Demotic turnA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWbroadcasting (psb); public sphere. See
also topic guide under media: politics &
economics; media: values & ideologies.
▶John Street, Mass Media, Politics & Democracy
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010); James
Curran, Media and Deomcracy (Routledge, 2011).
Democratization See demotic turn.
Demographic analysis Seeks to explore and
quantify those factors about consumers that
might identify whether or not they are in the
market for certain products or services. It
is thus a key tool of consumer research. Key
demographic variables include age, generation,
gender, stage in family lifestyle, income and
occupation. However, information on demo-
graphic variables only takes the marketer or
advertiser so far in understanding the consumer;
a psychographic profi le of the consumer(s) is
often also needed. Psychographic analysis seeks
to explore why a consumer might buy a product,
and looks at such factors as lifestyles, motiva-
tions, personality traits, self-image, values
and aspirations. See advertising; audience
measurement.
▶Martin Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Gordon Foxall,
Consumer Behaviour (John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2009).
Demonization What the media do, particularly
the popular press, to those whose views they
perceive to be dangerous, destabilizing, bad
for business or subversive. The process of
demonization begins with personalization, that
is focusing on the personal characteristics or
attributes (invariably negative) of the leader or
spokesperson advocating a cause or raising an
issue, which the demonizers do not support.
Having rendered the cause or issue a ‘personal’
matter associated with an individual, the aim of
the media concerned is to destroy the credibility
of the spokesperson and by doing so undermine,
in the public mind, the cause for which he/she
speaks. See folk devils; loony leftism.
Demotic turn Term introduced by Graeme
Turner in Understanding Celebrity (Sage, 2004),
returned to and developed in Ordinary People
and the Media: Th e Demotic Turn (Sage, 2010),
describing the increasing visibility of ordinary
people on TV – in particular the way ‘ordinari-
ness’ is converted into celebrity by reality tv
programmes such as Big Brother, Pop Idol, Th e
X-Factor, Wife Swap and Fame Academy.
Turner writes (2010): ‘I use the demotic turn
as a means of examining what I argue as a
signifi cant new development in how the media
participate in the production of culture.’ The
author examines the demotic turn in the context
of claims that participant formats are empower-ular computer networks, enhance or diminish
democracy, Darin Barney in Prometheus Wired:
Th e Hope forDemocracy in the Age of Network
Technology (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
identifi es three elements he considers essential
in any serious defi nition of democracy – equal-
ity, participation and ‘a public sphere from which
sovereignty emanates’.
Barney speaks of equality of ability as well as
opportunity; and participation that is meaning-
ful rather than ‘frivolous or merely symbolic’. By
this he suggests that ‘democratic participation
must be clearly and decisively connected to the
political decisions that direct the activity of the
participants’ community’. Participation is not,
he argues, confi ned to freedoms of ‘consumer
choice’, the preferred interpretation of democ-
racy by business. In Barney’s view many self-
proclaiming democracies would not pass the
test of equality, participation and power through
‘collective decisions’.
It has often been suggested that the media,
through argument and advocacy, made
democracy possible (see journalism). From
Thomas Paine’s seminal work Rights of Man
(Part 1 published 1791; Part 2 published 1792)
through to the age of the Radical press during
the nineteenth century, the cause of democracy
was championed by journalists and editors,
often risking life and liberty to make their case.
Within a modern democracy, the media have an
ongoing responsibility to exercise vigilance – to
nurture, protect and celebrate a range of features
that keep democracy healthy, preventing it from
corruption, manipulation, misuse and apathy.
Th ese might be described as satellites of democ-
racy, facilitators, the absence of which threatens
the democratic process; and they include full
and fair transmission of information; plurality
of opinions and diversity of media provision.
Th eir enemies are monopolization of media
outlets by the few (see convergence), the
profi ts-generated insistence on treating people
as consumers rather than citizens (see consum-
erization) and the consequent displacement or
marginalization in media channels of informa-
tion, critical analysis, debate and investigation.
In this sense, considering the nature of media
ownership (see topic guide under media:
ownership & control), the media are as likely
to subvert democracy, or at least relegate it in
importance, as to be its defender and advocate.
See agora; culture: popular culture;
demotic turn; discursive contestation;
disenfranchisement (of readership);
framing; public opinion; public service