attack and undermine the trust in the mainstream press and then these attacks also selective attacks Against The credibility of the of the authority and credibility of the press and public institutions is very important as well so what are the the informations or where do these informations come from well they come from marginal French movements they come from from influences political influences and also from elected illiberal politicians and their alternative Authority so these are groups that can already get into the government or could been um part of the government but that also push towards those alternative informations well that is results in a logic for the public debate which entails um statements of absolute truths and um things that cannot be cannot be disputed we all know those conspirational narratives that are being put forward by groups in that sense and those groups can be either from outside of the government but also from within the government I mean both things are are possible both scenarios are possible now the objectives the normative goals we’ve already heard that in the case of of habas is about resolving conflicts in democracy and to make progress and to advance uh in order to find a consensus a rational consensus well in the illiberal public sphere it’s quite the opposite it is about well the objective the goal is to amplify conflicts to mobilize the public the audience and to mobilize voters as well so up to here my New Concept this New Concept that we think is much more realistic than that of the habas world because because it includes those groups that are active and that are changing the dynamic in the public sphere so let’s take a look look now at this puzzle this empirical puzzle so what happens with quality with the quality of deliberation and we are now going to to see the empirical phenomenons let’s take a look at um through time so here I’m showing you data of our democracy index there aren’t many indexes that will measure deliberation so that is why I use the righties of democracy because they provide us with that that that deliberation measure so first of all let’s look at the graph to the to the left that shows the season from 21 till 2011 that period that time period and what we see here is that the axis the the X horizontal axis shows all the countries that have seen a worsening of their of all the Democratic elements and as you can see there are no cases here and in the Y AIS we can see the um Democratic elements and and whether there’s been an improvement and what we see here is that we are doing quite well with regards to uh freedom of expression and the quality of deliberation so I have a my pointer here so you should be able to see here this freedom of expression and deliberation quality and it’s doing fairly well so this situation completely changes in the next decade from 2011 till 2021 because as you can see well all of the elements have in have worsened but what has really worsened radically worsened is the a freedom of speech and the quality for deliberation so all through time and looking at both decades we can see that even if if all the elements of democracies were to be considered they all have uh declined they all have been deteriorated but these two more so than the rest more so than the rest and more significantly than the rest so now asking what it is that has worsened well we could look at two important elements here within the deliberation we have the reason justification and then respecting the opponent’s arguments now here as well in this curve with regards to reason justification we see that everything is doing well until 2011 2012 and from then onwards there is a decrease in the quality for this element and same can be seen with regards to respecting the opponent’s arguments until 2011 2012 more or less it goes um well we cannot say that is doing well but better than afterwards and then there is a decline and here if you see here it’s quite interesting but there is another drop here in the quality of the respect to the opponent’s arguments and that is in 2020 which is the year of the pandemic when there were lots of conspirational narratives and lots of conflicts between the people who who were uh denying the reality and the facts regarding health and so on regarding the pandemic and so on so we see here that there are some decisive Point here this is a Tipping Point for the decline in the uh willingness to accept other people’s opinions so to to complete this this whole uh image we have to take a look at the role of the media and the social media as well social media have um an important role I don’t need to explain it here today because they voice uh the extremists who have been marginalized in democracies and they offer them a platform so that they can disseminate yes social networks that’s how we call them yes yeah social media is in Spanish sociis um he’s just correcting her Spanish just so that no no everyone understands don’t worry well thank you very much um social um social media so we also have the great corporations media corporations such as that of Murdoch which have a world reach and that amplify the political attacks against governmental regul for instance and a public public interest politics so those big corporations also have an influence quite an important influence but then we also have illiberal actors and they’re political parties that uh Pro Provide support to disinformation sites to mobilize the public so that they will vote so that they will protest and and that obviously I mean there are very good example example such as Donald Trump and his his social network um or Fox I mean Donald Trump will use the conventional media obviously he uses the TV but he also uses social social networks TR social for instance and then what’s also relevant is to see that social network companies do not want to forbid that disin information because it is quite profitable for instance X previously Twitter that belongs to Elon Musk or Tik Tok as well so we can make lots of money with this by disseminating disinformation so obviously there isn’t much incentive