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Evaluating Democratic Politics and Communication

This chapter is all about attempts to evaluate politics and communication in democracies. On the one hand, that involves identifying the ideals, norms and values that we might associate with healthy polities. On the other, it involves scrutiny of the institutions, systems and practices that make up the communication ecology of politics.

Clarifying these elements, and the debates that are linked to them, is important for a few reasons. For one, they offer a framework for evaluating what we have, both as a whole and in terms of the individual parts. Second, they aid us in making judgements about whether and to what degree democracy is in crisis. Third, they help identify the range of alternatives on offer, enabling discussion of what might change or be adopted in future.

The chapter links three related literatures. The first of these returns to first principles by outlining the basic philosophy and ideals of democracy as they relate specifically to media and communication. These emerged in political and philosophical treatises, and in response to major political events such as the French Revolution and US Declaration of Independence. In particular, the focus is on general liberal notions of Liberty, Equality and Sovereignty (or Sorority). The second literature is that tied to Jürgen Habermas's historical account of the public sphere, its associated ideals and varied modern equivalents. The third area is comparative systems work, a line of research which has expanded considerably in the last two decades.

Although these literatures are distinct they share a set of norms, values and tensions, each of which sit at the heart of both old and new debates about democracy and communication. These move through abstract notions of what makes for 'good' democracy to discussions of systems and institutions, to more concrete evaluations of what Nancy Fraser (1997) calls 'actually existing democracies'.

Public Communication Ideals and Representative Democracy

Democracy developed historically in opposition to more autocratic forms of rule. The concept of democracy came from the ancient Greeks and literally means 'the rule of the citizen body'. Athenian democracy was practised in some city-states as an alternative to tyrannical rule. That said, participation still excluded the majority, and forms of democracy were limited and usually short-lived.

Similar oppositions to tyranny developed later in Europe's early modern period. Rule by the 'divine right of kings', aided by the nobility and church, became increasingly challenged by parliaments, civil wars and the emerging bourgeoisie. A common set of liberal ideals, involving the participation, rights and responsibilities of individuals and the citizen body, was developed in philosophical treatises. Direct confrontations with English monarchs such as against James II in 1689, the US overthrow of British rule in 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789, all produced new declarations and bills of rights. Each of these contributed to transforming ideals into codified constitutions, law and democratic institutions. In turn, such elements were frequently adopted in the constitutions of emerging democracies through the twentieth century as well as in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are still central, even as their interpretation has become more contested and their application ever more complicated (see Ball and Dagger, 2013; Held, 2006, for an overview).

The larger role of public communication in relation to such democratic ideals was not usually considered. Little was set down much beyond the insistence on freedom of speech and of the press, as contained in the US First Amendment. But, for some key thinkers in earlier centuries (e.g., Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Stewart Mill, Jeremy Bentham), it was a crucial element they paid attention to in their writing. They themselves benefited from the rise of mass printing and the dissemination of new ideas through political pamphlets and newspapers. Accordingly, they looked to print media as an important component of a new, more democratic politics (see Keane's overview, 1991).

Their twentieth-century counterparts (e.g., Walter Lippmann, John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas) pondered the importance of public communication too and added broadcast media into the mix. Current-day thinkers wrestle with the additional mediums of the internet and mobile communication. Clearly, whatever the predominant modes of public communication, it is essential for a number of core operating features of democracy. The ways that a state establishes legitimate public authority, how citizens become informed about issues and electoral candidates, how those in charge are held accountable, and how individuals get a wider hearing for their concerns, all require widely shared, reliable and accessible forms of communication. Accordingly, a set of normative 'ideal' media and public communication functions in democracies have emerged (see Keane, 1991; Norris, 2000; Curran, 2002, for discussions).

What are these core ideals and how do they apply to public communication in democracies? Three core concepts come up in virtually every treatise or declaration of rights: Liberty, Equality and some sense of binding Sovereign Nationhood (or Sister/Brotherhood). They are most simply summed up in the most memorable motto of the 1789 French Revolution, enshrined in the constitutions of later French Republics, as 'Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité'. To put it a (bit too) simply, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity/Sorority are the equivalent of democracy's primary colours.

All three concepts have varied interpretations and applications in democratic theory. Liberty initially referred to physical freedom of the individual (hotly contested in past eras of empire and slavery), and also to the need to be free from the coercion of monarchs and tyrannical states. But, it also came to be interpreted as freedom to participate politically, and freedom of all actions and opinions which did not curtail the freedoms of others. Its interpretations shift across law, politics and society. The Equality principle put all individuals on the same standing, declaring all were born equal, and therefore should have equal rights to free speech, religious affiliation, property and so on. But, what else should be included here is debatable. Equality of health, education and economic means are considered by some to be essential to guarantee 'equality of opportunity' but such factors are ignored or denied by others. And, of course, all societies produce inequality to varying degrees; something which then automatically produces varying life chances from birth onwards.

Sororities/Fraternities (not the kind in US colleges) of necessity demarcate who is to be included, be it on the national, regional or other level. Those 'citizens' who are, make up the general will, contribute to the public good, and have obligations as well as rights. Pretty much every form of democratic citizen body to emerge in earlier centuries, including for much of the twentieth century, has had its exclusions denoted by a combination of gender, race, property, wealth, official citizenship, legal freedom, age and so on.

In relation to public communication, these core ideals are typically interpreted in the following ways. Under liberty, the media has a role to play to support individual liberties and freedom of speech by keeping governments and their leaders in check. This entails holding them up to public scrutiny and exposing corruption and abuses of power. Thus, mainstream news media take on a 'watch-dog role' and have been regarded as the 'fourth estate' (government, parliament and judiciary making up the first three). In terms of political communication, equality translates to equal access to information and to expression of opinion. As democracies advance, so it is argued that the maximum amount of people possible must be able to intervene in public debates on issues that affect them. It is equally important that the maximum amount of people must be informed about relevant political and social changes. A healthy democracy contains a plurality of opinions from different peoples, parties, organizations and institutions.

In relation to national sovereignty or sorority, there is the general sense of public media and communication pulling all citizens together. Political and media systems provide the shared communicative architecture that holds democratic, consensual nation states together. They offer shared platforms for information circulation, deliberation and debate, allowing the citizen body to come to reasoned, rational and fair decisions about the rule of law and the distribution of resources.

These basic ideals are fairly easy to agree on. Historically and in the present, democracies are concerned with balancing the elements of liberty, equality and sovereignty. It is rare to find a politician or newspaper editor in democracies arguing against any of them. Even authoritarian leaders, radical revolutionaries, billionaire media moguls and alt-right news website owners selectively proclaim their merits from time to time.

But, they also co-exist only in an ongoing state of tension. Individual rights sit uncomfortably alongside ideals of equality and community. Practically speaking, it's not possible to give everyone complete freedom or make everyone equal or to give everyone an equal voice. States must act with strong authority and efficiency in...