An article from Democracy & Nature: The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy vol.5, no.1 (March 1999)
Media and culture in a democratic society
Culture and a democratic conception of citizenship
I am not going to repeat here the discussion on the fundamental components of an inclusive democracy and the necessary conditions, which have to be met for the setting up of it. Instead, I will try to focus on the implications of the democratic institutional arrangements on culture and the role of media.
The starting point is that the conditions for democracy imply a new conception of citizenship: economic, political, social and cultural. Thus, political citizenship involves new political structures and the return to the classical conception of politics (direct democracy). Economic citizenship involves new economic structures of community ownership and control of economic resources (economic democracy). Social citizenship involves self-management structures at the workplace, democracy in the household and new welfare structures where all basic needs (to be democratically determined) are covered by community resources, whether they are to be satisfied in the household or at the community level. Finally, cultural citizenship involves new democratic structures of dissemination and control of information and culture (mass media, art, etc.), which allow every member of the community to take part in the process and at the same time develop his/her intellectual and cultural potential.
It is obvious that the above new conception of citizenship has very little in common with the liberal and socialist definitions of citizenship, which are linked to the liberal and socialist conceptions of human rights respectively.[44] Thus, for the liberals, the citizen is simply the individual bearer of certain freedoms and political rights recognised by law which, supposedly, secure equal distribution of political power. Similarly, for the socialists, the citizen is the bearer not only of political rights and freedoms but, also, of some social and economic rights, whereas for Marxists the citizenship is realised with the collective ownership of the means of production. Furthermore, the conception of citizenship adopted here is not related to the current social-democratic discourse on the subject, which, in effect, focuses on the institutional conditions for the creation of an internationalised market economy ‘with a human face’. The proposal for instance for a redefinition of citizenship within the framework of a “stakeholder capitalism”[45] belongs to this category. This proposal involves an ‘active’ citizenship, where citizens have ‘stakes’ in companies, the market economy and society in general and managers have to take into account these stakes in the running of the businesses and social institutions they are in charge of.
The conception of citizenship adopted here, which could be called a democratic conception, is based on our definition of inclusive democracy and presupposes a ‘participatory’ conception of active citizenship, like the one implied by the work of Hannah Arendt.[46] In this conception, “political activity is not a means to an end, but an end in itself; one does not engage in political action simply to promote one’s welfare but to realise the principles intrinsic to political life, such as freedom, equality, justice, solidarity, courage and excellence”.[47] It is therefore obvious that this conception of citizenship is qualitatively different from the liberal and social-democratic conceptions, which adopt an ‘instrumentalist’ view of citizenship, i.e. a view which implies that citizenship entitles citizens with certain rights that they can exercise as means to the end of individual welfare.
Although the above conception of citizenship implies a geographical sense of community which is the fundamental unit of political, economic and social life, still, it is assumed that it interlocks with various other communities (cultural, professional, ideological, etc.). Therefore, the community and citizenship arrangements do not rule out cultural differences based on language, customs etc, or other differences based on gender, age, ethnicity and so on; they simply provide the public space where such differences can be expressed. Furthermore, these arrangements institutionalise various safety valves that aim to rule out the marginalisation of such differences by the majority.[48] What therefore unites people in a political community, or a confederation of communities, is not a set of common cultural values, imposed by a nationalist ideology, a religious dogma, a mystical belief, or an ‘objective’ interpretation of natural or social ‘evolution’, but the democratic institutions and practices, which have been set up by citizens themselves.
However, as I attempted to show elsewhere[49] this cultural pluralism does not mean a kind of cultural relativism where ‘everything goes’. In other words, it is possible to derive an ethical system and correspondingly a set of cultural values which is neither ‘objective’, (in the sense that it is derived from a supposedly objective interpretation of social evolution—Marx, or natural evolution---Bookchin), nor just a matter of individual choice. There can be a set of common or general moral criteria by which individual actions could be judged, i.e. a code of democratic ethics, which would be based on the fundamental principle of organising a democratic society around a confederal inclusive Democracy,[50] (i.e. a democracy based on a confederation of demoi, or democratic communities).
