Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA15324 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 14 May 2001 11:55:53 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745E89@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Information Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 11:52:17 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<Is consensus anything more than collective opinion? The collective
may be
> comprised of experts in a field and their opinion(s) matter(s) more than
> some dilletente with a non-standard word usage, but expert opinion is
> still
> opinion, just better than amateur opinion.>
>
There is a subtle difference, in that through achieving consensus
over the use of certain terms, alternatives are collectively excluded, and
thus whilst in principle any usage is possible and open to individual
opinion, in practice this cannot happen.
When Robin says there's no "correct" usage for words, that does not
preclude the situation where some words are socially far more plausible,
acceptable, usable than others- so much so in fact that to try and
idiosyncratically use either a different word for the same object, or the
same word for a different object, becomes extremely difficult.
In journalism studies there is a concept known as primary
definition, whereby institutional sources often dominate the ways in which
the news media represent issues and events (due to their superior authority
and resources, and capacity to control flows of information), to the point
where alternative viewpoints are essentially excluded. The fear is that
such definitional control influence audience perceptions of events in a way
unrelated to the reality of that event. A good example would be the war in
Northern Ireland, persistently described, and known as the 'troubles'. It's
not an uncontested theory, by any means, but it offers one way of thinking
about how social processes narrow the definitional boundaries of using
terminology.
However personally abhorrant we may find holocaust denial, the
criminalisation of such opinions (as in Austria and Germany, and probably
elsewhere), is another good example. You're simply not allowed to express
the opinion that the holocaust didn't happen, or wasn't planned, or what
other stupid things neo-nazis think.
That's why I put that element of absolute into the question to
Robin. There are no absolute correct usages of words, but there are
situationally correct and incorrect usages, and these are products of social
consensus.
Vincent
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