Taking the public seriously: three models of responsiveness in media and journalism

Until recently, media and journalists have worked in a supply market, ideally providing
the public with the kind of information the former thought the latter needed to participate
as full citizens in a democracy. The shift to a demand market means that, increasingly,
the media are providing what the public wants: what is in the public interest
seems to be less important than what the public is interested in. Such a more marketdriven
approach sits uncomfortably with professional values of independence and functions
of information provision. The question, however, is whether this is the only way
that journalists are becoming more responsive to their public. The article distinguishes
three different ways of how they (are beginning to) take the public into account: civic,
strategic and empathic responsiveness. Three separate case studies from the
Netherlands also deal with the question of how media and journalists come to terms
with, on the one hand, their professional values and, on the other, being more responsive
to the public.