Nordmedia 2011/Theory Philosophy and Ethics of Communication Kari Karppinen, University of Helsinki kari.karppinen@helsinki.

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Conceptions of democracy in media and communications studies

The performance of the media is routinely assessed against the ideals of democracy. Democracy, however, is not a unified concept that can be easily defined. Beyond the general idea of the rule of the people, it is an ambiguous and abstract value that can be used in several different meanings and contexts. Undoubtedly in much of media and communication studies, as in other fields, terms democracy or democratic are used simply as bywords for any desirable state of things, or to denote general questions about what the media should do in a good society. But if democracy is understood more analytically as a concept or a value to be defined, discussed and contested, we can assume that different normative theories of democracy i.e. theories that seek to define the general principles and values of democracy also imply different intellectual and normative frameworks for evaluating the roles of different media in society. This paper presents some preliminary observations from a project that aims to map the uses of democratic theory and different conceptions of democracy in media and communication studies. The approach of the paper is decidedly exploratory. Rather than advocate or criticize specific conceptions of democracy, the aim is to identify central theorists and broad trends in the theoretical resources that are actually in use in contemporary media and communication studies by using some basic bibliometric methods. Although preliminary, the results of the analysis can be used as a basis for further discussion on the theoretical biases and omissions in current media studies. In the final part of this paper, I combine the analysis with my own observations to offer some remarks in that direction.

The next top model of democracy

Political theorists have produced an abundance of different models of democracy that emphasise competing conceptualizations of its different component values and their proper relationship to each other. Whether or not such normative theories of democracy actually have anything useful to contribute to a better understanding of existing societies in general or media and communications in particular can be debated. Yet various assumed or naturalized dichotomies and taxonomies of democratic theories can influence the terms of academic debates irrespective of their relationship to developments in the real world. The different models of democracy can be deconstructed on multiple dimensions, including their emphasis on the axes of liberty and equality, commonality

and pluralism, participation and representation, and so forth. No actually existing democracy corresponds to any one type of democratic theory, and different theories of democracy often overlap or simply focus on different aspects or levels of analysis so that they cannot be directly juxtaposed as concrete alternatives. Yet, it can be expected that these theories guide the questions, issues, concepts used also in debates on the role media for democracy. The idea that different conceptions of democracy underlie different approaches to the media and journalism has actually been presented quite often (see e.g. Baker 2007, Christians et al 2009, Strmbck 2006). This assumption has also led to speculation about various taxonomies and their impact on media and communication studies. One way of categorizing models is based on existing political and media systems. Ranging from the Four Theories of the Press to comparative frameworks of Hallin and Mancini (2004), there have been many attempts to categorize media systems on the basis of existing political systems and their competing conceptions of democracy. In this paper, however, I am more concerned with the use of ideal models of democracy found in political philosophy, rather than the characteristics of actually existing democracies or media systems. Therefore, the analysis below will mainly focus on theorists and theories associated with the field of study known as democratic theory1. These theories are divided and categorized into number of more or less coherent theoretical traditions. A division is often drawn, for instance, between the broad traditions of republican and liberal models of democracy. The former tradition is typically seen as more interested in the active, substantive role of citizens in the search for common good, while the latter is seen to emphasize citizens liberties and more procedural aspects of democracy. This dichotomy is also acknowledged in the recent book Normative Theories of the Media by Christians et al (2009), which expands it to four models of democracy that have influenced normative theories of the media: the liberal-pluralist, administrative-elitist, deliberative-civic, and popular-direct democracy. These are then associated with a bunch of familiar names including Robert Dahl (liberal), Joseph Schumpeter, Walter Lippman (administrative), Jrgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen (deliberative), and Benjamin Barber (direct). A slightly different division has been drawn between deliberative and agonistic models of democracy. In particular, the division between the Habermasian deliberative democrats and the poststructuralist or postmodern approaches of theorists like Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau and William Connolly seems to have gained ground as one of the main dividing lines in contentemporary debates on democratic theory (see Karppinen, Moe & Svensson 2008). The list of models and categories and theorists goes on indefinitely. Notions like participatory democracy or direct democracy, for instance, have found much use in debates on new media technologies, social media, and their participatory poThis is obviously a limiting choice because democracy is theorized across a range of academic disciplines and all relevant works do not identify as democratic theory or even political philosophy.
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tential. Others argue that developments in media technology justify the use of new concepts like digital democracy or e-democracy. Yet another strand of theorizing has developed around the notions like cosmopolitan or global democracy, which have largely produced their own debates and controversies in the field of international politics and studies of global media. A number of scholars have also noted the inadequacy of the traditional models of democracy to propose their own models, such as complex democracy (Baker 2007) or monitory democracy (Keane 2009), which build on an eclectic combining of various strands of theories. Most of these also have a number of variants. Theorists of deliberative democracy, for instance, have produced versions also known as discursive democracy or communicative democracy, either to emphasize different aspects or just to seek distinction for their own work. Categories like deliberative democracy or participatory democracy also overlap to a great extent and they do not constitute any clearly delineable traditions, and the placement of individual theorists or studies within these categories is always at least partly arbitrary. Yet, in all their indeterminacy I use the approaches as general entry points to illustrate the role of different theoretical assumptions in current media and communication research.

