Media and Democracy (Communication and Society) by James Curran

Media and Democracy (Communication and Society) Reviews

• 
  Trevor

  I really enjoyed this book. The thing I like about it most is the sheer breadth of topics covered. I mean, it starts by talking in the most general terms about the media and democracy and ends by talking about the history of the media and how advertising has effectively decided a lots of media content, but along the way it talks about the role that the internet is thought likely to play in the democratisation of the media, the role of entertainment programs in providing input to core societal debates about women’s rights and the use of torture, and even a fascinating chapter on various technologies from the 1990s on that were supposed to ‘revolutionise’ the media and society and that have consistently proven to have been ‘over-egged’ and generally by those most likely to gain the most from these technologies and the politicians who always seem to fall for everything media barons tell them. This really is a fascinating book.
  
  He starts by saying that the US relationship to the media is perhaps rightly considered the ‘light on the hill’ – which is odd, as much of the rest of the book shows that the US model is anything but simple or unequivocally positive. The problem is that the media is a key part of what Habermas calls the ‘public sphere’ – that is, something that came out of the enlightenment and involved society in a kind of debate around the key issues affecting people in society and a key means for them to resolve these issues. The media’s role is not necessarily to be completely objective – it is hard to know what that would even mean – but it is to follow certain means of organising its reports and that, at the very least, needs to have the appearance of objectivity (even if that only means not telling outright lies). The media in the US, the model, as I said before, is to have a media that is part of the market of ideas, but a market in all senses – not just by providing a place where various ideas can be stated, but that the media itself should be owned by people at arm’s length from the government. The problem with government control of the media can be seen on both the left (say, the Soviet Union – where the two main newspapers were called The Truth and The News and where the joke was that there was no truth in the News and no news in the Truth) and the right (shown all too clearly in Italy and the circus that has been Berlusconi).
  
  But this book is certainly not naïve enough to say that all you need is a free market and the democracy will look after itself. In fact, there are important things that the state can and should do to make sure that there is a robust democratic debate in society and that certainly isn’t to just let the free market have its way. The problems associated with the tabloid press in England are given as the standout example here where the argument that the papers are ‘just giving people what they want’ utterly forgoes any role the media might have in providing society with a forum for addressing the key issues facing it, but this also actively undermines democracy by presenting the most sensational and outlandish examples of what is occurring at any time as being somehow the norm and therefore encouraging people to have a highly distorted view of the problems that society faces. The example I quote all of the time is from something I read somewhere that said that people that get most of their news from watching television actually have a less accurate understanding of the world than people who actively avoid all forms of news. This is because the poor bastards that watch television news are likely to think that they live in a world where grannies are constantly being raped and murdered, car accidents are getting chronically worse and more frequent and sharks are on the verge of leaving the sea when they are feeling particularly bloodyminded and attacking people walking down the street. As is shown in one of the chapters here, such people are also likely to know next to nothing at all about international news. I often see an advertisement for a local commercial television channel's news program as quickly runs through the ‘top stories’ for the day. It is surprising how rarely these ‘top stories’ involve anything that happened outside of my local city. Almost invariably the stories are about something to do with transport, something to do with shopping, something to do with a local, male sporting event and a human interest story often involving either a dog, a cat or a child.
  
  A chapter in this book discusses a survey that was conducted to see what people in various countries knew about international news, and countries were shown to differ considerably. However, for the English speaking world the words ‘stuff all’ came to mind – and this was particularly true of the US. This is interesting as the author also points out repeatedly that the US is a kind of imperial power in denial. This status of the US similarly distorts its media coverage, particularly in relation to the various US military adventures and how these are justified (rather than discussed) in the press. Effectively, as the war in Iraq proves virtually conclusively, the US media is far too closely associated with the government in relation to these wars – it being almost completely impossible to say anything criticising such actions once they begin and troops are deployed. This is, of course, just about the exact opposite of what a good media ought to do. The tragedy of this is that rather than ‘supporting our troops’, such unconditional support for military adventures without scrutiny means condemning troops to fight in wars that are often senseless and likely to cause more harm than good – as Paris this weekend shows all too clearly. That such large proportions of the US public believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraq had been an active participant in the 9/11 attacks is a shocking indictment on the US media and the utter failure of its role to provide more than ‘infotainment’ from far too embedded journalist that proved to be nearly gleefully fact-free.
  
  But, with that said, if you woke up one morning and thought that the world was coming to an end and you only had time to read two chapters of this book, I would suggest you ought to read 4 and 6. Chapter 4 discusses the parts played by the television shows 24 and Sex in the City in informing debates about the US use of torture in the war on terror and on the changing role of women particularly on the parts that relationships play in their lives.
  
  Now, I don’t watch television very often and certainly have not watched either of these shows (even a single episode of either) nor have I watched any other US drama/sit com since probably MASH. I find most television execrable (a word I’ve only recently learned derives from the French for 'to curse' – where I’d always thought it came from excrement - that is, shit – so, I mean this now in both senses, both the actual derivation and my presumed one). Reading about these shows did nothing to disabuse me of my prejudice against US television drama. Still, it did help to explain how Abu Ghraib might have occurred. The idea that a highly successful US television show was justifying torture at the time this was occurring during the war on terror really does call into question the role and the association of the media in relation to government and the military.
  
