Presentation to "Keywords in Communication", 59th Annual Conference of the International Communications Association, Chicago, IL, USA, 21-25 May, 2009.

1. The Citizen’s Voice: Albert Hirschman’s
Exit, Voice and Loyalty and its Contribution to
Media Citizenship Debates
Professor Terry Flew,
Creative Industries Faculty,
Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane, Australia
Global Communication and Social Change
Pre-Conference Event
International Communications Association
59th Conference, Keywords in Communication
Chicago, IL, USA, 21-25 May, 2009

2. Media and Citizenship
• Long interest from media perspective:
– Media and formation of national identities
– Media, cultural citizenship and contemporary
representative democracies
– Neo-Habermasian public sphere theories
– Citizenship rationales for media regulation
– Consumer/citizen debates in media policy
– Citizen media/citizen journalism
• Less interest from political science perspective
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3. Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice and
Loyalty (1970)
Albert Hirschman (1915 - ) was
a founder of post-WWII
development economics
(“unbalanced growth”) and an
expert on Latin American
political economy. His
economic perspective was
iconoclastic and he was an
expert on Adam Smith and the
Scottish enlightenment. He
developed an interest in “the
micro or personality
foundations of a democratic
society”, and Exit, Voice and
Loyalty is written in this spirit.
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4. Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice and
Loyalty (1970)
• “Slack” is a pervasive feature of all economic
societies, as are poor quality goods and services
• Consumer responses:
– Exit: “invisible hand” of market mechanism
– Voice: attempting to influence management and/or
public opinion – rise of consumer movement, trade
union movement, “stakeholder capitalism”
– Loyalty: “stickiness” in consumer behaviour esp.
towards complex goods and those with “exit costs”
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5. Voice
• Voice has been a central concept to political
theory but marginal to economic theory
• Voice and active political citizenship
• Post-WWII political theory questioned relevance
of voice – complexities of government, elite
competition, “inert citizens”, focus of electoral
politics on the “swing voter”
• The “exit” option can “atrophy development of
the art of voice” (Hirschman 1970: 43)
• Voice tends to co-exist with loyalty in political
sphere e.g. the dissenting party political activist
• Danger of “domestication of dissenters”
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6. Relevance to consumer-citizen debate
• Liberalisation of media systems since the
1980s has sharpened focus on “exit” options
(e.g. more channels) and challenged “loyalty”
(e.g. to public service media)
• Politics of the “presumption of voice” as the
policy counter-weight to media power
• How citizen-consumer debates played out in
UK Communications Act 2003 (Livingstone et.
al., 2007) – shifting discursive constructs
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7. UK Communications Act 2003
Consumer interest Citizen interest
Economic focus Cultural focus
Networks and services Content
Individual Community
Consumer panel Content board
Legacy: Oftel Legacy: Independent Television
Commission, Broadcasting
Standards Council
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8. Participation
• Participation in Exit, Voice and Loyalty mostly
seen in terms of seeking voice in large
organizations (political parties, media
corporations, government agencies etc.) that are
managed by others
• Internet culture generates DIY and DIWO
alternatives, as well as expectations about rights
to participate and horizontal communication
• “Myth of the mediated centre” in media studies
debates (Nick Couldry)
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9. Significance to new media debates
• Can Internet culture revitalize the public
sphere and political culture? – “post-
deferential desire of citizens to be heard and
respected more” (Coleman, 2005)
• Opening up new spaces of participation –
impact most marked in advocacy/activist
spheres (Dahlgren, 2005)
• Citizen journalism – “inverting the hierarchy of
access” (Atton, 2004) – impact most marked
outside of/at margins of “big media”
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10. What can Exit, Voice and Loyalty
contribute to such debates?
• Avoiding all-or-nothing thinking about
citizenship, participation and media
• Exit, voice and loyalty always co-exist but the
balance between them shifts
• Helping to clarify how/why participation in
media policy occurs
• Better understanding interrelationship
between the political and economic spheres
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