This code of democratic ethics may be derived out of the two fundamental principles of organisation of a confederal inclusive Democracy, i.e. the principle of autonomy and the principle of community. Thus, out of the fundamental principle of autonomy one may derive a set of cultural values about equality and respect for the personality of every citizen, irrespective of gender, race, ethnic identity etc. Out of the same fundamental principle one could derive the principle of protecting the quality of life of each individual citizen -- something that would imply a relationship of harmony with nature. Similarly, out of the fundamental principle of community life one may derive a set of values involving solidarity and mutual aid, caring and sharing. These values should constitute an integral part of the dominant social paradigm so that democracy can reproduce itself. This of course does not exclude the possibility, or rather the probability, of the existence of alternative cultural values, or perhaps even of a conflict between personal and collective values ---particularly with respect to those citizens who cannot reconcile themselves with the tragic truth that it is wewho determine our own truth and might still adhere to moral codes derived from irrational belief systems (religions, mystical beliefs etc). However, as long as these people are in a minority, (hopefully, a dwindling one, through thePaedeia of a democratic society), the conflict in their personal values with the collectively defined values should not be a problem for the community as a whole.
Democratic media
The sufficient condition which has to be met so that democracy will not degenerate into some kind of “demago-cracy”, where the demos is manipulated by a new breed of ‘professional’ politicians, is crucially conditioned by the citizens’ level of democratic consciousness. This, in turn, is conditioned by Paedeia. It is therefore obvious that the cultural institutions, particularly the media, play a crucial role in a democracy, given their role in the formation of Paedeia.
So, let us now consider the nature and role of the mass media, as cultural institutions, in a democratic society. First, there is no reason why the mass media in a democratic society will distort rather than reflect reality. As political and economic power would be equally distributed among citizens and therefore the existence of institutionalised elites would be excluded, the media would face none of the present dilemmas whether to reflect the reality of the elite, or particular sections of it, versus the reality of the rest of the population. Still, even in an inclusive democracy there is still the problem of the possible emergence of informal elites, which may attempt to exercise some sort of control over the information flows. It is also clear that no democracy is possible unless its citizens are fully informed on anything affecting their life. Therefore, a way has to be found to organise the decision-taking process in the media so that, on the one hand, citizens are always fully informed and, on the other, the media are under the real control of the community. 
It is obvious that it is citizens as citizens, through their assemblies, who should determine the overall operation of mass media and supervise them. This function could not just be assigned to the councils of media workers because in that case the democratic society will run the double risk of media not expressing the general interest, as well as of the possible emergence of new media elites within, at least, some of them. This does not, obviously, mean that the assemblies will determine every day what the content of TV news bulletins will be, or what the papers would say next day. What it does mean is that the community assemblies would set strict rules on how full diversity and accountability could be achieved and then supervise the application of these principles in media practice.
Diversity implies that all sorts of views should be given full access to the media, provided that that they have been approved by the community and media workers’ assemblies. Assuming that these assemblies have internalised the dominant democratic social paradigm, one could expect that they would not give easy access to views which contradict the democratic values (e.g. views promoting racial, sexist, religious values etc). However, the decision will always rest with the assemblies and if they see no contradiction involved in giving full access to such views this will simply herald the degradation and eventual collapse of the democratic society itself.
Accountability implies that the media workers would be accountable for their decisions to the media workers’ assemblies in the first instance and, next, to the community assemblies. Such a structure of accountability would be compatible with the lack of hierarchical structures in the media and the fact that it will be the communities themselves that would ‘own’ the media institutions.
So, this dual system of decision-taking, whereby overall decision-taking and supervision rests with the community assemblies, whereas the determination of detailed operational functioning of the media is left to the media workers’ assemblies, to my mind, guarantees that not only the general interest is adequately taken into account but also that the day-to-day decisions are taken democratically by the media workers themselves.
An interesting video on how big of a grasp media has on people in their everyday lives.
The following site talks about how the media effects and influences children and how it shapes them. It also shows the how the media even effects learning and educational institutions.
“Television is the literature of the illiterate, the culture of the low-brow, the wealth of the poor, the privilege of the underprivileged, the exclusive club of the excluded masses”
-Lee Loevinger
I chose Chapter 2 Culture and the Media because when we covered the chapter I found it very interesting. Even if we live in a highly multicultural area we can still be somewhat sheltered to other cultures. This chapter provided a bit of an eye opening into the lives and traditions of some other cultures.
Learning about countercultures was something I also found interesting because prior to college many of us have been exposed to countercultures almost on a daily basis. I saw countercultures the most at school and never really understood why the people did what they did. I just thought that they were weird. This chapter gave a little bit of insight into that topic.
Learning about countercultures was something I also found interesting because prior to college many of us have been exposed to countercultures almost on a daily basis. I saw countercultures the most at school and never really understood why the people did what they did. I just thought that they were weird. This chapter gave a little bit of insight into that topic.
| NAME:_______________________________ DATE:_____________ |  |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment