The Fourth Estate: The construction and place of silence in the public sphere

Abstract

The main narratives of prevailing ideas of the Fourth Estate were articulated in the era of traditional mass media, and these traditional narratives are challenged by the changing media landscapes. This raises the question whether traditional narratives of the Fourth Estate should be maintained. We will argue – through a close reading of Derrida’s reflections on the relationship between communicative significance and silence, combined with a deliberative ideal for democracy – that the new structures of communication call for a Fourth Estate that focuses on creating spaces for flexible structures of silence in the public sphere. The Fourth Estate has an obvious assignment of counteracting problematic structures of silence (if certain important voices are not being heard). In this article, we will, however, bring out assignments of creating spaces of silence in the public sphere: by (a) silencing certain dominant voices, (b) making room for an increased lack of answers and (c) creating an awareness of the insufficiencies of the public spheres.

Moral compass: How a small-town newspaper used silence in a hyper-charged controversy

“…Here, news media are understood not only as a 'precondition for political voice in large-scale societies, but are also an important factor in distributing the possibilities for voice among different groups and sectors of the population' (Jakobsson and Stiernstedt, 2018). The Fourth Estate is therefore seen as counteracting coercive structures of silence by ideally giving 'voice to the voiceless' in the public sphere (Hansen, 2018). It follows that most contemporary journalism scholarship concerned with questions of public debate and civic engagement subscribes to what Gray (2015) calls a vocal ideal of democratic citizenship.…”

“…There is increasing scholarship that calls for deeper engagement with a range of meanings and motivations for silence, some of which might, in fact, be positive, active and politically engaged. Most recently, Ejvind Hansen (2018) has identified an urgent task for the Fourth Estate which is 'to create spaces for more (or at least: alternative structures of) silence' (Hansen, 2018(Hansen, : 1078. Megan Le Masurier (2015) and Hansen (2018) are among those to consider the connections between journalism, deliberative democracy and silence in the context of the greatly increased bandwidth of media.…”

“…Most recently, Ejvind Hansen (2018) has identified an urgent task for the Fourth Estate which is 'to create spaces for more (or at least: alternative structures of) silence' (Hansen, 2018(Hansen, : 1078. Megan Le Masurier (2015) and Hansen (2018) are among those to consider the connections between journalism, deliberative democracy and silence in the context of the greatly increased bandwidth of media. For example, Hansen (2018: 1072) draws on Derrida (1973) and Deleuze (1995) to look beyond journalism's 'obvious assignment of counteracting problematic structures of silence' to argue it can be used by the Fourth Estate to maintain meaningful discussion in a public sphere that has become 'a 24/7 machine'.…”

“…The newspaper's approach accords with Le Masurier (2015) and Hansen's (2018) observations that silence can be used by journalists to create an awareness of the insufficiencies of the public sphere, especially when issues of injustice and intolerance are involved. The newspaper's final Facebook post, on 19 August 2014, coincided with a story about an anti-mosque protest group having its Facebook presence shut down:…”

“…Or what are the social conditions that have to be fulfilled for certain agents to have an interest in the universal. (p. 31) In this article, we explore notions of 'deliberate' silence (Hansen, 2018;Jungkunz, 2013;Keating, 2013), which has been theorised as a positive intervention in public debate. We expand this to consider deliberate silence as a practice that can be adopted by those in positions of media power to reinforce a particular moral or worldview in the interests of social order.…”