A Public Right to Hear and the Networked Press

• In Event: Normative Theories of Digital Journalism

Abstract

If freedom of speech means not only the right to speak as individuals but also the opportunity to hear as publics, then the networked press must help to create conditions under which people encounter perspectives that self-interest, friendships, market transactions, and personalized algorithms alone cannot surface. Now that the very idea and material realities of “the press”—as an institutional context furnishing information and experiences essential for democratic self-governance—are distributed among networked practices, technologies, organizations, and professional values, journalism scholars and practitioners alike need to become adept at reading networked infrastructures for normative priorities. Integrating scholarship from the politics of listening with infrastructure studies and value-sensitive design, this presentation grounds the concept of a “public right to hear” in contemporary news technologies. It illustrates this grounding through a close reading of digital tools, journalistic practices, and institutional configurations to show how building a democratically defensible networked press requires both technological critique and normative theorizing.

Author

• Mike Joseph Ananny, U of Southern California