News, Politics and Public Opinion:
‘The Public Sphere’
Politics 113: Politics and the Media
Lecture 5The rise of news
• ‘News’ as old as humanity
– Oral, scribal
• But revolutionised in print era
– Impetus: trade, politics, literacy
• Commodification and communication
• Limits: small trade, censorship, illiteracy
– 1500s: ‘Relations’
– 1620s: ‘Corantos’ (short-lived weeklies)
– 1640s: ‘Newsbooks’ (‘explosion’ in England) Rise of news and comment
• Development of ‘the press’ and its public
– Periodicity
• Growth of periodical press
– Slow emergence of professional ‘journalist’ (aka ‘hack’)
» 1702: Daily Courant, first daily newspaper
» 1700-1720: Review, Examiner, Spectator, comment periodicals
» 1750s: Five London dailies; c.12 weeklies
– Partisanship
• ‘Party press’ – whigs v tories
» Early press taking sides – truth v balance
• But self-image of truth against ‘interest’
• So roots of culture of objectivity v biasNews culture
• News a product of human decisions influenced and constrained 
but not determined by structures and conventions
– ‘A news story is supposed to answer the questions “who,” “what,” 
“when,” “where,” and “why” about its subject, but understanding news 
as culture requires asking of news writing what categories of people 
count as “who,” what kinds of thing pass for facts or “whats,” what 
geography and sense of time are inscribed as “where” and “when,” and 
what counts as an explanation of “why” ’ Michael Schudson
• News culture in part a product of past, sustained in present
– Practices and principles generated over time 
– ‘News values’ as conventions guiding news selectionThe rise of ‘public opinion’
• ‘Public opinion’ a growing political force from 18th
century
– Concept linked to claims for
• Popular sovereignty/reason/democracy
• Freedom of expression
– Press informing and representing (sovereign) public
» Later: ‘The Fourth Estate’
– The public a ‘construct’: media ‘represent
themselves as the voice of the people’ (John Street) 
» ‘The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people 
… were it left to me to decide whether we should have a 
government without newspapers, or newspapers without a 
government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the 
latter’ Thomas Jefferson, 1787
» The press ‘is not only an appropriate organ of the Public Opinion 
Tribunal, but the only constantly acting visible one . . . [It] 
operates as a check on the conduct of the ruling few’ Jeremy 
Bentham, 1821-23Democracy: which voice of the people?
• In democracy, the public’s opinion rules (in principle)
– Varieties of ‘opinion’
• More and less informed, more and less public
– Varieties of ‘public opinion’
• The public’s opinions
– an aggregate of private opinions
» What opinion polls measure
» What TV ratings measure
» What elections demonstrate
• Public opinion
– an expression of informed, collective deliberation
» What elections demonstrate (ideally)
» What the media reflects/informs/articulates (ideally)
Media
Public StateThe ‘public sphere’
• Theorising the role of democratic public opinion
• JurgenHabermas, The Structural Transformation of the 
Public Sphere (1962/1989)
– Sphere of rational-critical public
political discussion, oriented towards
consensusHabermas’ public sphere
• Public sphere model or ‘ideal type’
– Access for all citizens (in principle)
– Free from power (state, oeconomic)
– Rational-critical discussion
– Generating ‘public opinion’ as political consensus/control
– Media informing, facilitating, representingHabermas’s‘public sphere’
– (Bentham-esque) ‘majoritarian’ view
• Purchase/consumption is a ‘vote’ 
• Aggregated opinions = public opinion 
– Media sales/ratings = political public opinion
– Habermas‘informed consensus’ view
• Public deliberation » political public opinion
– Democratic duties for ‘media of the public sphere’
– Otherwise sales/ratings = ‘non-public opinions’Public sphere and modernity
• Public sphere ‘between facts and norms’ (Habermas)
– Rooted in practical-theoretical developments in history
– Closely tied to rise of modern representative 
democracy
• ‘Public opinion’ becoming politically authoritative/legitimate 
– Ideas and practices of public debate facilitated by news 
media
– Real diverging from ideal over time
• Commercial and special interests colonising public sphere
• ‘Norms’ remains source for judging/criticising ‘fact’‘Mass media’ transformation
• Mass communication
– 19th
-20thC – press, cinema, radio, TV
• 1840s: Electric rotary press; 1890s: First cinemas
• 1900s: mass tabloids; 1920s: radio broadcasts
• 1950s: TV networks
• Mass audience
– Mass market: industrialisation/ commercialisation of media
– ‘Mass appeal’: human interest news, tabloid tendencies
• n.b. ‘mass’ an imagined as much as a real unity
• Mass politics
• Potential for political information for popular audience
– Professionalisation of journalism 
• But also fears of depoliticisation/diversion/manipulation
• ‘Structural transformation’ – colonisation by commerce, special interestAmassing audience, building business
• How massive?
