Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND DEMOCRACY
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which usually leads critics to be sceptical of public sphere theory. The idea that
broadcasting can be funded by the state while independent of the state appears
incredible to many, especially to those alert to political interference in broadcasting.
The same objectors are then easily drawn towards support for privately
financed media since, it is argued, it is government which must be most assiduously
examined by a vigilant media in the current period and it is to independent
news organisations that we need to look to undertake this task.
James Curran (1991), responding to this line of reasoning, demonstrates that
this ‘watchdog’ role has been better met by public service broadcasting than by
the private press. While Curran agrees that some degree of autonomy has been
relinquished by British broadcasting owing to repeated attack from government,
empirical analysis demonstrates that ‘it continued to expose government to more
sustained, critical scrutiny than the predominantly right-wing national press’
(p. 89). He instances a television documentary (Death on the Rock), broadcast in
1988, which alleged that the British army had unlawfully killed three IRA
members in Gibraltar. While government was incensed, and while much of the
press worked to undermine the credibility of the programme, the public service
broadcasters stood firm, evidencing that ‘[s]tate-linked watchdogs can bark, while
private watchdogs sleep’ (p. 90).
This example shows that public service broadcasting still survives in Britain
and that news, current affairs and documentary programme makers are especially
committed to it. To the extent that the ethos continues, so, too, can we
argue that broadcasting retains a public sphere character. Nevertheless, it is also
clear that the prerequisites of public service broadcasting are being removed:
governments often intervene in programme matters, new forms of delivery are
introducing a destabilising competition into broadcasting by undermining traditional
rationales for public subsidy, and, above all, the changing economic climate
is leading to a shift away from public to privately funded support. It appears that
previous forms of public service broadcasting are no longer sustainable, though
this does not mean that television must be unresistingly abandoned to the market
(Curran, 2002).
In these changing circumstances the crucial issue is whether the quality of
information provided by broadcasting is declining and whether it is likely to
continue to do so. For market enthusiasts ‘narrowcasting’ promises much more
and much more accurately targeted information going to differentiated and pluralistic
customers. To thinkers influenced by Habermas, while there is no doubt that
there is much more quantity of information generated on television and radio
stations (cable, satellite, round-the-clock programming, many more channels,
video, etc.), it has not – and it will not – lead to greater quality of information or
to genuine choices to listeners and viewers. This is because the market generates
trivia, or concentrates power in the hands of media moguls, or segments audiences
by bank account such that quality information is limited to the better-off
sections of society. It seems clear that the BBC will not disappear, at least not
in the foreseeable future. Its esteem and rootedness in British history are too
formidable for that. However, what we are likely to witness is continued pressures
towards marketisation from without and internal pressures from within to move
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