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The Validity of TV JournalismTheoretical Starting Points for Critical Journalism Researc

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This article1 discusses some theoreticfundaments for empirical research in telesion news and current affairs journaliswith respect to what I have chosen to cits ”validity”. The concept of ”validity” re-lates to the essential legitimacy of journaism and the claims journalists and news stitutions make regarding the truth antruthfulness of their reports as well as to tcredibility accorded television journalismby viewers.

In countries like Sweden television ouput has undergone major changes in recyears. The addition of commercially financed channels and channels distributed satellite has meant that the menu presento TV viewers today is enormously different from that of less than ten years agNew kinds of programmes have appearand ”old” ones have metamorphosed. Nleast the news has changed. One significchange is that new kinds of current affaprogrammes occupy a growing share of tal air time (Ekström & Eriksson 1996)”Current affairs programmes” signifies programmes that deal with events and contions that are real (not fictional) and of topcal interest, but do so in a way that is diffeent from conventional newscasts. These clude talk shows and forum-format debatedocumentaries and ’true-life stories’ (docdramas, i.e., dramatizations which recostruct real events, primarily crimes and acidents).

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Mass media research has largely focusedtwo kinds of television production, newand fiction.2 But many of the programmethat fill contemporary programme tableauare neither news nor fiction. Journalism rsearch tends to equate ’journalism’ winews journalism. In the light of recentrends in television journalism, this is sadmisleading.

As Rolness (1992:17) observes, neconstitutes ”the hard core of mass medand the basis for journalists’ self-undestanding and professional pride”. The neare of critical importance to the legitimacof journalism. At the same time it is newjournalism which has drawn most fire in rcent years. In discussions of the ethics amorality of journalism, news journalists arthe ones whose behaviour is scrutinizmost critically. Implicit in much of the criti-cism raised to date are expectations whdescribe a form of journalism quite diffeent, in terms of both the conditions of prduction and forms of presentation, frodominant conventions. Critics call, for example, for more investigative journalismwhich clearly would demand radical chanes in the organization and routines whiapply in news desks today (Nohrstedt Ekström 1994). Others have argued theditors and journalists should tone dowtheir claims to ’truth’, that they should become less conformist and authoritarian ainstead leave room for different readin

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and interpretations. Furthermore, theyshould offer material of greater relevanceviewers in their everyday lives, topics tharouse debate.

Among the various kinds of current afairs programmes that exist today there aexamples of styles of journalism that least claim to represent the kind of journaism critics have called for. There are prgrammes which specialize in investigativreporting, programmes which deal witcurrent affairs in a light, entertaining fashion, debate fora which include ’the man othe street’. Television of today offers a vaety of different kinds of current affairs programmes which afford researchers amopportunities to compare and contrast bogenres and styles of journalism.

Whereas the public debate and opinipolls show a decline in public confidence journalism, the profession and its institutions exert decisive influence in society, ainfluence which is wielded with a high degree of legitimacy and autonomy. Journaistic descriptions of reality are generalhighly credited in both day-to-day convesation and public debates. Within the prfession, journalists have elaborated a pfessional ethical code which expresses ideals and norms members of the corps pfess to follow, and which they often used shield themselves against criticism (Tucman 1972; Nohrstedt & Ekström 1994These ideals are in turn expressions broader ideologies, which accord journaism a central role in the function of demcracies: to scrutinize holders of power, communicate factual and accurate informtion, to defend freedom of opinion formation, etc. Their control over the media givjournalism considerable opportunities to lgitimize its activities. In programme upoprogramme journalism appears before audiences and tells its own story. The legmacy or validity the audience may acco

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journalism may in turn be assumed to decisive for how viewers interpret whathey see and hear in news and current fairs programmes.

In the following I shall argue in favouof research on the validity of journalismbased on, and guided by, two theoreticstarting points. First, the question of valid-ity should be approached via an examintion of the relationships between (1) instutional conditions, professional practiceand the production processes behind wwe see on our screens, including the judments made and priorities assigned in retion to the manifest ideals of, and claims validity made by the profession; (2) thclaims to validity expressed in differenkinds of news and current affairs prgrammes, including the ways journalispresents itself and tells its own story; (how the audience relates to the programmand such manifest claims and, indirectly,the journalism, institutions and ideologwhich underlie them.

Secondly, I shall present a theoreticaand normative approach, primarily inspireby Jörgen Habermas’ theory of speech aand the basic assumption of the potentfor rationality in modern society to which is related. This approach is developpartly as a critical response to certain tedencies in constructivist and postmodenist-influenced media research.

In past decades the manifest ideals aclaims of journalism have been studied numerous respects and a variety of persptives. To simplify somewhat, we can distiguish between two essentially different aproaches. First, a considerable body of search, taking its point of departure in thmanifest ideals and ideology of journalismstudies such things as the extent to whthe audience feels these ideals have bfulfilled, journalists’ own judgements inthis regard, the relative priorities accord

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various ideals, possible conflicts betweideals. Or, it tries to determine the extentwhich the news is factual, accurate, baanced and neutral or sensational, selectand biased (cf. i.a. McQuail 1987; Rolne1992; Westerståhl 1983; Weibull 1991). Etablished media ideology – and perhaabove all the ideology of public servicbroadcasting – has been the prime normtive point of departure for this researcThe problem with these studies is that thdo not permit any more fundamentproblematization of the ideology and legitmacy of journalism.

It is precisely the ambition to contributto a more fundamental problematizatiowhich characterizes a second set of empcal studies and theoretical works (cf. i.Dahlgren 1993; Ekecrantz & Olsson 199Rolness 1992; Fiske 1989). Constructivisand postmodern theory have been a mainfluence in these studies.3 Thus, the claimof journalism to produce and impart truand objective news reports has been chlenged within the framework of relativisand constructivist epistemologies. The nomative fundaments of the profession (pehaps above all the public service ideologare associated with the modern projecexaggerated faith in enlightenment, infomation, rational and well-founded knowedge, and a rigid division of labour between those who enlighten and those whin order to be good citizens, need to be elightened.

Constructivism and postmodernishave most assuredly exerted vital influenon journalism research, as they have mavital contributions to our understanding omedia society today.4 Nonetheless, I findthat this body of theory has serious limittions and, to some extent, has tendedlead journalism research into fruitless cude-sac.

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The remainder of the article is arrangedfollows: First, three sections examine acriticize central aspects of the construcvism and postmodernism as they have fluenced journalism research. Thereaftan alternative approach, based primarily Habermas’ theories, is presented. In tconcluding section I raise some criticquestions regarding the applicability of Hbermas’ theory in empirical studies of thvalidity of news and current affairs journaism.

Constructivism inJournalism ResearchResearch on news journalism is one many areas in which it has become increingly common to speak of ”the social construction of ...” (cf. Brante 1993). Often ipolemics with the mirror metaphor, manscholars have pointed out that the news created or constructed by the institutionspractices of journalism. Not only do newdesks choose to publish some items aleave out others, as the gatekeeper mephor suggests, but journalism creates meing by composing the news according certain conventions and narrative tecniques. Constructivism is nothing new journalism research. Many of the studiwhich are frequently cited in this contexwhether or not they explicitly adopt constructivist perspective, were done published in the 1970s (cf. Epstein 197Gans 1979; Molotch & Lester 1974; Schlsinger 1987; Schudson 1991; Tuchm1978, i.a.). These and other studies hacontributed to our knowledge of how thforms and content of television newscasare created through social practices withthe framework of specific organizationcontexts, economic-political structures acultural values.

