Media Freedom and Privacy - Essay Example

Media Freedom and Privacy Freedom of the media and its privacy as indicated in the Big Data allows the media to express and communicate in the most effective way. The freedom is required to be achieved through the prevention of the state from accessing and manning the media through legal protection. According to the US privacy Law and that governing the international privacy Framework from the Big Data, every member of the society is supposed to be allowed privacy in this era of increased technology. The same way the Big Data provides for protection of the individuals in the US, the media is supposed to be given its freedom but it should consider the privacy and the freedom of the state and private individuals. The essay question will be which is the dimension taken by media to achieve modern freedom while expressing its freedom? A case study of "The Challenge with Do Not Track" illustrates how a consumer can ensure privacy in their websites. The same case can give a clue to how media should ensure that its information is protected from being accessed by the state (Capurro, 2005). The essay will take into consideration the rights offered to the media and how they will affect the public sphere. Providing media with excess freedom will lead to the violation of the rights of many individuals. The reporters and journalists may engage in a technological surveillance in the form of bribery to change some relevant information and distort the images of other individuals. The evidence can be found in the British media where journalists have showed illegal behavior in procuring information that fits them and ignore the rights of other individuals. Many journalists when offered freedom of expression tends to explore the private lives of others and bring it open to the general public. This has raised eyebrows and has distorted the relationship between the political spectrum and the media. The media should be protected but also controlled to allow the fairness of information practices by placing governing rules like those that are recommended in the Big Data as Fairness of Information Principles. The government should be therefore against provisions of more freedom to the media as it goes against the public interest and poses threats to national governments through technological and economic convergence in the time of increased globalization (Solove, & Schwartz, 2008). Like the way the US protect its specific-sector, the government should aim at protecting specific sectors such as consumer sector, media sector and the private sector. This can be found from the Big Data on protection of the implementation of sector-specific privacy. Media privacy and freedom does not only affect the image of the politicians and the celebrities but also damages the private lives of people. A case can be obtained in the situation where victims of the crimes together with their families that led to the closure of the newspaper company that was in operation for more than 168 years. This is because after the government intervention through the help o House of Commons found out the paper had gone against the interest of the public by practicing poor ethics. Attention should be set on balancing the right of the individuals and the freedom of the media so as to prevent the media in interfering with the interest and the rights of the individuals (Brevini, Hintz, & McCurdy, 2013). The issue of arguments and on the relationship between the privacy and the press depend on the rights that are provided the in the liberal theory. Balancing the interest of the public and the freedom of the individual can easily conflate with the interest of the private individuals causing a big threat. The threat is too massive and can be inherent to the perspective of liberalism which undermines the image of the state and the public opinions. In the Beyond Wiki Leaks, the state controls how the media and the society interact through a common law that protects the interests and the privacy of both parties involved. This can also be obtained from the Big Data efforts to protect the individuals’ data in the internet. Giving media a lot of freedom affects the news that the public receive. Most of the people will lose their interests on the news that is broadcasted if at all they realize that the news has been engineered to give false accusation in order to damage the image of a given individual. The information that the public expect to receive should come from a remarkable source that has no any form of doubts. When the public learn that journalists have a lot of freedom that can undermine their interests, they tend to reduce their participation in the industry for fear of their image being distorted. Most of the people will turn their backs to the media for fear of their image and that of their relatives being damaged in front of the general public (Calvert, 2004). The relationship between the journalists and the public will be compromised in case the public will learn that the information that was broadcasted had been distorted and did not contain the true information. The journalists themselves will fear engaging the public since they understand that their reputation had been destroyed immediately after destroying the image of the public (Brevini, Hintz, & McCurdy, 2013). The relationship between the media and the public will be destroyed in case the media engages in corruption to change a certain story so as to fit the interest of a particular person in the society. Most of the people will fear for their life since they will understand that a particular person can use his or her power and authority to change the news. Therefore engaging in such kind of relationship will make the life of the individual providing the information at a big risk. That person can then turn the case to the person that has reported a genuine story and sue him or her for destroying his image (Capurro, 2005). For the media to obtain information that will be liked by all the stakeholders should ensure that information and the story should be transparent enough. All the stakeholder's interests should be analyzed and evaluated in an effective way. Going back to the case entitled "the challenge with Do Not Track" the privacy and the interest of an individual should not be compromised at all. The media should protect the third party from interfering with the media's information. This is to allow the transparency in reporting such that the interest of any party is not damaged by the third party who wants to manage the whole system for the interests that are unknown. The media should take a lot of their