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Beyond Journalism: A Profession Between Information Society and Civil Society 179

less interested in the changes in the day-to-day working routines of journalists that
might occur (see Bardoel, 1993) than in the broader mission that is attributed to the
profession in relation to political democracy and social integration in any society.
Although the latter function of comment and critique is all too often identified
with the written press, the same holds true, in principle, for the ‘workers of the
word’ in audiovisual and electronic media.
We start by charting the opposing points of view and then go on to develop
a vision of the future of journalism. First, the arguments that state that the
profession of journalism will become redundant.

Will journalism become redundant?

The gradual but inexorable shift in the current media landscape from print to
audiovisual means (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, 1994) is not doing the profession
any good, so the first assumption goes. Because of the written word and the greater
level of abstraction and selectivity, the journalistic surplus-value of the old print
media is, it is argued, almost by definition greater than that of the audiovisual media.
Television prefers easy-to-follow problems and short ‘sound bites’ (Rosenblum,
1993). Shocking images make a greater impression than deep debate on the
underlying problems. These substantive objections against television journalism
will carry even more weight as people come to rely more on television for information
on ‘serious’ subjects. Politicians make use of television’s strong position in order to
address the electorate directly, circumventing the (critical) press. Over the past few
years there have been some telling examples: Ross Perot, Bill Clinton and Silvio
Berlusconi. Perot’s sudden success fuelled a debate in the United States on what
Sandel (1992) has called ‘electronic bonapartism’. In Europe, a comparable discussion
on ‘tele(vision-demo)cracy’ took place after the meteorite-like rise of Silvio Berlusconi
and his electoral association Forza Italia.
As well as shifts within the existing media – from print to audiovisual – there
is also the impact of new technology. First, we notice the explosion of information
as more new information is produced and the accessibility of existing sources of
information, such as databases, increases. Within this growing flow of infor-
mation, the part played by journalistic products will decrease proportionately,
the assumption being that the ‘communication pressure’ it creates reduces both
journalism’s scope and the citizen’s accessibility.
A primary element of this increasing communication pressure is the amount of
information, the increase in the volume of information. By now it is well known
that the supply of information is expanding explosively, while the amount of
time available to the receiver remains more or less constant (Van Cuilenburg
et al., 1992: 51–68). In order not to lose track, or to miss as little as possible,
consumers have taken refuge in increasingly impatient communication
behaviour of which ‘zapping’ has become the symbol.
But there is more. The speed at which news and information circulate in society
is also assumed to be steadily increasing (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau,
1994: 427). News circulates ever faster and the public adjusts its pattern of