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Gaye Tuchman’s Making News: A Study inthe Construction of Reality has become aclassic example of the constructivist aproach (cf. Eide 1992; Schudson 199i.a.). Tuchman’s is a phenomenological aproach, in which a fundamental questionhow people in their everyday lives crea”the social world and its institutions ashared and constructed phenomena” (Tuman 1978:182). Journalistic practices aseen to be constructive in a dual sense: tfill the social institution, the norms, routines and community of values of the prfession with meaning, as they give the reity they describe meaning. From thconstructivist vantage point, Tuchman dscribes the ideal of objectivity in terms ofset of strategic rituals, i.e., routines creatwithin the framework of the work of journalism. They are ’rituals’ in the sense ththey have relatively little bearing on the ojectivity of the news per se, and they a’strategic’ in that they are developed anapplied as a defence against possible crcism. In the phenomenological approacfeatures of reality are what they seem toto be, or what they become when we uthem.5 In accordance with this principlethe ideal of objectivity is understood iterms of the meaning the ideal assumwhen it is used in specific social practice

In the field of journalism researchconstructivism has been applied not onlythe form of social constructivism but also a rhetorical form, related to the concept discourse, for example. An article bRolness (1992) casts light on the distintion. That news media are commonly cricized for being fragmentary, selective or iaccurate, writes Rolness, has to do with ideal of public enlightenment, i.e., the ntion that readers by reading about the faof reality will acquire the knowledge theneed in order to act rationally and to parcipate in democratic processes. In line w

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this thinking, the media are expected to reliable and objective. Researchers’ cricisms are, according to Rolness, basedthe naive and untenable notion that it possible to distinguish between true realand the image of reality the media producSuch critics presume to have the truth their side without examining the assumtions underlying their normative critiqueRolness (1992:18) would seem to be saythat science, like journalism, constructs rality within the framework of social discourses or language practices, and thereno rational reasons why the scientific dicourse, or any discourse for that mattshould take precedence over others:

Thus, the media are neither good nor poor

communicators of facts, but contribute to

determining what we perceive to be real-

ity. More than reflect events, they define

them. And the same is true of all other

agents of reality production – the social

sciences included. Through different kinds

of formalized [instituert] formulations re-

ality takes form – phenomena are selected,

put in order, interpreted.

Postmodernism– Four Essential ThemesIn the following I shall briefly present fouessential themes or emphases in postmonist theory, all of which have strongly influenced media and journalism research of past decade. Within the framework of thethemes the legitimacy of journalism – balso the research which has taken the ideand claims of journalism seriously and othat basis judged journalistic performanin relation to the media’s roles in democratic society – has been seriously callinto question.

A first common theme in much postmodern theory is what Lash (1990) calls de-

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differentiation. The processes of rationalzation and secularization associated wmodernism are outgrowths of a differentition between different spheres, rationalitiand modes of behaviour.6 Much modern so-cial theory presumes that ethics, aestheand theoretical knowledge reside in diffeent spheres. Postmodernism problematithe boundaries between these spheres.stead of trying to specify the inner logic oeach sphere, postmodernism emphasithe tendencies toward dissolution and mgence which are apparent in contemporasociety. In analyses of the media and jonalism this emphasis is expressed in questioning of genre definitions which prsuppose a distinction between the rationaties of aesthetics and theoretical knowedge. It is most clearly expressed in Badrillard’s theories of how the boundariebetween information and entertainment, btween fact and fiction, between the real athe unreal dissolve in the media culture the postmodern age. Baudrillard uses concept implosion to describe this trendReferring to Baudrillard, Best and Kellne(1991:120), write:

In the postmodern mediascape, boundaries

between information and entertainment,

images and politics, implode. As many

commentators have pointed out, TV news

and documentary assume more and more

the form of entertainment, using dramatic

and melodramatic codes to frame their sto-

ries.

Relatively few students of the media anjournalism appear to share Baudrillard’s rdical perspective. Rather many more haquestioned the boundaries between diffent genres, between fact and fiction, btween information and entertainment, owhich the claims to legitimacy of currenaffairs and news journalism have befounded.

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Bird (1990) is one of many who have agued that all journalism is ”storytelling(see also Fiske 1987). What we perceiveserious news journalism, says Bird (199386), is more like tabloid journalism thawe commonly assume. Both occupy potions on ”the same storytelling continuumBoth make use of the same narrative teniques, refer to facts and factual statemenand use sources that confer credibility. Tring to make simple distinctions betweefact and fiction or between information anentertainment is, moreover, equally prolematic, regardless of what kind of journaism we are talking about. Dahlgren (19914) argues that the conventional distintions between information and entertaiment, and between different kinds of jounalism, which have been fundamental the self-understanding and legitimacy the profession, are dubious – both in ligof the different ways in which audiences rlate to the media and due to the ambiguof the texts.

If the meaning in a text is indeed inde-

terminable to some extent and if people

have considerable degrees of interpretive

freedom, this no doubt raises profound

problems for journalism. This line of rea-

soning, if taken seriously, signifies a cri-

sis for journalism’s most cherished foun-

dations. Not only can people make differ-

ent sense of journalistic texts and use them

for a variety of purposes, but the meaning

of the texts themselves cannot be assumed

to be ’stable’. In effect, the central distinc-

tions between journalism and non-journal-

ism, or good journalism and bad journal-

ism – the boundaries so characteristic of

journalism’s self-legitimating discourses

– become fluid.

We find another expression of this de-dferentiation in Foucault’s theories, in whicpower and knowledge tend to blend in

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one another.7 The discourse organizethought and knowledge, and this organiztion is power in its essential form. Power relative strength, a field of power-relationthrough which ideas and knowledge aproduced (cf. Foucault 1980a, 1980b). Tpower struggle is ultimately a question establishing discursive knowledge as trknowledge. Truth claims can never be jusfied by referring to a form of rationality inherent in knowledge. Truth claims are aexpression of an exercise of power. Fis(1989) is among those who have bestrongly influenced by this school othought when he observes that the idealstruth and objectivity in news journalismand media researchers’ demand for motruth are both expressions of a totalitaristrategy in an ongoing power strugglFiske (1989:176f) writes:

Arguments that news should be more accu-

rate or objective are actually arguments in

favour of news’ authority, and seek to in-

crease its control under the guise of im-

proving its quality. News, of course, can

never give a full, accurate, objective pic-

ture of reality, nor should it attempt to, for

such an enterprise can serve only to in-

crease its authority and decrease people’s

opportunity to ’argue’ with it, to negoti-

ate with it.

This leads us to the second common thein postmodern theory, viz., its relativistepistemology. Postmodernism is highly critical of the notion that we can grasp nå re-ality as it is, that it is possible to acquiobjective and true knowledge of reality8

Lyotard, for example, observes that theare any number of discourses or languagames having internal criteria of validity isociety, which lack common points of reerence. No knowledge of reality subsumthem. Lyotard looks upon notions of knowledge as being a more or less true repres

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tation of reality as making virtually totalitarian claims, or ”the terror of representtion, the sign and the notion of truth(Wellmer 1986:137; cf. also Lyotard 1992The totalitarian aspect resides not leastthe striving to find a universal basis foknowledge. This ”terror of the notion otruth” is a terror which is associated witthe claims to truth and uniformity whiccharacterize modernism.

