ABSTRACT
It could be argued that at the core of a democratic society is the presence of a public debate about the distribution and execution of power. It is crucial for democratic arrangements that choices made by the power holders are publicly scrutinised and contested. In the public debate, the informational and cultural products play a significant role. If the interests of the information and culture producers and the powers that be are intertwined, a society’s capacity for democratic government is seriously undermined (Hamelink 1994: 92).
