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Participants: 

Oscar Gandy, University of Pennsylvania

"Dividing Practices: Segmentation and Targeting in the Emerging Public Sphere"

Eileen Meehan, University of Oregon and
Ellen Riordan, University of Arizona

"Intersections of Political Economy and Feminism"

Janet Wasko, University of Oregon

"The Political Economy of Celebration/Celebrating Political Economy"

Brenda Dervin, Ohio State University

"Peopling the Public Sphere: Power, Peace, and Procedure"

Participants discussed Habermas' notion of the public sphere, recognizing both the threats posed by contemporary developments in communication and areas of potential for dialogue and democratization.  

Oscar Gandy warned that the public sphere is being increasingly threatened by the technologies designed for segmentation and target marketing. Among those publics which capture the interest of political consultants, democratic participation is "being reduced to writing a check," while other populations are excluded entirely from the flow of communication.  

Ellen Riordan and Eileen Meehan called for a feminist political economy of communication, which could illuminate questions of identity based on gender and sexual orientation, and could help address the historic inaccuracies and prejudices which have been used to describe the commodity audience of mass media.  

Janet Wasko spoke of a "political economy of celebration" stimulated by the resistance of some publics to corporate control, using as an example the Disney planned community named "Celebration."  

Brenda Dervin stressed the need for the communication field to create reliable procedures for dialogue. She noted that theorists cannot assume that complete information is available, and argued that the field must develop procedures for facilitating reliable discussion which preserves difference and privileges multiple ways of knowing.  

(Written by Eleanor Novek)