Page 43 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

i.e. have an influence on ‘objective’ political reality – to the
extent that ‘the acts of whoever holds supreme power are made
available for public scrutiny, meaning how far they are visible,
ascertainable, accessible, and hence accountable’ (Bobbio,
1987, p. 83). There must be, to use Mikhail Gorbachev’s
famous formulation, a degree of ‘openness’ surrounding the
activities of the political class if the ‘public opinions’ of the
people are to have any bearing on decision-making.
• Finally, the media in democratic societies serve as a channel
for the advocacy of political viewpoints. Parties, as noted in
Chapter 1, require an outlet for the articulation of their policies
and programmes to a mass audience, and thus the media must
be open to them. Furthermore, some media, mainly in the
print sector, will actively endorse one or other of the parties at
sensitive times such as elections. In this latter sense, the media’s
advocacy function may also be viewed as one of persuasion.

For these functions to be performed adequately, and thus for a
real ‘public sphere’ to exist (and, by extension, ‘real’ democracy), a
number of conditions have to be met. For Habermas, the political
discourse circulated by the media must be comprehensible to
citizens. It must also be truthful, in so far as it reflects the genuine
and sincere intentions of speakers (one may, for example, have dis-
agreed with the politics of Margaret Thatcher, while acknowledging
that she genuinely believed in the positive effects of an unrestrained
free market). Hauser summarises Habermas’s views thus:

[F]irst, the [public sphere] must be accessible to all citizens.
. . . Second, there must be access to information. . . . Third,
specific means for transmitting information must be
accessible to those who can be influenced by it . . . [and]
there must be institutionalised guarantees for [the public
sphere] to exist.
(Quoted in Cooper, 1991, p. 32)

In short, democracy presumes ‘an open state in which people are
allowed to participate in decision-making, and are given access to
the media, and other information networks through which advo-
cacy occurs’ (ibid., p. 42). It also presumes, as we have stated, an
audience sufficiently educated and knowledgeable to make rational
and effective use of the information circulating in the public
sphere.

22