Abstract
The title of this collection of articles is meant to provoke, and will hopefully intensify, a long overdue debate. The five articles presented here made up a session at the 2011 International Association for Media and Communication Research conference in Istanbul. The panel then carried the somewhat more circumspect title of ‘Does journalism have to be defined in terms of democracy?’ which, in the course of our discussions, turned into the more emphatic question, ‘How much democracy does journalism need?’ This change in the title is telling. It turns journalism into the active rather than the dependent party, and signals that journalism does have a life outside democracies.
All panellists agreed that the dominance of the journalism and democracy paradigm found to date in scholarly literature has led to a distortion in the way journalism is perceived. In this, the query ‘Does journalism have to be defined in terms of democracy?’ as far as the panellists were concerned, came close to being a rhetorical question to be answered in the negative. While all acknowledge that there has been a time and place when the close linkage of journalism and democracy was valid, they do not see this being the case any more.
It was no coincidence that the session was placed in the history section. Two articles look closely at the historical development of the journalism and democracy paradigm, and a third uses historical samples to argue for a different view of the role of journalists. The other two articles turn their attention to different regions – Southeast Asia and Latin America.
The journalism and democracy paradigm owes much of its pervasiveness to its simplicity, and also its normativity. It seems to imply that there is only one kind of journalism and one kind of democracy, or at least notionally one desirable type of each. This has provided a yardstick against which journalism is judged as to whether it fulfils its role of advancing and upholding democracy.
These articles turn the tables. As Barbie Zelizer writes, while ‘one might argue that journalism has been historically necessary for democracy, the opposite assertion does not hold to the same degree’. In her view, circumstances show that democracy has not been necessary for journalism, and the idea that democracy is the lifeline of journalism has not been supported on the ground.
The main intention here is to critique the journalism and democracy paradigm, not to propose a new paradigm. In effect, the articles are testimony to the fact that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to propose a new paradigm. The media world has become vastly more complex and journalism is practised in multiple ways that have moved beyond the enticing simplicity of the journalism and democracy paradigm.
As John Nerone points out, that paradigm is indebted to a historiography that saw the political development of liberal societies as the key context for the history of journalism. Nerone looks at the ‘Historical roots of the normative model of journalism’, and does so in a deliberately irreverent article. At the outset, he defines journalism as a discipline of news, and positions the appearance of the hegemonic model of journalism in the West in the late 19th, early 20th century. After tracing the rise of journalism and the forces that shaped it, he turns to what he calls, citing Mancini, ‘stupid normativity’.
The ‘stupidity’ lay not necessarily in the norms but in the injudiciousness of exporting and applying to the rest of the world a rigid model that contained many unacknowledged ‘fantasy’ elements. According to Nerone, being blind to the fantasy in one’s own model led to a blindness to the fantasies in other models, thus leading the West to treating any other than their own supposed standards of journalism as inadequate or harmful.
Now Nerone sees the western model in its twilight with the base of the hegemonic model of journalism, its agenda-setting powers, quickly disappearing.
But as yet he cannot foresee any ‘clear contender for the next hegemonic journalism, the next prevailing discipline of news’. It remains to be seen what parts – and there are good sides to normativity – of the old tradition will emerge in the new news environment. What Nerone would like to see vanish is the ‘stupid normativity’ that automatically labels as authoritarian any media that does not comply with what the western hegemonic model has declared to constitute ‘real independence’.
Barbie Zelizer pursues the theme that the shelf life of democracy in journalism scholarship is approaching its use-by date. She similarly positions the emergence of the journalism and democracy paradigm in the late 19th century, resting on values such as rationality, certainty, consent, reasoned thought, order, objectivity and progress. Journalism was expected to promote these values, which resulted in expectations of journalism being more an articulation of aspirations than bearing resemblance to actual practices. Even in those days, journalism had little of the objectivity attributed to it and was practised in types of governance that deviated from the assumed notion of democratic process. In the present day, the United States and the United Kingdom, both of which are traditionally used by scholars as prime examples of the journalism and democracy nexus, are displaying deeply problematic aspects of journalistic practice. Why then, asks Zelizer, has democracy retained its central role in so much western academic theorizing about journalism? As answer Zelizer puts forward that democracy has continued its long life in academic scholarship about journalism ‘because much of the scholarly world in the West – and specifically the United States – depends directly or indirectly on the presumption of democracy and its accoutrements’. In this, academic theorizing has further entrenched the journalism–democracy nexus in the scholarly debate because, as Zelizer writes, ‘so much existing institutional knowledge depends on its presence’.
So what effect does this scholarly self-interest, vested in keeping the paradigm afloat, have? According to Zelizer, it promotes a vision smaller than the world of journalism inhabits, and leads to the ongoing criticism that journalism scholarship works from too narrow a base. Even if, as Zelizer acknowledges, ‘the goods on the ground are less shiny’, scholarly discussion has to put aside the blinkers forced upon it by the dominant paradigm and explore and incorporate this knowledge into the body of its work. Only this, Zelizer argues, will permit journalism scholars to speak reliably about the world of journalism practice.
Zelizer’s demand to put greater emphasis and consideration on journalism practice when defining journalism is also strongly promoted by the next two studies. In fact these articles, although written entirely independently of each other and greatly different in detail, overlap in their major points.
Like Nerone, I point to the fact that, even if fears of the demise of journalism are generated by scholars in North America, no such decline can be observed in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Like Zelizer, I argue that the use-by date of the journalism and democracy paradigm has been reached. However, like Nerone, I also see some valuable legacy in the old model, especially in the normative area. As Nerone also writes, for journalists working in systems where they need ideological resources to support their criticism of concentrations of power and abuses of authority, the norms of western journalism can be inspirational.
