In Search of a Standard: four models of democracy and their normative implications for journalism

TLDR

Literature on media and journalism’s impact on democracy criticizes their content and negative effects, yet it fails to clarify which model of democracy underpins proposed news standards. The article seeks to identify news standards for evaluating journalism quality by linking them to four normative models of democracy—procedural, competitive, participatory, and deliberative—and exploring their implications for media. It does so by analyzing the demands of these four democratic models on citizens and the resulting expectations for news journalism. Keywords include journalism, democracy, normative models, and news standards, and the study was funded by STINT during the author’s guest scholarship at the University of Florida.

Abstract

Abstract The literature discussing the impact of media and journalism upon democracy, typically criticizes both media and journalism for their content and their negative effects on some aspects of democracy. In turn, this raises the question of identifying news standards by which the quality of news journalism might be evaluated. But neither the proposed news standards nor the criticism levelled against them specify with sufficient clarity the model of democracy to be used as a normative departure. This article argues that the question of proper news standards cannot be addressed in isolation from the question of different normative models of democracy. In order to discover news standards by which the quality of news journalism can or should be evaluated, it analyzes four normative models of democracy and their demands upon citizens: procedural democracy, competetive democracy, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Building upon that analysis, the article asks: What normative implications for media and news journalism follow from the distinctive perspectives of procedural, competitive, participatory and deliberative democracy? Keywords: JournalismDemocracyNormative ModelsNews Standards This article was largely written while the author was a guest scholar at the University of Florida during the Fall of 2004 funded by The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT). The author would like to thank STINT for the funding and Professor Lynda Lee Kaid for providing such a stimulating research environment.