The predictions in the early 1990s that, as a result of making newspapers
available on-line, print versions would become redundant within ten
years have not materialized. For the same reason, the capacities of digital
television (themed content, pay-per-view, video-on-demand) will never
usurp the sociological appeal of broadcast, despite claims that this
can happen simply through regulatory practices (see Steemers, 2000).
Newpapers, like television and radio, make possible an aspect of com-
municative solidarity which Net mediums cannot, and will never be able
to fulfil – the fact that they are able to be performative.Broadcast is the only medium that can be performative
The performative quality of broadcast is an extension of onequality of
speech, which the language philosopher J.L. Austin labelled the ‘speech
act’. In everyday speech, an utterance may be considered an ‘act’ when it
refers to an immediate situation. The utterance does not have to be ‘true’
or ‘false’; rather, it becomes a form of action which has mutual conse-
quences in a setting of ‘live’ interaction. In speech act theory this situation
is usually part of a face-to-face interaction, where utterances refer to the
present-at-hand in the form of ‘here’ and ‘this’. Anyone outside the range
of a speech act will not be able to interpret its meaning. Conversely, those
within the range of the speech act will potentially feel part of an exclusive
speech community. Such a speech community of mutual presence will be
able to realize its distinctive group dynamic the more speech acts are
made. Actions such as promising (‘we will do that later on’), naming (‘this
is the best.. .’), warning (‘watch out for.. .’), requesting, insulting, and
greeting have a different meaning in relations of mutual presence than,
say, in writing or in Internet interaction.
The important thing to stress here is the degree of mutuality, or how
many other people are simultaneously being acknowledgedas hearing a speech
act. When speech acts are formalized into speech events, like lectures, public
talks or indeed speeches at formal gatherings, the boundaries are also
formally defined and generally known. In such circumstances, the extent to
which the audience will know something of the speaker will itself add to
the meaning of the speech. However, whilst there are occasions when little
may be known of the speaker, one characteristic is common to all speech
events – the fact that a given speech act is constitutive, regardless of the con-
tent, of an audience. It is the constitutive function of extended speech acts
across time and space which makes possible public opinion also. Public
opinion is entirely an outcome of the performativity of communicative
fields. Such opinion does not issue from the mass, except by and for
the institution of radial communication. Public opinion is merely a reflex of
the mobilized or formulated forms of organized discourse endemic to the
structure of a performative apparatus. Outside of this, public opinion, as
Pierre Bourdieu (1993) once famously suggested, ‘does not exist’.108 COMMUNICATION THEORYHolmes-04.qxd 2/15/2005 1:00 PM Page 108