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Political Communication Systems All Change: A Response to Kees Brants 123

But my complaint is that both sides in this dispute tend to rely too heavily on
what Stromer-Galley and Schiappa (1998: 27) have termed ‘audience conjectures’ –
that is, ‘claims about specific effects on audiences or claims describing the
determinate meaning of a text for audiences’, without offering confirming data. As
Stromer-Galley and Schiappa argue, those who make such claims should ‘support’
them ‘with audience research’. Applying this stricture to the subject in hand, it
seems to me that the academic study of infotainment and related phenomena has
been lopsidedly skewed towards trend analyses of media content. Of course it is
vital that such trends be monitored. But we will not be able to fathom their civic
significance until attempts are made systematically to undertake research into the
range of audience responses to the range of newer formats. In fact Brants’
‘infotainment scale’ could play an important part in such a project of comparatively
designed reception research, enabling us to gauge whether there are important
differences (and if so, of what kinds and for whom) in viewers’ politically relevant
responses to programmes graded differently on the scale.

New world, new citizenship?

Finally, some revisionist ideas about the meaning of ‘citizenship’, incomple-
tely thought through, appear in the conclusion to Brants’ article. He is not
alone in this. Quite a few commentators have latterly been striving to ‘rethink
citizenship’ without claiming to have found problem-free answers (Buckingham,
1997). Many influences have fed this effort: the assumption that the so-called
Enlightenment project is dead; a fuller appreciation that no real-life public
sphere is anything like an academic seminar and that very few real-life citizens
approach political issues like model students; a recognition that the informational
needs and processing styles of many younger people are radically different from
those of their elders (Buckingham, 1997); and the increased visibility of more
raw ways of addressing social issues common in talk shows and other populist
forums.
Brants’ response to this development appears in the following two statements:

In political communication, the affect of the supposed consumer should be
taken as seriously as the cognitive of the acclaimed citizen. (p. 332)
Civil society should not only include the discursive and decision-making
domain of politics but also the vast terrain of domestic life. (p. 333)
What troubles me about these remarks is the impression conveyed that almost
any approach to citizenship could be acceptable. If we want to think things
through, fine; but if we just want to get worked up about them, that’s equally
fine. And if we are interested in more structural issues of economic management,
social distribution and power structures, great; but if we are hooked on divergent
sexual behaviours, conflicts and deviations, that’s equally all right.
I personally doubt whether such a tolerant balancing act is sufficient for any
concept of citizenship that includes the ideal of ‘empowerment’. Of course