The Deliberative Media System: A Map

Deliberative democracy has established itself as the most widely accepted contemporary theory of democracy. Despite the vast literature on the topic, and despite the so-called “institutional turn,” democratic theorists have until quite recently paid comparatively little attention to news media and journalism. The aim of this paper is to address one of the key questions within this area, namely: what kind of news media does a deliberative democracy need to thrive? Or, in other words, what kind of media are best suited to produce what, by the standards of deliberative democracy, would count as quality journalism? To answer this question, I first offer an outline of deliberative democracy. Part of this outline concentrates on explicating the kind of media system proper to deliberative democracy, which, I hold, exhibit twofold pluralism. The idea is that the media system should be divided into a journalistic and a non-journalistic sector, and that each of these sectors should be also plural, including a multitude of media of different kinds. I also offer a brief characterization of the main function and duties of the journalistic media operating within this system. As I argue, their main function is to promote quality deliberations about the issues that are worth being deliberated by citizens qua citizens. The fulfilment of this function requires journalists to honor four duties, which I refer to as the duty of deliberative gatekeeping, the duty to set a deliberative agenda, the duty to explain, and the duty to promote public reasoning. Against this background, I suggest, explicate, and justify five key institutional features that deliberative news media need to exhibit if they are to be both able and disposed to produce quality deliberative journalism. The first is independence, which I characterize as triple independence; second, democratic accountability, which—as I hold—is in tension, but not incompatible, with independence; third, professionalism, which includes communication skills but not only; fourth, representativeness, to be defined in reference to the audience the media is meant to serve; and, finally, internal democracy, which might take various forms. Finally, I extract some implications for deliberative media policies.