It is commonplace to say that we are living in troubled times. Liberal democracy is in crisis. Academic freedom is seriously constrained. The media offers less insight and analysis than could be expected given the proliferation of communication tools. Based on research into the social and ideological functioning of discourse and with a focus on politics, universities, and the media, this presentation offers an analysis of current practices, asks whether and how we are all complicit, and makes suggestions for possible remedies.

Central to the argument is the notion of derailed reflexivity, referring to the observation that politics, institutions, and news reporting tend to be excessively aimed at public opinion, impression management, and clicks, to the detriment of policies addressing social justice issues, high-quality service, and media content. Highlighting that education is the cornerstone for democratic choices and ensures that we can critically assess media content, it will be argued that hope can be found in shared responsibility, in everyone’s power to intervene in the maintenance of an ecology of the public sphere.

Jef Verschueren received a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. After a long career as a researcher for the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research, and as Professor of Linguistics at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 2001 to 2009, he is now Professor Emeritus. He is the founder and Secretary General of theInternational Pragmatics Association (IPrA).

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