论知情权和媒介社会史的书写——与迈克尔·舒德森的对话

The Right to Know and the Social History of Media:Conversation with Michael Schudson

为深入了解迈克尔·舒德森的学术思想,笔者以他的新著《知情权的兴起》为出发点与他展开学术探讨,对知情权的概念做了延伸性解释,并就此书的研究方法、立场、观点提等与其进行了线上直接对话。舒德森回应称:他的"社会史"著作也可被称作"文化史"著作,因为主要是在追溯某些流行的政治、文化观念的兴起过程,《知情权的兴起》即为其一;知情权有法律和政治维度,但他视之为文化权利,因为它只是美国社会普遍认可的一种文化观念或一种文化期待,而不是一项法定权利;知情权会受到各国不同文化的影响,但未因互联网的兴起而出现重大转变;他探讨知情权的目的之一是阐释监督民主,即一种现实主义的民主观。在书写媒介社会史时,一定程度的"碎片化"无法避免,新闻传媒的作用无法准确评估,研究者不必过于在意;研究者应多关注个体和事件,应深读新闻文本和记者的书信以求新知。当下,舒德森之所以离开媒介史领域,是因为希望跳出以媒介为中心的视野,对公共领域做整体性考察。

In the first half of the discussion,Chinese scholars shared their understanding of the cultural right to know,the internet technology and its implications for democracy with professor Michael Schudson.Schudson responded by arguing that the right to know is more a "statutory possibility"or a cultural expectation than a legal,political right; the notions of right to know may differ in different cultures,but the digital technology and the internet did not change the rise of a widespread sense that the general public have a right to know; he used the book to develop the notion of monitory democracy. The focus of the last half of the discussion was the methods of social history study. Schudson argued that social history didn't mean history from the top down,social history of media focuses on common journalists,and what he called a"social history"might just as well be called a"cultural history"; a certain level of "fragmentation"in social history is inevitable and the media's role in politics and culture is very difficult to access; to advance the social history of media,one should pay attention to news stories and private letters of journatists. Schudson wanted to step out of the media centered viewpoint to make a survey of the public sphere as a whole,and therefore moved away from the field of media history study.