to forbid it so a whole industry of is being created to to disseminate disinformation but this um aside from this it is also important and this is very important for me because we always talk about platforms about structures Etc but we also have to take into account that behind those structures behind those platforms Etc there’s always human beings there are actors and and thus I do want to call us all um to attention with regards to the actors which is an element that is not usually very present in the in the concept of habas because habas also talks about journalists he talks about platforms but he doesn’t talk about the actors that promote the erosion of the of this this this change this der this and the actors that promote the erosion of the liberal public sphere and those actors those strategic actors will call them I call them strategic actors because the actions that that they that they they start that they promote that that they feed are strategic I mean they do not do it randomly they do not do it without a clear strategy and that strategy is to exploit the characteristics the structural characteristics of the network and these actors these strategic actors know very well the um the potential and the properties of the network of the and they also um exploit the epidemic uncertainty I don’t know if you remember the pandemic it was a situation of great uncertainty epistemic uncertainty I mean for all of us for for all citizens and and for all in general so so they can feed that propaganda that disinformation with with false information fake news and so on and obviously they can attack real um real facts and they produce that’s also a strategy they produce confusion that is also part of of their strategy producing confusion well in the end those actors those strategic actors also use that toolkit all of those methods to mobilize their their voters their actions their movements and in the US with Trump we can see it very well where that leads us but we also have to understand that within that whole strategy there’s also [Music] um a a a very a very profound um contempt against Democratic structures and to conclude I would like to highlight that there is a strong interaction between that illiberal communication that I have tried to describe here and the Democrat atic erosion that is that is happening in many countries in many societies and those two phenomenons cannot be separated that is also a problem with habas because he always has his communication system and then he has the political system but it’s not really like that both systems are interconnected both systems are intertwined so the conclusion the most important conclusion in my opinion is not really that there is a deviation of the ideal I mean obviously yes we do observe it all of us don’t we but the problem is that that deviation is intertwined is completely ingrained in Democratic institutions and it has to do with their credibility The credibility of those institutions and finally with the legitimacy of Institutions themselves because all of the things that happen in the public sphere have obviously an impact in The credibility and the legitimacy of the institutions of those Democratic institutions so there is a link between the communication systems of the public sphere and the Democratic institutions and the um and the characteristics of communication in the public sphere are not isolated from institutional quality because otherwise the communic ation will not determine the citizen commitment the political parties the elections and the policies in the end and the danger and my greatest worry is and that is why obviously I have different project right now um ongoing in my department the great danger is that that reduction or or of the trust towards public institutions and and Trust to authoritative information will will make our big public keep on looking for alternative facts so the danger lies in the fact that all of the erosions all of the erosions of the public sphere will lead us to uh Democratic erosion just to to say it in a few words so what are the dangers or what are the what who are subject to this danger well we can identify them quite easily because it’s the anti-liberal and liberal leaders that I was talking about they’re the ones who who are pushing forward this process of democratic erosion they mobilize where their strategies where their disinformation strategies and they justify corruption and and different um actions in the executive but the Democratic erosion on the other hand is an open process I mean we cannot control it we cannot control that process that depends on the power of the agents the Agents of the said erosion and that can be uh observed with h bolsonaro Victor Orban erdogan uh Trump and many others who know how to mobilize their followers and how to to twist the laws and Democratic processes and when those leaders I illiberal leaders control the government so the moment that they are in government they can they can increase the powers of the uh of the executive and weaken um the the the the parliament as as well as the tribunals and then there is the other implication obviously they can use once again this disinformation and their propaganda to justify those changes and what happens is and this can also be observed in the case of Victor Orban that later on that leader that illiberal leader will impose the logic of the public sphere liberal public sphere P ing the logic of the liberal public sphere so little by little gradually step by step they will replace the liberal public sphere that had existed once in Hungary for instance and they switch it with an illiberal public sphere and the more they impose that logic the more they uproot the democracy and the more authoritarian the public sphere becomes so in principle that is what I that I was wanted to share with you since I am almost at the end of my keynote but I would not want to leave you hopeless completely hopeless no we’re used to it don’t worry about that Marian well I would like to end with my last slide and with some suggestions about how we can fight against that