Higher Institute of Human Sciences- Tunis

MA 2 : Intercultural Studies

Expos on :
Peter Dalghren, Introduction, Communication and Citizenship :
Journalism and the Public Sphere.
James Curran, Rethinking the media as a public sphere,
Communication and Citizenship : Journalism and the Public Sphere.

Realized by :

Nesrine Darwiche
Mariem Liwne

Academic Year : 2013 / 2014

The interdisciplinary nature of Cultural Studies led to the emergence

of Media studies as a vital area of research that seeks to make sense of
the rapidly changing global media. For media play a central role in politics,
economics, education, art, and entertainment. Accordingly, this
presentation will deal with certain chapters from the following volume,
Communication and Citizenship; Journalism and Public sphere in the New
Media Age. The volume is edited by Peter Dahlgren, a Professor of Media
and Communication Studies at Lund University and Colin Sparks, Principal
lecturer in Communication at the University of Westminster.
To give a general view about this volume, we can say that it addresses a
central question in journalistic and academic debate. To what extent are
the media able to help citizens in modern societies learn about the world?
And what role the media play in the formation of a public sphere.
By definition, the public sphere is an area in social life where individuals
come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems. Today the
concept is associated with Jurgen Habermas the German philosopher, as it
appeared in his work The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
1962. Indeed, it had little impact on the Anglo-American debate until the
publication of its English translation in 1989. As described by Habermas,
the public sphere began to emerge within bourgeois classes of Western
Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For Peter Dahlgren, the
institutional basis for this public sphere consists of an area of milieu and
media such as clubs, books, and pamphlets, all of which in various ways
manifested Enlightenment ideals of the human pursuit of knowledge and

freedom.

(Mediated Politics: Communication in the Future of

Democracy).
Habermas key concept of public sphere is crucial for media theory and
study. For him, the emergence of the mass press is based on the
commercialization of the participation of the masses in the public sphere.
Media can be bought and sold like any other commodity. The idea of
commodification poses a permanent threat to the cultural quality of
media. As the public sphere became dominated by the mass media, a
battle is fought not only over influence but also over the control of
communication flows.
Peter Dahlgren argues that Habermas work is influenced by the Frankfurt
school that was a group of philosophers linked to the Institute of Social
Research in Frankfurt, active from the 1920s, on. One of its most famous
names, Theodore Adorno who is well known for his critique of the modern
Cultural Industry which manipulated the public and created consumers
of mass media rather than critical readers.
Dahlgren further argues that there is a sort of ambiguity in Habermas
work pertaining to the public sphere.
First of all, he points out to the historical account of the public sphere
from a romantic and nostalgic point of view: the openness and flow of
ideas that appeared with the bourgeois public sphere cannot exist in the
20th century. Dahlgren believes that it is important to be aware of his
ambiguity. The romantic notion of a public sphere composed of individuals
speaking face to face or communicating via small circulation print media is

not of much utility: we live in the age of electronic media and mass publics
and cannot turn back the historical clock; we can only go forward.
In this regard, James Deane argues that Habermas original thesis was
criticized because those who he posited as first forming a public sphere
where independent political debate could take place excluded large parts,
if not the majority of populations. They tended to be male urban based
with disposal incomes, educated, and literate. The original conception of
the public sphere particularly excluded the poor and women. (Media,
Democracy and the Public Sphere).

The second part of this expos will focus on James Currans

Rethinking the media as a public sphere.
In his chapter Rethinking the media as a public sphere , James Curran
studies the public sphere through three different approaches : the
Classical Liberal approach, the Radical Democratic approach, and the
Marxist approach.
To begin with, according to the Classical Liberal Theory, the public sphere
is the space between government and society in which private individuals
exercise formal and informal control over the state : formal control through
the election of governments and informal control through the pressure of
public opinion (Curran 29). Indeed, Media are central to the public sphere
and play important roles within this theory. In this regard, Medias role can
be summarized in four major important points : First, Media distribute the

information necessary for citizens to make an informed choice at election.

Second, Media facilitate the formation of public opinion by providing an
independent forum of debate. Third, Media enable the people to shape the
conduct of government by articulating their views. Finally, Mass Media is
seen as essential to the development of democracy. Actually, the mass
media is seen, in this view, as helping to secure rights of citizenship by
disseminating information and a pluralism of views. In this framework,
James Curran argues in his Rethinking the media as a public sphere that
in some presentations of liberal theory the media are on permanent
guard duty patrolling against the abuse of executive power and
safeguarding individual liberty (29).
As far as the Radical Democratic Approach is concerned, the public sphere
is conceived within this approach as a public space in which private
individuals and organized interests seek to influence the allocation of
resources and regulate social relations ( Curran 35). According to this
approach, the basic requirement of a democratic media system should be
that : first, it represents all significant interests in society. Second, it should
facilitate peoples participation in the public domain. It should, also, enable
people to contribute to public debate and have an input in the framing of
public policy. According to this approach, Medias role can be summed up
to three major fuctions. The first fuction of Media is then the countervailing
agency. In other words, Media should expose wrongdoing. Second, Media
should correct justice. Furthermore, Media should seek to redress the
imbalance of power in society by broadening access to the public domain
in societies where elites have priviliged access to it.

The main difference to be drawn between these two different approaches

is that within the classical liberal theory, the public debate is equated with
the political domain and the public role of media is defined in relation to
government. Put differently, its main focus is laid on the political life and
its main concern is the government. However, with the radical democratic
aproach, the role of the press and broadcasting is said to extend to all
areas of life including both : the workplace and the home.
Concerning the Marxist Approach, the focus is laid on teh marxist critique
of the media. According to old style marxism, the liberal concept of the
public sphere is disguising the reality of bourgeois domination. Indeed, the
media are agencies of class control since they are owned by the
bourgeoisie and,therefore, they are subject to the bourgoisie ideological
hegemony. In fact, Classical Marxism proposed an opposition between
superstructure, which covered culture, but also the state, law, religion, and
the family, and economic base, which meant the mode of production and
the dominant economic class. In this regard, mass media would be
assumed to follow the ideological interests of the dominant class in
society. A marxist tradition sees the media as integrated into the existing
economic and political elites and therefore reflecting their interests.
In brief, the liberal approach sees the media as facilitating social
agreement through the dissemination of information. However, the
classical marxist view sees one class as manipulating the medias content.

Bibilopgraphy :
Curran, James. Rethinking the media as a public sphere. Communication
and Citizenship:

Journalism and the Public Sphere. Eds. Peter

Dalghren, and Colin Sparks. London:

Print.

Routledge, 1991. 27-57.

Dalghren, Peter. Introduction. Communication and Citizenship.

Journalism and the Public

Spehere. Eds. Peter Dalghren, and Colin

Sparks. London: Routledge, 1991. 1-23. Print.

Habermas, Jurgen. The Structiral Transformation of the Public Sphere: An
Inquiry into a

Category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas

Burger. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1

1991. Print.