Within the realm of media and journaism research the metaphor of the mirror athe notion of objective journalism havbeen seriously questioned. Like the pomodern theoreticians, journalism researcers have mainly criticized naive realismconception of truth. Fiske (1989:149), foexample, writes: ”But knowledge is neveneutral, it never exists in an empiricist, ojective relationship to the real.” This empiricism has in turn been associated wthe tradition of the Enlightenment, whicseems to have inspired what Dahlgr(1992:9) calls ”the dominant discourses journalism”:

In the dominant discourses of journalism,

as in the texts of neoMarxism, the ratio-

nality of the Enlightenment figures promi-

nently. We find such familiar bedrock pre-

mises as the notion of reason’s capacity to

provide secure knowledge about the

world, the possibility of unproblematical

representation of such knowledge, the

belief in the integrated autonomous sub-

ject, and the tendency to neat dualisms and

polarities such as rational/irrational, mind/

matter and logical/mythical (emphasis

added).

The empiricist philosophy, Dahlgren observes, has helped legitimize an ideologyjournalism built up around ideals like objectivity and factuality.

A third common theme in postmodertheory is what we might call a critique o

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the normative fundaments of ”the moderist project”. The ethical ideals and ideologof news journalism are closely integratedwhat is often referred to as ”the modernproject” (a concept which is somewhat mileading in that it gives the impression thatis a question of one project). Ideals like ojectivity, factuality, critical scrutiny and independent opinion formation presume thnews journalism at least has the potential tobe a vital institution in a society which istriving toward broadened democracy, which the belief in reason, enlightenmeand critical rational debate are importaideals. Postmodern theory questions tpotential. Denzin (1993:27) characterizthe theory as ”a critique of scientific knowledge and realism coupled with a profoudistrust of reason and science as forcwhich will produce a utopian society bason consensus, rational communicative ation and human freedom”. Under postmdern influences, journalism researchehave also rejected established media idlogies (e.g., public service ideology). Th(together with commercial and global mdia trends) has again broached the quesof what constitutes good or bad journalismthe answers to which have become leconclusive than they once were (Dahlgr1993). To answer this question requirsome form of normative standpoint if ware not to accept the nihilism which charaterizes some postmodernist works (BestKellner 1991).

One consistent feature of postmodernjournalism research is its sharp criticsm the normative ideals that relate to modeism, whilst refraining from developing ansystematic alternative normative referenpoints for a critical analysis of the medand journalism. Nonetheless, postmodecriticism is predicated on normative ideaResistance to the discipline, norms and pwer relationships of modern society itself

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assigned value, for example. On the baof this ideal, postmodernist reception rsearchers extol the potentiality of the auence to resist dominant discourses, to uthe media to create meanings, identities apopular cultures. Authoritarian journalismwith its normative ideal of objectivity, isseen to induce passivity in an audience’consumers’. ’Good’ journalism in thisview is journalism which questions amanner of claims to truth, its own includeand opens up possibilities for new interprtations by stimulating involvement and prvoking reactions, and by emphasizing tmultifacted and ambiguous rather than costructing seemingly unequivocal narratio(Livingstone & Lunt 1994; Fiske 1989).

Now, to a fourth common theme in posmodernism. Postmodern society is charaterized as being a symbol-producing soety, in which images and symbols abounThe meaning of these images and symbhas become increasingly fluid, and their rlation to what we call reality is anythinbut simple or unequivocal. One of the chaacteristics of postmodernism, Feathersto(1994:31) posits, is ”the conversion of reaity to images”. (See also Best & Kellne1991; Denzin 1993). Since we are living what we call a ’media society’ and ’medculture’, it is not surprising or even remarable that social theorists have focused nonly on the media in general, but on aethetic and semiotic dimensions of the mdia in particular. Much of the literaturehowever, especially that on television, htended toward a relatively one-eyed view television as a ”medium of images” (cCorner 1995), whereas the practices tproduce these ’images’ have received leattention. In analyses influenced by pomodernist doctrine there is a pronounctendency to consider images and symbrelatively independent of social institutionand practices. The latter arises out

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postmodernist theory’s rejection of all anlyses which claim to identify underlyingsocial structures (Best & Kellner 1991Denzin 1993).

In Baudrillard’s more radical view, postmodern society differs from previous socities in that the symbols that surround us longer have a real or meaningful refereIn this view, the mass media produce meningless simulations which are consumebut do not impart values or a basis for rtional action (Baudrillard 1982; Denzi1993). Most likely rather few researcheare willing to go as far as Baudrillard, buin the field of media research there haspractice been a strong tendency among alysts of both text and reception to treat aethetic and semiotic dimensions relativeindependent of the media institutions athe practices behind the texts.9

Four Objections to Constructivistand Postmodernist JournalismResearch

Before I propose my own starting points fcritical journalism research, I should like tsummarize my principal objections tconstructivism and postmodernism in thfollowing four points:

1.

We find many examples of diffuse bordebetween fact and fiction, between news aentertainment in media output of todaMany of the non-news current affairs prgrammes in programme tableaux are moor less hybrid forms (Bondebjerg 1995The lines of demarcation between whatart and aesthetics and what is factual deption of reality are hardly clear when evenewscasts contain items which are coposed according to dramaturgical rules b

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rowed from narrative fiction. This might btaken as confirmation of a fading differentiation between spheres and therefore cato abandon the concepts of rationaliwhich are based in such differentiatioBut, I say we should do more or less topposite. To my way of thinking, Haberma(1984, 1988) has shown quite convincingthat the differentiation between spheresinherent in rational use of language, in tfundamental rules of linguistic pragmaticwhich we constantly apply and take fogranted, not least in everyday conversatiThese rules are also a virtually self-evidefundament of journalism and its legitimacThe tacit contracts between journalism athe public are based on either that the pfession’s claims to truth, truthfulness annormative rightness are foregone concsions or that they can be redeemed with rerence to the inherent logic of the spherequestion. If journalism is criticized for producing incorrect information about an eveor situation, it is expected that this criticiswill lead to a correction or justification inrelation to an epistemological discoursThat journalism in practice has consideable power to legitimate its activities bone or another strategy, without having live up to its stated claims is another stoA school of thought like postmodernismwhich takes signs of dissolution as grounfor abandoning rationality as a basis fcritical analysis of the media, may no mothan legitimize a current media trend whicis driven by powerful commercial forces.

2.

Postmodernism and constructivism reprsent a radical strain of relativism which walargely formulated in polemics with naivrealism or objectivism. Many media researchers have been influenced by tschool of thought, with the result that an a

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tack has been mounted on an epistemolowhich in many respects is already paseven in journalism (Dahlgren 1992; Fisk1989; Rolness 1992). While it is true thsuch naive realism, the notion that the nerepresents unquestionably true presentions of fact, does support the legitimacy journalism, the prevailing epistemology ijournalism today is nonetheless consideably more multifaceted (cf. Ekström &Nohrstedt 1996). The question of whclaims to truth today’s anything-but-unform television journalism actually makehas hardly been addressed.

