Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California

This essay on debates about democracy and media describes the communities of practice of each communication medium and their respective definitions of the relationship between media and democracy. It points to the stunting of the potential for advancing our understanding and practice of democracy in the digital age because of the so-called "siloing" effect of closed communities of practice. It then points to a cross-cutting issue that has been raised, but insufficiently addressed "in the daily practice of those concerned with the uses and abuses of modern media. This is the issue of diversity, both in the United States [US] and internationally, and its representation in public and policy discourse."


The four "silos" or communities described here are traditional print media, in particular newspapers, digital media, public broadcasting, and commercial broadcast media. The article represents each as it frames and articulates its own unique understanding of the relations between media and democracy: newspapers - the dying core of democracy through media; digital - participatory and promoting the "competition of ideas"; public broadcasting - non-commercial space for quality; commercial broadcast media - a main news source with universal accessibility (in the United States, US) succeeding by giving audiences what they want. As stated by the author: "The challenge to those who care is how to bring these multiple voices together in a more integrated and coherent dialogue."


Cross-cutting concerns in the dialogue include differences of culture, ethnicity, nationality, and race, which challenge media to provide citizens with the content they need and deserve. The document cites a serious problem of representation at media gatherings, especially within digital media gatherings. While women, people of color, those in rural areas, and the economically poor have greatly expanded their use of these new technologies, their active, vocal engagement in the cutting-edge conversations about policy, cultural priorities, and media literacy is missing. The article presents statistics on use and inequality of information and communication technology (ICT) access both in the US and globally, characterised as "an issue of the quality and depth of our national responses to the intersections of technology, social position and democracy."
A concern expressed by the author and by Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American journalists of the organisation UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc, is the “last hired, first fired” principle of the shrinking newspaper industry that disproportionately affects people of colour, already not at parity with the general population. The document suggests that the commercial electronic media may still retain the highest percentages of people of colour relative to new digital platforms and in contrast to public television, which the author criticises for failing to meet its statutory obligation to “serve the underserved….Thus, it may be an irony of our times that the greatest scope for visible minority participation is not in the media so widely touted as opening new channels - not in public broadcasting or in digital media, as described earlier - but in the legacy audiovisual media: cinema, television and cable." In addition, ethnic media, experiencing growth in their role of serving their communities, are still kept at the margins of national discussions, and international voices and experiences receive little attention because, to date, the focus of discussion has been exclusively on change within the United States. As stated here, an international perspective could be useful in examining government policy in areas like the relationship between government-sponsored broadcasting and new media.


The article concludes: "The nation and the world’s capacities to use new digital media platforms and applications to their fullest extent will be enhanced by encouraging - and empowering - the creativity and inventiveness of all...those within historically excluded communities should themselves be much more consistent - and insistent- in seeking opportunities to include and listen to diverse voices in the construction of a national discourse that transcends silos and the legacies of exclusion of the past. Otherwise, the full potential of the times and the technologies will not be realized, and we will all be the poorer for missing these historic opportunities."

Email from Persephone Miel to The Communication Initiative on December 20 2008.