Page 46 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS, DEMOCRACY AND THE MEDIA

Although, in the post-Cold War environment, there may be good
reasons for the abandonment of long-standing ideological and
political slogans which reflect an earlier phase of capitalist develop-
ment, in such circumstances the voter may reasonably feel that a
vote for one party or another will have little or no impact on the
conditions and quality of life.
And what of the British Liberal Democrat, who sees his or her
party permanently excluded from national political power despite
gaining up to 25 per cent of the vote at general elections? Demo-
cratic procedures, in short, usually contain anomalies and biases
which make them less than democratic.

Capitalism and power
Socialist and Marxist critiques of liberal democracy are more
fundamental, arguing that the real loci of power in capitalist societies
are hidden behind formal political procedures: in the boardrooms
of big business; in the higher reaches of the civil service and security
apparatus; in a host of secretive, non-elected institutions. The
people may elect a Labour government, the argument goes, but any
attempt to implement a genuinely socialist programme (even if the
government wanted to do so) inevitably meets with resistance in
the form of bureaucratic obstruction, flights of capital abroad, the
use of the Royal prerogative, and dirty tricks of the type described
by Peter Wright in Spycatcher (1989). From this perspective, the
democratic process as pursued in Britain and most other developed
capitalist societies is merely a facade, behind which the real levers
of political and economic power are wielded by those for whom the
citizenry never has an opportunity to vote.
Some of these criticisms are accepted even by the most ardent
defenders of liberal democracy. Let us assume, however, that the
procedures of democratic politics are fundamentally sound; that
election results are meaningful and effective in shaping governments
and their behaviour; and that voters will respond rationally to
the political information they receive from the media and else-
where. Were all these assumptions justified, we may still identify
a fundamental weakness of democratic theory as it relates to
the media. According to the theory, the citizen is a rational subject
who absorbs the information available and makes appropriate
choices. He or she is, as it were, the repository of knowledge
existing out there in the world, which is converted unproblem-
atically into political behaviour. In reality, however, what the

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