The public sphere and the press as a watchdog in the 21st century.
by Elin Astrid Gjøvik Glad.
The public sphere is an Ancient Greek idea that started with the interaction between the polis (the city-state) and agora (the public). The public discussion about the private trade caused the public sphere to rise again in the 17th century, with the merging of the press. The exchanging of information in coffee houses and salons became more formalised as the press was created to take advantage of the situation.
As the bourgeois public earned more money and became ”the newly rich”, their interest turned towards other topics than trade, such as taste and fashion. The press took on the task of educating its readers. Later on, when the middle class gained more confidence, they got involved with politics. The radical press was seen as an alternative to official sources, and became a watchdog for the government.
From the emerge of the press in the 17th century, the press, its role and the society itself has changed radically. With this in mind, we can ask ourselves: Is the public sphere viable in the 21st century and does the press serve as a watchdog on the state.
Jürgen Habermas, in his book ”The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry”, defined the public sphere as "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment." This definition was applicable to the 17th and early 18th century press. But somewhere along the way the press seemed to have lost the point of the public sphere. Journalists saw themselves as sitting in their high tower performing monologues down to the public. This was not the original intention of the public sphere and not in accordance with Habermas’ definition.
In the 20th century, internet came to town and made it so much easier for everyone to get information, post information and get their own opinion across. This was in a way the revolution or reviving of the public sphere. Now, citizen journalism is a growing trend and everyone is a blogger. Every newspaper with respect for themselves have debating forums where they allow the public to say their opinion. Everyone is allowed to say what they mean and it is easy to get it published.
Leo Hickman is a feature writer for the Guardian. At The Guardian the journalists are encouraged to participate in blogs and discussion forums. "The wall has come down," said Hickman. Journalists are no longer shouting from their megaphones down to the public, they are now interacting "face to face" on a daily, hourly basis. This is the beginning of a new journalism. "Print journalism is dying a grizzly death," was Hickman’s opinion.
The public participating is a good thing when considering the sustaining or of the public sphere. But a negative effect of the extreme growth of blogging and citizen journalism is that the boundaries of press and public are starting to get very unclear. This might be a factor that can weaken the press’ status as the fourth estate. Citizen journalism is not objective and bloggers often only write about what supports their own opinion. The public in general become more sceptical to what they read and the media’s function as a watchdog of the state is indirectly weakened.
Another effect of the increase of citizen journalism is that the private sphere is with the public sphere. Jürgen Habermas said that before the appearance of a public sphere, the idea of a private sphere had to be formed and generally accepted. In the public sphere of the 21st century, this is no longer the case. The private sphere is becoming more and more public.
A very good example of this is the case of Jade Goody. She is a former Celebrity Big Brother-star and is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Jade has her own TV-show and herself, her two boys and her boyfriend have become public figures. A headline in The Daily Mirror says: ”Jade to have sons christened so they understand `Mommy is watching over them in heaven.´” Jade is pictured on the front page of The Sun with no hair in a hospital bed, the headline saying: ”I’m going home to die.” Jade Goody is not the first, nor the last celebrity that has put her life on display.
The social networking website Facebook shows how ”normal people” without concern publishes their whole life story and pictures of themselves drunk and half-naked. The public sphere and the private sphere are no longer separate and what is private has become public.
There is a third and more dangerous side effect to people and groups freely expressing their opinions and getting them across to an ever increasing audience. It is easier to stumble across extremist sub-cultures and offensive material. It is easier for cults and extremist groups to recruit new followers. In my home country Norway, the daughter of a well-known businessman took her own life after joining the Scientologist Church. She had taken their personality test online and influenced by the test, she killed herself shortly after.
The public sphere of the 21st century is an endless flow of information about everything. The society became secularised in the beginning of the age of the internet. You made your own, personalised religion taking only the best from everything out there and new religions like Wicca and New Age merged. Now, the trend is the other way around, people are searching for something to make sense, someone to tell them what to do. More and more people turn to strict fundamentalist religions and ways of life. I think an important reason for this is the overflow of information and the over-individualism of the 21st century.
The media’s role as a watchdog for the press has continued on to the 21st century. However, the media has become an arena for so much else. Sensationalist journalism is what most people read today. The tabloid ”The Sun” is the most selling UK newspaper with 2.9 million copies sold each day. The Sun focuses on sensationalist journalism. Their headline a couple of days ago was: ”Dad at 13.” The tabloids focus on sensationalism, emotionalism, human interest, personification and pictorial focus. The tabloid press also uses rhetorical devices such as campaigns, exclusion and inclusion and use of stereotypes and collective images.