  The other chapter that is a must read is the one on what the media and politicians had to say about various technological advances – from CD Roms and Cable Television, through to the Internet. Invariably, these technologies have been presented as about to utterly change everything, from our economy, to our education system, to how we do just about every aspect of our lives – and after quoting at length these predictions, the reality is then presented in all of its non-revolutionary blandness. Oh dear. It is all a bit like those things that you sometimes see when someone looks back a year later at the predictions psychics made just before last year’s New Year's Day - presumably assuming that everyone reading their predictions would be too hung-over to recall them in detail later. There is an uncomfortable delight in all this, of course, particularly in smugly getting to say, "they really didn't have a clue, did they?" – but the problem with these technological predictions is that they are also invariably self-serving predictions from people with the most to gain from talking them up, and given that those people also generally are strongly associated with the media, the conflict of interest in presenting the most rosy view imaginable becomes all a bit uncomfortable for more reasons than can be excused due to ‘a bit of overly-optimistic exuberance' on an objective reporters part. The media’s role ought to be to protect us from such conflicts of interest. But as decades of attacks on public broadcasters has shown, self-interest is too often the norm for large parts of the media.
  
  I haven’t touched on the role of advertising in ensuring that the media presents views that have proven to be to the right of public opinion for decades on various issues, particularly those of privatisation, but the discussion here on this is also very interesting. Actually, virtually everything in this book is interesting and worth knowing. Like I said, I enjoyed this one very much.
  
• 
  Ibrahim

  James Curran, in his book ‘Media and Democracy’, outlines the changes media are experiencing, and what caused these to analyse the consequences it has on the quality of democracy. Throughout the book, he posits that the main solution to degrading the democratic compatibility of media is to create a journalistic culture. A tradition where journalists are professionals and have provided balanced and informative information. Curran understands how to allow for such a culture, there needs to be a certain economic environment for journalists and, therefore, he refers back to the goal of creating this culture when tackling other threats.
  
  The overarching theme of the threat he outlines to the media’s role in democracy is media autonomy. He starts with looking at the consequences of the commercialisation of media and how an intense profit motive weakens the autonomy of journalists. This profit motive is created by greater motivation and, therefore, he provides a non-conventional perspective on the importance of completion. While competition may be ideal in most sectors, he says that greater competition “weakens the autonomy of journalists.” The underlying point on the profit motive is that it is only productive if profit incentivises firms to align with the socially optimum act. In the case of media, an intensified profit motive encourages media to promote interesting and attractive stories, whether or not they are informative.
  
  Nevertheless, Curran moves on to highlight a benefit of the commercialisation of media: TV entertainment. He argues that “TV drama, film and factual entertainment affords a debate about the values that underpin politics.” He portrays this as a positive thing since it allows for engaging with social values, public norms and identity. I tend to agree with the importance of a discussion of values in a democracy, however, this should not be replacing balance analysis on socio-economic issues, since it is this balanced reporting that leads to informed citizens and therefore the rule of the people. Yet, this is what the profit motive does and therefore, regardless of the benefits of entertainment, since it replaces reporting it has a net negative impact. Entertainment is a great supplement to encourage this discussion and get people to think of them while they are relaxing, nevertheless, news media should not be producing “entertainment” nor should they show it on prime time.
  
  Nevertheless, up to this point, I agree with his characterisation of what threatens media autonomy and the function of the media. However, he goes on to argue that a “democratic media system should include media serving sectionalise groups as well as society as a whole” so that minority groups can be heard and included. I’m quite surprised by this argument because he does underline the threat partisan media has on democracy. I seem to think this argument is based on the assumption that the dominant parties do have media that unquestionably align with their beliefs. If that is the case, then his argument stands as it is necessary to cancel this out. Nevertheless, if we are looking to move towards a more democratic formulation of media, any form of partisan media should be discouraged whether or not it is directed at the marginalised or not. Against the argument that this will silence the marginalised, I argue that if media are obliged to provide balanced information, they will also have an obligation to present these minority views with equal consideration. In a commercialised media world, these views aren’t heard as it is a minority view. Therefore, not many would share the perspective, which is harmful to their advertising prospects.
  
  How this obligation is created is another interesting question the book delves into. Curran first used the example of the BBC and how through legal measures it remains a reliable and balanced news source. The legislative route seems to attract Curran. He does provide an overview of different possible solutions academics have suggested, yet he calls public reformism “a compelling alternative.” Public reformism seeks to enhance the democratic performance of media through legislation that promotes the public-interest culture amongst journalists.
  
  Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the structure of his argument. It wasn’t particularly clear to me what the argument and he seemed to jump to different places. I had to have a hard think and read my notes before formulation his argument is. With the title being “Media and Democracy” I expected more to do with democracy. The last section and a significant part of the penultimate section were more focused on media studies rather than democracy.