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SILENT DEMOCRACY, NOISY MEDIA ARJA ALHO Helsinki 2004 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk University of Helsinki brought to you by CORE Faculty of Social Sciences provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Department of Sociology SILENT DEMOCRACY, NOISY MEDIA ARJA ALHO Academic Dissertation To be presented with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki for public criticism in the Main Lecture Hall, Unioninkatu 35, on June 11th 2004 at 12 o'clock noon. Helsinki 2004 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors, Riitta Jallinoja and Risto Alapuro, for their support and patience; the preliminary examiners of this thesis, Matti Hyvärinen and Kyösti Pekonen, for their valuable comments; Neil Mann for guidance with the English; my friends at York University for their help at the beginning ; and my family for their love and encouragement. Siuntio, June 2004. Tätä julkaisua myy ja välittää: Yliopistopaino Kustannus | Helsinki University Press PL 4 (Vuorikatu 3 A), 00014 Helsingin yliopisto fax (09) 7010 2374 puh. (09) 7010 2363 [email protected] www.yliopistopaino.fi/kirjamyynti ISBN: 952-91-7330-X (paperback) ISBN: 952-10-1902-6 (pdf) ABSTRACT SILENT DEMOCRACY, NOISY MEDIA The aim of my research in Silent Democracy, Noisy Media is to study representative democracy and the public sphere as a domain of democracy through four specific decision-making processes. According to Habermas, the public sphere is an analytical category between the state and civil society, and embraces more than just the media, serving as a common theatre for citizens, with free access and quality of discourse. The structural transformation of the public sphere includes the trends of modernity, specifically globalization and mediazation. These trends have also affected the nation state and its exercise of power. Mediazation has made the exercise of power transparent but, at the same time, fragile because of political scandals, leaks and outbursts. I explore modernity s tendency to globalize through two cases: Finland s decision to enter the European Union s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) among the first countries and the development of trade policy during the early stages of the World Trade Organization (WTO). To analyze the role of mediazation two more cases are studied: the privatization of Sonera, including the political scandal which led to the dismissal of Pekka Vennamo as CEO and the resignation of Matti Aura as a Minister, and the Ministry of Labour s attempts to restructure labour policy, which led to the so-called Black Lists scandal and the fear of a threat to freedom of the press. The thesis is a case study, based upon interview material, which is analyzed and cast as narrative, using grounded theory . Media response is analyzed with the help of content analysis. The interpretation and conclusions of the study are based upon comparison of the actors in each case, the information and communication (I&C) structures, along with the impacts of mediazation and globalization. My major conclusions are that: there is oligarchy with oligarchy in Finnish political life, which means that part of the political elite is excluded from the I&C structures; information flows but no communication takes place; the commitment of the political elite to its decisions, including rational-critical debate, is weak; globalization is seen as a given, neither analyzed or challenged by the elite; there is no strategy other than making sure that the country is represented in the forums where the decisions are made; mediazation is powerful, with the media being able to change the direction and focus of political news without any internal checks or scrutiny, particularly in the case of scandals; the role of entertainment, including the phenomenon of tabloidization, is a strong factor in the new ethos of journalism; the public sphere is far from being the ideal domain for rational- critical debate serving the needs of democracy; the media merely make noise rather than analyze; Finnish governance is technocratic rather than political, so that democracy is silent. TIIVISTELMÄ HILJAINEN DEMOKRATIA, ÄÄNEKÄS MEDIA Tutkimuksen Hiljainen demokratia, äänekäs media tarkoituksena on selvittää edustuksellisen demokratian suhdetta julkiseen sfääriin ja saada näin käsitys demokratiamme toimivuudesta neljän eri päätöksentekoprosessin avulla. Julkinen sfääri on Habermasin määrittelyn mukaan analyyttinen kategoria valtion ja kansalaisyhteiskunnan välillä. Julkinen sfääri on enemmän kuin joukkotiedotusvälineet. Se on kuin yhteinen teatteri, jonne kansalaisilla tulee olla pääsy ja jonka tulee tarjota mahdollisuudet kriittiselle yhteiskunnalliselle keskustelulle. Julkinen sfääri on muuttunut modernin myötä. Globalisoituminen ja medioituminen ovat modernin keskeisiä tendenssejä, jotka ovat muokanneet myös julkista sfääriä. Samat muutokset ovat muokanneet myös poliittista päätöksentekoa niin, että kansallisvaltioiden ohella globaaleilla rakenteilla on merkitystä. Medioituminen puolestaan on tehnyt päätöksenteosta avointa mutta samalla lisännyt poliittisen järjestelmän alttiutta haavoittuvuudelle poliittisten skandaalien ja vuotojen kautta. Tutkimuksessani selvitetään seuraavia eri päätöksentekoprosesseja: Suomen liittymistä ensimmäisten maitten joukossa Euroopan raha- ja talousliittoon (EMU), Suomen Maailman Kauppajärjestöpolitiikan (WTO)muotoutumista globalisoitumisen vaikutusten analysoimiseksi, Soneran yksityistämistä ja siihen liittynyttä poliittista skandaalia (Ministeri Auran ero ja pääjohtaja Pekka Vennamon potkut) sekä työvoimapolitiikan uudistamista ja siihen liittynyttä skandaalia mustista listoista, joiden uskottiin vaarantavan lehdistön vapautta medioitumisen analysoimiseksi. Tutkimuksen metodeina on käytetty sekä case study-metodia hyödyntämällä haastatteluaineiston analysoimisessa myös grounded teoriaa että sisältöanalyysia lehdistökirjoittelua tutkittaessa. Jokainen tapaus esitellään narratiivisessa muodossa. Tulkinta esitetään vertailemalla tapauksia, niitten toimijoita, informaatio- ja kommunikaatiorakenteita ja medioitumisen ja globalisoitumisen vaikutuksia poliittisen eliitin argumentointiin, toisiinsa. Keskeiset johtopäätökset ovat seuraavat: oligarkian sisällä on oligarkia , osa poliittisesta eliitistä on suljettu informaatio- ja kommunikaatiorakenteiden ulkopuolelle; informaatio virtaa poliittisen eliitin sisällä ilman että käytäisiin yhteistä keskustelua ja sitouduttaisiin tehtyihin valintoihin; globalisoituminen nähdään annettuna tosiasiana, johon poliittinen eliitti ei katso voivansa vaikuttaa; medioituminen on johtanut siihen, että poliittisten skandaalien syntyessä aloite asioiden hallitsemisesta siirtyy poliittiselta eliitiltä medialle; median viihteellistyminen ja tabloidisaatio korostuu journalismin uudessa eetoksessa; julkinen sfääri ei toimi ideaalilla tavalla rationaalis-kriittisen keskustelun foorumina; suomalainen media on enemmän äänekästä kuin analyyttista; suomalainen hallitsemistapa on teknokraattista poliittisen sijaan, demokratia on hiljaista. CONTENTS Introduction........................................................................................................................4 SOCIOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................................16 1. Democracy ....................................................................................................................16 2. The Public Sphere as a Domain of Democracy .........................................................30 3. Reflexive Modernity.....................................................................................................42 4. Mediazation ..................................................................................................................50 4.1. Development of Mediated Communication .........................................................50 4.2. The New Ethos of Journalism ..............................................................................58 4.3 Political Scandals ..................................................................................................63 4.4. Photojournalism....................................................................................................71 5. Globalization.................................................................................................................77 5.1. Effects on Nation States and Regions ..................................................................80 5.2. Economic Globalization .......................................................................................84 6. Research Methods and Data .......................................................................................93 EMPIRICAL STUDIES ....................................................................................109 7. The EMU case – The EMU can fly! ...........................................................................109 7.1. Data ....................................................................................................................111 7.2. Actors .................................................................................................................113 7.3. The Narrative of the EMU case..........................................................................115 7.4. Media Response .................................................................................................145 7.5. Conclusions ........................................................................................................153 8. The WTO case
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