Dahlgren (1989:7) points out that thmain contribution of constructivism to journalism research is not to lead into ”the mrass of relativism, but to be more sensitito how ’the construction of reality’ takeplace”. Dahlgren is not alone in this vie(cf. Schudson 1991:141, i.a.). But it seemthat many journalism researchers stopthis reservation and fail to go on to devela perspective that might transcend the ctradiction between the relativism to whicconstructivism indirectly contributes anthe naive realism which is often the objeof their polemic attacks. The concept ’social constructivism’ often either tends express trivialities or tends toward a postion, the consequences of which are unteable (cf. Brante 1993). An example of trivality pertaining to news journalism is thproposition that the news is produced in scial contexts by individuals whose actionare purposive and create meaning. All hman actions are, after all, conscious, refletive, intentional and social. An example an untenable position is the proposition ththe news is nothing more than social costructions, that it in no way represents a ality which exists, independent of the jounalist and his/her reports.

The postmodern critique is, of coursimportant in view of the fact that muc

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journalism claims to present an absolutetruthful rendering of reality, this in an agin which we have come to learn that knowedge is anything but certain and the notiof certain and objective bases for knowedge has become less tenable than ever.postmodernism hardly offers a fruitfupoint of departure for critical analysis inamuch as its only alternative to naive realisis radical relativism. A media critic sho setotal relativism as the only alternativwould seem, once again, only to legitimizcertain trends within journalism, in whicjournalism uses its power (without actualrelinquishing its claim to truth) to justifygross simplifications, dramatizations anpartisan descriptions of reality on thgrounds that, after all, there is no suthing as objective truth. The attempts transcend the dualism between realism/ojectivism and relativism which have beemade in recent decades (e.g. Bernst1987; Sayer 1992) seem to have pasmost journalism researchers by unnoticeHabermas is one of those who has devoped a third perspective which renders tclaim to truth susceptible to criticism without presuming the existence of objectivetrue knowledge (a subject to which we shreturn).

There is, Dahlgren (1989:6) asserts, ”external social reality that is not somehocomprehended in our consciousness ause of language and symbols”. This rathcommon viewpoint is, of course, in at leaone sense true: when we use the words cial reality’, we have specified a reality olanguage and symbols. But in anothsense, as I see it, the proposition does hold. There is a reality outside specifknowledge processes. Just as physical rity exists beyond our sensory experiencesocial reality exists beyond our comprehesion. This becomes apparent when physiand social reality protests, disallowing ce

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tain experience or contradicting certain dscriptions and conceptualizations (Say1992).

Journalism is comprised of relativelspecific knowledge-producing organizations which describe a reality which actually exists, partly independent of the spcific descriptions of reality which are puforward. I am further of the opinion that wcan and should relate journalistic descrtions of this reality not to an absolutely trudescription of reality, but to a morintersubjective, and probably less fallibldescription. With the help of experienccritical reflection and communicative rationality we can assess the truth of variodescriptions of reality. We can alsproblematize the often highly routinizework and standardized narrative formwhich prevail in journalism against thbackground of ideas concerning the fundmental ideals and principles of the genetion of knowledge. According to the schoof critical realism, there can be no incotestably true propositions about reality (inoring for the moment trivial statements fact, such as that Olof Palme once wPrime Minister of Sweden). All knowledgis more or less fallible (Sayer 1992). Laguage and narrative forms give us the strtures which make it possible to descrisomething with a measure of truth, but thcan also help create contexts of meanwhich cast events into a distorting or mileading light. The circumstance that all dscriptions of reality are social and rhetorcal constructions does not mean that such constructions are equally true.

3.

Postmodernism has mounted a forceful tack on the rationalism and ideal of enlighenment which form the basis of dominanormative media ideologies, but it has n

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offered much in the way of alternative nomative starting points for critical journalism research. Attempts have been madeI briefly indicated above, taking their poinof departure in the public’s active interpretations and possibilities to resist intendmeanings. Fiske (1989), for example clearly inspired by Foucault and perhaeven moreso Nietzsche – has elaboratheories of receivers’ resistance and creaity. Resistance is seen not least as an athetic force, which denies the totalitariaclaims of science and reason. Nietzschphilosophy is reflected in Fiske in a kind oromantic populism, whereby all manner resistance is accorded value, regardlesswhat is resisted and what versions of realthe receivers elaborate for themselv(Kellner 1995). Habermas (1988:68) fomulates the problem with Nietzsche’s theries as follows, and I find it equally applicable to, for example, Fiske:

But when thought no longer can move

about in the element of truth, of validity

claims, opposition and criticism lose their

meaning. Opposition, saying No, in that

case is reduced to more than ’a desire to

be different’ 10

To be able to evaluate such resistancequires a more universal normative theowhich in turn is based on some form of rtionalism, i.e., precisely what postmodetheory rejects. Further on, I shall argue thHabermas’ theory of the fundamental reuisites for rational communication offesuch a normative starting point.

4.

To my way of thinking, postmodern theorhas contributed to a one-sided focus on mdia in terms of text, symbols, and imagesis at least as important to consider mediaspeech. In news and current affairs pr

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grammes on TV, journalists and others adress the viewing audience, either direcor indirectly. The programmes are predcated on a communicative relationship btween the viewer and those who appearthe programmes. Viewers’ interpretationof what is said on television depend otheir a priori conceptions of the persospeaking, his or her intentions, and/or tinstitution he or she represents (see, for ample, Scannell 1994). Therefore, it is vitthat analyses not only employ semiotic mdels, discourse analyses, etc., but also thries of the pragmatic dimension of language.

Many tendencies in contemporary medsociety contribute to concealing the pratices underlying what we see on televisioWe are constantly being influenced by images and descriptions of reality from uknown sources, the identities of which afurthermore difficult to ascertain. Commecial production of images and texts has bcome increasingly global. This circumstance hardly makes it less important to observant about who is using the mediuto speak to the public (directly or indrectly), as well as what institutions instigaprogramme production. Postmodern medanalysis, however, tends to consider textand images as ’givens’ rather than as proucts.

Communicative Rationality –Starting Points for CriticalJournalism Research

In relation to postmodernism and what wfor the sake of simplicity, might call thconcept of modernity in the classic philosphy of enlightenment, Habermas occupiethird position (Carleheden 1996). Insteaof rejecting modernity, Habermas seeksestablish the preconditions for realizing i

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inherent potential. He seeks this potentabove all in a rationality inherent in communication. In this endeavour he elaboraa theory of communicative rationalitwhich is ultimately rooted in how we uslanguage. Rational communication whiccan lead to deeper knowledge and undstanding presumes that we follow not onsemantic rules, but also rules pertainingthe pragmatic aspects of language, i.speech acts. Since these rules are assuto be universal, the theory has been calleuniversal pragmatics (Habermas 1981988; McCarthy 1988).11

