Public Sphere, Media Effects, and Global News Dynamics
The Public Sphere: Origins and Evolution
The origin of the public sphere traces back to the ‘enlightened’ bourgeois salons. It was significantly influenced by the capital-driven mass media. The public sphere sets the social conditions for a rational debate about public issues, conducted by individuals willing to let arguments, and not stations, determine decisions. It represents a communicative ideal: an inclusive, critical debate, free of constrictions, where contributors consider each other as equals in a shared attempt to arrive at a common understanding.
The public sphere surfaced in opposition to the absolute power of royals, acting as a neutral and autonomous arena of critique. Social circles evaded censorship and offered freedom of opinion. Ideally, there is no hierarchy, and everybody can influence the outcome. However, it was criticized for being too theoretical and not inclusive enough.
Media Mechanisms: Gatekeeping, Priming, and Framing
Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping is part of the scarcity mechanism in news dissemination. From the events recorded by correspondents, reporters, and news agencies, editors choose certain items for publication which they regard as more important or interesting. A significant amount of news is ‘killed’ every day. Through gatekeeping, journalists were the sole custodians of what was debated and known in the public sphere.
Priming
Priming is a political consequence of agenda-setting. Priming occurs when changes are made in the criteria by which events or people are evaluated. Persuasion involves altering what an individual thinks of an event or person. Priming, however, does not involve changing perceptions; it simply alters the issues on which individuals base their overall evaluations.
Framing
Framing’s effect is more concerned with the public’s attention to news messages, while agenda-setting is more concerned with repeated exposure to messages. Frames consist of the mental representations, interpretations, and simplifications of reality. Frames in communication involve the communication of frames between different actors.
In social theory, framing is a schema of interpretation—a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes—that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. People build a series of mental “filters” through cultural influences and use these filters to make sense of the world. Framing involves the social construction of a social phenomenon.
There exists a perverse cycle regarding gender and media.
The CNN Effect and the Al Jazeera Effect
The CNN Effect
The ‘CNN effect’ refers to the effect that a 24-hour news media cycle has on politics and government during political conflict or a crisis. The media influences the government, often indirectly, through social and public opinion. This is known as the CNN effect, characterized by real-time, modern media.
Livingston identifies three distinct aspects of the CNN Effect:
- An accelerant to policy decision-making (shortens decision time, often rushed).
- A policy agenda-setting agent (accelerant process reorders foreign policy priorities).
- An impediment to the achievement of desired policy goals (emotional, grisly coverage may undermine morale; governments try to sanitize war; global, real-time media constitutes a threat to security).
The Al Jazeera Effect
Al Jazeera represents the impact of new media and media sources on global politics, reducing the government and mainstream media’s monopoly on information and empowering groups that previously lacked a voice.
Al Jazeera emerged as a response to the control of media in Arab League countries, aiming to expand political participation and press freedom. It ended the flow of information that followed a “from the West to the rest” pattern. It exhibits a similar pattern to the CNN effect:
- Accelerant effect
- Impediment effect
- Agenda-setting effect
Seib noted that the Al Jazeera effect can be seen as parallel to the CNN effect. While the CNN effect describes how coverage of international events can force otherwise uninvolved governments to take action, and is used in the context of mainstream, traditional media networks (i.e., CNN), the Al Jazeera effect generalizes this to newer media. The CNN effect reinforces mainstream power; new media strengthens the identity of and gives voice to previously marginalized groups.