Submission to Ireland’s Electoral Commission- An Coimisiún Toghcháin’s Consultation on Education and Public Engagement Strategy

Authors

Brendan K. O'Rourke, Technological University DublinFollow
Ewan MacDonald, Technological University DublinFollow
Richard Woodward, Technological University DublinFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8858-4594

Document Type

Other

Disciplines

Business and Management., Political science

Publication Details

https://www.electoralcommission.ie/consultation/

doi:10.21427/3ryn-0n70

Abstract

An Coimisiún Toghcháin’s establishment and its work is very welcome in a world where democracy is being buffeted by many forces that are undermining it. There is a lack of trust and trustworthiness in the media (O’Neill, 2018). The public sphere is being fractured in the splintering niches of media (Nechushta,2024), in the filter bubbles, echo chambers & behavioural manipulations of the online world (Nguyen, 2020; Zuboff, 2022) and in the increasingly homosocial interactions of most people’s everyday face-to-face encounters. This submission uses, in addressing some of the main issues in democratic participation, the concept of the ‘endarkenment’ danger in the long-term trend of increasing specialization and its acceleration to hyper-specialization (Milgram, 2015): The degree of specialization is now so great that the idea of a public discourse in which individuals can make their own independent assessments - without experts’ explanations -is shrinking, and a great endarkenment threatens. This submission makes its suggestions with this perspective in mind, with some expertise in the areas of public, policy and democratic discourse; elite formation measurement and policy expertise communication and with observations gleaned from the wider academic literature and personal experiences of participating in democracy. Whereas this means the points made here are done on the basis of experience and expertise, albeit from limited perspectives, it does mean that many important issues in democratic engagement are left unaddressed including issues such as the need to facilitate greater participation and representation from minority groups.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/3ryn-0n70

Recommended Citation

O'Rourke, Brendan K.; MacDonald, Ewan; and Woodward, Richard, "Submission to Ireland’s Electoral Commission- An Coimisiún Toghcháin’s Consultation on Education and Public Engagement Strategy" (2025). Other Resources. 1.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/glooth/1

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