When language is used, when we speto someone, we always relate our speeacts to an external reality (a reality whicwe can describe in a true or untrue fashioan inner reality (a person’s intentionwhich may be characterized as truthfuhonest or dishonest), and a reality of shanorms and values which may be perceivas normatively right or wrong. In additioto comprehensibility, each speech act epresses claims to validity, truth, truthfuness and normative rightness. The univerpreconditions for using language rationaare thus: (1) that we can use the languarepresentationally to distinguish what from what merely appears to be; (2) that wcan use the language expressively to disguish between what a person is and whe/she purports to be; and (3) that we cuse the language to generate common vues and to distinguish between what is awhat should be (cf. McCarthy 1988:272ff

Validity claims can either be accepted challenged. That the claims are open criticism is fundamental to rational communication; so is the demand that he/she wexpresses such claims is willing to fulfithem. In the context of rational communcation a challenge means that he/she whas expressed a claim is expected to seejustify the claim through reference to exp

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riences which support the claim to trute.g., through honest behaviour, or by refring to norms and values. The essential dferentiation means that the claims to valiity in rational communication are justifieaccording to different rationalities and irelation to fundamentally different discouses. Rationality also presupposes that parties can change their positions and amit that the claims may be unjustified. Thfact that the other party does not explicitchallenge a claim need not mean that ittruly a rational dialogue inasmuch as seeing consensus may also be achievthrough manipulation and power-play, i.ethrough strategic action. Acceptance issign of rationality only if it is the outcomeof communication that conforms as nearto the ideal dialogue as possible, i.e., a dlogue oriented toward genuine understaning rather than various forms of dominanc

Claims to validity are not equally relevant in all kinds of communication. Abovall, there are speech acts which do not mclaims to truth in the sense of truthfurepresentations of external reality. Theare what Habermas refers to as symbolicaction, such as theatre or dance. Habermalso makes a distinction between undstanding-oriented communicative actionand strategic action, whereby the latter ischaracterized by an orientation toward sucess, i.e., the individual (or institution) exercises his/her/its powers to persuade, mnipulate and mislead, all in order to influence others in a given direction (Aun1979).

Characteristic of news and current afairs journalism is that it claims to be, anis largely perceived as being, understaning-oriented communication. Obviouslyjournalism is characterized by a more strtegic rationality, as well. Nonetheless, it precisely the claims to comprehensibilittruth, truthfulness, and normative rightne

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which makes news and current affairs jounalism what it is – from the point of view othe profession and the public alike. Theclaims influence how the audience peceives what journalism tells them. Thingsaid given a manifest claim to give a trurendering of something real and importaare interpreted quite differently from whais said in jest or as an thrilling, but clearfictional story. The claim to validity callsattention to an implicit contract betweejournalism and its audiences (cf. Bondbjerg 1994; Scannell 1994).

Taking our point of departure in thclaims to validity outlined by Habermaswe gain a partly new understanding of tethical principles and ideology of journaism. The claims to truth, normative righness and truthfulness are expressed in profession’s ethical code, but they are areflected in journalism’s mode of addresing its audience and in how individual reports are presented. On a fundamenlevel, the claims to validity are crucial tthe legitimacy of journalism as a central istitution of democratic society.

In my opinion, the important questiofor critical media analysis in this connection is not to try to decide which claim imost important to which form of journalism, which genre or which programmThat some programmes emphasize dramturgical qualities in order to serve their adience ’good stories’ with a simplestraightforward message at the expensenuance, factuality and a ’balanced view’ not a problem per se. The problem ariseand when journalistic practice deviates snificantly from the claims journalismmakes in various contexts and from tconceptions underlying viewers’ viewinand interpretations of what they see ahear. A central question of overarching importance for critical analyses of news acurrent affairs journalism is thus: What

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the nature of the relationships between manifest ideals and claims of journalismthe practices of journalism (including thstructures and mechanisms which impinon those practices), and viewers’ percetions and expectations?

Let us now examine some ideals, claimand practices of journalism in the light oHabermas’ theory concerning the fundmental validity claims inherent in communication.

Comprehensibility

Basic to all journalism is the ambition to bcomprehensible, to get one’s messaacross. With this goal in mind, certaforms of presentation, rhetorical techniquand narrative structures take priority. Newdesks’ evaluations of yesterday’s newscor paper often revolve around these aspeThey are decisive with regard to whethernot a news item is considered good or baparticularly in broadcasting. A news item good if it has a clear-cut angle that geacross to the audience, and bad if the msage is diffuse or the item contains tomany aspects and reservations. An itemconsidered good if the journalist managto make a good story out of scanty raw mterial (Nohrstedt & Ekström 1994).

Characteristic of many current affairtelecasts today is a penchant for sensatialism. Items emphasize astonishing shocking aspects of the story, exaggerand dramatize. The main motive for doinso is most likely the desire to get acrossthe viewer, the ambition to make the stoeasy to understand.

It is reasonable to assume that this amtion to be explicit, to be easy-to-undestand, assumes higher priority as competion for viewers’ attention becomes increaingly acute. Catching the viewer’s eye ankeeping their attention so that they st

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tuned becomes more and more imperatiThis may mean that in practice news destend to give somewhat less priority to thaccuracy and veracity of the reports.12

Truthfulness

At base the legitimacy of journalism is dependent on whether or not the public cosiders it truthful, honest and straightfoward. In part it is a question of the overacredibility of the media and journalism ainstitutions. Despite recurrent criticismthese institutions have managed, by meof various legitimizing mechanisms, tmaintain a basic credibility. The public sevice ideology and the idea of journalism a responsible institution in the service the public has played an important role this regard. But truthfulness is also a matof how journalism presents itself to thpublic on a day-to-day basis. In the nesituation in Swedish television, with sharening inter-channel competition, expresiveness has become a competitive tenique, and truthfulness is ever at risk in increasingly personal relation with thviewer. One expression of this trend is tsalience of the role and style of the prgramme host. Some news programmes sto develop a distinctive profile on the basof the anchorperson’s personal style of psentation. That is to say, he or she appenot as a neutral presenter of the news, as a ’personality’. A special kind of truthfulness assumes importance: viz., authecity (Hjarvard 1994). The trend is evemore pronounced in other kinds of curreaffairs programmes. In some cases name of the programme host is the namethe programme (Ekström & Eriksson 199

The power of journalism can only bfully understood if we take account of ipower to organize and orchestrate its oappearance, i.e., the prerogative of telli

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its own story day after day. The expressiaspect is included in judgements made oroutine basis, or more reflectively or stratgically in all journalistic practice. Anglesare selected partly to give the viewer a ctain impression of the work of the teamone speaks of ’exposing’ whether or not tnews was in any way concealed; reports presented so as to show the reporter onscene, preferably at the very centre of tevent at hand; the anchorperson’s appeance and body language are self-conscioly stylized, etc. As competition sharpens wmay expect expressiveness to be givgreater priority over the work involved igetting and double-checking the facts the story.

Truth

The claim to truth is central to the journaistic ethic which has conferred legitimacon journalism as an influential and reltively autonomous conveyor of knowledgin contemporary society. Journalists’ prfessional code of ethics deals with thclaim in terms of factuality, accuracy animpartiality.13 Journalism also has the ambtion to scrutinize. Through critical scrutinthe press is assumed to reveal hidden inaccessible truths to the public. Televisionews and current affairs journalism frequently aims high in this respect, somtimes even aspiring to telling the Truth wita capital ’T’. The news is presented inself-assured and authoritative manner wan unequivocalness that suggests that ian absolutely true account of reality. Prgrammes which specialize in investigativjournalism claim to be able to present treal truth concealed behind fa‡ades amanipulated versions of reality. At the samtime, journalists commonly elect not tspecify their sources or otherwise give i

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formation in support of their statements fact (Ekström & Eriksson 1996).