situation because I think that that um as as I as Fernand had mentioned already to me it is very important I am a theorist but I am also interested in in seeing the challenges ahead and to try and change things and in this case to try and fight against that Dynamic so first of all we have to develop new um approaches to to regulate this this this uh communication that I have described that is quite that that is that is quite um I would say disruptive so we would have first of all to fight against the platforms that try to disinform so how can we start setting new norms and standards well we have to demand from social networks to adopt those um rules those and this is very important they have to open their algorithms to inspections because without that obviously we will not make any progress if there isn’t the possibility of of of looking into the algorithms we will not be able to make much progress now the second point would be um a very important point we will see that we have seen it this year because there are many elections in very decisive countries well we have to protect the Integrity of Elections election electoral processes are sometimes the objective of disinformation or the objective the target for manipulation strong manipulation we see that in Europe in the countries that are close to Russia we can see that we can see how Russia will have an influence in these these elections and in these campaigns and in the communication around them so we have to make social networks more transparent during the campaigns for Regulators for journalists and for investigators so we have to protect the elections in the field of communication that is very important and also and I insist in mentioning this because I do believe that we have to develop public policies and educational programs to to promote information of quality and Public Communication that can resist that disinformation the propaganda and illiberal actors fighting against it with their conspirational narratives so that component that education component I know it’s easier said than done but I think that we cannot talk about deliberation and public sphere and disinformation and propaganda without also talking about education and above all in this institution the institution of Liber of free of a free teaching we have to talk about this well thank you thank you very much well lots of topics have been tackled all of them very interesting and we are now going going to be getting some questions from the audience here and if there aren’t any questions here that we will contact those online while the public thinks about their question do we have any questions in the amongst the audience yes um I do have a question a question that we could ask well thank you thank you for this conference thank you so much for the presentation there were lots of different ideas and I’m actually thinking about different different things but one of the things that really um I thought was interesting was the chronological data graphic that shows varieties of democracy that shows uh decline [Music] in in freedom of speech and deliberation since 2011 2012 I think this is quite interesting because those years were the years when uh um social media started taking off that’s when the social media started taking off but it’s also the years when the global cycle of uh campaigns against austerity started which somehow shows that the legitimacy of the economic model and political um model uh was breaking down during globalization which we summarize as neoliberal so it is a moment as well where there is a rebirth of the ideological dispute somehow it could lead us to thinking that maybe before those years we didn’t have much to deliberate on because there was a sort of hegemony at the time so my question is isn’t it to some extent legitimate that during crisis and rupture moments there is also a sort of problem in deliberation that are linked to uh legitimacies that are in conflict and the question that I have I mean the the most direct question would be how can we make the difference between the legitimate components of that of of that situation and the more uh pathological components of that confrontation that’s a very interesting question can you hear me yes because my acoustic is very weird here well actually as a matter of fact there are two things that I think are interesting in in your question the first one has to do with the moments of Crisis and rupture what happens and I think I think that is very close to us the pandemic as a crisis a trans Mega crisis a transational mega crisis and now well after the pandemic and another crisis and another crisis so we’re in in a in a constant crisis situation and and what does that mean well it means that apparently during the crisis what we could observe was that the trust of the population at least least that’s the data that we have from Germany but I think it is something that could also reflect the situation in all the societies really um in Europe during the pandemic the Trust In Democratic institutions went up quite a bit in an extraordinary way I i’ even say so in Germany 20 points 20 points um we saw an increase of trust in institutions of 20 points and that was surprising and they said oh yes that’s the crisis and during the crisis well if people feel well governed then they’re fine and and the trust will go up in institutions but it was a new phenomenon really and what we can observe now is in 2022 2023 we see that trust has gone down down again and that happened in Germany but also in other societies it has gone down trust has gone down in institutions in Democratic institutions well that is difficult to explain isn’t it I mean we can observe it but um to the other side of things since we are in a permanent crisis we could also think that for instance that trust would stay higher but it didn’t it was not the case so that is something that I can think about about crisis and rupture as well now what happens with regards to that crisis well and I think that you also talked about anti- anti- capitalist movements anti-neoliberal movements in the Years 