Media and the paradoxes of pluralis

Media and the paradoxes of pluralism
Kari Karppinen

Theories and concepts, on which normative views of media and democracy build, have generally taken a pluralist or anti-essentialist turn in recent decades. While notions such as ‘media quality’ or ‘public interest’ are increasingly contested, pluralism and diversity not only have become indisputable values, but also rank among the few politically correct criteria for assessing media performance and regulation. Hardly anyone would disagree with the idea that citizens need to have access to a broad range of political views, cultural expressions and aesthetic experiences in the public sphere. The meaning and nature of pluralism as a normative principle, however, remain vague and arguably under-theorised.

Much of the confusion surrounding the notions of pluralism and diversity in media studies undoubtedly stems from their disparate uses in different contexts, but there is also a certain ambiguity inherent in the concept of pluralism itself. As Gregor McLennan (1995: 7) has noted, the constitutive vagueness of pluralism as a social value gives it enough ideological flexibility for it to be capable of signifying reactionary tendencies in one phase of the debate and progressive values in the next. Pluralism thus constitutes a highly contentious and elusive principle in political and social theory as well as for evaluating the performance of the media.

Taking some distance from the attractiveness of commonsense pluralism, this chapter focuses on some paradoxical dimensions in the present discussion on pluralism and the public sphere. Reflecting the renewed emphasis on pluralism in political theory, normative models of deliberative democracy and the public sphere have been increasingly criticised for overemphasising social unity and rational consensus. Instead of a singular notion of the public sphere, public use of reason or the common good, theorists increasingly stress the plurality of public spheres, politics of difference and the complexity of ways in which the media can contribute to democracy. As a result, various radical-pluralist theories of democracy that have attempted to develop less rigidly normative conceptions of democracy and the public sphere have gained more and more prominence also in media studies. In contrast to the allegedly rationalistic and monistic thrust of the Habermasian public sphere approach, they are often seen to resonate better with the chaotic and complex nature of the contemporary media landscape.

I discuss the implications and potential significance of the radicalpluralist approach for media studies and media policy here by drawing mainly from the political philosophy of Chantal Mouffe (1993, 2000, 2005), whose model of ‘agonistic pluralism’ constitutes one of the most prominent alternatives to deliberative conceptions of democracy. The rationale for this is twofold. First, agonistic pluralism provides a fundamental critique of the traditional Habermasian approach to the public sphere and democracy. Second, and perhaps more important, I argue that her ideas also provide an equally strong critique of ‘naive pluralism’ that celebrates all multiplicity and diversity without paying attention to the continued centrality of the questions of power and exclusion in the public sphere.

As McLennan (1995: 83–4) notes, one of the main problems with any ‘principled pluralist’ perspective remains how to conceptualise the need for pluralism and diversity without falling into the trap of flatness, relativism, indifference, and unquestioning acceptance of market-driven difference and consumer culture. While Mouffe’s approach itself is open to criticism on many fronts, it serves as a good starting point for illustrating some of the problems in debating the value of pluralism in media politics. The purpose of discussing the agonistic approach here is therefore not to argue for more pluralism as such. Instead, it serves to question the inclusiveness of current pluralistic discourses and emphasise the continued importance of analyzing relations of power in contemporary public spheres. While the problems of ‘naive pluralism’ are certainly not foreign to contemporary media policy, the agonistic model of democracy is discussed here as a possible theoretical basis for bringing the current ‘ethos of pluralisation’ to bear also on the level of media structures and politics.


The ambiguity of pluralism

The idea of pluralism as a crucial social and political value is nothing new. Premised on the impossibility of unambiguously establishing truth, right or good, especially in social and political affairs, pluralism is one of the constitutive tenets of liberal democracy. According to Mouffe (2000: 18), the acceptance of pluralism, understood as ‘the end of a substantive idea of the good life’, is the most important single defining feature of modern liberal democracy that differentiates it from ancient models of democracy.

