Abstract

A discursive public sphere, free from domination is necessary for the functioning and maintenance of democracy. Public broadcasting has the potential to be an instrument in such a space, but it has developed into a rather schizophrenic medium due to a lack of consistent structural support both politically and economically. The lack of financial and technical support for public broadcasting however, contradict American ideals concerning citizen participation in democracy. ;These social structural contradictions have fostered a number of local organizational models with the nexus of control often depending upon the perceived needs of local licensees. This study concerns such a local licensee, the South Dakota Public Broadcasting system, regarding its patterns of control and the structural pressures coming to bear upon programming as well as the conflicts this fosters for managers and producers of the system. This study forges a balance between political economy and cultural analysis in seeking answers to the relationship between an institution like South Dakota Public Broadcasting as a cultural product, and the lives and interaction of these cultural producers. ;Using Habermas' theory of universal pragmatics and the elements of the ideal speech situation including communicatives, representatives, regulatives and constatives as a discursive "yardstick", this study determines through the analysis of departmental meetings, interviews, hallway conversation and board meetings that various mechanisms inherent in the structure of South Dakota Public Broadcasting are working to distort the communicative competence of actors, thus contributing to a lack of self reflection and discursive will formation. ;This is resulting in programming choices, personnel decisions and network policy based upon instrumental rationality and strategic action, in order to maintain system survival, rather than upon communicative action which would assure citizen access and participation in democracy