In the practice of news journalism, epitemological problems are generally redced to simple routines. News reporters, fexample, have little opportunity to gathreliable information by which to judge thtruth of statements and policy initiativeAll they know is that someone has said thor that, not whether it is true. In practictherefore, truth boils down to ’correcfacts’, i.e. that a specified person actuasaid this or that. Internal norms indicawhat is to be regarded as relatively incotrovertible fact. In his or her daily work threporter makes use of a well-establishnetwork of sources who provide whaEttema & Glasser (1985:344) have call”pre-justified accounts of what is”, i.e.facts, the truth or objectivity of which thjournalist need not investigate or asse(see also Tuchman 1978; Nohrstedt Ekström 1994). Investigative journalists aply a somewhat different epistemology antake upon themselves a greater responsiity to corroborate and verify the information they disclose and publicize. This hasdo with the fact that the investigative jounalist is presenting a story of his/her owwhich has moral implications and mahave serious consequences for the persowho figure in the story (Ettema & Glasse1985).

Although the question of journalism’far-reaching claims to truth is a recurretheme, not least in postmodernist criticismas yet few studies have really examined epistemologies applied in the widely variepractices of journalism today or the epistmological discourses which journalists uwhen they defend their claims to truth, bowithin the organization and vis-á-vis thpublic.

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Normative Rightnes s

News journalism has been characterizeda knowledge-conveying institution, witobjectivity and neutrality its highest idea(Nerman 1989; Nohrstedt & Ekström1994). And such ideals do prevail withthe profession. It is also common in, for eample, debates on the role of journalism managing editors and others to profethese ideals to people outside the branThese professions are, however, in anotsense, somewhat misleading. Not only journalists constantly make normativjudgements (deliberately or unconsciousin their everyday work, but the legitimacof journalism is also based in normativclaims on a higher plane, in norms conceing the role of the profession in democrasociety. The ethical code of journalism rquire journalists to respect the integrity individuals, while they should also scrutnize and inform the public in matters relaing to the public interest.

Current events television programmexpress normative claims of another kinThese programmes have the ambition deal with subjects that are important in oor another moral aspect. It may be tcriminal neglect of children in Rumanian oChinese orphanages, the problem of dmestic brutality, mothers keeping childrefrom their fathers after divorce, consultanwho counsel in tax evasion, etc. Not leathe manner of presentation stresses thepect of a moral ’mission’. In most cases tcoverage is more or less overtly partisan.the case of talk shows, for example, prgramme hosts frequently declare their psonal point of view in questions having ovious moral implications.

The legitimacy of investigative journalism is bound up with its claim to exposconditions that need to be exposed, to tstories that need to be told. And it is pr

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cisely this ’mission’ that allows investigative journalists on occasion to violate tageted individuals’ personal integrity. Fundamental to the normative claims of jounalism is appearing to help those in need,be they individuals or the public at largLet us consider a couple of examples. the Swedish talk show, Mänskligt,14 peoplein distress tell their stories with much shoof emotion. The programme host somtimes assumes the role of therapist, somtimes that of an understanding friend, shoulder to cry on’. She invites the particpants to tell their stories and get, if ncomfort, at least moral support. In Efterlyst[Wanted], a programme inspired by BBCCrimewatch UK, journalists appear shouder-to-shoulder with the police, taking uarms against ruthless criminals and proteing or avenging the innocent and vulneable – ”It could be you or me”.

Much of the public discussion of journalism and journalists’ practices in receyears has had a strongly moral tenor. Osuch issue concerns the use of picturMany critics have urged greater restrictiviin the use of stills and footage of the vitims of war and natural catastrophes anmore generally, of people in distress or mourning. Others have responded that supictures are a vital part of journalismwhich has a moral duty to focus public atention on social crises and injustices.

Television as CommunicativePractice: The Claim to Validityand Viewers’ Interpretations

Television is not only a ”medium of images”, it is also a ”medium of speech” (Coner 1995), a medium through which jounalists and others more or less regularly adress a conceived audience, directly or directly. These speech acts are organiz

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and staged through television programmEach such act expresses claims to validwithin the framework of what Dahlgre(1988) terms the ”prime narrator”, i.e., newsdesk or the programme as a whole. pecially through the symbolic languagused in the opening of the programme, tsignature music and the presentation of content the prime narrator signals whkind of programme it is and the kinds oclaims associated with it.

Like all communication, televisedspeech is a kind of intentional speech a(cf. Scannell 1994). That is, it has a pupose; the actions are adapted to increaselikelihood that what is said will be perceived and interpreted in a given mannAs viewers of television, on the other hanwe have enough cultural competence to low us to interpret these intentions, anthus the meaning of what is said, in an esentially consensual manner. Intentionalis, as Scannell points out, a common pcondition for all kinds of social interactionThus, TV production and reception are mtually dependent. Television programmmust be produced in a certain way in ordfor the public to perceive the news as creible information, entertainment as entetainment, satire as satire, etc. The audienin turn, is assumed to take it for grantethat there is meaning in the specific charateristics of the programme and the wjournalists address their viewers.

The intentionality of the communicatiomakes use of common cultural codes aconventions relating to specific communcative acts, genres or kinds of televisioprogrammes. The habitual way in whichgiven programme opens – the music anspecific manner of address – together wrecurrent signals and expressions that mor less implicitly comment on or annotawhat we see, as well as who is speakingus, are decisive for how we interpret th

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various communicative acts which make the programme (Bondebjerg 1994; Scann1994).

The research which primarily focuses oanalyses of culturally and socially defineconventions, rules and mutual agreemewhich are developed in relation to givecommunicative practices relate to whmight be called conventionalistic pragma-tism. ’Pragmatism’ signifies a perspectivwhich conceives of communication anlanguage as speech act and interacti”conventionalism” emphasizes contextulity, i.e., the codes and conventions pertaing to given communicative practices.

The conventionalistic perspective tento confine the focus to an analysis of coventions, which producers and audien(sender and receiver) are presumed share. Even though we may reject a conssus perspective, the theory largely focuson the preconditions for mutual undestanding, which puts a number of importaissues aside: To what extent do viewers sume a critical position so that they rejethe contract which producers offer themUnder what conditions can viewers quetion the news as news and challenge faas facts.

Conventionalism offers no real guidancfor analyses which seek to examine hosusceptible to criticism the producers/jounalists’ intentions, and the claims relatedthem, may be. On this point conventionlistic pragmatism and postmodernism – formulated by Lyotard, for example – suffethe same limitation. In both cases the costitutive preconditions of communicativpractices are reduced to conventions ainternal criteria of validity which derivefrom specific contexts.

Critical analyses of news and current afairs journalism should not, in my opinionbe confined to analyses of situation-dpendent communicative practices or to t

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conventions that are developed within tframework of a given social and culturcontext. Only when communicative pratices are discussed in relation to a fixed psition – an idea of what the communicatiomight be – can they be problematized terms of, say, relations of dominance power. And it is only by assuming the posibility of criticizing the practices on thebasis of a more universal potentiality, communicative rationality, that we cagrasp the preconditions for television viewing which accepts, but also challengmanifest intentions and claims.