My argument takes this point further to past and present examples, stating that these values are known to journalists around the world, also in places and times when the political situation does not permit their application. But these can resurface quickly once the situation permits it, as was illustrated most recently during the Arab spring. Research has shown a global convergence of journalistic orientation (Hanitzsch, 2007; Weaver and Willnat, 2012), which does not adhere to the political system these journalists inhabit. The disjuncture of a country’s political system and the journalism it produces is also best illustrated in an Arab country, Qatar. Al Jazeera is counted amongst the credible and powerful voices in the world, yet is located in a country that is not a democracy. These and many other examples challenge the validity of the hegemonic paradigm and call for a new conceptual approach to journalism.
Cherian George, in his article, emphasizes that he does not aim to settle the matter, but wishes instead to contribute to an evolving debate. However, he also makes clear his support for the idea of a universally applicable normative definition of journalism with democratic values at its core. But beyond this core definition, he suggests, one must allow for principles and practices to differ substantially across political regimes.
Journalism, for George, is striving to work for the public, and not for political and corporate masters. For him, too, journalistic work is not dependent on the political form of government. He points to the fact that in societies where it is not possible for the media to situate itself in opposition to the government, journalistic sub-cultures could provide a more accurate picture of journalistic values. With regard to these, George positions himself clearly in favour of ‘an irreducible democratic core in any journalism worthy of that name’, in that journalism, in line with his earlier definition, enhances popular sovereignty in helping citizens arrive at judgments about the common good.
This said, George argues for a functional differentiation with regard to journalism practice, whether in democracies or non-democracies. In his view, scholarly work tends to take into account little more than countries’ press laws and world views as expressed in official ideology. However, official ideology is unlikely to reflect the journalists’ own values and aspirations.
Taking Asian countries such as China and Singapore as examples, George, similar to my own argument, draws a distinction between official ideology and journalists’ values. To him, alternative media in restricted environments may provide more authentic indicators of journalism norms than do mainstream media, which tend to enjoy less professional autonomy. In spite of the differentiations that seem necessary to capture an adequate picture of journalism in its various global settings, George nonetheless regards the continued thinking in terms of paradigms and contexts as useful.
He suggests that we should not give up trying to arrive at an irreducible core in global journalism. But he warns of declaring as paradigmatic norms and practices that are in fact contextual. In concluding, George re-emphasizes that it will be difficult to find shared values, and sees the greatest danger in this common ground becoming ‘so morally relativistic that it excuses practices and standards that perpetuate the domination of power over truth’.
Waisbord places his interrogation of the nexus of journalism and democracy within the political sphere, in that he turns specifically to the Latin American populist regimes of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. While these countries regularly hold elections, and are thus deemed democratic, their populist governments make clear that their notions of the function of journalism bear little resemblance to those spelled out in the liberal journalism and democracy paradigm. Waisbord’s article sets out to demonstrate in detail how populism’s view of journalism stands in direct opposition to both liberal and civic arguments. To him, the case of populism as exemplified in South and Central America confirms that the relationship of journalism and democracy is embedded in differing notions about the desirable relations among the state, market, and civil society in democratic life.
The aims of the populist leaders are clear. They wish to build up the media power of the President, strengthen community media, and have tighter control of the press through legislation. Despite its rhetoric of acting on behalf of the people, as Waisbord has demonstrated earlier (2010) and argues here, populism has actually bolstered the communicative power of the Executive and rewarded political allies. To Waisbord, populism’s ‘convoluted relationship with press and democracy offers a cautionary tale about making journalism synonymous with democracy’. What can be observed in Latin America are bitter divisions about the models and roles of both democracy and journalism. In taking the Latin America’s populist governments as case studies, Waisbord exemplifies the contestations at work in nominal democracies that make it impossible for journalists to live up to the normative demands of the journalism and democracy paradigm.
Despite their differences in approach, these five articles concur in the main on three aspects of the debate.
First, the journalism and democracy paradigm is the product of a very distinct place and time – the United States in the late 19th, early 20th century. Despite strongly bearing the hallmarks of its birthplace and time, this model became a global export, albeit an ill-fitting one. Scholarly literature preferred to critique the situation on the ground rather than the paradigm. All authors here chose to assess it critically, agreeing that the journalism and democracy paradigm is outdated and too limiting and distorting a lens through which journalism can be viewed in the 21st century.
Second, these articles perhaps surprisingly argue that the paradigm’s normativity is a major factor for its long life, or, as Zelizer might say, has given it ‘a moral bypass’. Still, some of its normative demands, even if never fully realized in practice, have a protective quality. Journalism practitioners need these values as tools in their quest for degrees of independence, particularly in those countries where this is not conceded by the state or corporate forces.
Third, the fact that none of the authors attempted steps towards a new paradigm should be seen as an indication of the difficulty of this task. Journalism has developed beyond the stage where one country can ever again assume to have found the right paradigm for all other countries, and journalism scholars are increasingly aware of the differentials in settings of where journalism is practised. As Waisbord writes, with democracy and journalism continually evolving around the world, ‘the notion of one feasible path or single desirable vision of “democratic journalism” belongs to academic antiquarianism’.
Yet, despite the recognition of the multiple forms of journalism, George asks that we should not ‘abandon attempts to crystallize an irreducible core in global journalism’. The new normative demands on journalism, in all likelihood, would contain values that first and foremost empower the public, the people, the demos. As yet, these values are commonly described as democratic. But they do not necessarily need to be practised in a democracy.