The Social and Political Role of the Media

3 The Social and Political 1 Role of the Media INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces some key concepts relating to the social and political role of the media. The chapter considers the ideas of the media as a public sphere and as the fourth estate of government. It also discusses the characteristics of the public, commercial and community sectors in Australian media, and the more recent importance of social media and the internet. The chapter finishes by introducing the contents of this book. In doing so, the concluding paragraphs comment on the regulatory and legal traditions that affect media institutions and how these carry through to contemporary media laws. This chapter surveys territory that has been the subject of intense academic exploration. What follows is a brief introduction to broad themes, but it provides a framework for thinking about media law and policy. 1.1 Social and political The media is often described as an ‘institution’. It is charged with social and political purposes that set it apart from most other types of enterprise. The media provides a forum for public debate. It provides the reporting, analysis and opinion necessary for citizens to make informed political decisions. At its best, it supports investigative journalism that holds powerful people and organisations to account on behalf of the public. The media can mobilise support or opposition around an issue and by doing so drive political action. All of this means the media plays an important role in a liberal democracy. A further purpose of the media is simply to entertain, but this is also important.1 The media we consume shapes our personal and cultural identity. Content that may not intend to be political still 1 As affectionately put by Leveson LJ in his report on the culture and ethics of the press: ‘It is not necessary or appropriate for the press always to be pursuing serious stories for it to be working in the public interest. Some of its most important functions are to inform, educate and entertain and, when doing so, to be irreverent, unruly and opinionated. It adds a diversity of perspective. It explains complex concepts that matter in today’s world in language that can be understood by everyone. In no particular order, it covers sports, entertainment, fashion, culture, personal finance, property, TV and radio listings and many other topics. It provides help lines and advice; it supports its readers in a wide variety of ways. It provides diversion in the form of crosswords, games, and cartoons. In short, it is a very important part of our national culture.’ Lord Justice Leveson, An Inquiry Into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press, Executive Summary, November 2012, [9]. Oxford University Press Sample Chapter 01_ROL_ML2_98483_TXT_SI.indd 3 11/05/15 10:06 AM 4 PART 1 Introduction comments on our relationships with each other and how we behave. In this, the media can have ‘reality-defining effects’. The media is, accordingly, not just an institution, but a powerful one. 1.1.1 The public sphere The concept of the media as a ‘public sphere’ traces back to the work of theorist Jurgen Habermas.2 According to Habermas, a public sphere developed in eighteenth-century Europe in which information about business, culture and politics was exchanged and elite citizens discussed questions of state policy and action.3 The public sphere mediated between society and the state. Habermas’s public sphere emerged in the coffee houses and salons of Europe, but the press was fundamentally important.4 Through the press, private opinions were transformed into public opinion. As explained by Habermas: With the growth of a general reading public that transcended the republic of scholars and the urban bourgeoisie and who no longer limited themselves to a careful reading and rereading of a few standard works but oriented their reading habits to an ongoing stream of new publications, there sprang from the midst of the private sphere a relatively dense network of public communication.5 Habermas considered that the public sphere should be free from both state and private interests.6 Mass media was a distorting influence that manipulated and controlled mass opinion, in contrast to the early press, which had facilitated the formation and expression of organic, public opinion.7 As Habermas would have it, a healthy public sphere required small-scale media not motivated by commercial concerns.8 While mass-circulation press and broadcast media have moved away from Habermasian ideals, the understanding of the media as a forum for public debate and a mechanism for converting private opinions into public consensus (or something approaching it) remains powerful. The internet has also clearly affected the constitution and functioning of the public sphere, although both utopian and dystopian visions have been presented on the effects of the internet on the quality of public discourse.9 2 Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, translated by Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992. 3 Habermas’s conception of the public sphere has been subject to heavy criticism, debate and controversy. Some notable criticisms relate to the exclusion from the public sphere of groups such as women or alternative cul- tures. See Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’, in Craig Calhoun (ed), Habermas and the Public Sphere, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1992. A further argument is that there is no single public sphere but in fact multiple and alternative spheres. See T Gitlin, ‘Public Sphere or Public Sphericules?’, in Tamar Liebes and James Curran (eds), Media, Ritual and Identity, Routledge, London, 1998; Richard Butsch, ‘Introduction: How are Media Public Spheres?’, in Richard Butsch (ed), Media and Public Spheres, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007, 4. 4 Habermas, above n 2, 181. 5 Jurgen Habermas, ‘Further Reflections on the Public Sphere’, in Calhoun (ed), above n 3, 425. 6 See Fraser, above n 3, 118. 7 James Curran, ‘Rethinking the Media as a Public Sphere’, in Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks (eds), Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere, Routledge, London, 1993, 38–39. 8 Habermas, above n 2, 181–88. 9 A seminal utopian vision is provided in Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital, Vintage Books, New York, 1995. Cass Sunstein argued, conversely, that the internet would lead to audience fragmentation and the destruc- tion of common discourse: Cass Sunstein, Republic.com, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2002. Yochai Benkler has written about the ‘networked public sphere’ and this has become a well-utilised theory for understanding the dynamics of online public discourse: Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006, Chapter 7 (Political Freedom Part 2: Emergence of the Networked OxfordPublic Sphere). University Press Sample Chapter 01_ROL_ML2_98483_TXT_SI.indd 4 11/05/15 10:06 AM CHAPTER 1 The Social and Political Role of the Media 5 1.1.2 The fourth estate Aside from simply disseminating information and acting as a forum for public debate, the media has an institutional role in investigating and analysing public affairs and the actions of public figures. This adversarial investigative function is central to how the media (at first the press) has historically seen itself. When the printing press was invented it was quickly recognised as dangerous and became subject to strict governmental controls. The freedom of the press from prior licensing and government interference was bound up with the philosophical and political fights over the value of freedom of expression and, more generally, with progress towards liberal democracy. As the press asserted its importance to democracy it came to be referred to as the ‘fourth estate’ of government.10 The concept of the media as the fourth estate is sometimes used as shorthand for any public or democratic role played by the media.11 However, it can have a more specific meaning. At its most distilled, the fourth estate ideal holds that the media will act as a ‘watchdog’ sensitive to corruption and injustice and holding public institutions and actors to account. There are celebrated examples of investigative journalism that give the fourth estate ideal some weight, perhaps the most prominent being the Watergate scandal in the United States. This said, the aspirations of the fourth estate can also easily give way to commercial pressures and competing interests.12 The drift in news media towards more entertainment-driven and sensationalist content is often criticised as a betrayal of the fourth estate ideal. As noted by Schultz, ‘the gap between the rhetorical claims about the role of the media and reality, is huge’.13 1.2 Sectors in Australian media One of the strengths of Australian media is its sectoral diversity. Australian media can be drawn into three basic sectors: public, commercial and community, and all are well represented. The historical development and characteristics of each sector are discussed in the following paragraphs. We also discuss social media. It is a stretch to refer to social media as a sector with equivalent standing to the others mentioned. Social media does not have such clear boundaries or organising principles. The motivations for participating in social media may be public-, commercial- or community-minded, or may be something else. The terms of engagement between traditional media organisations and social media are still being negotiated. Nonetheless, social media and user-generated content are an increasingly important part of the overall media landscape. It is possible to make general statements about social media as distinct from the other sectors, and we do. 10 The other three estates were once the monarch, the clergy and the parliament; now the executive, the parliament and the judiciary: Julianne Schultz (ed), Reviving the Fourth Estate: Democracy, Accountability and the Media, Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1998, 47–48.

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