大众传媒、社会表达与商议民主——两个个案分析

Mass Media,Social Expression and Deliberative Democracy:Two Case Studies of Contemporary China

本文描述和分析了1990年代末期以来由传媒参与、促进公共政策议程的两个个案。在这两个个案中,社会表达得以实现,促成了公共商议,并导致了政府对商议基础上形成之民意的政策回应。本文的任务即是理解这一进程如何发生,哪些因素促成了这一过程,试图对此进行理论诠释。新闻传媒的能动性及其所立基的基本价值立场是上述过程得以发生的关键,其能动性必须放在当代中国传媒的市场化、新闻专业文化的生成以及作为消息来源的“社会”的生成和活跃当中去理解。通过分析传媒能动性的来源,本文也讨论了当代中国传媒参与商议民主的现实,及其在当代中国社会条件下持续存在的可能性。

This papr studies two cases in the late 1990s in which the mass media successfully involved and helped promote public policy deliberation in China. In these two cases, social expression was materialized in public deliberation. The public opinion based on such deliberation was responded by the government in terms of concrete policy. This paper studies how all this happened and what factors were playing behind it. The key factor, this paper holds, is the actire role the mass media had assumed and the fundamental values that it upheld. As Chinese mass media is advancing along the path of marketization and specialization, it will continue to take the initiative in promoting more public deliberation,