2010 and so we have to think now in the 20 um or even before that maybe that with a new development which is which has to do with civil society because we always thought about civil society as as a liberal movement emancipating movement with with Advanced values for something good right so the emancipation of women whatever it is all the movements that can be called Civil Society they have they have those characteristics but now we have parts of society that are apparently a civil society iety as well that I call the dark civil society which are those strengths that are not emancipating forces that are not based on liberal values or democratic values and that do not want to advance something positive as the Emancipation and so on they are rather groups that want to undermine the structures that exist the the structures that be and what they want is to destroy they want to destroy but they are also part of Civil Society so what do I mean by that I mean that we have a very diverse civil society and and it is dark and not dark and what happens well this diverse Civil Society is in the social network uh social media as well so so all of that diversity of Civil Society whether it’s dark whether it’s it’s not dark can communicate online and that creates diversity in social networks but it also creates more polarization more confrontation and more lack of civility so I don’t know if if that answers your question and your worries yes but in any ways it is something that we all have to think about because because we don’t have an answer we don’t really have an answer to that challenge there is a question here just a second the microphone is getting to you hello my question to the two of you maybe is to what extent has the way in which communication has changed between politicians and and citizens change had an impact because in the in the social in social media we find all politicians and they can sometimes have conversations uh with citizens where they reply to one another as if they were in the school playground they talk to Citizens directly that has changed the way in which politicians communicate themselves it’s more direct way and sometimes it can be less reflexive because in the social media you can write something just um send it quite quickly and you don’t have that capacity to deliberate or to talk to other people about it before you send it send that message so maybe with regards to what happened with the the president of the government he talked directly to the citizens through a social to a social platform so I wanted to ask you this question uh doesn’t that have an influence in communication in the way in and in what we’re talking about about this this this this um these problems in democracy and so on yes absolutely absolutely I think that you’re absolutely right and we talk about this direct communication with with citizens and that is quite significant because uh politicians do not need a conventional media now they don’t need to get their attention because they can create that attention on their own through their their own social media with their own communication and they can talk directly to the citizens and talking about the president of the government Pedro Sanz I I thought I mean I I come to Spain to to visit and to to the do to do this presentation and you give me this example um magnificant example of strategic communication because it’s actually what you were saying um Pedro Sanz has used a a tool an in an instrument that is we could say that it’s um um like a plebiscitary um tool no he hasn’t talked to the Parliament and he hasn’t talked to the party either so he hasn’t hasn’t talked to the parliament or to the party apparently so he has just talked to the to the to the people and that is what we call in in political sciences plebiscitary so you are you are taking all the channels all the conventional channels um because the parliament is is is the the representation of the people isn’t it so so that’s how they say it right it’s a it’s a method that uh politicians can also exploit may add something to to to this point I I do not participate in the questions I mean but that gives me the possibility of of asking something regarding to what you have just asked I mean what is really the real rupture the real uh break of the M’s ideal that would be my question because I I I I think that it can be summarized in just one word which is dis dis intermediation there are less and less intermediaries and the example that we have just given is is quite obvious and obviously from the moment when when we break with mediations that we had institutionalized then the there chaos appears and that chaos is something that other voices benefit from voices that should not have been heard and I think that one of the great successes of of populisms and extremisms is that they have managed to include in public conversation voices that inter medaries would rather not listen to and avoid it and I think that um some voices are quite legitimate for instance uh greater aspiration to justice but as you were saying then there is that dark part that also that exists in all of us obviously and it exists in society and then it it just overflows s suddenly it overflows and this is something that we don’t know how to function with because on the one hand the authoritas of the system depends on a series of institutional protocols but on the other hand the fact that that does no longer work is what is breaking with that legitimacy or eroding that legitimacy would I say rather and we have to twist it a bit further because an expert came here I don’t know if you know about this but it’s really very interesting an expert in AI is analyzing how a company that use that different political force used in in the um intelligence artificial intelligence in the Indian electoral campaign they are starting to to set up a new sort of communication that doesn’t even use the intermediation of of media of platforms that we were talking about what it does is through the cell phone it uses a communication system a direct communication system to each individual so