Language and Media Dictionary of Key Terms (April 2016) Martin Montgomery

public relations media n. often referred to simply as ‘PR’, public relations is conducted by professional communicators (usually called consultants, often former journalists) on behalf of large organizations such as governments and multi-national corporations who seek to manage the media so as to maintain good relations between themselves and the public at large. => spin doctors, propaganda. mmo

public sphere media n. a social discursive space in which members of civil society can engage in identifying and discussing common areas of concern that form public opinion and that can relate to political action. The collective body of the “public” is constituted by the processes of articulation and negotiation that take place within this sphere. In theories of democratic governance, the public sphere connects the state with the interests of society by spanning both the private sphere of social labour and commodity exchange as well as the sphere of public authority vested in the state. Most theories of the public sphere are influenced by Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Habilitationsschrift Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit:Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft) which analyses the evolution of a new civic society in Europe in the eighteenth century, due to the growth of commercial needs, literacy rates, and the development of a critical social discourse of the people. New resources that arose in the eighteenth century such as print journalism and the press were instrumental in the establishment of the bourgeois public sphere. According to Habermas, the dominance of consumer desire over political action in a burgeoning capitalist economy led to the downturn in the power of a rational and inclusive public sphere. As such, the media was increasingly fashioned as a tool of advertising and political forces rather than a medium through which the public could access information on political concerns. Growing media power in the public sphere signified a new influence and control over communication flows. sj