Deliberation, the Media and Political Talk

In recent years democratic theory has taken a deliberative turn and one central question that needs to be answered is how to connect face-to-face conversations and deliberations in particular forums to broader discussions in the larger society. Working within the cutting edges of deliberative theories, this book surveys the role of the mass media in the deliberative system and investigates, through a set of empirical cases, a range of key problems in the media arena: the interplay between arguing and strategic manoeuvring; public demands for accountability; emotional appeal for deliberation; tensions between agonistic and diplomatic deliberation; and the public construction of general claims. Adopting an integrative perspective, this book also looks at how affected people use published opinions to make sense of politics and produce bottom-up reasons, in addition to media-driven or top-down discourses in the public sphere. The general aim of the book is to show that the mass media have an important place in deliberative democracy and to enrich political and media theories with new findings.