it’s is though you’re in you’re an electoral campaign in Germany and then suddenly your cell phone beeps and you you grab your phone and then avat uh looking like Ola schul says Dear Marian I don’t know if you know this part of my program that has been thought of for people like you and and and then there will be someone else some other candidate a habc or whomever and they will say no actually I’m justifying my government to you not to others but to you so what’s the problem the problem is that we cannot observe what is happening because the communication is no longer a public so the communication platforms can see what happens in can see what happens in the network but they cannot see what happens in our pockets if I just take my cell phone what they’re telling us for us individually for us and I think that that is going to be the next Revolution because it’s going to be completely opaque yes yes what you’re describing is is a step forward but in the last in the last elections in the US there were what we call microt targeting and that also is is similar because microt targeting means that the communication be between the people who um feed the Electoral campaign with information communicates directly and bilaterally with with citizens yes with the with a physical um citizens so that already existed in the US in in Germany we did see that in 2021 but much much less than in the US but but maybe I don’t know in India now but previously as we all know it was always the inspiration always came from the US but now maybe India will inspire us all with their electoral campaigns but yes that I mean it’s microt targeting is something something very dangerous but with AI it’s even more dangerous and what’s impressive is that it’s the image I mean shaes is talking to you and he’s telling you yes but you have to say Pedro Sanz for people to understand no Mariana no or or he talks to me and he tells me Pedro San has talked to all spani that’s old because because he’s old he uses X he uses Twitter but what’s coming can be even more dangerous than that it will not be picary it cannot be talked talked about as plebiscitary and the public where the public sphere is Happ M recognizes is that it’s fragmented we don’t have a common wealth so since we don’t have a common wealth that’s why we have so many problems yes but I think there are questions amongst the audience hello I love the presentation thank you very much and but I I I would have liked to hear some references some references to the economic power and economic interests during the Seminary we have been talking about all of these authoritarian uh people that you have called illiberal and I I like the term illiberal that have something in common these are eccentric uh people who are authoritarian who do not respect the rules but what’s behind them because I do not believe that there is a phenomenon the world over where these people who are so similar up here Mone Trump bolsonaro all of these people we talked about Olen as well so what are they defending what’s behind them who finances those campaigns who finances those uh those uh thinking institutes that apply these new technologies because it’s not just a problem that has to do with political infrastructure I’m guessing that there is something else there is some sort of economic um root to it yes well in two in two sense um economic economic power in two in two ways I mean I was talking about the public sphere and um the media social media well social media in in and of themselves are an economic power very important economic power Elon Musk for instance Zuckerberg um with meta Facebook and so on all of these they’re their companies meta I believe is that belongs I mean Facebook belongs to meta WhatsApp belongs to meta is the most valuable um company that history of the world there has never been a more uh valuable company than this one so it’s a huge economic power so I also wanted to to show these platforms these actors these these companies do not have any interest in in uh reducing the propaganda incivility disinformation they have no interest whatsoever because it’s the economic power that pushes them forward now the actors themselves I mean here we see different scenarios of course there are actors such as Victor Orban who has reached the power and and then by being in the power he has started to build how do you say that um a an interest Network an oligarchy an an an oligarchy Network because he has coopted for instance people from the world of the economy to his um to his ideals and his program his vision and he has attracted those people and then he is I do you do I give you you give me so those people give him the money so that then they can feed all of his his programs that are quite corrupt we all know that because the EU is I mean the the anti fraud agency is trying to to to surveil him so so those people are taking hold of the economy and he gives them some political power as well so how do you say that it’s a g it’s a correlative help a reci reciproc um reciproca help between those economic forces and those illiberal actors in the case of Orban for instance in the case of trump well he already had the money so he used it to to enlarge his his his domain his influence and his power so there are different scenarios that’s what I meant yes I think the gentleman wanted to ask a question as well good afternoon and thank you so much for this conference I don’t know if I will know how to phrase a question I want to ask I’m going to try so in the end liberal democracy uh has worked in a very rational way always being always having its own arguments and reasoning um and now we have a system where communication is very direct and and it is quite emotional as well probably not very rational so how do you think our democracy our liberal democracy could evolve so that it becomes more complete and can compete against the social media that are so ready to to react emotionally so the the danger of emotions really yes the danger of emotionality or emotions well um you first of all you are right what we see in the studies in the studies