Media and democracy
Introduction
Any democratic nation is based on its people, their thinking and their judgment. Since old times, media has worked as the fourth estate, a connective pillar between the people and the representative power. For people to be well informed about the current political scenario, it is very important that media does its job properly, informs the citizens in a very well and unbiased way all that is there to know, about the current representative power, the opposition, how they are working, providing valuable, unbiased and genuine critique to the masses, so they make an informed choice.
Media, can either make political circumstances very transparent and direct for the citizens, giving them the information that they deserve to know, or media could twist facts and concoct stories, depriving people of their right to know the truth.
Media’s role, taking the USA in mind
The United States of America, is an old democracy. The USA has a long line of bloodshed, war and struggle behind it, all of it took place with the same aim, to be able to establish a healthy, breathing democracy. The USA has seen a long list of Presidents, and nearly every case, from Kennedy to Nixon to Roosevelt, the presidential campaign has largely been lead by the media and their political tactics.
Media, very subtly and indirectly tackles political campaigns and scenarios, and molds it in a way that the public has a lot of food for thought to be able to formulate a very precise opinion about what they think of a certain party, or a certain representative of the said party.
It is necessary to understand media’s role in a participatory democracy, to be able to understand its impact on various politics, such as the politics of education or the economic scenarios of the nation.
In the Alienated Voter by Richard Harwood, he has mentioned how the average American man, especially in the previous century, had a very apathetic behavior to the then current political stand off of the country. It was not appealing for the average American household to keep in touch and listen with an open mind to all the incidents that took place in the White House, accessible to the public.
Private Ownership of media
Major media companies in the U.S are first and foremost, private corporations. These companies generate and distribute news, and exist for the primary purpose of increasing market dominance to generate increasing profits. Six corporations owned 90% of all media distribution in the country as of 2012, down from 50 companies in 1983. Critically, such an outcome was enabled by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton. As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) described it, the act was “essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies, and radically opened the floodgates on mergers.” The progress in telecommunications of the nation was only euphemistic in sense. It is very easy for a nation to go awry in keeping their media houses intact and free from being biased and prejudiced.
Unless that can be done, media’s role in contributing to a healthy democracy will still remain murky.
Modern times
A very informative and easily understandable account of modern day politics can be seen in Michelle Obama’s becoming, giving us a very good idea about the gargantuan amount of public relations, and marketing strategies that go into the making of the presidential campaign.
What is all this for? The media. So that they get into good books of the population and simply win the elections.
Conclusion
Media has a pivotal role in the functioning of the democracy, it can swing either ways like a pendulum, unless kept in check.
References
Harwood, Richard. “The Alienated American Voter: Are the News Media to Blame?” The Brookings Review, vol. 14, no. 4, 1996, pp. 32–35. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20080685.
Copy
Gerstl-Pepin, Cynthia I. “Introduction to the Special Issue on the Media, Democracy, and the Politics of Education.” Peabody Journal of Education, vol. 82, no. 1, 2007, pp. 1–9. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25594732.
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