– The Press
• 1948: News of the 
World sells 8m
• Commercial 
concentration
– 1910s ›: rise of ‘media 
barons’ and newspaper groups
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1800 1900 1950
Highest-selling newspaper (millions)
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1900 1920 1940 1960 2000
Newspapers owned by groups (US, per cent)Media and the masses
• ‘Mass society’ critique (1930s-40s»)
– e.g ‘Frankfurt School’, 1930»
• Mass media = passive populace
• Depoliticising media serves capitalism
(and/or despots, e.g. Hitler)
– Or dominance of degenerate demos
• Masses willing/powerless victims
– ‘The deceived masses are today captivated . . . They insist on the very 
ideology which enslaves them . . . To be pleased means to say yes . . . The 
liberation which amusement promises is freedom from thought . . .’ Adorno
and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry, Enlightenment as Mass Deception (1944)
– Criticisms and counter-criticisms
• Techno determinist; overstates commercial control; understates 
autonomy; elitist and nostalgic
• Criticisms understate constraints, overstate creative/consumer 
autonomy/powerPublic sphere ‘transformation’
• ‘Habermas offers an impeccably liberal history, with an unhappy ending derived 
from the Frankfurt School’ James Curran, Media and Power
– Pre-capitalist » developed capitalism
– Rights to win » constitutional rights
– Journalism: conviction » commerce
– Citizens: debating » consuming
– Individuals » parties, interest groups
– Public opinion » sectional interests
– Political accountability » public relations
– Public opinion » non-public opinion
– Deliberative media » depoliticised media
– De-feudalisation » ‘refeudalisation’ Rethinking the public sphere
Some criticisms of Habermas’smodel (e.g. Thompson, in Coursebook)
• Sphere of rational-critical public political discussion, oriented 
towards consensus
– Overstates single public sphere
• Past and present ‘multiple publics’
• ‘Counter-publics’ where ‘members of subordinated social groups invent and 
circulate counterdiscourses’ Nancy Fraser 
– Yes, but national political public still crucial: ‘public of publics’ (James Bohman) 
– Understates commercial/partisan roots 
• Idealises ‘golden age’ of print and public discussion
• Simplistic view of change in media practices and products
– Maybe, but pre-industrial reality allowed space for idealRethinking the public sphere
Some more criticisms (e.g. Thompson, in Coursebook)
– Understates exclusivity of public sphere
• Propertied/educated gentlemen
– Yes, but historically this key to rational-critical model and claim of 
potential universal access
– Overstates ‘decline’ as opposed to change (and 
continuity)
• Neglects new ways of communicating, interacting, visibility
• Media expands rather than diminishes public sphere
– Maybe, but critics risk understating problems, e.g. 
economic/political distortions, ‘irrationality’, tabloidisation , 
depoliticisation, fragmentation Public sphere: past, present, future
• Was there a public sphere?
• Yes, though Habermasidealises 
– Issues of extent of unity, openness, rationality, consensus, autonomy
• Is there a public sphere?
• Yes, though H right to point to imperfections
– Principle of media ‘public service’ role persists
– Diversity, information, rational discussion can be found
– But not free of economic/political influences; ‘irrationality’; and access 
limitations
» Mediated ‘public opinion’ risks distortion 
• Can there be a better public sphere?
• Yes, according to numerous media theorists/critics
– ‘Public service’ news media; reinforcement of ‘public sphere’ principles 
and practice in practice and principle
– But obstacles in practice and principle
» e.g. public/state subsidy could be held to support or distort
» H’s demand for rationality/consensus may ask for too much