This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Flew, Terry& Swift, Adam (2015) Engaging, persuading, and entertaining citizens: mediatization and the Australian political public sphere. International Journal of Press/Politics, 20(1), pp. 108-128. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/79440/ c Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. 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If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161214552500 International Journal of Press/Politics Engaging, Persuading and Entertaining Citizens: Mediatization and the Australian Political Public Sphere Journal:For The InternationalPeer Journal Review of Press/Politics Manuscript ID: RA-IJPP-Feb-2014-026.R2 Manuscript Type: Research Article Public sphere, Political participation, Television, Political advertising, Keywords: Television campaign, Broadcasting news This paper draws upon public sphere theories and the 'mediatization of politics' debate to develop a mapping of the Australian political public sphere, with particular reference to television. It discusses the concept of a ‘political public sphere’, and the contribution of both non-traditional news media genres, such as satirical television and infotainment formats, to an Abstract: expanded conception of the political public sphere. It considers these question in the context of two case studies: the Q&A program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and its uses of social media and interactive formats to engage citizens, and the comedy program Gruen Nation, also on the ABC, which analyzed the use of political advertising to persuade citizens during the 2013 Australian Federal election. http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijpp Page 1 of 42 International Journal of Press/Politics 1 2 3 4 5 Engaging, Persuading and Entertaining Citizens: 6 7 8 9 Mediatization and the Australian Political Public 10 11 12 Sphere 13 14 15 16 17 18 For Peer1 Review 19 Terry Flew and Adam Swift 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 1 54 Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia. 55 Corresponding Author: 56 Terry Flew, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, 57 Queensland, Australia, 4059. 58 Email: [email protected] 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijpp International Journal of Press/Politics Page 2 of 42 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction: Developing a ‘Media Map’ of the Australian Political 7 8 9 Public Sphere 10 11 12 13 The relationship of media to citizenship, politics and governance in democratic 14 15 1 16 societies is one that has been widely analyzed. Political philosophers and reformers 17 18 such as John Locke,For Thomas Peer Paine, Thomas Review Jefferson and J. S. Mill, all critically 19 20 reflected on the status of media to political discourse, and in the twentieth century 21 22 Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, Robert Dahl and Jürgen Habermas, among many 23 24 25 others, have ‘allocated the press and public media a central role in democracy … 26 27 [and] the normative “ideal” media and public communication functions’ (Davis 2010: 28 29 7). Brian McNair (2011: 18–20) has observed that the minimal functions of the media 30 31 in liberal democracies are that it: 32 33 34 35 36 • informs citizens of what is occurring in their society and in the world; 37 38 • educates citizens as to the meaning and significance of facts and events; 39 40 • provides a platform for competing and dissenting opinions , so that an 41 42 43 informed public opinion can emerge; 44 45 • gives publicity to the actions of governments and political institutions, 46 47 including critical scrutiny (the ‘watchdog’ function); 48 49 • serves as a channel for the advocacy of competing political viewpoints. 50 51 52 53 54 Underlying such observations are a range of questions about the actual performance 55 56 of various media in relation to citizenship and the democratic process. It also raises 57 58 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijpp Page 3 of 42 International Journal of Press/Politics 3 1 2 3 issues about which media are being considered in such discussions, since clearly not 4 5 all media are intended to perform primarily political roles. The most influential 6 7 normative benchmark that has been adopted for evaluating the performance of 8 9 10 different media is that of the public sphere . 11 12 13 14 As developed by Jürgen Habermas, the public sphere has been defined as ‘a realm of 15 16 our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed [and] 17 18 For Peer Review 19 access is guaranteed to all citizens’ (Habermas, 1974: 49). For Habermas, ‘citizens 20 21 behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion—that is, with the 22 23 guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and 24 25 publish their opinions—about matters of general interest’ (Habermas 1974: 49). The 26 27 media constitute one of a number of institutional spaces through which ‘private 28 29 30 persons could agree about matters of public importance, not simply out of deference 31 32 to traditional authority, but through the give and take of reasoned discourse’ (Johnson 33 34 2012: 20), with news journalism facilitat[ing] the consciousness of a novel public 35 36 made up of private persons able to inform themselves about matters of importance 37 38 39 and able to air and share their concerns with distant others’ (Johnson 2012: 21). 40 41 42 43 Habermas’ public sphere concept has for half a century provided a key framework for 44 45 analyzing the content, style and democratic functionality of political media. But one 46 47 of the challenges of public sphere theories is identifying the relationship between the 48 49 50 formal institutions of the public sphere – governments, parliaments, courts, state 51 52 agencies, political parties etc. – and the informal institutions, networks and practices 53 54 that enable and sustain (or possibly undermine) its ongoing development. Among the 55 56 questions that have been raised in media and communications studies include: 57 58 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijpp International Journal of Press/Politics Page 4 of 42 4 1 2 3 4 5 • The relationship between ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ media, and questions of the 6 7 perceived quality of different media and their contribution to political 8 9 10 discourse (Turner 1999, 2005; Nolan 2008); 11 12 • The relationship between commercial and public service media, and whether 13 14 the latter have a privileged role in representing the ‘public sphere’ to the wider 15 16 citizenry (Garnham 1990; Lowe 2009; Hendy 2013); 17 18 For Peer Review 19 • Assessing the contribution of non-news program genres to the political 20 21 process, including infotainment, satirical media, and so-called ‘soft news’ 22 23 formats (McKee, 2005; van Zoonen, 2005; Gray et. al. , 2009; Baym 2010;); 24 25 • Identifying the contribution of the Internet to the media/politics relationship, 26 27 28 and determining whether new practices such as blogging, citizen journalism 29 30 etc., as well as the opening up of all media to more interactivity and citizen 31 32 engagement through online discussion forums and social media, have opened 33 34 up channels of political communication to greater citizen engagement and a 35 36 37 more diverse range of contributing voices (Benkler 2006; Bruns et. al. 2011; 38 39 Curran et. al. 2012). 40 41 42 43 In more general terms, there is the issue of whether to think about political media, or 44 45 political public sphere 46 the media of the , as being distinct from other media, or as part 47 48 of a continuum with other media. Public sphere theories have often sought to define 49 50 the institutions and practices of public sphere media as being distinct from, and in 51 52 opposition to, other media forms: information as compared to entertainment; quality 53 54 rather than popular; public service versus commercial media; ‘hard’ news rather than 55 56 57 ‘soft news or ‘infotainment’; professional journalism as compared to blogging; and so 58 59 60 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijpp Page 5 of 42 International Journal of Press/Politics 5 1 2 3 on. From a media and cultural studies perspective, John Hartley (1996) argued that 4 5 the public sphere, or the mediated space of formal politics, is only one element of a 6 7 broader mediasphere , which is in turn shaped by the broader ‘semiosphere’, or the 8 9 10 world as understood through the cultural forms by which it is represented.