Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Plurality refers to the existence of a multiplicity of identities and perspectives from which different groups and people experience social reality. A belief that this diversity should be a criterion for judging how power is distributed in society is termed pluralism; transferred to debates about the media, pluralism is an ideal that calls for versatile media contents and diffuse distribution of power to control the media. In this form, pluralism and plurality are core elements of the legitimization rhetoric of twentieth-century liberal democracies. As such, they are also a contested part of political and social theory and, consequently, of the role of media in society. Evidence of the actual existence of different kinds of plurality in society and in the media, as well as views about the value of the concept itself, remain contradictory. This is due to both the conceptual range over which pluralism has been stretched and the political interests this covers. The term “pluralism” is derived from Latin through (thirteenth-century) French. During the early nineteenth century it is often used in a pejorative sense to refer to people holding more than one official ecclesiastical position at the same time, enjoying the benefits of an office without actually being in residence. In nineteenth-century philosophy , pluralism comes to refer to a belief that the world is made of multiple substances ... log in or subscribe to read full text