Week5. communication for the modern public, how?

Dewey gives us similar explanations as Tocqueville, when he describes the democratic virtues of the pre-urbanization American community democracy model. Public life of a community are maintained through various associations. Also it is based upon a sense of limited size locality where direct communication is feasible, and in the veins of all this was public education. Communities build states and states build up a nation; a federative republic, so to say. Though it is debatable today whether such community forms back then were truly inclusive to all its members, it was regarded as a rather concrete model of self-governance. Political parties rule, but do not govern (p121). Because people govern themselves.

The reason why Dewey sticks to the notion of that era is clear. he uses it as a reference model to pursue in a fully urbanized and even more urbanizing "machine age", which seems to have lost a great deal of the democratic virtues. He sees the urbanization which was accompanied by "too much public, too many publics" (p.187) as one of the most important reasons why people are not becoming publicly engaged citizen. He also mentions that there are too much readily available forms of distractions such as amusement, further disengaging people from the public. Such notions are also shared by Lippman as he calls them the "phantom public". People are disconnected from public and political issues, and it raises questions on their capability of self-government which is the key element of democracy. Also, people are different in their communication pattern by their class and ethnicity (Warner et al), and would rather enjoy for themselves than in groups(Lynd & Lynd). Even though living in the same locality, they don't share much communitiveness in matters of common public interest.

Both Dewey and Lippman come to the conclusion that communication is the key to solve this problem. Of course they do not refer to every kinds of communication, and certainly not the notion of propaganda as the crucial communication tool by Lasswell, or the notion of public opinion as something that can be manipulated via media communication. When Dewey says that "when communication occurs, all natural events are subject to reconsideration and revision" (p35) or Lippman talks about "debates", they strongly imply a communication practice that is utilized to foster consensus and decision-making.

However in reality, such debates can only be fruitful if the effects of that consensus actually leads to some form of decisions that affect one's own interest. Efficacy, or at least the feeling of efficacy, is one of the key factors that would encourage individuals to engage in communication in the first place. Another thing to notice is, that the pursuit for common good is achieved by realizing that there is one. That is, individuals of conflicting interests in a certain community achieve a public consensus, when they throughly communicate with others that there is a greater common interest that can be gained when they agree upon some specific matters. In the same matter, such certain communities can reach consensus along with other communities when they communicate a greater common 'public' goal than their individual ones (And this pattern goes all the way up to international level). What I am trying to say is, that communication, especially public debates with other conflicting ideas in a uncomfortable normative setting require a great deal of motivation. Whether it be through democratic education, the experience of dictatorship(!) or any other measure, the prime theoretical and practical interest sould be on how to provide that motivation, as realistic and down-to-life as possible.