When Nightingales Break the Law: Silence and the Construction of Reality

Abstract

Strikingly, theorizing about digital technologies has led us to recognize many habitual subjects of research as figures against fields that are also worthy of study. Communication, for example, becomes visible only against the field of silence. Silence is critically important for the construction of reality -and the social construction of reality has a complement, the also necessary contemplative construction of reality. Silence is so sensitive and fragile that an inability to achieve it, or to get rid of it, or to correct the wrong kind of silence often provides early indicators of individual, group, communal, and society-wide stresses from information technologies. Indeed, we might treat difficulties with silence as miners treated canaries in coal mines, as early warning signals. The story has already been told that nightingales in London now have to sing so loudly in order to be heard above the ambient noise that the birds are in danger of breaking the noise ordinance law.Surely something has gone awry if nightingales break the law when they sing. Finding ways to protect silence as an arena of personal and social choice is a particularly poignant, evocative, and instructive ethical and policy horizon at this frontier moment for the human species. This article introduces the theory of the contemplative construction of reality, explores what the study of silence tells us about reality construction processes, and outlines a research agenda.

The contribution of silence to spiritual care at the end of life: a phenomenological exploration from the experience of palliative care chaplains

“…Lynn Bassett) and, second, the experience of other palliative care chaplains. The research paradigm was grounded in a contemplative construction of reality proposed by Braman (2007) in communication theory. A contemplative construction encompasses dimensions of reality beyond the boundaries of the social world; inwardly it begins in embodied self and outwardly it looks to the transcendent.…”

Rizikos komunikacija Lietuvos žiniasklaidoje kiaulių gripo metu

“…Pasak N. Luhmann ir K. Cross (2000), žinias-klaida tampa priemone, kuri padeda visuomenei susiformuoti tikrovės iliuziją. Esant tokiai situacijai, kai šiandieninis pasaulis persisotinęs informacija, masinės komunikacijos tyrinėtojai pabrėžia, jog itin svarbu apibrėžti bei atskirti tikrovę, sukonstruotą tradiciniais ryšiais, ir tikrovę, sukonstruotą žiniasklaidos (Braman, 2007).…”