Page 42 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 21

POLITICS, DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA
DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA: A CRITIQUE

Since the eighteenth century the media, and the functions listed above, have
grown ever-more important to the smooth workings of the democratic
political process. The achievement of universal suffrage in most advanced
capitalist societies during the twentieth century was paralleled by a tech-
nological revolution in the means of mass communication as print, then film,
radio and television became available to mass audiences.
Since the 1950s especially, and the expansion of television into virtually
every household in the developed capitalist world, interpersonal political
communication has been relegated to the margins of the democratic process.
Nowadays, as Colin Seymour-Ure puts it, television has become an ‘integral
part of the environment within which political life takes place’ (1989, p. 308).
Surveys show that for the vast majority of people the media, including now
the internet, which grows in importance with every year, represent the main
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source of their information about politics. How, then, does the reality of
contemporary political discourse as communicated through and by the media
correspond to the ideal described above? To what extent do the media perform
the role allotted to them in liberal democratic theory?
Answering these questions requires a critical examination of both demo-
cratic structures and the media environment around them. It would, of
course, be naive to expect that these two sets of institutions should function
perfectly. It is important, however, to acknowledge the ways in which they
fall short of the ideal, and the significance of these shortcomings.

The failure of education
First, it is argued by some observers that the normative assumption of a
‘rational’ citizenry is not realistic. For Bobbio, one of the great ‘broken
promises’ of liberal democracy is the failure of the education system to
produce rational voters, a failure which he sees reflected in the growing
political apathy characteristic of such democratic exemplars as the US. ‘The
most well-established democracies’, he argues, ‘are impotent before the
phenomenon of increasing political apathy, which has overtaken about half
of those with the right to vote’ (1987, p. 36). When those who have the right
to vote decline to do so, democracy is clearly less than perfect. In the UK
general election of 2001, only 58 per cent of those eligible actually voted.
Turnout was 65 per cent in the general election of 2010.
Looking at the phenomenon of low voter turnout from another angle, it
may be argued that political apathy is an entirely rational, if slightly cynical
response to a political process in which it may appear to the individual
citizen that his or her vote does not matter. While democratic procedures
must include regular elections, it may be felt that voting once every four or
five years for one of two or at most three rather similar parties is ineffective

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