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ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS
Session One
The Proper Role of the News Media in a Democratic Society:
Is It Enough Simply to Cover the News?
April 11, 10 a.m.
Kiva, Kent Student Center
- "A Journalistic Philosophy for a Democratic Society:
Objectivity vs. Civic Involvement"
Ms. Louise Mengelkoch, Bemidji State University
Conventional wisdom would have us believe that both democracy and the news media are in crisis. One proposed cure is civic or public journalism, which seeks to re-invigorate public life through a communitarian philosophy. Advocates of civic journalism say traditional, objective journalism, with its emphasis on skepticism and individualism, does not promote a just society. However, by looking closely at the values of both kinds of journalism, it can be shown that the long-term goals of a democratic society are better served by traditional journalism because it is a healthy antidote to the unrealistic optimism and communitarian values of the American public.
- "Recovering Journalism as a Democratic Art"
Dr. John Pauly, St. Louis University
The role of news in a democratic society has been clouded, in part, by journalists' own descriptions of what they do. Journalists have typically described their work using two somewhat different idioms, information and storytelling. Though theoretically contradictory, these idioms often work in rhetorical concert, to allow journalists to slip citizens' criticisms of their profession. Proposals to reform the profession, such as public journalism, have often reproduced these contradictions in journalism's self-description. An alternative approach might imagine journalism as a public art rather than a professional service -- as our name for democracy's practices of research, discussion, questioning, writing, and publishing.
- "Public Journalism and Its Critics:
In Pursuit of a Public Philosophy for Public Journalism"
Dr. Linda Steiner, Rutgers University, and
Dr. Tanni Haas, City University of New York - Brooklyn College
Since its emergence about a decade ago, the journalistic movement known as "public" or "civic" has generated heated debate, not only among journalism professionals, but also among scholars. This article considers various critiques against "citizen-focused" journalism practices leveled by journalism and mass communication scholars, especially those who otherwise might have been expected to be advocates. We distinguish "civic" from "public" approaches and show how this distinction can map on to the difference between conceptualizing the community and the public sphere as the appropriate site of journalistic practice. The goal is to articulate a coherent public philosophy for journalism practices that promote vigorous citizen participation in political processes.
Session Two
Media and the Vanishing Voter:
What Accounts for Declining Political Participation.
April 11, 2:15 p.m.
Kiva, Kent Student Center
- "Public Journalism and Voter Turnout in Statewide Referendums: Results from a 'Media Partnership' in Rochester, N.Y."
Dr. James R. Bowers, St. John Fisher College, and
Mr. Gary Walker, WXXI-Public Broadcasting Council, Rochester, N.Y.
This paper presents an argument for media partnerships in public journalism voter information projects as a partial remedy for media's presumed contribution to declining voter turnout. This argument is made through a case study of a three-way media partnership in Rochester, N.Y., that was designed to enhance voter information about and participation in the 1997 New York Constitutional Convention Ballot Referendum. The paper concludes that in races such as ballot referendums, where traditional voting cues are missing, public journalism partnerships and projects can be useful in both informing voters and promoting their participation. The paper also concludes that with proper research design that produces measurable effects such projects also can help to settle the debate over the effectiveness of public journalism.
- "Communication and Participation: A Proposed Research Agenda"
Dr. Ronald E. Ostman, Cornell University, and
Dr. Dietram A. Scheufele, Cornell University
Much research on political participation is based on SES (socioeconomic status) models, i.e., the assumption that individual-level differences between citizens with respect to how much they participate are largely based on their levels of formal education. In this paper, however, we argue for and develop an expanded SES model of participation. Specifically, we raise the question of how education influences political participation. What are the mediators that explain why highly educated citizens are more likely to participate in politics? In developing this conceptual overview, we rely on data from various sources as exemplars for our theoretical arguments.
- "Media Conglomeration and Campaign News Coverage: Politics as a Soap Opera"
Dr. James H. Wittebols, Niagara University
In an era of media conglomerates, the transformation of television news away from a public service orientation to a narrow focus on delivering profit to parent corporations has affected the way news is presented and the kinds of stories told. This paper looks at how elements of the "commodity form" of mass media storytelling, the soap opera, have become pervasive in television news coverage of political campaigns. Five characteristics of soap operas designed to develop and maintain audiences -- seriality, seeming intimacy, a "real time" orientation, story structure and exposition and the attributes of soap stories -- are applied to coverage of the 2000 election campaign.
Session Three
New Technologies of Communication:
Can We/Will We/Should We Achieve Participatory Democracy?
April 12, 9 a.m.