In this connection I again see a fruitfustarting point for critical media analysis iHabermas’ universal pragmatics. In consnance with Habermas’ theory of communcation, we regard communicative practicas partly situation-dependent, but alpartly related to more universal precondtions for rational communication (cf. Holu1991).15 In Habermas’ view, the precondtions for rational communication are inheent in our way of using language in speeacts, and it is these preconditions which low us to challenge and relativize estalished conventions. This is not antagonisto the tenet that concrete communicationlargely based on mutual agreements or ctracts that are attached to a specific discose, genre, language game, etc. The thedoes, however, challenge the tendencyconventionalism to regard speech acts clusively in relation to specific, context-dependent rules, contracts and criteria of vlidity.

Within reception research, which hadeveloped within the last two decades, searchers have devoted considerable attion to receivers’ potential for activelreading texts (including TV programmeand generating resistance to what is pceived as the dominant meanings or idelogical message in the text. Stuart Hall, o

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of the principal theoreticians of receptiohas developed a widely used conceptualition – including the well-known distinctionbetween dominant, negotiating and oppsitional readings (cf. Morley 1992, i.a.These concepts have mainly been applin analyses of how audiences interpret msages and meanings in different descrtions of reality. I find it perhaps equally important to analyze how viewers relate those who appear and speak on televisas well as to the claims to validity expressed in those speech acts. In this cnection I see the possibility of applyinHall’s distinction in a somewhat differenmanner, inspired by Habermas’ theory communication. In the manifest claims validity journalism makes and the wajournalism presents itself to the public wclearly confront something akin to whaHall calls the ”preferred reading” inasmucas journalism has the privilege of beinable to stage and organize its appearabefore the public. The question is, then,what extent the claims to truthfulness, truand normative rightness which variounews and current affairs programmes maare fully accepted, accepted in part, or jected out of hand.

Can Habermas’ Theory BeApplied in Empirical Studies ofJournalism and Mass Commu-nication?Whereas Habermas’ studies of ’bourgeÖffentlichkeit’ have been widely discusseand cited by media researchers, his commnication theory has only sporadically influenced theoretical and empirical work ojournalism and mass communication. AMral (1994) points out, this may be because the theory is so abstract and funmental as to be difficult to apply in con

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crete studies; another reason might be tit treats interpersonal communication raththan mass communication. In this articlehave tried to show how Habermas’ theocan be a fruitful starting point for studies news and current affairs journalism another communicative practices relating television. There are, of course, a numbof reservations about using the theory apropose. Let us now consider four such rervations, which I shall try to rebut. Bufirst, a comment of a more general nature

Within the social sciences a relativestrict division of labour has prevailed between those who elaborate more geneabstract theories (and their prophets) athose who perform analyses in concrete search areas. A gap exists between absttheorizing and concrete analysis, and I fesome attempt should be made to closeConcrete research has much to gain by guidance general theories can provi(Layder 1993). Whether or not researcheapply a theory’s concepts strictly as intended by the theoretician is not so impotant. What is important is that the concepcan be useful as guides and frames of reence for interpretation in concrete analses.16

Reservation 1

Habermas’ formal pragmatics is a theory the fundaments of understanding-orientinterpersonal communication, communiction face-to-face, in an intersubjective reltion or dialogue. Claims to validity are made when someone speaks about somethto someone else. The rationality in the comunication presumes that the claims to vlidity can be justified discursively withinthe framework of a dialogue on the basiscertain principles. These principles, whicconstitute what Habermas (1984) calls ’tideal speech situation’ are, for examp

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that all parties should have the same accto participation in the dialogue and that aparties are accorded the same status. latter means that all have the right to maclaims (to truth, truthfulness, and normativrightness) and that all claims are evaluaon the basis of the validity of the argumenput forward. Persuasion, manipulation exploitation of power are not compatibwith rational dialogue.

Since mediated mass communicatidiffers qualitatively from interpersonal dialogue, some may argue that Habermtheory is not applicable to analyses of macommunication (Garnham 1992; Warn1992). Furthermore, one might argue ththe power of media institutions to orchetrate and stage speech on television, as was the character of public debates in the mdia, mean that mediated mass communition deviates fundamentally from the basprinciples of the ’ideal speech situation’.

In response to these reservations I pforward the following: The basic rules fospeech acts set forth in Habermas’ formpragmatics are, as I see it, immanent in understanding-oriented communicativacts. Each time we speak, we make a clato validity which is expected to be justifiable. Formal pragmatics is a way to identin language the basic prerequisites for social interaction. The claims are justifiein practice within different discourses aninstitutions. The ideal speech situatiospecifies the principles of rational commnicative action. These principles, which aexpressed in various concrete discoursand institutions, represent the ideal sitution on the basis of which concrete insitutional arrangements can be evaluatei.e. be subjected to criticism (Garnha1990; Habermas 1992; Lee 1992). Formpragmatics makes it possible, for exampto speak of ”systematically distorted communication”, i.e. communication wher

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strategic action dominates over understaing-oriented action (Habermas 1984;332)17

In view of the claims journalism makesand considering the importance of this istitution in public debate, it is natural tsubject it to scrutiny on the basis of the bsic principles of ideal rational communication. The extensive opportunities journaism has to legitimize its own claimthrough strategic action hardly makes sua critique less important. At the same timit would be misleading to characterize jounalism as purely strategic action. Haberm(1992) points out that each time we use laguage to communicate something with texpectation of being comprehended, we tuitively presume certain basic ideas whiare formalized in formal pragmatics. Assee it, this applies equally to journalism.not, the journalist would hardly start speaing, nor would the audience tune in. Thjournalist always addresses someone, albnot necessarily a concrete person; mewhile, the audience interprets what is saon the assumption that someone has said it.

Scannell (1994) has argued conviningly that the relation between televisespeech and viewers’ interpretations of it amuch more similar to non-mediated socrelations than we tend to think. When we viewers interpret what is said on televisiowe do so largely on the basis of our pesonal experience of everyday communiction. Other researchers, too, have foundfruitful to analyze mediated communication on the basis of theories of speech ain somewhat other respects (cf., for exaple, Bondebjerg, 1994, who takes his poof departure in Searle). Much of the undestanding-oriented communication in cotemporary society is mediated. Reservithe theories of speech acts to analysisface-to-face communication would restriits use radically.

19

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Reservation 2

An immediate reservation concerning thapplication of Habermas’ theory of speeacts I propose is that the claims to validmade in speech acts have no decisive inence on viewers’ interpretations. One margue that these interpretations primarrelate to genre-specific conventions aperceptions of the institution the journalirepresents. Consequently, the analyshould be performed on these levels ratthan on the level of claims to validity.

The analysis of viewers’ interpretationof speech acts on television should, course, be combined with analyses of vieers’ interpretations in relation to their preunderstanding of different genres, to tprogramme as a whole, to what Dahlgrrefers to as the prime narrator, and to jonalism as an institution. At the same timeis reasonable to assume that speech actsthe prime vehicle through which the primnarrator and the institution make themselves known to the public.

