Ģ��ֱ��

New research faces the conditions and future of democracy in contemporary new-media driven world. It examines traditional mass-media dominated communication world to the new post-web era (the period since the introduction of the internet) including the Web 1.0, social Web 2.0 and now the semantic Web 3.0.

The research gives a better understanding of how political leaders operate in the current changing media environment and how this affects public engagement in society. It investigates cases of political leadership in the context of Estonia, a young democracy, and the older European democracies of Italy and Finland.

“New media scenery gives advantage to extremist society-dividing movements, charismatic or magnetic leaders and to highly simplified message, often with a populist framing. At the same time the opportunity to participate, as such, does not mean creating a true dialogue”, says postdoctoral researcher Ülle Toode from Ģ��ֱ��.

In the post–web media environment, especially in social media networks, leaders with authoritarian intentions can easily gain huge followership as their message reaches easily and almost costlessly to the target audiences without the “filter” of professional journalist. This has caused the widely criticized phenomenon of fake, also called “post-truth” information spread.

“In that way, also previously marginalized extremist leaders or groups can robustly intervene in the process of formation of public discourse formation via strongly biased messages or “false news”, and that way influence public opinion”, Toode says.

Emotion as a driving force

According to Toode, the current decision-making and citizen behavior is not a rational but an emotional-based process. Leaders can most often expect followership based on a communication strategy of emotions. Different emotions used in the communication strategy cause behavior of the followers as wanted by the communicator.

In her research, Toode creates a satisfaction model, based on prevalent emotions of citizens, as created by the communication strategies of those in power. The model presents two environments for society: dependency or autocracy and independency or free society, where grass-root democracy is possible. The model addresses key issues in the current challenges of public engagement such as trust and contributes to the wider understanding of how communication can influence people’s inclusion or exclusion of some groups in society, and how communication and freedom of information contributes to the birth of deliberative discussions, responsibility and engagement in society.

As explained by Toode, “To citizens, the post-web world may seem chaotic, a society moving in every possible direction simultaneously, while power holders or politicians lack a long-term vision on how to organize society, held captive in its post-web conditions, emphasizing fast exchange of emotion-rich but often shallow messages.”

This chaos calls for structure that helps media consumers navigate new media realities in a way that foster productive engagement. As one of the conclusions, the research brings forth the need to create and maintain an educational system that supports the competencies to analyse information and understand the hidden processes behind the current web-based information exchange in society. Toode concludes:

“A society characterized by sustainable material well-being, harmony with nature and a comeback of ethical or spiritual values is theoretically possible. However, it would require radical changes in the way societies are led. This strongly depends on the political leaders and elitist groups that have the power to shape communication flows and choose the style of communication that in turn may enhance citizen engagement in society.”

The approach could create collaboration, participation of society members and joint responsibility for the community’s social and material well-being, by enhancing the feeling of being part of it as responsible members of society with the will to engage in its decision making processes.

MA Ülle Toode defends her doctoral dissertation in organizational communication "Political leadership and public engagement in a changing media environment". Opponent associate professor Donna Davis (University of Oregon) and Custos professor Chiara Valentini (Ģ��ֱ��). Time: 21.8.2020 8:00 — 11:00; Location: Mattilanniemi, Agora Gamma. The doctoral dissertation is held in English.

Ülle Toode studied at Hugo Treffner Gymnasium in Tartu (Estonia) and continued her higher education at the University of Tartu, where she gained an AM in linguistics in 1996. 1994 – 1996 she studied at Aarhus University and Danish School of Journalism in Denmark, specializing in TV news and documentary film production and journalism. In 2000 she gained an MA in EU Journalism at Cardiff University in Wales, UK. Since 2000 Ülle Toode has been teaching as visiting lecturer in Political Communication, Political Marketing, Behaviour of Masses and Communication Theory at the Baltic Film Shcool ( Univeristy of Tallinn) and Tallinn Univeristy of Technology. She has worked as the news reporter at Estonian Public Service TV news in 1994 – 1998. From 2000 – 2004 she has been a correspondent from Italy for Radio Free Europe, Estonian Service. From 2004 she collaborates with Estonian Public Service Radio and TV as a freelance correspondent from Italy. In 2010 – 2014 Ülle Toode worked for Estonian Embassy in Rome as an assistent responsable for communication, PR and Cultural Affairs. Since 2015 she is directing the Research Center for Baltic Studies at La Sapienza Univeristy in Rome, Italy.

Additional info:
Ülle Toode
ulle.toode@mail.ee
+372 55 237 27 or +39 335 126 8574