of um communication and social media is that we see that emotions have gone have been rising quite a bit there is not so much argument there isn’t there isn’t so much reasoning there isn’t much deliberation in the strict sense of the word and there is much emotion lots of emotions and that that is correct and and we can change this somehow well maybe maybe we can with what I said previously those educational programs that I mentioned previously that should work uh from from the schools with kids because they are the ones who will be using social networks I mean social media so we need an education that is that targets digitization as well and the use of digital tools I don’t know how it works in Spain but um in Germany currently the digitization does not exist in schools it doesn’t exist so maybe there are there are there are computers yes we do have the hardware but but in the CVS and in the educational content there is no word about digitization so to me that is a great a failure I mean it is an important deficit it’s a dysfunction really and I think that we need to prepare our teachers and um to include a digital education in schools because I think that we’re not going to eliminate emotions completely leave but we have to try to go back to to teaching kids to teaching children what information really means what is information what is a correct information how do I communicate what is communication so something quite basic really and and that is not happening in my country no that doesn’t happen here yes I’m afraid that it’s something that isn’t happening in other countries either yes I’m sure yes please over there hello thank you very much I know I was a bit late but it was very interesting I do not agree with the fact that politicians have now entered the fact that the politicians have entered the media is causing what is happening I think it’s a consequence I they had to take the shortest route because I think that the problem is not a problem of speed I think linking to what I um heard was said here with the Italian speaker that we’re going so quickly that there is a lack of reflection everywhere and I think that education um as soon as we have a leader they want to control the education so we are in a vicious circle here and I think that speed the speed at which we’re going has a lot to do with this I mean communication is is overlapping I mean media are always overlapping there’s always noise and it’s impossible to reflect when there is so much noise and I think that the speed that the New Media is G giving is is ruining the depth of things and reflection and stopping and thinking about things and and talking about things with someone who thinks differently to you I’m very pessimistic I have to say thank you that wasn’t a question was it it was just yes I mean yes the speed yes it’s it’s true I I we know that the speed is is a problem but also it’s a problem for politicians we have to say that as well because if we talk to politicians if we talk to MPS they all tell you that they are under an amazing pressure as well because they know because they also I mean it’s the logic of communication as well uh the logic of communication says that politicians have to react they have to react um as soon as possible and if you do not react as a politician then uh your your opponent will and and then you have lost that battle right you have lost a communication battle so in that sense I also think that it creates a certain pressure pressure that is very difficult for politicians and politicians will always be the first ones to say well please get rid of that speed I would love to get rid of that speed yes but the New Media the new new social media are even faster because the traditional media were I mean we had to wait till the next day to be informed and that was right it was not a problem now we immediately need to know everything we need to have the news immediately 24 hours a day yes yes thank you so much for your conference Professor I I think that habas is is one of the last uh voices of modernity I’m sorry if you could put it closer to your mouth thank you so much for your conference I I do think that habas is one of the last voices of modernity and I think that uh his biography is always present in his reflection of the third of the thir third shape of the public sphere but I think that precisely because he’s one of the last voices of modernity we can um oppose some things to that analysis framework that have presented us with because when we think about the different possibilities of a public sphere liberal public sphere or illiberal public sphere I think that part of of the ideal of the light that Hab must still project with his work have to do with two very different spaces in one space we work the autonomy and the bond political bonding and on the other hand and we work in the space of domination and enlarging or extending or exponentially growing all the structural biases and Justice inequality that come from the 20th century but now they have they have multiplied by 100 with extraordinary speed so if we think about the about opposing two ideas framed in a specific conception of History I think that that has has led us to think about the blind spots of this whole world I think that the past right now has an utopian potential in that sense I think that going back to thinking about the past will allow us to detect blind spots in our present and in that sense I wanted to to just um start a dialogue with you with regards to a reference that neb prescribes which is that of Aristotle because there is um um fundamental argument in the second book of rethoric where Aristotle talks about deliberation as a mechanism that will lower the uh lower fear from being scared because because with with when you’re scared you can be hopeful and I think that one of the ways to to go back to to creating public spheres other public spheres that do not obey uh the patterns of classic liberalism would be that idea of the fact that deliberation public conversation could help help us reduce Terror because with constant news with constant news in