ABSTRACT
The case studies in this book indicate how the mass media have great potential to assist and sometimes even drive the progress of public deliberation in modern societies. Deliberative journalism relies on the journalists’ ability to imagine how citizens might play a role in setting news agendas and acting upon the information that the media provides. Jay Rosen sums this up when he memorably comments that from this standpoint, the citizen ‘is not a victim, spectator, quote machine, ventilator of steam or cute adornment of the news, but an informed participant in socio-political processes’ (1997: 17). The concluding chapter of this book investigates some of the ongoing issues for the various models of deliberative journalism.
