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  5. Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023

Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023

Volume 14, Issue 1

Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023

Language: English
  • Editorial

      • Editorial

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc_00049_2

        This issue of the , includes articles on spirituality and atheism in Soviet Russia; music, rhythm and sound in suffering and mourning in individual and collective contexts; trust in health communication in deaf contexts and, finally, the role of affect and intuition in social cognition and public communication, focusing on misinformation and public debate.

  • Articles

      • Protecting democracy from disinformation: Implications for a model of communication

        https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc_00050_1

        This article analyses the consequences that disinformation phenomena have for a model of communication, focusing on the dangers that disinformation poses to democratic societies, especially when it is disseminated by the media. Disinformation is examined here from the perspective of social cognitive psychology, with special attention to the role played by motivated reasoning and confirmation bias in human cognition. From this perspective, disinformation phenomena should be studied not only through an analysis of how the media operate, but also through an understanding of how we process information and what we use it for from a social cognitive point of view. This article emphasizes the role that intuition and affective persuasion play in communication processes, as key elements of motivated reasoning, and argues that once this cognitive dimension is integrated into communication theory, preventive strategies can be designed to protect democracies from the dangers caused by disinformation. Ideological polarization and a lack of consensus are highlighted here as being among the biggest dangers, preventing agreement on issues that affect the proper functioning of democracy. While a certain conception of communication posits reasoning, the media and education as the tools for resolving conflicts and preventing disagreements, this article concludes that the success of disinformation phenomena points to the need for a model that includes the cognitive elements mentioned above.

    • Mistrust between Deaf patients and hearing staff in healthcare settings

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc_00051_1

      This article aims to contribute to healthcare communication literature by providing factors that result in mistrust and miscommunication for Deaf people. Deaf people experience a lot of health inequity, which can be, in large part, attributed to being a result of communication and misunderstanding between Deaf people and healthcare staff, resulting in mistrust. Presenting outcomes of practical experiments as well as theoretical reasons for the misunderstanding and mistrust allows to make suggestions about how to improve communication for the future. This review can serve as guidance for factors that contribute to miscommunication that should be avoided by healthcare staff and for lessons learned from positive experiences that should be scaled up and applied to ensure more clear and supportive communication.

    • Atheism and spirituality in the USSR: Can atheists be spiritual?

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc_00052_1

      Is atheist spirituality an oxymoron and, if so, did Soviet citizens brought up in a definitively atheist environment have no spiritual pursuits? The author asks this question, drawing on Dostoyevsky’s dark prophecy and interrogating Yuri Levada’s model of a Soviet simple person as a distinct anthropological type. Taking on board Riegel’s concept of political religion and testing Marxism–Leninism as a source of wisdom for the Soviet nonbelievers, the author seeks to uncover a version of spirituality compatible with Soviet-style atheism. The discussion also involves the examination of Russian literary tradition and Borodina’s philosophical theory of spirituality, which accords with Sharafutdinova accounting for the phenomenon of inner exile in the late Soviet period and Bekmetov’s reminder that Buddhist world-view had a significant influence on Russian cultural metalanguage.

    • Ethical humans: Sounds, bodies, sufferings and aliveness

      https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc_00053_1

      This article explores the way sound, music, rhythm and movement reflect experiences of suffering, trauma and aliveness by reflecting on colonializing and decolonializing modes of understanding the role played by sounds and music in living through suffering, displacement, cultural devastation and illness. Music and sound practices offer people ways of connecting life narratives and coping mechanisms to deal with loss and suffering. A peculiar aliveness of the body is mediated by sound and rhythm. The experiences with personal and cultural suffering of Richard Wilhelm, Simone Weil, Ludwig Wittgenstein and people in the author’s life are read against the background of the ethical and communicative dimensions of sound and music, in an ethnographic and auto-ethnographic as much a philosophical study.

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