Beteiligte: | |
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In: | Journalism, 3, 2002, 2, S. 183-204 |
veröffentlicht: |
SAGE Publications
|
Medientyp: | Artikel, E-Artikel |
Umfang: | 183-204 |
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ISSN: |
1464-8849
1741-3001 |
DOI: | 10.1177/146488490200300203 |
veröffentlicht in: | Journalism |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Schlagwörter: | |
Kollektion: | SAGE Publications (CrossRef) |
<jats:p> Drawing on an ethnographic study, this article describes how the editorial-page staff at one San Francisco Bay newspaper think of the letter-writing public. It is suggested that the staff are skeptical about the value of the letters section as a site for democratic communication because of what they perceive as the poor quality of public participation, as well as the non-representativeness of the letter-writers. To be more specific, the editors speak the ‘idiom of insanity’, which plays off the idea that contributors to the section – the members of the letter-writing public – are insane or ‘crazy’. This article examines the manifestations of the idiom of insanity and analyses its implications for deliberative democracy; it also suggests that the use of the idiom of insanity is a way for the staff to distance themselves from their work on letters to the editor, and renounce their responsibility to make democracy work. </jats:p> |