Deliberation, Democracy, and the Media

by Simone Chambers University of Toronto (Editor), Anne Costain (Editor)

Overview

Is deliberative democracy the ideal goal of free speech? How do social movement organizations, activists, and political candidates use the media to frame their discourse? What responsibilities does the media have in maintaining or promoting democracy? In this broadly interdisciplinary volume, top scholars in communication, political science, sociology, law, and philosophy offer new perspectives on these and other intersections within democratic discourse and media. Interweaving elements of social, political, and communication theory, they take on First Amendment and legal issues, privacy rights, media effects and agenda setting, publicity, multiculturalism, gender issues, universalism and global culture, and the rhetoric of the body, among other topics. This unique book provides a foundation for evaluating the current state of democratic discourse and will be of interest to students and scholars of deliberative democracy across the social sciences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742576544
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/26/2000
Series:	Critical Media Studies: Institutions, Politics, and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Simone Chambers is associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado. Anne Costain is professor of political science, director of the Keller Center for the Study of the First Amendment, and associate dean for social sciences at the University of Colorado.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2
Chapter I: Democratic Deliberation
Chapter 3 Free Speech, Democratic Deliberation, and Valuing Types of Speech
Chapter 4 Promoting Informed Deliberation and a First Amendment Doctrine for a Digital Age: Toward a New Regulatory Regime for Broadcast Regulation
Chapter 5
Chapter II: Deliberative Equality and the Media
Chapter 6 Multicultural Democracy
Chapter 7 The Division of Labor in Democratic Discourse: Media, Experts, and Deliberative Democracy
Chapter 8 The Means of Communication and the Discourse on Sovereignty
Chapter 9
Chapter III: News Reporting and Coverage
Chapter 10 The Unheralded Functions of Campaign News
Chapter 11 Media Effects: Paradigms for the Analysis of Local Television News
Chapter 12
Chapter IV: Media Representation of Social Movements
Chapter 13 Movement Strategy and Dramaturgic Framing in Democratic States: The Case of the American Civil Rights Movement
Chapter 14 Body Rhetoric: Conflicted Reporting of Bodies in Pain
Chapter 15 Media Portrayal of Second Wave Feminist Groups
Chapter 16
Chapter V: Culture and Rhetoric
Chapter 17 The Banality of Evil, The Evil of Banality
Chapter 18 A Culture of Publicity

Editorial Reviews

Examines the pitfalls of media communication in American democracy. Part I investigates the relationship between First Amendment interpretation and public deliberation, and Part II looks at obstacles in the way of achieving a truly free and equal public sphere. Part III examines current news coverage, focusing on the language employed by electoral campaigns in journalism, and on the racial "scripts" present in American crime news. Part IV describes periods of social change and the social movements that often initiate change, and Part V analyzes cultural rhetoric inhuman rights and global rights discourse. The authors teach political science at the University of Colorado. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Chambers and Costain have assembled an amazing variety of scholars on the subjects of media content and dynamics, democracy, and activism. The blending of approaches and subjects within the book makes for an interesting as well as much needed compilation.

Christian Davenport

Concerned with the intersection and interdependence of public deliberation, democracy, and a politically free but responsible mass media, this volume of essays by prominent scholars in a variety of fields constitutes an important contribution to the literature on the wellsprings and safeguards of free speech, democracy, and civil society in the literally heavily-mediated social world of today. Particularly illuminating and provocative is the book’s interdisciplinary discussion of the ways in which the media is and can be used in the service of deliberative equality within the public sphere—and of the ways in which the media can function both to facilitate and inhibit deliberative democracy.

David A. Snow

This book explores a number of key debates within deliberative democracy.

Political Theory

A winning combination of social theory, empiricism, and critical good sense by a diverse and very impressive array of contributors.

Herbert W. Simons