The Rise of Global Infotainment. What it Means for the Democratic Public Sphere?
News is not only a media product but a vehicle for the democratic process. Throughout the history communication and information have been fundamental sources of power and counter-power, of domination and social change. This is because the fundamental battle being fought in society is the battle over the minds of the people. The way people think determines the fate of norms and values on which societies are constructed. (Castells 2007) For that reason, freedom of expression and freedom of the press have been basic pillars of democracy society.
Television is still the most important provider of public information globally. The growing commercialism of airwaves as a result of privatization of global communication, the deregulation of broadcasting and the technological convergence between television, telecommunication and computing industries, have fundamentally changed the ecology of broadcasting (Thissu, 2007). As a result of this is the competition for winning the audiences that are crucial for the advertising revenue. At the same time, audiences’ interest is waning.
There are two main reasons for that. If in the 80′s and 90′s there were fewer TV and Radio channels, today there is multiply more. In addition, young people are more interested in consuming the Internet. Therefore, media houses are seeking new ways of increasing their revenues. Often this comes from ‘economies of scale and scope’, that is to say reaching larger audiences through bigger conglomerates that can generate a larger turnover. This type of economic logic rarely follows the ideals of socially responsible journalism. As a result, information has become infotainment and citizens to customers.
In the attention-grabbing attempts, the broadcasting companies are taking the worst aspects of the tabloid newspapers. They give relatively little attention to politics, economics, and society. This presents a big threat because people usually rely on news for this kind of information and by not receiving it they tend to fall into ignorance about vital aspects of how their society functions. Some have blamed television for creating the lowest-commondenominator society, arguing that the news media have contributed to a decrease in attention span and the death of curiosity, optimism, civility, compassion for others, and abstract and conceptual reasoning (Arden, 2003, p.48).
Some European countries, like Finland for example, have relied on a balanced combination of public service and private press. Today though, in Finland – a country with a long tradition in freedom of press – due to the financially tight situation created by digitalization, YLE (country’s 2nd largest and the independent public broadcaster) is going through heavy streamlining and re-organization. In particular, radio services are being dismantled and converted into Internet services.
Internet technologies have opened new opportunities especially for the public services making it possible for virtually everybody to mass self communicate, as Castells refers to user generated content. In other words, the public sphere has, at least, the tools to exist independently from political institutions and from the mass media. According to Nokia, You will control 25% of entertainment by 2012.
Here is another writing on the same subject, but with different perspective.
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/12/20/the-sausage-factory-how-the-internet-broke-mainstream-media-and-why-thats-actually-a-bad-thing
Mayby it’s just that the public has become, in general, where the profits are, very stupid?
Thanks, Henrikki! I read the Arctic Startup blog. An interesting fact is that more and more university students are interested in writing courses nowadays and that’s (probably) because of their opportunity to blog and otherwise contribute in the public sphere. I’d like to think evolution, hence, smarter