Blog 7

Using Habermas' language: How would he respond to Ghosts of Rwanda?

Habermas would view Ghosts of Rwanda as representing a political discourse actively going on in the public sphere. According to Habermas, the public sphere is "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgement." In other words, the views expressed by the makers of Ghosts of Rwanda via the content and interviews in their documentary are an example of a political debate taking place in the public sphere - a political debate which is intended to shape political policy according to the will of the people.

What is unique about Ghosts of Rwanda in relation to Habermas' theory is that it disproves his contention that "the public sphere has collapsed." Habermas believes that the true public sphere was corrupted by media institutions and therefore reflected a political discourse based not on the will of the people but on the will of the media producers responsible for creating the textual and televisual forums for said political discourse. In other words, Habermas might suspect that the political ideas discussed in Ghosts of Rwanda represent the vested political and business interests of its creator, PBS. On the contrary, however, PBS has little to gain economically or socially from the policy implications implicitly suggested in Ghosts of Rwanda. Instead, PBS' creation of the documentary seems to stem from a general interest on behalf of the network to raise public awareness about a particularly troubling event in recent history and to convince its viewers that the US needs to take a different approach to incidents of international genocide. While it can be said that PBS' views as social institution shaped the nature of the discourse in Ghosts of Rwanda, it would be overly cynical to suggest (as Habermas might) that PBS had an ulterior agenda in mind that benefited only themselves when they made this documentary. Rather, this shows that the uncorrupted public sphere can still exist in contemporary mass media and can serve as a viable forum for political discourse which serves to embolden the wishes and desires of the masses.