Mass Media and Tutelage (Metaphor)
In the 20th-century age of mass media, Habermas thinks citizens have been essentially dumbed down. They are not invited to participate in rational debate, but instead to consume pre-packaged messages. He uses this metaphor to explain:
They draw the eyes and ears of the public under their spell but at the same time, by taking away its distance, place it under “tutelage,” which is to say they deprive it of the opportunity to say something and to disagree. (171)
Today, citizens are like children in school, being told what to believe, rather than adults engaging in free discussion. The answers have been supplied in advance, like for a quiz, rather than being created and reasoned through in debate. In particular, the metaphor of tutelage also drives home the non-reciprocity of the media and the public. A student is not on equal footing with a teacher, who has all the answers; similarly, consumers of media do not get to challenge the media whose messages they receive.
Citizens as Consumers (Simile)
As suggested in the previous quote, Habermas thinks citizens in the age of mass media are consumers rather than participants in politics. He explains using this simile:
Because private enterprises evoke in their customers the idea that in their consumption decisions they act in their capacity as citizens, the state has to “address” its citizens like consumers. (195)
Although this is a simile, saying citizens are similar to customers rather than actually being customers, the conflation of the two is clearly very strong for Habermas. People behave in politics the same way they behave in shopping for clothes.
Parties as Businesses (Simile)
Just as consumers are citizens, the political parties become businesses selling products. Habermas elaborates:
With this buildup of an apparatus of professional politicians, organized more or less like a business enterprise and directed centrally, the local committees lost their importance. The parties were now confronted with the job of "integrating" the mass of the citizenry (no longer really “bourgeois”), with the help of new methods, for the purpose of getting their votes. (203)
Here, voting is like buying a piece of clothing. And just as clothing is sold as something you can use to express yourself—even though clothes are mass-produced, they provide the illusion of individuality—so too do political parties sell their messages as meeting the needs of voters so that they will be picked at the elections.
