sluice-10.11770163443711436357.pdf (147.99 kB)
The 'sluice-gate' public sphere and the national DNA database in the UK
journal contribution
posted on 2013-10-16, 08:54 authored by John DowneyJohn Downey, Mike Stephens, Jan FlahertyHabermas’s amendments to his original public sphere thesis have been recognized by
a number of media scholars in recent years. His original thesis of a decline or refeudalization
of the public sphere where politics is played out in front of the public
has been modified, under the influence of Bernhard Peters’ work, to incorporate the
possibility of action from the periphery of the public sphere influencing, if not exclusively
determining, decisions made at the administrative core via sluice-gates. There has been
limited work, however, on exploring the operation of the sluices in greater detail,
and particularly on the role of the mass media in acting as a communication channel
between peripheral publics and core elites. The purpose of this article is to do so via a
case study of the mass media public debate in the UK about the existence and extent of
the national DNA database as it is a prima facie candidate for observing the operation
of the sluice-gates.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Citation
DOWNEY, J., STEPHENS, M. and FLAHERTY, J., 2012. The 'sluice-gate' public sphere and the national DNA database in the UK. Media, Culture and Society, 34 (4), pp. 439 - 456.Publisher
SAGE Publications © The Author(s)Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2012Notes
This article was published in the journal, Media, Culture and Society [SAGE Publications © The Author(s)] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0163443711436357ISSN
0163-4437Publisher version
Language
- en