ABSTRACT
Because investigative journalism upholds peoples right to know about controversial issues and events through media exposure, it is central to debates about the public sphere. The public sphere is a stage, now international in its reach, on which profound economic and ideological struggles are played out about who controls and decides to expose information, who the information speaks on behalf of, and whose voices are excluded and silenced in the process. The ideal of democratic communication expressed in the term ‘public sphere’ foregrounds the central debates surrounding the nature of balanced public communication among ‘equal’ citizens. It leads to discussions about the impact of the global reach of media markets on ‘quality’ forms of information and democratic fora for dialogue.
