Gerry Schlenker
University of
Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls, USA
Abstract
South Dakota Public Broadcasting
(SDPB) underwent significant structural and organizational transition in the
1990’s. This historical study provides a description of the discursive activity
of SDPB managers and producers in the midst of that change. It also discusses a
number of structural and historical arrangements that appear to have caused
contradiction and conflict.
What follows is the transcribed discourse
and speech act activity of a number of individuals involved in South Dakota Public
Broadcasting including those in management, programming and production. It
describes interaction during activity such as departmental strategic planning
meetings, network reorganizational sessions, production meetings, interviews
and Educational Telecommunications Board (ETB) meetings, as well as hallway
conversation over the course of many months.
Since Universal Pragmatics
encourages attention to the representation of the external, internal and social
worlds through language in the context of everyday life as it is lived (the
lifeworld), these transcriptions provide substantive evidence for analysis of
how reality is constructed by these local public broadcasting managers and
producers in the midst of conflict and change.
Universal Pragmatics assumes that
the presence of such "de-linguistified steering media" as power and
money can replace language as a mechanism of social integration and therefore
have a "disintegrative effect on the lifeworld (Habermas, 1984, 343).
My previous article (IJHCS 1(4),
2015, pp. 469-490) held that various steering mechanisms can
exist within institutions like South Dakota Public Broadcasting and can influence
the relationships within them. It suggested that Universal Pragmatics could be
used as a methodology for analyzing institutional cultures. This work is the
second of three articles in a process that will put that methodology into
practice.
The following historical analysis
includes three segments concerning a time period during a year in which there
was a resignation and replacement in the Executive Director position at South
Dakota Public Broadcasting. This became a catalyst for total network
reorganization. The three segments include (1) a six-month period following the
resignation of the Executive Director, (2) the arrival of the new Executive
Director, and (3) a three-month period following the arrival of the new
Executive Director.
Keywords:
Habermas, Universal Pragmatics, Ideal Speech Situation, Public Sphere, Culture,
Democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment