The Role of Media Independence in a Democratic Society - Essay Example

Media in a Democratic Society Introduction In a democratic society, the role of media is to play a significant task such as informing people about the world, making it possible to show public dissertation, and representing the public. This role is however, adopted by the newspaper. This paper will analyze about how the media or TV channels fulfill its independent role as an instrument for public speech and representing the public. Using few examples and theories, this paper will examine about the ideas related to media and public globe plus the current media's supporting structure that makes it powerless of sustaining a proper self-ruled society. Media in a Democratic Society A large society, for example our own society, necessitates a multifaceted or complex communication structures. For the people of a particular state, to participate in a democratic society, they need exchange of ideas and a better communication system. This system is known as "media". Media is tool of communication which includes people in an organization that sustain the distribution and production of messages to the public. Media falls into categories such as TV, movie, internet, books and newspapers. Media plays a number of roles: 1) Representing People within a Society Freedom of speech is the main part of a democratic society. With a past shortage of media space and a huge amount of voices in our society directed to a lack of opportunity given to people who become a part of the media. People involved in media are believed to represent the society such as telling the public about the elected officials that will represent their roles. Though, it is more useful to represent organizations and communities rather than representing individuals. 2) Informing People People involved in media are responsible to protect the public it represents. Continuous support of public and look to the media as an organization, the media should represent individual's welfare and inform them of issues regarding to the public itself. The knowledge, shared in our society is about both education and media. The role of media is to inform people about current issues same as like school's that are responsible to teach skills and long lasting knowledge. 3) Facilitating the Social Unity In a large and complex society, media assist to distribute the culture by giving an experience of mass population. If a society wants to stay unified than the people init should have a familiar culture. The more people will feel anything alike in them, the greater the bond of the individuals will have to one another. Like this, however, there is a greater opportunity to make decisions for the similar purpose. The question arises that how media can perform such roles To perform the roles mentioned above, media should maintain particular standards. There are a lot of ways to sustain such standards. For example, according to the theory by a German scholar namely Jurgen Habermas, our society is divided into different cultures, aims and backgrounds. To represent these groups, media requires to present dissimilar perceptions. The best way to achieve such a perception is that the members from all backgrounds or groups should have an entry to contribute in media. The media is only valuable when it communicates to the public. There must be a universal access to media response. Financial, personal, social or any other factor should not present obstacles to media response. (1) However, independent media are fundamental components of a large and complex democratic society. It helps to check the balance that differentiates in such societies. If we look at corruption, it weakens a strong government. A lot of politicians are forced to resign due to corruption but at the same moment, media publishes the information that reaches to the ordinary public. For example, in 1974, President Richard Nixon was forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal. He was caught up by two journalists at Washington Post. Journalists can also make an opinion in their own way as the part of media is not limited for reporting specific events or individuals. In free media, by tracing and forming invaluable information, they make sure about the matters that are mostly not related to the legislation. For example, spread of AIDS can be published and discussed easily with out having any political interference. To promote a free media in other countries is also a good way for a well developed country's self-centeredness. If journalists of other countries will be quite, a number of problems will occur for the citizens of other countries. For example, every one is well known with the challenged faced by individuals due to weather changes. Let us imagine, that a report about climate disaster in a country that is far away did not reached to the public, ultimately, people around the globe will suffer the effect of the report being suspended. (2) In some of the societies, there is an aggressive relationship between media and government which presents strong and running components of democracies. In societies such as racially homogenous societies, such conflict relationship might not be good. Media in U.S, therefore, USAID is considered to be an important constituent of a society as it is well known to partly cover other working areas of governance and democracy. In a sustaining democratic society, the main objective of media should be to serve public interest; additionally, people involved in media should have a degree of editorial independence. If a media has any significant role for democracy, than the main objective of media should be to develop a wide range of voices that are responsible and to generate a group to promote such types of vents. Such vents or outlets help general public to have an access to the information that they are in need to be informed and to take a part in society. The person who is responsible for such an outlet should has a degree of editorial independence, as mentioned above, and he or she should be financially strong plus should serve for welfare of public. Questions such as, who has the authority to communicate within a society and who has access for such communication, should be considered while designing media support activities for making the democracy even more strong. Answering such questions will assist to create media support area and by investigating the opportunities for improvements. For example, in a number of countries, government has a full authority over media. Such as Egypt has only one news agency that is well known to be used for country dominations, as a result, news is offered in front of public as a policy dictates. Although, the question, "who is being communicated" is mostly ignored. The answer to this questions assist to conclude which person to target in media industry for help. For making the media industry strong, following are some characters that can help to support media development: Customers Individuals such as, editors, technicians, reporters and business managers. Substance providing companies such as, NGOs and wire services. Institutions for training purpose. Self-governing watchdogs. Monitoring agencies such as, political agencies, sponsorship groups, governments and advertisers. Organizations in which professional journalists and business associates are involved. New technologies such as, software creators, trainers, transportation developers and investors. (3) Bibliography (1) Diceman, Jason. TV's Failure as a Medium for Democracy. December, 2000. Accessed on May 15, 2008. http://www.communicationism.org/jasondiceman.com/reports/tv_democracy.htm (2) Carlsson, Gunilla. The Role of Media in a Democratic Society. April 23, 2007. The Press Faculty of the University of Social Science and Humanity. Accessed on May 15, 2008. http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/8812/a/80971 (3) Technical Publication Series. The Role of Media in Democracy: A Strategic Approach. June, 1999. Office of Democracy and Governance Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance U.S Agency for International Development. Accessed on May 15, 2008. http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/pnacr214.pdf Read More