time to protect their systems to prevent the accessibility of its information by the third part that have bad motive with the intention of damaging the interest of others (Cohen-Almagor, & Yanovitzky, 2001). The media should also ensure that it offers mitigation services, for instance, the verification of the identity and detection of any form of fraud. Media freedom and democratic accountability entails that media should work hard to ensure that democracy of information is addressed. All the parties should be represented in an equal manner, and, therefore, the media should not favor any party while broadcasting its news. This should be performed in an ethical way (Nicol, Millar, & Sharland, 2009). The government should be accountable and ensure that information that is broadcasted by the media represents the will of all the people. All the governments whether authoritarian or democratic should ensure that media relays information that does not go against the interest of any individual. The state's function should be to ensure that the journalists conduct themselves in a professional way while searching for broadcasting information. The society should be accountable to ensure that the information they offer to the media personnel is true and does not go against the interest of any party. This is to ensure that every individual is protected, and his privacy respected by others. Stating information that is untrue will damage the privacy of certain individuals thereby compromising their relationship with the media. Most of the people will avoid giving attention to the media that represents the interests of the few and damages others image for the benefit of the few and the media. The media should be accountable that the information that the public receive is reliable and genuine. This is to encourage the people to give attention to the information that is being passed across (Capurro, 2005). In Australia, there is a highest concentration of media representation in terms of ownership. This has resulted in the extinction of media sources as most people do fear conveying their opinions when asked for by the journalists. For the media to be effective, the company should engage many stakeholders from different parts and status. Most of the people will find it irrelevant to give important information they feel that they are not represented in the media company (Kerr, & Bailey, 2004). Empowering of the media should follow the empowering of the individuals in terms of their social and private rights. The privacy offered by the media should be equated with the same measure towards the consumers of the information. Media companies should be regulated by licensing such that those that violate the interests of the others should be denied licensing, and their contracts terminated. This will work towards ensuring that the privacy of the public and the media is protected equally. When media is not controlled, most of the information that the general public will be receiving will be containing a lot of errors since most of the journalist will use their freedom in wrong way. The media company should ensure that they operate according to the set codes. Private data should not be compromised in order to ensure that the company's information is not compromised by any individual (Brevini, Hintz, & McCurdy, 2013). This should involve the protection of the company's websites so as to prevent the accessibility of the company's important information. The media, therefore, should manage their websites and other important sites so that its information is received as the way it was received. Some people may take advantage of the weak company's websites and change the information to suit their interests. The company should make sure that the information is protected well, and any accessibility by an external user should notify the company security personnel. The media should, therefore, come up with stern measures to punish those people that access its information without its consent or illegally. This is for the benefit of the company and the users of the company's information. The measure should be too severe so as to prevent those that have the same mentality (House, 2014). The role of the state is to stipulate rules that will favor effective communication and services delivery in the media industry. Therefore, the state should stipulate rules that promote effective communication in the country by the several available media houses. It is, therefore, the duty of every stakeholder in the media industry, the public, and the state to ensure that their freedom and privacy is protected. Every party's interests should be respected to ensure that there is effective delivery of information in the country. Those that go against the interest of others should be prosecuted, and stern measures placed against them so as to serve as a warning to others of the same interests. Both Big Data and the Beyond Wiki Leaks provide the solution to the privacy of the media, the general public and the private information of all the individuals in the society. There should be a balance on how all these three figures are protected. The purpose is to ensure that the rights and the interests of all I protected. References House, W. (2014). Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values. Brin, D. (1999). The transparent society: will technology force us to choose between privacy and freedom?. Basic Books. Cohen-Almagor, R., & Yanovitzky, I. (2001). Speech, Media and Ethics—The Limits of Free Expression: Critical Studies on Freedom of Expression, Freedom of the Press and the Public’s Right to Know. Science and Engineering Ethics, 7(3), 447. Calvert, C. (2004). Voyeur nation: Media, privacy, and peering in modern culture. Basic Books. Westin, A. F. (2003). Social and political dimensions of privacy. Journal of social issues, 59(2), 431-453. Nicol, A. G., Millar, G., & Sharland, A. (2009). Media law and human rights. Oxford University Press. Kerr, I., & Bailey, J. (2004). The implications of digital rights management for privacy and freedom of expression. Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 2(2), 85-95. Solove, D. J., & Schwartz, P. M. (2008). Privacy and the Media (p. 1). Aspen Publishers. Brevini, B., Hintz, A. & McCurdy, P. (2013). Beyond WikiLeaks implications for the future of communications, journalism and society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Solove, D. J., & Schwartz, P. M. (2008). Privacy and the Media (p. 1). Aspen Publishers. Capurro, R. (2005). Privacy. An intercultural perspective. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(1), 37-47. Read More