• media should act as a power for the public interest not for the government for their exploitation of humans by carving ideologies in order to profit
• Habernas created the ‘ public sphere ‘ signifying an intertwined network thats global
• Habernas believed that a functioning democracy needed a public voter thatwas infromed and debated on the issues of the day
• government utilizes media to withhold info instead of sharing it
• media is a watchdog
• this watchdog role is said to override in importance all other functions of the media

In short, Jurgan Habermas argued that the media should work for the public’s interest, to inform them with correct information (especially info to do with  the government, authority and control), and not purely in a commercial interest. He believes that in order to have democracy the public must be informed, aware and debate on issues.  He also thinks that the mass media and globalization has reduced the effectiveness of the public sphere – that there are fewer voices discussing the news (concentration of ownership)

“The media ceased to be an agency of empowerment and rationality, and became a further means by which the public was sidelined” – James curran; media and democracy revisited 

‘The private political opinions of the individual become the public opinion of the people as a whole’ – brian mcnair

‘Supplying not only information but also opinion, comment, and criticism’ – brian mcnair  

The public wants a free market when it comes to news, however laws have to be put in place to prevent them from lying and saying really offensive things. But if the government put too many laws in place then the news becomes controlled by the state 

The public sphere is a public space which in the past was hard to reach since because there was little way to communicate with others far away from you. Due to media inventions like the printing press and the subsequent growth of literacy, more people are able to connect with each other to use the media in public interest.

Habermas believed that a functioning democracy needed a public voter base that was informed and debated on the issues of the day. Because of the conglomeration of media companies, the issues were filtered to the people through only a few sources. This is the opposite of plurality, which Habermas believes is a good thing that democracies need to function.

Media Watchdog – The idea that the media should act as a watchdog against the state to inform the people of what the government is doing.

• Habermas describes the public sphere as a “society engaged in critically public debate”
• Habermas has allowed all types of media to become interconnected in some sort of way
• Plurality?
• Democracy?
• Concentration of ownership?
• Media watchdog?

• communication between the media and consumers based around a dominant ideology
• media creates new ideologies
• Habermas – development of early modern capitalism created public debate
• people need to be informed and aware of things to form a democracy
• public space between private domain and the government
• source of public information

DENNIS MCQUAIL:

Mass media in the public interest

• The media can be held accountable for what they do
• something’s in the public interest if it serves the ends of the whole society rather than those of some sectors of the society (Banfield 1955)

JAMES CURRAN:

key concepts in liberal democracy :

• media = public watchdog
• public representative
• source of public information

• Public service broadcasting is unresponsive to popular demand

PSB

regulation – free market? or state control

Habermas had a theory of ‘public sphere’ where communication is virtual and society needs to know information through media because it’s what’s good for society to grow.

Media Watchdog

The watchdog role is to override in importance all other functions of the media, and to dictate the form in which the media should be organised.

Public Interest

Denis McQuail states the media serves the public interest whether it’s on purpose or not. In other words they are doing this for the wider benefit of society especially in social and political life.

Regulation- Free market? or State control?

Habermas came up with the theory of the public sphere. He says that there is communication between dominance and the public through the public sphere, using the Media.

Plurality is essential to make people aware and keep communicating

Democracy is essential for other people to have opinions and to have a better world overall. This helps to make sure we live in a fair and understood world.

Around the 1900’s all of the companies were bought

Habermas believes that democracy depends on a public which is informed aware and debates on the issues of the day

‘Habermas argues that the development of early modern capitalism brought into being an autonomous arena of debate’

‘A good starting point for re-thinking the democratic role of the media is provided by the seminal study of Habermas’

‘Fundamental presumption that the media do serve the ‘public interest”

‘public service broadcast organisations tend to be unduly influenced by the political class’

‘public service broadcasting does not necessarily correspond to reality’

Regulation – free market? or state control?

The government creates laws to make sure that people don’t print bad or hurtful things or lie. But then the state are controlling the media.

• The i is a British national morning paper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at “readers and lapsed readers” of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent.
• In March 2016 The Independent decided to close its print edition and become an online newspaper; the last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016.
• Oliver Duff is the current editor for the i.
• The i’s political stance is Liberalism‎ and ‎Centrism so its target audience are liberals and centrists
• It costs £3.12 a week for the digital and paper edition together but 99p a month for the app.
• The i circulates around 221,083 different people per year.

• News Values – The criteria that is needed to influence the selection and presentation of events as published news.
• Gatekeepers – A person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, who is granted access to a category or status.
• Deregulation – The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry.
• Free market – A system in which the prices for goods and services are self-regulated by the open market and by consumers.
• Monopolies & Mergers – A British government organization whose job is to examine cases where two companies plan to join together to form one company, and to decide whether this would be bad for other businesses because there will be less competition.
• Media concentration / Conglomerates / Globalisation (in terms of media ownership) – A process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.
• Vertical Integration & Horizontal Integration
• Neo-liberalism and the Alt-Right
• Surveillance / Privacy / Security / GDPR
• The Leveson Enquiry – A judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011.
• The Cairncross Review – A survey that was sent out to the public by the government about what we should do about journalism in the UK

The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action.

Such a discussion is called public debate and is defined as the expression of views on matters that are of concern to the public—often, but not always, with opposing or diverging views being expressed by participants in the discussion.

Public debate takes place mostly through the mass media, but also at meetings or through social media, academic publications and government policy documents.