TELEVISION DISCUSSION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE - CONFLICTING DISCOURSES OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

Using a case study approach, a television studio debate on events in t he former Yugoslavia is analyzed. In the program, an audience of ''ord inary'' Serbs and Croats met with expert or elite representatives of t hese groups to discuss their country's future. The analysis focuses on the rules and roles for public discussion that are established and ma naged by the program. This is important in the context of the broader question of the media's potential to contribute to or undermine the pu blic sphere. Debates over the public sphere center on a contrast betwe en the Habermasian bourgeois public sphere and the oppositional public sphere. It is argued that programs that involve the active participat ion of a lay studio audience come closer to the requirements of the la tter than the former, although audiences and their observers remain am bivalent about this role. By analyzing the access and identities of pa rticipants, the role and treatment of different categories of particip ant (host, expert versus lay, men versus women), and the diversity and organization of claims made during the argument, some of the conditio ns under which the media may promote public discussion are explored.