When tabloids try and use their influential power as watchdog for the state, most readers take what they read with a big pinch of salt. Tabloids have a tendency to take being an alternative to official sources to the extreme. Whenever something happens, it is published with a sensationalist twist and everything is put on the edge.
One example is a headline in The Sun saying: ”The gov `ignored all the evidence’.” When reading the whole article you discover that this was not actually the case and that the story is over dramatised. The tabloid arena is an interesting public sphere in which modernity is challenged by post-modernity. That means that the tabloids conflict with the traditional bourgeois public sphere and allows alternative cultures to flourish.
The other thing one must consider before letting oneself be influenced by what the media writes is that every newspaper is owned by a bigger media corporation. This can affect the main view of the paper. The Times is owned by News International Group and The Guardian and The Observer is owned by The Guardian Media Group. A paper can also have a traditional political standpoint that colours the angle of the stories they publish. The Guardian is considered "left-wing" and The Telegraph to be "right-wing”, so their news and feature stories are coloured by that. The lack of objectivity in the press has always been a hinder to getting the full and whole story.
Investigative journalists have done a lot to uphold the media’s role as a watchdog of the state in the 21st century. I think it is important to have a forum, with no agenda other than to inform the public, to dig and find what politicians, criminals and corrupted organisations try to hide from you. One investigative journalist, Paul Lashmar, was one of our guest speakers this autumn term. Lashmar is working on a story about SOCA. SOCA Britain’s answer to FBI and was made by Tony Blair when he was prime minister. The organization published a report saying they had confiscated 89 tons of class a drugs, but did not say anything about where they got their statistics from. ”You need to look under the surface,” Lashmar said.
“These days it’s tougher to be an investigating journalist than when I started,” he said. “When I started people were less sophisticated,” he continued. “It was easier to get an answer out of them.” Nowadays the press offices and the government are prepared and not willing to give out answers that aren’t displaying their best side. They use excuses like “It’s a matter of national security” and “It will reveal our methodology”. This puts the responsibility on the journalists to keep upholding the press’ status as watchdog of the state and ”the fourth estate”. The media is still looked upon as “the fourth estate”, and Lashmar believes journalists have a responsibility “You have to believe in informing people to help them make informed decisions about the society in which they live.” This is one of the things Habermas meant when defining the public sphere.
“The increase of ‘churnalism’ is a worrying trend,” Lashmar said. Churnalism can be explained as journalists writing stories and turning stories over without talking to people or checking the facts. Lashmar says most journalists would go to a press conference and write down what whoever was holding the conference told them. “Do not take anything as given. Be sceptical,” he says. There are many examples of cases where the truth have been “fixed” on or the public attention has been lead in another direction.
With citizen journalism flourishing it becomes even harder to get the objective truth. People blog their opinions about everything. Bloggers are being subjective, and ignoring facts, and giving the people who read their blog just one side of the story.
We should always be careful, and check all the facts before making up our own opinion on a case. People in general do not believe everything they read to be true. Therefore, the press’ role as watchdog of the state has lost some of its power. The genre a story is written in gives the readers a clue on whether to take it seriously or not. There is a big difference between investigative journalism and celebrity gossip. Frederic James said that genres are literary institutions, social contracts between a writer and a specific audience. He also said that ”the generic contract and the institution itself…along with so many other institutions and practices , falls casualty to the gradual penetration of a market system and money economy.” In other words, in our commercialised and capitalistic society we should not swallow everything we read just because it seems to be written in a credible genre.
Even though the public sphere has changed a lot since Habermas made his analyse, it does not mean that it is not viable. On the contrary, it proves just that by adapting to the 21st century. The public sphere has constantly changed, but can still be defined as a "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment."
The internet provides us with an overflow of information, everybody blogs their own opinion, and their own coverage of current affairs. This can prove to be a Damocles’ sword. On one hand it is a victory for freedom of expression that the public sphere is upheld and that we can express our opinions freely. On the other hand it makes us lose our faith in the press and makes the boundaries between private and public unclear. The internet can not control what is put out there and this makes it easier for sub-groups with unhealthy or dangerous attitudes to recruit new members.
The press’ function as a watchdog of the state will probably always exist. But the press has also gained many other functions that might make it unclear when the press is performing its role as the fourth estate and when it is not. We have developed different genres within the media; investigative journalism and tabloidism are some examples. But, as Frederic James said, the genres can not always be trusted.
ENDS
2101 words.
Sources/bibliography:
Guest speakers Leo Hickman, Sarah Adhikari and Paul Lashmar,
Media and Popular Culture lectures,
”Flat Earth News” by Nick Davies,
”The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry” by Jürgen Habermas,
www.wikipedia.orgwww.mirror.co.ukwww.habermasforum.dkwww.thesun.co.uk
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