The ‘sluice-gate’ public sphere and the national DNA database in the UK

Habermas’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 re-feudalization of the public sphere where politics is played out in front of the public has been modified, under the influence of Bernh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Media, culture & society culture & society, 2012-05, Vol.34 (4), p.439-456
Main Authors: Downey, John, Stephens, Mike, Flaherty, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amendments
Candidates
Communication
Decision Making
DNA
Elites
Habermas, Jurgen
Mass Media
Media
Media (culture)
Politics
Public opinion
Public Sphere
Studies
Technology
United Kingdom
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Summary:Habermas’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 re-feudalization 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.
ISSN:0163-4437
1460-3675
DOI:10.1177/0163443711436357