THE PUBLIC SPHERE, THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Abstract

Historically, here and elsewhere, the media debate has been polarised between the traditional liberal position and Marxist collectivist critiques of it. Over the last few years, however, British cultural theorists have brought new life to this moribund debate through their development of a 'radical democratic' approach. It evolved in the wake of the popular rejection of communist regimes globally and in response to the projection of this by major Western governments as the triumph of capitalism. Many of its proponents try to redress the socialist theoretical vacuum following these events by returning to some of the fundamental principles of democracy and attempting to establish the conditions for their realisation in complex modern societies. Central to much of this work is the concept of the public sphere - an accessible and independent realm in which each voice is equal to one. The public sphere is the means by which democratic decisions are reached. Re-examinations of theories of the public sphere have inspired new and innovative ways of examining current developments in the media and have been used to overcome the theoretical deadlocks of the past. It is on these explorations into the meaning of the public sphere for democratic media development that I will focus in this article. I will then assess their applicability to South Africa. For many the degree to which the mass media function as a public sphere, representative of the citizenry and accessible to all, serves as a key barometer of democracy within a polity. This arises from a lengthy tradition which places the media at the interface between the governors and the governed. From this perspective democracy is a relative concept. The character of a democracy is dependent on the flow of public information. This will determine to what degree the citizenry can take actions based on informed decisions and make government accountable. From a traditional liberal position the public sphere is an arena between the distinct areas of state and civil society that guarantees the protection of the individual. Liberal theory equates the public sphere with the political domain and the public role of the media is defined in relation to government. The liberal belief in the virtue of civil society's domination over the state, however, has led to a view of the market as the mechanism best suited to meeting the information needs of society. However, the further the market commands information flows

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