Page 12 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

Introduction
Peter Dahlgren

The public sphere is a concept which in the context of today’s society
points to the issues of how and to what extent the mass media,
especially in their journalistic role, can help citizens learn about the
world, debate their responses to it and reach informed decisions about
what courses of action to adopt. The essays collected in this volume all
address aspects of the relationship between the mass media and the
public sphere, both in Europe and the USA. From a variety of
intellectual standpoints, they all touch upon topics and debates which
are central to the daily functioning of a democratic society. In the
discussion which follows, I briefly trace the evolution of the idea of a
public sphere, especially as it was developed by Jürgen Habermas.
Delving into some issues of Habermas’s conceptual framework and
methodology, I will argue that despite the undeniable pathbreaking
quality of his work, there remains some troublesome ambiguity at the
core. I then offer some reflections on the renewal of the concept of the
public sphere.
Some version of what we have come to call the public sphere has
always existed as an appendage to democratic theory. As the vision of
democracy has evolved historically, so has the view of the desirability
and feasibility of fora where the ruled can develop and express their
political will to the rulers. And clearly the view among rulers and ruled
has often been at odds. The development of mass-based democracy in
the west coincided historically with the emergence of the mass media as
the dominant institutions of the public sphere. As the political and
cultural significance of traditional and localized arenas continue to
recede in the wake of social transformations and media developments,
the notion of the public sphere moves to the fore and takes on a
particularly normative valence. It becomes a focal point of our desire
for the good society, the institutional sites where popular political will
should take form and citizens should be able to constitute themselves as