ABSTRACT
Jesper Stromback (2005) identifies four models of democracy: procedural (involving elections); competitive (more competitive elections); participatory (citizen participation); and deliberative (discussions among public directly with their representatives). The key distinction here is between the first two models that are based on the election of representatives and the second two that depend on more direct forms of citizen participation. The representative models require journalists to act as watchdogs on behalf of citizens. Although the participatory models are more likely to allow citizens to speak and to set the agenda, journalists retain a key role as ‘democracy can never become more deliberative without the active participation of media and journalism’ (Stromback, 2005: 340). Such participatory democracy cannot be divorced from the concept of social justice, argues Iris Young (2000: 17-23), who contrasts the deliberative model of
democracy (participatory and inclusive) with what she terms the aggregative model (essentially representative). For her:
In the real world some people and groups have significantly greater ability to use democratic processes for their own ends while others are excluded or marginalized. Our democratic policy discussions do not occur under conditions free of coercion and threat, and free of the distorting influence of unequal power and control over resources … [T]here tends to be a reinforcing circle between social and economic inequality and political inequality that enables the powerful to use formally democratic processes to perpetuate injustice or preserve privilege. One means of breaking this circle, I argue, is to widen democratic inclusion … as a means of promoting more just outcomes.
