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People imagine that their opinions are
their own, not those of corporate moguls who compete to colonise
the public sphere. We are not as free in thought as we think.
German philosopher and political
scientist Jèrgen Habermas is often credited for his immense
contribution to sociology and critical theory among other areas
of scholarly endeavour. His most memorable achievement, however,
is his introduction of the concept of the "public sphere",
a phenomenon, he argued, that rose in Europe in the 18th century
and was forced into an untimely hibernation by the same forces
that led to its inception.
Habermas's public sphere enjoyed
convenient yet reasoned specificity in time and place: 18th century
England. The formation of bourgeois culture coupled with an expansion
of liberal democracy gave rise to an increasingly educated populace
with precise interests, rights and expectations. Using coffee
houses and other public places as mediums for dialogue, the English
bourgeoisie managed to create their own public sphere, which
eventually contributed to the formation of public opinion. Other
Western democracies, notwithstanding France with its undeniable
history of active citizenry, were soon to be part of the growing
movement.
Of course, Habermas's concept,
like any other groundbreaking realisation, generated debate,
and an intense one at that. Some argued that there are indeed
various "public spheres", overlapping and simultaneous.
Others argued against the existence of such a concept altogether.
The debate is, obviously, much more elaborate and unlikely to
end any time soon. But Habermas's ideas and their outreach --
first introduced in his book The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into
a Category of Bourgeois Society in 1962 -- persist in relevance
and import.
The rise and endurance of the
public sphere of the 18th and 19th centuries was momentous in
the sense that it finally defined a relationship between the
state and the public on somewhat more equitable grounds than
hence. Public opinion finally mattered, or so it seemed. The
way that such opinion was communicated required fewer mediums
and even less middlemen.
Regardless of where the public
sphere begins and where it ends -- for at times it failed to
fairly represent women, minorities, labourers and other historically
marginalised groups -- it at least succeeded in establishing
and defining the boundaries between the "life-world"
and the "system"; the first representing the mutual
solidarity of those involved in making the public sphere and
the latter concerned with the state, its apparatus, and its own
concern with power and authority.
As expected, the relationship
would have to be that of push and pull, whereby the life-world
would fend for and attempt to expand its social and political
significance while the system would incessantly attempt to colonise
the public sphere and its life-world. One would rightly expect
that a healthy democracy is one that offers a balance of power
between the public and the state, enough to keep those in power
in check, and to protect society from a state of chaos.
Evidently, well-established
democracies were little interested in reverting to past historic
experiences with feudalistic and authoritative regimes. The 20th
century was proof of that assertion as much as it was of the
rapid colonisation of the public sphere by other means aside
from brute power and coercion: that of capitalism.
Capitalism saw the uneven distribution
of wealth, and thus power. While the bourgeoisie public sphere
of past centuries had long conceded to an ever-expanding life-world,
the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, once again,
redefined the relationship between the public and authority.
The system had finally managed to penetrate the virtual solidarity
of the life-world through newfound rapports struck between the
state and the new capitalists. Those with the money found it
more beneficial to keep public opinion in check to appease the
state, in exchange for a share of power and privilege that can
only be granted by the state; thus the populace might think that
its opinion counts, but in actuality, it matters little.
This may explain why Habermas,
among others, spoke of the "rise and fall" of the public
sphere at a time when we seem to have more access to media platforms
than ever before. In short, what remains of the public sphere
is the illusion that there is one.
Habermas's ideas require no
compelling reason to be discussed; they are compelling on their
own. However, an article in The Guardian on 1 July by Lance Price,
former media advisor to the British prime minister, brought the
topic back to mind. Price asserted that media tycoon Rupert Murdoch
was arguably the most powerful man in the media world today.
Murdoch, an Australian-born US citizen, literally owns a significant
share in public opinion through his control of the world's largest
media conglomerates.
"I have never met Mr Murdoch,
but at times when I worked at Downing Street he seemed like the
24th member of the cabinet. His voice was rarely heard [but,
then, the same could have been said of many of the other 23]
but his presence was always felt," Price wrote.
Murdoch "attended many
crisis meetings at the Home Office -- the influence of the Murdoch
press on immigration and asylum policy would make a fascinating
PhD thesis," the author of the best-selling The
Spin Doctor's Diary added. "There is no small irony
in the fact that Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to address
Mr Murdoch and his News International executives in the first
year of his leadership of the Labour Party and that he's doing
so again next month [July, 2006] in what may prove to be his
last."
Shocking as they may seem,
the revelations of Price, a man once intimately involved in the
workings of the British government, appear utterly consistent
with the strengthening bond between the mainstream media and
governments in Western democracies. Such a bond is equally, but
especially visible in the United States.
But the relationship between
states and media become even the more dangerous when both team
up -- and not by accident -- on the same ideological turf. Murdoch
is a right-wing, pro-Israeli (widely known to be a personal friend
of Ariel Sharon), pro-war ideologue. In 2003, every editorial
page of his raft of 175 newspapers around the world touted the
same pro-war mantras. Some might have innocently deduced that
the "world's media" were all inadvertently converging
on a consensus that sees President Bush as someone who is "acting
very morally [and] very correctly", to borrow Murdoch's
own language, and that such convergence is a reflection of the
overall international public consensus on the matter. Reality,
however, was starkly different.
Of course, Murdoch, who owns
numerous newspapers, TV stations and news services throughout
the world is not the exception, but the norm. In fact, a greater
convergence is constantly taking place in the media world in
the United States, which gives a few individual media conglomerates
unprecedented ownership of thousands of radio and television
stations, newspapers, magazines, etc. While some still laud the
"freedom of the press", little aware of who owns what,
democracy is being greatly compromised: the "life-world"
is conceding like never before to the ever-encroaching "system",
and a true "public sphere" is almost non-existent,
at least in any meaningful form.
While states cannot prevent
events or guarantee absolute power for themselves, they've understood
the inimitable value of the media in its ability to forge a favourable
climate of public opinion that seems incidentally consistent
with that of the state. In exchange, the commercial and even
ideological interests of those who own the media are always guaranteed.
As long as such a correlation is not fully recognised and disabled,
true democracy will continue to experience a frightening decline,
whereby meaningful participatory democracy is replaced by mere
democracy rhetoric used to satisfy political, ideological, and
ultimately imperialistic ends. Without a crucial awakening that
gives the public back what is rightfully theirs -- its opinion,
its public sphere and its democracy -- this downward spiral is
likely to continue.
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