our cell phone with um nuclear threats third world wars uh post climate crisis that is currently in our cell phones so we can also understand that the modern project had other intermediaries and now we have other intermediaries because I don’t think that uh the Avatar is still um is still an intermediary that supposedly is dialoguing although it’s not dialoguing it’s just talking to its to its targets to its potential voters so I think that opposing uh This Modern project to this project that is currently being built and that forces us to rethink all the concepts and that’s forcing us to do something much more difficult which is to give a name to something that has no precedent and that is the great challenge Han arand or sug talk about this difficulty I think it would be a a way of also thinking about the problem of the legitimacy of Institutions because it’s not just an ideal it’s not just in the lyrical sense this philosophical reflection could could also improve the the relationship and the and the Trust In Democratic institutions thank you very much yes I I really like the idea that that negativity which is also a characteristic of communication does have an influence [Music] in in trust potentially or legitimacy of the institutions it does have a very important um aspect to the I mean that point I do believe it’s a very important one um um but also it’s very similar to to the to what was said previously about speed and acceleration we can say that we have seen an intensification in negativity in the communication of feelings as well and messages in in Social in social media in conventional media as well I few weeks ago I I also had a conversation in a round table with on on trust in Democratic institutions and there was a journalist around around that table and interestingly enough she she always wanted to explain that it’s really very important to inform uh citizens uh in a correct way and and give them as much information as possible and it was very important and so on but at the same time a minute later she would say but the thing is people are so negative but we have to we have to to give them what they expect so what they want is negativity so the information in the media is usually negative because we give them what they want so positive information is something that people don’t listen to so so we see there that that it’s a self self it’s a self reference isn’t it because the media do what they think the citizens want and the citizens want something from the media that and and and they’re frustrated because because they’re different so so there’s a dilemma there I think that there is a dilemma there a real dilemma between the expectations of citizens and the logic of the media and how they interact yes but that I’m sorry if if you know if you don’t mind I I would like to briefly interfere yes but that’s the problem of the economy of attention in which we are um in which we are it’s what you were saying previously the attention is concentrated on extremist positionings but being extremist is something that catches everyone’s attention just like emotions right so so this tealz of a an emotional positioning is something that attracts more than than just a rational argument of being sensible because human beings are like that aren’t they so so the algorith the algorithm what you were saying we have to change the algorithm yes yes because the algorithm is designed to to incentivize that which generates attention and sends a conflict and that myth of collapse collapsi is called by the French kapsology so we are facing the end of the world that catches everyone’s attention so there is a very important component there that incorporates in this this circle and just like those um analyst the tremendous analysis that are being done by different political standpoints they are hyperd dramatizing things so we have to sometimes Channel what politicians say analyze it seriously and then realize that that nothing there’s nothing dramatic about it and nothing scandalous about it nothing scandalous behind their their statements it’s just the way in which the media inform about this or that is they they make it seem scandalous when it’s not and I think that that’s where I believe is very difficult to to have political control not even through education because because it’s it’s technologically biased really there is an influence but the new uh technological tools it’s the algorithm and others such as the the media that M the the measures that mcon had thought of to avoid fake news was actually to be able to touch the algorithms and twick them but obviously big platforms with close um ranks against that but it’s a fascinating thing you’ve already anticipated it in your presentation we are um we’re in the midst of a change of Paradigm um what we used to call the public sphere has called and and that is no longer useful so we need to Define it some some other way and what’s difficult is is to know what elements as you very well said come from from the past and how can we redefine or how can we start defining phenomenum that up till now did not take place and that could could be left in the shadows and I think that’s a challenge for for us theorists but for everyone as a society and I also wanted to ask you a question if I may are there more questions in the room no it’s it’s about the topic that you just touched upon which I thought was fascinating um observing what happened in the pandemic because in the pandemic we we became members of community right we stopped being selfish we stopped being individualistic and we wanted to applaud those who sacrific themselves for the community what’s good is to be a nurse to be a doctor to be a food delivery person and as soon as the pandemic ended immediately we went back to and and with much more strength to the previous situation individualistic consumerism why I don’t I don’t really understand why because we haven’t learned anything and I’m saying this um individually I mean at the individual level but also that can be very well observed if now once again as a scientist I can see that socially