Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
to unsettle the
ancien régime
and create the space for representative
democracy. Citizens then had to learn, over a period of time, that it
was their entitlement - some argued their
duty
-todevoteenergyto
considering issues that were important for many other citizens. To be a
member of a 'public' thus presupposes the ability of any given citizen
to recognise (1) that their personal values and preferences may have to
give way to those of others for the greater good, but (2) that they can
learn from, but also legitimately influence, these others through open
discussion, disagreement and reflection. This means that any given
public is not 'a self-identical collective subject' (Barnett, 2004: 188),
as if 'the people' were a homogenous mass of individuals. Instead, all
publics are 'constitutively pluralised' (ibid.), united not so much about
substantive political or moral issues but about the right of members
to have their say about such issues. As Rebecca Ellis and colleagues
put it ' “the public” as a unit does not exist
...
Yet in other senses it
is real because “it”
is a functional myth, or heuristic' (Ellis
et al.
,
2010: 505). In other words, the public is a 'constitutive fiction' that
does not precede its being represented.
Some believe that since the 1960s, many Western democracies have
suffered the ill effects of information overload, 'public relations' and
of 'populism'. The first describes the public's inability to cope with
the exponential proliferation of messages and communications com-
ing at them. The second refers to conscious efforts on the part of
everyone from professional politicians to corporations to manage their
image and their communications so as to avoid unwanted questions
or criticism. The latter refers to views and values widely shared among
members of a public but which are simplistic and unreflexive (border-
ing on naïve or prejudicial). Still others believe that 'opinion polls' -
snapshots of people's current views - are substituting ever more for
proper public debate. Meanwhile, some argue that the global expan-
sion of commercial broadcasting and the assault on the 'free press'
(courtesy of media moguls Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi
among others) are deforming the public sphere to the detriment of
democracy. Elected politicians also these days work
very
hard to con-
trol their words, deeds and images - arguably, this turns formal politics
into theatre, as least so far as publics are concerned. The political
philosopher Nancy Fraser (1997) coined the term 'weak publics', which
we might interpret to mean those where (1) the extent/volume and
(2) the quality of discussion and debate in the public sphere is low.
Though 20 years old now, the critical reflections on the 'phantom pub-
lic sphere' contained in Bruce Robbins's book still repay close reading
(Robbins, 1993).
...