Reservation 3

A more fundamental reservation is the agument that the communicative processthat take place in television programmand other kinds of texts are not primarilyquestion of purposive speech acts, but more related to comprehensive linguisand semiotic structures (cf., for exampLee, 1992, who in turn refers to DerridaThe specific characteristic of texts, and epecially texts circulated via mass communcation, are that they are comprehensible spite their having neither known sender nspecified receiver. An analysis which ignores the semiotic and linguistic dimesions of a text cannot produce an adequunderstanding of the processes underly

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viewers’ interpretation of TV programme(Lee 1992:412f).

An analysis of television programmeshould hardly reduce the communicationpurposive speech acts, but it would beleast as stunting to reduce the study of mdia to analyses of signs and linguistic strutures, thereby masking the social relatioand practices in which the signs are embedded.18 Of course, the nature of the commnication, the specific texts in question, aimportant. When it comes to viewers’ intepretations of what is seen in news and crent affairs telecasts, the intentionality the speech acts most likely plays a marole. Other important factors are whethernot the speaker is expected to follow trules inherent in understanding-oriented ation, and the viewers’ perceptions as how well claims to validity are redeemeSince the power and legitimacy of journaism largely has to do with the validity owhat is said and otherwise put forwarcritical journalism research must take thclaims to validity seriously and study thpractices by which the claims are justifieor for which they may be challenged.

Reservation 4

The fourth and final reservation may bsummarized as follows: Habermas’ communication theory implies a rationalismwhich, if applied to the present materiawould impose severe limits on our undestanding of the practices of journalism, thprogramme content, and the meanings rresented in viewing. A focus on communcative rationality excludes analyses ofgood share of television production, fictioand entertainment, and dictates an empsis on news and current affairs programm(cf. Garnham 1992). But one can also argthat it would limit our understanding othese categories, as well. Many current

20

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fairs programmes are hybrids, mixtures fact and fiction, of information and entetainment (Bondebjerg 1995). From thviewers’ standpoint, even the news hmeanings which hardly lend themselvesanalysis on the basis of formal pragmaticThe act of viewing may be understood ritual, as relaxation and diversion, or terms of what Fiske (1989) terms ”populpleasure”.

Such reservations are highly relevant,course. They demarcate the bounds for application of the theoretical perspectivwhich I, inspired by Habermas, have oulined here. The perspective is only applicble to analyses of understanding-orientacts which express the specified claimsvalidity, that is to say, not to analyses what Habermas terms symbolic acts, athus not to analyses of televised fictioWhat this implies with regard to analyseof television journalism where the boundries between understanding-oriented aand fiction are quite fluid is a discussiounto itself. Suffice it to say here that thperspective is not universally applicaband needs to be supplemented with othperspectives. Still, it would appear to bhighly fruitful inasmuch as a good share television journalism today consists of uderstanding-oriented speech acts. It seemreasonable hypothesis that both the legmacy of journalism and viewers’ interprettions and attitudes are closely related to conditions inherent in communicative rationality.

A Final CommentMuch research on and discussion of tethical ideals and claims of journalism htaken these self-professed ideals and claat face value, without problematizing thideology of which they are a part. One the chief contributions of postmodernis

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as it has influenced journalism researchthat it has problematized that ideology.have in the preceding pages challengpostmodernist views on several countshave furthermore argued for critical aproach to the validity of journalism, whereby its ideals and claims are related to bofeatures of journalistic practice (includin

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institutional and organizational conditionand the reception of the audience. On tbasis of Habermas’ theories of the fundments of communicative rationality, combined with a critical realism, I have also agued for a critical analysis of the media othe basis of a normative theory and epismology.

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Notes

1. The article is part of a research project the same name, which has been financthrough a grant from the Swedish Councfor Research in the Humanities and SocSciences.

2. There are, of course, notable exceptioe.g., Livingstone & Lunt 1994; Morley1980; Schlesinger & Thumber 1993.

3. I have chosen to use the term ’postmodetheory’ without further distinction, fullymindful of how imprecise and equivocal may be. Postmodernism is hardly a coherschool of thought, but rather a term descbing theories which have certain commotraits, but are quite disparate in othrespects (cf. Best & Kellner 1991, i.a.Neither is it absolutely clear what postmdern theory includes or excludes. Some uthe term quite broadly to denote anythinthat considers modernity from a criticastandpoint so as to cast light on its implicpremises, dilemmas and contradictions (i.a. Bauman 1993:272). Other theorists, whave truly made such reflections do not wito be associated with postmodernism.

4. One excellent example of a critical, yet costructive application of postmodern theoin analyses of contemporary media cultuis D Kellner’s recent work, Media Cultur(1995).

5. Phenomenology has many exponents aencompasses a broad range of work (Bengtsson 1988, i.a.). Here I am oversimpfying in a way I find relevant, but whichsome readers doubtless will find provoctive.

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6. This is most clearly expressed in the worksuch exponents of modernism as MarWeber and Habermas, but can be tracback to Antiquity in, for example, the distinction between mythos and logos.

7. One may well ask to what extent Foucaultto be regarded a postmodernist, but I am alone in doing so (cf. Best & Kellner 1991

8. This criticism is hardly unique in the historof ideas (cf. Bernstein 1987; Feyerabe1980 i.a.).

9. Research on reception has to some extrelated the meanings conveyed by televisito viewing as a social practice. But onoccasionally have viewers’ relationshipwith the media been related to the practicinvolved in television production or to thfigures who address the audience (direcor indirectly) on television.

10.Translated from the German: ”Wenn siaber das Denken nicht mehr im Element dWahrheit, der Geltungsansprüche überhabewegen kann, verlieren Widerspruch uKritik ihren Sinn. Widersprechen, Neinsagen behält nurmehr den Sinn von ’andsein wollen’.” In ”Die verschlingung vonMythos und Aufklärung: Horkheimer undAdorno”, Kap. 5 in Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwölf VorlesungenFrankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985.

11. In later works Habermas uses the term ’fomal pragmatics’ instead of ’universal pragmatics’.

12. In the perspective of postmodernists (eLyotard) the relationship between the claito truth and the ambition to be understopresents no problem since the diffrentiation between the two is in the proce

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of dissolving. Lyotard (1992) questions thconception of knowledge which requirethat knowledge not only should be comprhensible but should be relatable to sharperceptions of reality.

13. ”Rules for press, radio and television” pulished by Pressens Samarbetsnämnd, (TJoint Committee of Press Association1994.

14.Mänskligt means ’human’ and as a prgramme title might be ”Humanity”, but theword is much more mundane than the Enlish.

15.The notion of such universal preconditiohas been the subject of heated and recurdebate, the details of which I shall leave ade here. For an exposé of this debate seeexample, Benhabib (1992) and Holu(1991).

16.This is hardly to say that concepts can used as one pleases, but it is important twe do not get stuck in a kind of exegesboring into the meaning and derivation concepts, particularly when we are dealiwith theoreticians who constantly botgenerate and modify their theories. It shoualso be noted that I have only discussed ptions of Habermas’ communication theorother parts of this theory might equally bapplied in the type of analyses I propose.

17.The normative aspects of the theory renpower-play and manipulation susceptible criticism. This is one of the prime advantages vis-à-vis postmodernism and Foucauconstructivism.

18.See my critique of postmodernism above.

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