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The Return of the Public
DAN HIND
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The third and final part of the book sets out a response to the failings in our systems of information that seems to me to be a precondition for both full economic recovery and substantive democracy. This response begins with quite modest proposals for changes in the ways in which the British and US media are funded. Whether citizens engage in the process or not, there is going to be a major shift in the way that the media in both countries are structured. The business model of terrestrial television is already under pressure while print publishing is in disarray. But so far most suggestions for reform do not address the cause of the media’s inability to describe the world accurately – the domination of the commissioning process, and hence of the field of general description, by the employees of state and corporate institutions. Unreformed state-owned (‘public service’) media can no more adequately serve the public than commercial institutions can. Something else – what I call public commissioning – is necessary. The apparently minor changes I propose will enable us to create a gradually expanding space for public participation. Once we engage directly in the production of information in a shared institutional context we begin to develop the knowledge and the self-knowledge necessary to guide further political change. In becoming actors in the system of information we take the first step towards a more complete public identity. In other words, rather than presenting a set of vague general proposals for a transformation of the self and of society, I want to offer some concrete suggestions for how such a transformation might be made both possible and durable.
Whether one believes that only radical change to the structure of the economy can prevent massive ecological destruction, or that America must draw back from its efforts to build a world empire, only a reformed system of publicity can secure the levels of support necessary. Whether one wants to address the worst abuses of the current order or to secure a total transformation, everything flows from a reformed system of publicity. Only an adequately informed population, acting as a public, can legitimately decide how society is to be organized.
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