Governance and Psychology
Kanthar Balanathan
Before we examine the framework of Governance, let us study deep into each of the frames and the psychology of humans who go into the parliament to take over the function.
Governance
Quote (Google): The concept of "governance" is not new. ... Governance refers to a process whereby elements in society wield power, authority, and influence and enact policies and decisions concerning public life and social upliftment."
The eight characteristics of good governance?
· Participation. All men and women should have a voice in decision-making, either directly or through legitimate intermediate institutions that represent their interests.
· Rule of law.
· Transparency.
· Responsiveness.
· Consensus orientation.
· Equity.
· Effectiveness and efficiency.
· Accountability.
For good governance to be in place the politicians and people who vote should be enlightened with political, and knowledge of economics, and social science. People who vote should know their candidate's integrity, educational level and their competence in politics and governance.
Mass Communication is a term used to describe the academic study of the various medium by which individuals relay information through mass media to large segments of the populace at the same time. It’s understood that newspapers, magazine publishing, radio, TV, and film are those which disseminate news. Mass media denotes a section of the media which is specifically designed to reach a very large audience of a nation. The term was coined with the advent of mass circulation newspapers and magazines. The common man, which is the “public”, relies on mass circulation media, newspaper because it is a competitive form of media that disseminates news to the public. The common man could afford to purchase a newspaper or go to the Community Centre and digest the information from it.
What is the integrity and reliability of the SriLankan mass media? Do they provoke violence, potential enmity between political parties, establish racial hatred among citizens? These are questions to be asked. Do they operate for profit or do they support good governance? Definitely, most of the Tamil media does propagate racial conflicts.
What about the journalists? Are they racial? Do journalism promote racism, separatism, religious fanatism? Do the journalists promote racial intimidation?
Therefore, primarily good governance depends on citizens who vote for the candidates to institute good governance. Citizens and politicians shall have good perception and intelligence. Although education is a basic requirement in politics, perception, and intelligence is not taught in schools. It is inborn characteristics of a person and the environment in which they were brought up.
What is Perception?
The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. "the normal limits to human perception"
Perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information, or the environment. Wikipedia
Perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information, or the environment. Wikipedia
While our sensory receptors are constantly collecting information from the environment, it is ultimately how we interpret that information that affects how we interact with the world. Perception refers to the way sensory information is organized, interpreted, and consciously experienced. Perception involves both bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing refers to the fact that perceptions are built from sensory input. On the other hand, how we interpret those sensations is influenced by our available knowledge, our experiences, and our thoughts. This is called top-down processing. Ref; (https://courses.lumenlearning.com/msstate-waymaker-psychology/chapter/reading-what-is-perception/)
Perception occurs in five stages: stimulation, organization, interpretation-evaluation, memory and recall.
Quote CIA: The process of perception links people to their environment and is critical to the accurate understanding of the world about us. Accurate intelligence analysis obviously requires accurate perception. Yet research into human perception demonstrates that the process is beset by many pitfalls. Moreover, the circumstances under which intelligence analysis is conducted are precisely the circumstances in which accurate perception tends to be most difficult. This chapter discusses perception in general, then applies this information to illuminate some of the difficulties of intelligence analysis. Ref: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence-analysis/art5.html
To be continued