In the discussions of Media theory encountered in the text Mass Media and Society, one is drawn to the essay by James Curran, "Mass Media and Democracy: A Reappraisal," for its valiant - if ultimately forced and unsuccessful - attempt to reconcile theory with reality. More specifically, Curran calls into question "traditional liberal" arguments around the democratic role of the media as exemplified by the work of Jnrgen Habermas (1989) - then proceeds to offer an updated working model of his own for consideration.
According to Habermas (Curran, n.d., p. 83), the ideal media model would be enacted as that of a "public sphere": as a neutral zone where access to relevant information affecting the public good is widely available, where discussion is free of domination by the state and where all those participating in public debate do so on an equal basis. Within that model, traditionalist liberal thought puts forward the proposition that the media performs several key functions in a democratic society, among them: acting as public watchdog overseeing the state, providing consumer representation, and fulfilling an informational role in the public forum of debate. Central to Curran's reassessment of such theory, however, is his observation that such traditional liberal thought - and he defines the term "liberal" within the "British historical sense" (Curran, n.d., p. 112) - relies upon a classic capitalist belief, faith in the forces of the free market system, to protect the media from government intervention while opening it up, via market forces, to access from a pluralistic array of interests.
Curran finds the traditional perspective highly flawed vis-a-vis the realities of capitalism in practice (n.d., pp. 100-102). In short, he notes that "the traditional model . . . fails to distinguish between the legal right to publish, and the economic reality limiting that right in real terms" (Curran, n.d., p. 102, my emphasis). What...