Data and methodology

The empirical results below represent some preliminary observations around a broader project about the uses of different conceptions of democracy in media studies. To reveal a very rough overview of which theorists and theories are most referred to in current media research I have conducted a series of keyword searches in the EBSCOhost Communication & Mass Media Complete (CMMC) database2. The approach of the paper is distinctly exploratory and its aim is to provide a very basic mapping of the extent that different theorists and notions of democracy appear in the recent work done within media and communication studies. The CMMC database was chosen because it represented the most comprehensive and representative source that I was able to access for uncovering broad trends specifically in media and communication studies. To give an idea of the number of articles that discuss the relationship between media and democracy, there were 2 692 results in the database for articles that include democracy in its subject terms or author-supplied keywords since the year 2000. To illuminate the dominant theories, theorists and conceptions of democracy used in the articles, I conducted a series of exploratory keyword searches to determine the frequency of occurrence of specific keywords, phrases and references to people in the articles. Searches included keywords, abstracts, full texts
CMMC claims to offer indexing and abstracts for more than 570 journals, and selected coverage of nearly 200 more, for a combined coverage of more than 770 titles, including full text for over 450 journals in the areas related to communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study. See http://www.ebscohost.com/academic/communication-mass-media-complete.
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and the specific people category of the database. All searches were limited to the time period from 2000 to 2011. The focus on recent years intends to capture the most current research trends and also to keep the data more manageable. A historical analysis of relative changes in the use of different theories could of course be interesting in itself, but it falls outside the scope of this paper. Based on these searches (see tables below), a broad overview of the range and frequency of theoretical sources used in contemporary debates can be formed. The results are necessarily only suggestive of theoretical trends, and they are intended to be used as a basis for a more systematic analysis. The database itself is relatively comprehensive, but it is obvious that it does not include all work done within media and communication studies. The results mainly focus on English-language contributions and largely ignore research done it other languages. Searches based on keywords or names of persons also involve obvious difficulties. The analysis does not take into account the way in which theories or people are discussed. The results also include occurrences where given theorists or theories are discussed critically, dismissed, or only mentioned in passing. When possible, I have tried to take into account different spellings of names, initials and keywords. All possible variations, however, are impossible to take into account so errors probably remain. Similar limitations apply to keyword searches. Some phrases like participatory democracy have very indeterminate uses and can appear in various contexts as general phrases, while others like agonistic democracy have a more specific scope of meaning confined to certain theorists. The keywords are thus not directly comparable. Designing the search terms involved a fair amount of terminological and technical experimentation with different keywords and search options, so the possibility that my own biases and existing knowledge have influenced the results cannot be ruled out. It is inevitable that others would also have thought of other relevant keywords and names to include so it is obvious that all results are suggestive only. I will first present the rough results of the bibliometric searches and then move on from there to discuss some of the issues that arise from the findings combined with my own observations about recent literature on media and democracy.

Uses of democratic theory

Despite the crudeness of the method, the analysis reveals some interesting observations that deserve further discussion. Although the field of media and communication studies is theoretically very diverse and eclectic, one of the initial hypotheses of the project was that current research on media and democracy is strongly focused on few theoretical sources, while many theorists in political philosophy and democratic theory are virtually unknown in media and communication studies.

