CRITICAL VIEWING AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

Contemporary critical cultural studies of audiences, through the language of ''resistance,'' encourage political acts that are often reactionary, evasive, and restrictive. The language of ''critical viewing,'' as it is employed in contemporary communication studies, although more inclusive in its recognition that all people have the potential to explore and promote diversity, is nevertheless as divorced from any direct relationship with participatory democratic life as is the language of resistance. This essay attempts to realign the language of critical viewing with the goals of participatory democracy, by suggesting qualities of critical viewing that are conducive to achieving and maintaining social power in a democracy.