Education, media and democracy: on communication and the nature of the public in the light of John Dewey, Walter Lippmann and the discussion of modernity

This paper discusses the conditions for selecting and structuring media education in the Swedish comprehensive school, with citizenship education at the core. With reference to John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, different conceptions of the nature of the public are elaborated, which also have inherent in them the tension between a modern and a postmodern interpretation of communication. These conceptions, called ‘communication discourses’, affect the selection and structuring of the content of media literacy when interpreted on the basis of curricula, syllabuses and teaching materials. In the paper communication discourses are also considered from a more overarching angle of socialization ‐ how education and media affect the individual's conceptions of his/her own and other individuals’ relationship to society. The question put here is to what degree differing (social) subjects ‐ identities defined on the basis of social class, gender, race and so on ‐ are found in the texts of the institutions: how are subjects presented and represented? If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between ‘facts’ and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussions. (John Dewey, 1991: 3)