First of all, it seems evident that debates around the notion of deliberative democracy today constitute the dominant paradigm of discussing the relationship between media and democracy. Even though deliberative or discursive models of democracy have often been presented as challenging the dominant, hegemonic understanding of liberal representative democracy, at least in academic discussions in media and communication studies the deliberative model itself has become the common reference point that needs to be acknowledged even by its critics. In part, the popularity of deliberative and discursive models of democracy in media studies can be explained by their implicit emphasis on public communication and debate, which implies a privileged position for the media as central democratic institutions. In any case, much attention is focused on the role of media in promoting popular participation and public deliberation. Table 1: References to selected scholars in media and communication studies*
Classics John Dewey Hannah Arendt Alexis de Tocqueville John Locke J.S. Mill Antonio Gramsci Immanuel Kant Paulo Freire John Rawls Thomas Hobbes J-J Rousseau Walter Lippman Isaiah Berlin Robert Dahl Joseph Schumpeter Friedrich Hayek Niccol Machiavelli Robert Nozick text 583 369 349 323 282 233 193 173 113 77 76 57 43 31 25 21 20 12 keyw 40 18 1 15 6 14 23 15 18 7 2 2 0 0 2 1 2 0 Contemporaries Jrgen Habermas Nancy Fraser Chantal Mouffe Seyla Benhabib Ernesto Laclau Iris Marion Young Benjamin Barber James Bohman David Held Amitai Etzioni Amy Gutmann Will Kymlicka Dennis Thompson James Fishkin Joshua Cohen William Connolly Jane Mansbridge Jacques Rancire Carole Pateman Pierre Rosanvallon David Estlund Thomas Christiano text 306 167 110 92 90 81 63 54 53 45 40 29 26 21 19 18 16 14 14 4 3 2 keyw 86 11 8 7 11 5 4 1 0 4 1 2 1 2 0 2 0 7 0 0 0 0

*The figures refer to the number of articles in the CMMC database that mention the full name of the selected persons in their full text (first column) or in their keywords (second column)

Table 2: Selected keywords in media and communication studies*

Keyword Deliberative/discursive democracy Participatory democracy Liberal democracy Digital democracy Representative democracy Strong democracy Direct democracy E-democracy Radical democracy Agonistic democracy/agonistic pluralism/radical pluralism Global democracy Socialist democracy/democratic socialism Pluralist democracy Communicative democracy Adversary democracy Cosmopolitan democracy Semiotic democracy Elite democracy Complex democracy Monitory/monitorial democracy full text 758 541 531 328 296 168 163 152 111 59 55 52 42 35 33 27 17 11 8 3 abstract/keyw 117 41 49 30 28 4 17 12 9 7 4 10 3 4 0 6 1 1 0 0

*The figures refer to the number of articles in the CMMC database that include the given phrase either in their full text (first column) or in their abstract or author-supplied keywords (second column).

In terms of references to classic theorists of democracy, a number of names receive a fair number of references, but it is difficult to judge if these mostly include passing references or more sustained engagement with these theorists work. The search to determine the occurrences of these people in the article keywords reveals that at least these half-dozen classic names have attracted enough attention to warrant articles to focus particularly on their work. In terms of contemporary theorists, Habermas is unsurprisingly a dominant figure. What is also interesting is that aside from actual citations or articles that discuss his work in detail, the term Habermasian seems to have become an expression that does not even need to be defined or explained. The term appears 394 times in the articles, more than any individual name, which seems to suggest that the term has gained an implicit meaning and can be used as a short-hand reference for things like rational discussion and the public sphere without even citing the relevant works. Whether of not these references actually reflect the work of Habermas or if there are aspects that have been overlooked in media and communication studies is

