Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

MINIMUM JOURNALISM

2007; Routledge; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14616700701276158

1469-9699

Lars Nyre,

Public Relations and Crisis Communication

This article presents a sociological experiment with public speaking in a controlled studio environment. We tested several procedures designed to make it possible for ordinary Norwegian citizens to discuss and deliberate public issues more freely than is currently possible in public service broadcasting and the commercial sector. Demostation ran two different series of editorial programming where the dynamics of public speaking between the participants was our chief concern. We had groups of people connected through IP-telephony (Skype), and chains of people speaking on the telephone. The conversations were hosted by an editorial member, and a full production team coordinated the effort to get the programme on air. In the course of 2005 Demostation produced nine hours of live public speaking by 89 participants, and the project employed a staff of 11 people. Bertolt Brecht's idea about making radio into a communication apparatus instead of a distribution apparatus is at the heart of this experiment. But much of broadcast journalism in practice limits the growth and influence of a more dialogic mass communication. Experts, high-profile journalists, politicians and celebrities dominate the airwaves. It is possible to change the balance in favour of ordinary citizens, and this is minimum journalism's ambition.