At its broadest definition, pluralism can simply be defined as a theorized preference for multiplicity over unity and diversity over uniformity in whatever field of enquiry (McLennan 1995: 25). In this sense, almost all particular discourses could be conceived as reflecting some aspect of the pluralism/monism interface, and for McLennan, rather than as a specific ideology, pluralism is best conceived as a general intellectual orientation, whose specific manifestations would be expected to change depending on the context.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its ubiquitous nature, it can be argued that sometimes pluralism itself has become the new foundation of social theory. John Keane (1992), for instance, has argued that political values of democracy and freedom of speech themselves should be conceived as means and necessary preconditions of protecting philosophical and political pluralism, rather than as foundational principles themselves. While accepting multiplicity and pluralism has become almost endemic to recent social theory, various universal forms of politics have given way to a new pluralist imaginary associated with identity politics and politics of difference (see Benhabib 2002). As Anne Phillips (2000: 238) notes, there has been ‘an explosion of new literature on what are seen as the challenges of diversity and difference’ – which according to Bonnie Honig (1996: 60) is ‘just another word for what used to be called pluralism’.

Instead of the utopia of a rationally based unitary public sphere, many argue that democracy needs to be seen as pluralised and marked by new kinds of politics of difference. For writers like Keane the ideal of a unified public sphere and its corresponding vision of a unitary public of citizens are becoming increasingly obsolete. Similarly, in media studies, Elizabeth Jacka (2003: 183) has argued that, instead of universal visions of the common good, democracy needs to be seen as based on ‘pragmatic and negotiated exchanges about ethical behaviour and ethically inspired courses of action’, and we need to ‘countenance a plurality of communication media and modes in which such a diverse set of exchanges will occur’. Such a pluralist approach would then be inclusive of different genres of media texts and different forms of media organisation, not privileging ‘high modern journalism’ as a superior form of rational communication.

In the context of the media, the attraction of pluralism would seem to be closely linked to the attacks on universal quality criteria or other unambiguous criteria for assessing media performance. In this sense, pluralism not only constitutes a perspective for assessing the performance of the media but also a form of political rationality that directly concerns media policy. According to Nielsen (2003), the ideas that all forms of culture contain their own criteria of quality have broken the universal basis for defining cultural quality and have led to a ‘pluralistic consensus’ in media and cultural policy. The notions of quality, cultural value or public interest are thus increasingly conceived in a relativist manner, avoiding the paternalism of the old paradigm of media policy.

The problem with the pluralistic consensus, however, lies in the ambiguity of pluralism as a normative principle. In a general sense, we are all pluralists, but on closer analysis it seems that the emphasis on pluralism and diversity will inevitably create its own pathologies and paradoxes. Pluralism and diversity may remain inherently good, but, as McLennan (1995: 8) writes, in deconstructing their value we are faced with questions of the following order. Is there not a point at which healthy diversity turns into unhealthy dissonance? Does pluralism mean that anything goes? And what exactly are the criteria for stopping the potentially endless multiplication of valid ideas?

According to Louise Marcil-Lacoste (1992), pluralism entails a certain ambiguity ‘between the over-full and the empty’: on the one hand, pluralism suggests abundance, flowering and expansion of values and choices, but, on the other hand, it also evokes emptiness. To recognize or promote plurality in some context is to say nothing about the nature of its elements and issues, their relations, and value. Stemming from this, pluralism can combine both critique and evasion. It involves critique of all monisms and it aims to deconstruct their foundational claims. Yet there is also evasion, in terms of its refusal to develop substantive normative positions concerning social, political and economic processes (ibid.).

