Daniel Rakus: The myth of common competence as an element of dominant discourse

The article is an attempt to analyze some aspects of the dominant discourse in a contemporary model of democracy that can be referred to as "media democracy". This work briefly describes what the dominant discourse is and also what the major differences between media democracy, and liberal democracy are. The article advances a thesis that every discourse consists of a set of silent assumptions, and that the modern-day media democracies have (among many other) one particular silent assumption - the myth of common competence. The article defines this phenomenon and describes its structure, symptoms, sources and consequences. Special attention is drawn to how the myth of common competence influences the shape of modern democracy, and how it can lead to a state of common illusion of participation in democratic processes.