and at the political level as well and I would even talk about the digitization level we can also talk about that for instance in I think that Germany is is is in a worse situation than Spain Germany is a country of development and we are a developed country in digitization but what happened in Germany during the pandemic was that it was a disaster a complete disaster because our whole education was in the ground I mean we couldn’t we couldn’t teach online we didn’t have the infrastructure we didn’t have the capacity we didn’t have the the tools we didn’t have the computers we were far worse than Spain I can say that so what happened well scientists just like me who work on digitization I was saying in the media and so on well we have to learn from this experience with we have to we have to make progress we have to advance in this digitization journey and also with regards to health administration processes for instance for instance communication between the agencies and um Public Health agencies it was a disaster in Germany well what we were saying what we were saying during those two years is we need to make progress we need to change things we have to introduce new new um digitization approaches and so on and the politics were the the politics were sensitive at a certain point But as soon as a pandemic stopped well everything was stopped I mean digitization was no longer a topic and we currently are in the same spot we were after the pandemic so nothing has changed we haven’t learned a thing the politicians haven’t learned anything but society as you just said um that is my experience hasn’t learned anything either we haven’t learned anything from that experience and I think that it is dysfunctional we can say it that way if a crisis such as the crisis that we had if during such a crisis something good should come about should come from it and it should be the Lessons Learned we should have learned lessons and we haven’t learned those lessons and I don’t see I mean at least in my country and I don’t see that other countries have actually learn them their lessons I don’t think that they’re better no actually here in Spain during the pandemic we we saw that some politicians started talking about Freedom as a self-gratification I have rights I have the right to this or that I have the right to get out to the street to drink beers and so on it was a very individualistic positioning and and and it’s that Clash really because initially it seemed that uh there would be social cohesion that there would be that cision in in um in a in a society that was that did not look at others started merging but as soon as it came it disappeared one last question H I’m sure you have one last question yes I do well there are a couple of questions from the audience that have to do with with habas Theory and with habas Theory and and it’s about whether the deliberative ideal at some point did take place or it could could be felt could be seen the question is if we could see any moment in the history of liberal democracies where that uh deliberative ideal has taken place beyond political institutions so in the day today of of citizens because if not what we would be trying to do and I think that’s the question is go back to an ideal that maybe never never even existed so I think it’s a classical question in in conversations about habas not even in University seminars uh do we know an answer to that no but we will finish with this question Marian because we’re a bit late well in that sense I’m really sorry but my um answer will be very critical because I do think that that ideal and that’s what habas says only existed in the 18th century in the uh in this in the century of Enlightenment an illustration and that is what habas describes himself he says that those the conversations that culture of cafes and conversations where there were deliberations uh in a recent way well we all know that that that’s not true I mean I’m not being um I’m not wearing my scientist cap but those conversations those cafes those uh where habas says there were deliberations where inclusive deliberations inclusive deliberations reasoned conversations were not really inclusive because there were no women for instance and and they were only intellectuals so that’s not very inclusive what happen us describes as a world that that is ideal for some of them because it was just a little bubble wasn’t it it’s we could say that it was a little bubble yes it was just a little bubble of with some some uh some intellectuals members of the Academia all of them men who were sitting around in their cafes having deliberations so I mean so you can see my answer is quite critical of that of of that ideal because I think that ideal I mean no I don’t think it ever existed despite despite that I do think that as a pologist I do think that there is a right to have normative models I mean we do have a right for normativity I am not criticizing that a model can be normative but then we also have to translate that into something that does have meaning empirical meaning and if it doesn’t then I’m really sorry but we have to review it in any in any case I think this Seminary has been a good um um example of of being that ideal that Hass ideal trying to find understanding and communication between ones and others because that is actually what we need to say from habas that there is a sort of action that that is not strategic that does not look for some specific benefit or Advantage but that is just being consumed by the participation that this joint participation to reach a mutual understanding and the meaning of these seminars that are organized by the ins Li is that it’s just trying to get close to that um as we all know it cannot not be full because you know that even amongst intellectuals it’s more difficult to reach a conclusion I think but um we can’t I think we’re programmed to have conversations discussions and we can’t exp we can’t um help but to try and meet again in activities such as this one so once again Mariana thank you so much and thank you all for being here thank you very much for