Public Opinion and Public Sphere-The Role of

Unit1-Media and Democracy
Public opinion and public sphere-

the role of media in democracy
Introduction
“Public Sphere”-Development of concept
Role of media in public sphere
the media and the democratic process
Introduction
 It is area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and
identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.
 Here, “Public” word stresses related to the notion of the common. In terms of
public health, education, public opinion or ownership.

 Definition-
German sociologist Jürgen Habermas has called ‘the public sphere’.

By the public sphere we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which
something approaching public opinion can be formed. Citizens behave as a public
body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion – that is, within the guarantee of
freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their
opinions.
Cont..
scholar Gerard A. Hauser defines it as
"a discursive space in which individuals and groups associate to discuss matters of mutual
interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment about them".
Conditions of the public sphere are according to Habermas:

 The formation of public opinion
 All citizens have access.
 Conference in unrestricted fashion (based on the freedom of assembly, the
freedom of association, the freedom to expression and publication of

opinions) about matters of general interest, which implies freedom from
economic and political control.
 General rules for debate
“Public Sphere”-Development of the concept
 Habermas locates the development of the public sphere in eighteenth

century Britain, where the first newspapers had already begun to perform
their modern function of supplying not only information but also opinion,
comment and criticism, facilitating debate amongst the emerging bourgeois
and educated classes.
 According to Habermas, In the coffee-house and salon cultures of Britain
and France, debate and political critique became, for the first time, public
property (meaning, of course, the bourgeois public, which excluded the
mass of poor and illiterate underclasses).
 According to Habermas, the first use of the term ‘public
opinion’ was documented in 1781, referring to ‘the critical
reflection of a [bourgeois] public competent to form its own
judgments
 Public sphere emerged as a set of institutions representing a
sort of buffer zone between the state and private sphere, to
protect them from arbitrary decisions that interfered with what
they considered private activities in an irrational way.
Media role in Public Sphere
 the press in particular was to function as an instrument

or a forum for the enlightened, rational, critical, and
unbiased public discussion of what the common interests
were in matters of culture and politics.
 In the words of Josef Ernst, in short the public sphere
‘the bourgeois realm of politics’ which has gradually
expanded from its elitist beginning to include absolute
majorities of the population in modern democratic
societies,
 The public sphere as can be seen, comprises in essence the communicative
institutions of a society, through which facts and opinions circulate and by
means of which a common stock of knowledge is built up as the basis for
collective political action: In other words the mass media, which since 18th
century evolved into the main source and focus of society’s shared
experience(figure 2.1)
 The modern concept of ‘news’ developed precisely as means of furnishing
citizens with the most of view their political activities and of streamlining
and guiding public discussion functions which are taken for granted in
contemporary journalism.
The media and democratic process
 There are five functions of the communication media in “ideal type”
democratic societies:
1. ‘surveillance’ or ‘monitoring’ –
they must inform citizens of what is happening around them.
2. Educate
They must educate as to the meaning and significance of the facts. The
importance of this function explains the seriousness with which journalists
protect their objectivity, since their value as educators presumes a
professional detachment from the issue being analysed.
Cont..
3. platform for public political discourse:
it must facilitates the formation of ‘public opinion’ and feeding that opinion
back to the public from whence it came, this must provide provision of space
for the expression of dissent, without which the notion of democratic
consensus would be meaningless.
4. Publicity
The media’s fourth function is to give publicity to governmental and political
institutions. The watchdog role of journalism exemplified by the performance
of the US media during watergate episode and the British Guardians
coverage of the cash-for-question scandal, In India 2G scam, allocation of
coal mines scam etc.
5. Channel for the advocacy
Finally, the media in democratic society serve as a channel for the
advocacy of political viewpoints. Parties require an outlet for the articulation
of their policies and programmes to a mass audience and thus the media must
be open to them.
furthermore, some media mainly in the print sector, will actively endorse
one or other of the parties at sensitive times such as elections.

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Unit1-Media and Democracy

Public opinion and public sphere-

public health, education, public opinion or ownership.

German sociologist Jürgen Habermas has called ‘the public sphere’.

Conditions of the public sphere are according to Habermas:

 All citizens have access.

 Conference in unrestricted fashion (based on the freedom of assembly, the

freedom of association, the freedom to expression and publication of

 Habermas locates the development of the public sphere in eighteenth

 the press in particular was to function as an instrument

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