beyond the scope of this paper (see Karppinen, Moe & Svensson 2008). In any case, the status of Habermas as the main man of consecutive generations of media scholars is hardly in question, even if he may be used today more as an almost half-fictional reference point more than as an actual discussion partner. Beyond Habermas, the cast of characters is fairly familiar, including Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib and Iris Marion Young, all broadly associated with the debates around the deliberative paradigm. Of theorists that are clearly critical of the Habermasian, deliberative tradition, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau and their theories of radical and plural democracy seem to have generated a fairly stable following also in media studies. Other equally well-known political theorists like William Connolly seem to have attracted much less interest in media studies. As a hypothesis, it can be assumed that certain conceptions of democracy correspond to certain disciplinary subfields or topics of study cultural studies, political economy, and political communication all have their own dominant theoretical resources. Such connections, however, require further analysis. Then what about alternative intellectual resources or new ways of conceptualizing democracy? Based on the data, many of the main figures in current debates in democratic theory like David Estlund (3 results) or Thomas Christiano (2) are virtually absent in media and communication studies texts. References to Pierre Rosanvallon (4) and the notion of counter-democracy (no results), or the notion of complex democracy (8 results) or monitory democracy (4 results) are also almost completely missing in the articles. In part, the slow reception of some new ideas can be explained by the long cycle of academic journal publishing. Yet, the almost complete absence of more contemporary ideas in democratic theory seems to signal at least some lack of vitality in the use of theoretical resources.

Conclusion
The broader project that this paper is part of is premised on the hypothesis that (a) media and communication studies have so far not engaged very profoundly with different theories of democracy in contemporary political philosophy, and that (b) theories of democracy and political philosophy have not really elaborated on the role of media and communication, or discussed the requirements or expectations that different conceptions of democracy place on the media and communication systems in society. According to James Curran (2007, 34), for instance, traditional theory of the democratic roles of the media is so pious, so fossilized and so removed from the realities of contemporary life. New intellectual resources are thus called for, and there many directions even besides democratic theory from which they can be sought. My argument here is that media and communication studies have only selectively and fragmentarily engaged with broader theoretical and philosophi-

cal debates on the value and meaning of democracy the same could perhaps be said for engagement with many other related fields in social sciences. As both John Keane (2009) and James Curran (2007) have noted, the role of the media should not be examined in isolation from other institutions and activities that take place in the civil society and political system. Instead, assessing the democratic roles of the media only makes sense in conjunction with other actors like social movements, think tanks, critical researchers, and political institutions themselves. To understand these dynamics and to make sense of the role that the media could and should have, arguably requires that media studies engages more thoroughly with both empirical and theoretical work in other fields. In this sense, it can be argued that research on the role of media and communication tends to be somewhat isolated from broader questions and concerns in social sciences and political philosophy. Empirical studies, in particular, have perhaps been too media-centric, placing the media in the centre-stage as the central intermediary institution of liberal democracy (Curran 2007, 34). On the other hand, the debates that are more theoretical in nature often seem to be been confined to a narrow range of theoretical resources. Much of the research on media and democracy is based on the standard reading of the works of certain established theorists, such as Habermass work on the public sphere. More extensive references to, or engagement with, contemporary debates in political philosophy and democratic theory are, then, relatively rare in contemporary media and communication studies. One of the objectives behind this exercise has been to help bridge the gap between current media studies and broader debates on political theory. Making the theoretical assumptions and underpinnings of the current debates more visible and thus open to critical assessment is one way of doing that. Besides the assessment of the different theoretical frameworks, another challenge for future research is mapping new, alternative theoretical frameworks for conceptualizing the democratic roles of the media.

References
Baker, Edwin C. (2007): Media Concentration and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Christians, Clifford G., Theodore L. Glasser, Denis McQuail, Kaarle Nordenstreng & Robert A. White (2009): Normative Theories of the Media. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Curran, James (2007): Reinterpreting the Democratic Roles of the Media. Brazilian Journalism Research 3(1): 31-54. Hallin, Daniel & Paolo Mancini (2004): Comparing Media Systems. Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Held, David (2006): Models of Democracy. London: Polity Press.

Karppinen, Kari , Hallvard Moe & Jakob Svensson (2008): Habermas, Mouffe and Political Communication. A Case for Theoretical Eclecticism. Javnost 15(3): 5-22. Keane, John (2009): The Life and Death of Democracy. London: Simon & Schuster. Strmbck, J. (2006): In Search of a Standard: Four models of democracy and their normative implications for journalism. Journalism Studies 6(3): 331345.