Page 207 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

RACE

such dominant powers if it is to be a corrective to them. Only in this
way can it effectively produce democratic conditions. This was a
weakness, for it allowed no function of the public sphere to be
assigned to commercial organisations and media (whether the latter
were public service media owned by the state or private commercial
media).
Media theorists (for example, Garnham, 1986; Price, 1995) have
used Habermas’ public sphere to explain the importance of
communication for the processes of democracy. If we accept that
communication is important for democracy, Garnham points out, the
next question is howto position this goal within ‘the conditions of
large-scale societies in which both social and communicative relations
are inevitably mediated through both time and space’ (Garnham,
1986: 365). This is the democratic nature of the media in today’s world
– they exist as an arena for knowledge exchange on a large scale, from
which people are able to gain the information necessary to participate
fully as citizens.
Feminist perspectives on Habermas’ work have highlighted the
exclusionary, elitist nature of the public sphere’s original conception.
Habermas’ public sphere was based primarily on the process of debate
and knowledge exchange. The participants’ status was not a factor in
the success or character of the public sphere. In response, Fraser (1992)
asserts that it is unrealistic to assume that the historical exclusion of
women, or the racial and property criteria needed to participate in the
public sphere, can be overlooked. Rather, the likelihood is that
ignoring group differences will lead to the exclusion of some groups
from participation within the public sphere. For Fraser the solution is
to see not a singular public sphere but a number of public sphericules,
through which groups interact, contest and withdraw to when they so
desire. In viewing the public sphere theory in this way, it is possible to
offset the reality that participatory privileges are something to be
enjoyed only by members of the dominant group.

Further reading: Calhoun (1992); Fraser (1992); Habermas (1996); Price (1995)

RACE

Race is a system of categorisation that classifies populations by
reference to physical attributes such as skin colour and other perceived
bodily distinctions. An implication of such a system is that different
races inherit common behavioural and emotional traits. Yet the

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