The main narratives of prevailing ideas of the Fourth Estate were articulated in the era of traditional mass media, and these traditional narratives are challenged by the changing media landscapes. This raises the question whether traditional narratives of the Fourth Estate should be maintained. We will argue – through a close reading of Derrida’s reflections on the relationship between communicative significance and silence, combined with a deliberative ideal for democracy – that the new structures of communication call for a Fourth (...) Estate that focuses on creating spaces for flexible structures of silence in the public sphere. The Fourth Estate has an obvious assignment of counteracting problematic structures of silence. In this article, we will, however, bring out assignments of creating spaces of silence in the public sphere: by silencing certain dominant voices, making room for an increased lack of answers and creating an awareness of the insufficiencies of the public spheres. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Silence is often considered under the sign of repression or oppression, and as such, the result of forces hostile to democracy. In this paper we will try to demystify that unilateral image of silence, reviving the dialectic between silence and democracy in which the former operates as a foundational precondition for exchanges in the democratic public spheres. An increased awareness of the structures of silence will help us reflect upon what remains external to ongoing public discourses. Through a reading (...) of Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger, it will be shown that understanding silence not as the passive negative of speaking, but as an active form of reflection, will help us become aware of what is pre-emptively excluded from discursive exchanges. It is argued that an awareness of this kind of silence can help us reflect upon the structures of public discourses. (shrink)