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Media dan paradoks pluralismeKari KarppinenTeori dan konsep-konsep, yang normatif pandangan membangun media dan demokrasi, umumnya telah mengambil majemuk atau anti-essentialist berubah dalam beberapa dekade terakhir. Sedangkan pengertian seperti 'media kualitas' atau 'kepentingan publik' semakin digugat, pluralisme dan keragaman tidak hanya telah menjadi nilai-nilai yang tak terbantahkan, tetapi juga peringkat di antara beberapa kriteria benar secara politis untuk menilai kinerja media dan peraturan. Hampir tidak ada orang akan setuju dengan ide bahwa warga negara harus memiliki akses ke berbagai pandangan politik, ekspresi budaya dan estetika pengalaman di ruang publik. Makna dan sifat pluralisme sebagai prinsip normatif, namun, tetap tidak jelas dan dapat dikatakan di bawah berteori.Banyak kebingungan seputar pengertian tentang pluralisme dan keragaman dalam studi media pasti berasal dari menggunakan mereka berbeda dalam konteks yang berbeda, tapi ada juga ambiguitas tertentu yang melekat dalam konsep pluralisme itu sendiri. Seperti Gregor McLennan (1995:7) telah dicatat, ketidakjelasan konstitutif pluralisme sebagai nilai sosial memberikan fleksibilitas cukup ideologi untuk itu harus mampu menandakan kecenderungan reaksioner dalam fase satu perdebatan dan nilai-nilai yang progresif di berikutnya. Pluralisme sehingga merupakan sebuah prinsip yang sangat diperdebatkan dan sukar dipahami dalam politik dan sosial teori serta untuk mengevaluasi kinerja media.Taking some distance from the attractiveness of commonsense pluralism, this chapter focuses on some paradoxical dimensions in the present discussion on pluralism and the public sphere. Reflecting the renewed emphasis on pluralism in political theory, normative models of deliberative democracy and the public sphere have been increasingly criticised for overemphasising social unity and rational consensus. Instead of a singular notion of the public sphere, public use of reason or the common good, theorists increasingly stress the plurality of public spheres, politics of difference and the complexity of ways in which the media can contribute to democracy. As a result, various radical-pluralist theories of democracy that have attempted to develop less rigidly normative conceptions of democracy and the public sphere have gained more and more prominence also in media studies. In contrast to the allegedly rationalistic and monistic thrust of the Habermasian public sphere approach, they are often seen to resonate better with the chaotic and complex nature of the contemporary media landscape.Saya membahas implikasi dan potensi makna dari pendekatan radicalpluralist untuk studi media dan kebijakan media di sini dengan menggambar terutama dari Filsafat politik Chantal Mouffe (1993, 2000, 2005), yang model 'agonistic pluralisme' yang merupakan salah satu alternatif yang paling menonjol untuk deliberatif konsepsi demokrasi. Alasan untuk ini ada dua. Pertama, agonistic pluralisme menyediakan kritik mendasar dari pendekatan Habermasian tradisional ruang publik dan demokrasi. Kedua, dan mungkin lebih penting, saya berpendapat bahwa ide-ide nya juga memberikan sebuah kritik yang sama kuat 'naif pluralisme' yang merayakan semua keserbaragaman dan keragaman tanpa memperhatikan pentingnya terus pertanyaan kekuasaan dan pengecualian di ruang publik.As McLennan (1995: 83–4) notes, one of the main problems with any ‘principled pluralist’ perspective remains how to conceptualise the need for pluralism and diversity without falling into the trap of flatness, relativism, indifference, and unquestioning acceptance of market-driven difference and consumer culture. While Mouffe’s approach itself is open to criticism on many fronts, it serves as a good starting point for illustrating some of the problems in debating the value of pluralism in media politics. The purpose of discussing the agonistic approach here is therefore not to argue for more pluralism as such. Instead, it serves to question the inclusiveness of current pluralistic discourses and emphasise the continued importance of analyzing relations of power in contemporary public spheres. While the problems of ‘naive pluralism’ are certainly not foreign to contemporary media policy, the agonistic model of democracy is discussed here as a possible theoretical basis for bringing the current ‘ethos of pluralisation’ to bear also on the level of media structures and politics.The ambiguity of pluralismThe idea of pluralism as a crucial social and political value is nothing new. Premised on the impossibility of unambiguously establishing truth, right or good, especially in social and political affairs, pluralism is one of the constitutive tenets of liberal democracy. According to Mouffe (2000: 