Reflections on Public Discussion in the Mass Media

Abstract

Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Tampere, FIN-33014 Tampere, tivepi@uta.fi Normative reflections upon democracy and the media have emphasized again and again that, in order to function properly, modern democracies require the media to provide “the means whereby the public debate” underpinning these societies “can take place” (Oreja et al. 1998: 9). Beetham and Boyle (1995: 13) think, for example, that the main task of the media, in addition to their ’watchdog’ role, is their role as a forum for public debate whereby they also serve “the expression of public opinion to the government”. According to Nordenstreng (1997: 18), in Scandinavian countries the “current ’functions’ of the media” have been condensed into information function, critique function and forum function, the last one involving the media “to provide the representatives of different views the opportunity for publicity”. But why does the putative forum function of the media get such an emphasis? The answer is quite simple: public discussion has been regarded as a cornerstone for a viable democracy. From “the ancient Greek thought onwards, the general conception of democracy” has been based on specific “assumptions related to the communication sphere”, one of them being that all “decisions are submitted to public discussions” (Splichal 1993: 5). Classically this principle was formulated by the 18 century’s progressive bourgeoisie in the demand that public opinion, being shaped in and through “the critical public debate among private people”, ought to be “the only legitimate source” of decisions and legislation in general (Habermas [1962] 1989: 53, 54). Public Discussion as Face-to-Face Conversation