Kiva, Kent Student Center
- "Gathering Storm: Cyber Activism After Seattle"
Ms. Dee Dee Halleck, University of California - San Diego
The Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization ushered in a new generation of media activism. The movement against globalism has constructed public information spaces, integrating various media formats and technologies: camcorders, Web radio, streaming video, microradio, digital photography, community cable access, DBS transponders and laptop journalism. Behind the strategic blockades by the radical environmentalists and the lively and passionate video tapes and Web sites produced by the camcorder commandos/data dancers is an authentic revolution: a revolution in form of public action and its documentation. The revolution is not only televised, but digitized and streamed.
- "Waiting for Cyber-Democracy is Like Waiting for Godot"
Dr. Michael Margolis, University of Cincinnati, and
Dr. David Resnick, University of Cincinnati
Cyber-democrats heralded the Internet because it promised to enrich our political and civic life. Ordinary citizens could become their own publishers and employ e-mail, newsgroups and Web sites to form new political groups. Accordingly, the Internet would foster new parties and interests to challenge the dominance of the Democrats, Republicans and established groups. Why is this not happening? The explanation we offer is that familiar commercial and political interests have established a strong presence in cyberspace that mirrors their overwhelming dominance of political and civic affairs in the real world. The Internet provides Americans with new choices as consumers but few such choices as citizens.
- "Can New Information Technologies Promote Democratic Deliberation?"
Dr. Rodger A. Payne, University of Louisville
Meaningful democratic deliberation depends upon the principle of "publicity." Procedurally, this means that political decision-making must occur after open (or transparent) and inclusive (or participatory) debate. My paper explains how new information technologies (NIT) can (1) broadly promote norms of transparency and participation so as to encourage genuine democratic deliberation; and (2) facilitate the political activities and opportunities of "new social movements" so that the discursive ideals they embrace might find a much larger audience. Empirically, the paper investigates the efforts of environmentalists to build participation and transparency norms in various political settings -- often using these NITs. The paper highlights the implementation of these norms in the United States, Western Europe and the World Bank.
Session Four
Media Concentration and Democratic Discourse:
Are Media Corporations Profiting at the Public's Expense?
April 12, 10:45 a.m.
Kiva, Kent Student Center
- "Political Discourse Remains Vigorous Despite Media Ownership"
Dr. F. Dennis Hale, Bowling Green State University
Political debate, consumer reporting and media criticism are thriving, particularly for readers and viewers who actively seek diverse sources of information from the Internet, prestige newspapers, newsletters, magazines, cable TV, public broadcasting, regional magazines and alternative weeklies. When a demand for unavailable information emerges, a for-profit media organization will shuffle its resources to meet that demand. Or, in the case of highly specialized topics or perspectives, nonprofit or counterculture source such as university presses, small book publishers, alternative weeklies, public broadcasters, newsletters or low-budget Web sites will mobilize to provide the information. The invisible hand of the free marketplace of ideas remains responsive despite the growing concentration of corporate media.
- "Is What's Good for General Motors Good for the First Amendment? Corporate Media Concentration's 'Dagger at the Throat' of the Press Clause"
Mr. Robert L. Kerr, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In 1978, Chief Justice Warren Burger asserted "the difficulty, and perhaps impossibility, of distinguishing . . . media corporations from [nonmedia] corporations." Burger's comment questioned the status of special protection provided by the First Amendment's press clause, as did Justice Antonin Scalia's in 1990 when he chillingly declared the increasing threat to news media "a dagger at their throats." Increased corporate media concentration and mergers with nonmedia corporations may be pressing the "dagger" ever more sharply. Is an unthinkable shift away from special protection for news media -- to a doctrine that would "target them specially," as Scalia has suggested -- possible in a future ruling by the Court?
- "A Different Experience:
Media, Profit and Politics in Canada"
Dr. David Taras, University of Calgary
The paper will focus on problems of media and democracy in Canada that will be of interest to Americans. First, the paper will describe the dramatic series of mergers and takeovers that have recently occurred in Canada and the issues that have been raised by these developments. Some observers have argued that the existence of giant media conglomerates deprives citizens of the diversity of opinions and perspectives that they need in order to be fully informed. Others contend that the existence of multi-platform media empires will allow Canada to resist the onslaught of American culture and reintegrate Quebec media into a larger national system.
Second, the paper will concentrate on the "media baron" problem in modern democracies. What happens when a single individual controls the lion's share of the newspaper industry and uses that control to launch a series of ideological and political crusades? The pros and cons of the Conrad Black era in Canadian journalism will be discussed at some length.
A third concern will be the fate of the publicly financed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the debate that surrounds public broadcasting.
Symposium Web site created October 2, 2000
Updated April 10, 2001
Web site contact:
Margaret Garmon at mgarmon@kent.edu
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