Media and democratic innovations – Media as a public sphere or an actor or both?

Abstract

The fact that media is part of the broader public discourse, or public sphere even, is hardly disputed. However, there is still a need to link deliberative democracy and theories of communication. For instance, how well is the public discourse conducted on media platforms, or social media, resembling a public sphere in deliberative terms? Furthermore, while the public sphere viewpoint suggests that media is mostly an arena, media can also be an actor itself. Thus, more knowledge is needed on why, how and under which circumstances media, or individual journalists, take on active roles in steering public discourse towards a deliberative public sphere or otherwise innovate democracy through communication. The panel takes a broad approach and welcomes papers from both political science and communication of both theoretical and empirical nature. Contributions may focus on how theories of deliberation, public discourse in various arenas and media/communication align, on concrete examples of public discourse in various media arenas or of media taking part in democratic innovations, or in innovating public discourse in various arenas (including social media). Papers on the role of media and media actors in conveying knowledge of democratic innovations to the public as well as in helping to scale-up deliberation are also suitable for this panel.

Title	Details
Huge expectations - the role of the media in democratic innovation	View Paper Details
Importance of TV Media for Democratic Deliberation and Civic Engagement A case of Georgia	View Paper Details
A Nation Talking to Itself?: Print and online media coverage of mini-publics and public knowledge acquisition	View Paper Details