18), the acceptance of pluralism, understood as ‘the end of a substantive idea of the good life’, is the most important single defining feature of modern liberal democracy that differentiates it from ancient models of democracy.At its broadest definition, pluralism can simply be defined as a theorized preference for multiplicity over unity and diversity over uniformity in whatever field of enquiry (McLennan 1995: 25). In this sense, almost all particular discourses could be conceived as reflecting some aspect of the pluralism/monism interface, and for McLennan, rather than as a specific ideology, pluralism is best conceived as a general intellectual orientation, whose specific manifestations would be expected to change depending on the context.Despite, or perhaps because of, its ubiquitous nature, it can be argued that sometimes pluralism itself has become the new foundation of social theory. John Keane (1992), for instance, has argued that political values of democracy and freedom of speech themselves should be conceived as means and necessary preconditions of protecting philosophical and political pluralism, rather than as foundational principles themselves. While accepting multiplicity and pluralism has become almost endemic to recent social theory, various universal forms of politics have given way to a new pluralist imaginary associated with identity politics and politics of difference (see Benhabib 2002). As Anne Phillips (2000: 238) notes, there has been ‘an explosion of new literature on what are seen as the challenges of diversity and difference’ – which according to Bonnie Honig (1996: 60) is ‘just another word for what used to be called pluralism’.Instead of the utopia of a rationally based unitary public sphere, many argue that democracy needs to be seen as pluralised and marked by new kinds of politics of difference. For writers like Keane the ideal of a unified public sphere and its corresponding vision of a unitary public of citizens are becoming increasingly obsolete. Similarly, in media studies, Elizabeth Jacka (2003: 183) has argued that, instead of universal visions of the common good, democracy needs to be seen as based on ‘pragmatic and negotiated exchanges about ethical behaviour and ethically inspired courses of action’, and we need to ‘countenance a plurality of communication media and modes in which such a diverse set of exchanges will occur’. Such a pluralist approach would then be inclusive of different genres of media texts and different forms of media organisation, not privileging ‘high modern journalism’ as a superior form of rational communication.In the context of the media, the attraction of pluralism would seem to be closely linked to the attacks on universal quality criteria or other unambiguous criteria for assessing media performance. In this sense, pluralism not only constitutes a perspective for assessing the performance of the media but also a form of political rationality that directly concerns media policy. According to Nielsen (2003), the ideas that all forms of culture contain their own criteria of quality have broken the universal basis for defining cultural quality and have led to a ‘pluralistic consensus’ in media and cultural policy. The notions of quality, cultural value or public interest are thus increasingly conceived in a relativist manner, avoiding the paternalism of the old paradigm of media policy.The problem with the pluralistic consensus, however, lies in the ambiguity of pluralism as a normative principle. In a general sense, we are all pluralists, but on closer analysis it seems that the emphasis on pluralism and diversity will inevitably create its own pathologies and paradoxes. Pluralism and diversity may remain inherently good, but, as McLennan (1995: 8) writes, in deconstructing their value we are faced with questions of the following order. Is there not a point at which healthy diversity turns into unhealthy dissonance? Does pluralism mean that anything goes? And what exactly are the criteria for stopping the potentially endless multiplication of valid ideas?
According to Louise Marcil-Lacoste (1992), pluralism entails a certain ambiguity ‘between the over-full and the empty’: on the one hand, pluralism suggests abundance, flowering and expansion of values and choices, but, on the other hand, it also evokes emptiness. To recognize or promote plurality in some context is to say nothing about the nature of its elements and issues, their relations, and value. Stemming from this, pluralism can combine both critique and evasion. It involves critique of all monisms and it aims to deconstruct their foundational claims. Yet there is also evasion, in terms of its refusal to develop substantive normative positions concerning social, political and economic processes (ibid.).