News, the Public Sphere, and Sustainable Development - Essay Example

NEWS, THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT By Location News, the Public Sphere and Sustainable Development Introduction . Information is essential for the development of a public opinion and the more people hold it the more public opinion is developed. News is essential towards the development of the public opinion in several ways. Classic liberal media theory has assigned democratic functions for the news, which is to reflect the diversity of viewpoints on a society and act as a public sphere of debate. There lacks liberty in a society, which do not have essential means of detecting lies. This is because without enough information, there is no societal accountability. The public depends on media, news because of its degree to serve effectively as the public watchdog over political affairs (Habermas 1989, p. 118). It is through media news where the public gets information about its country’s economic, political, and social information. Without news, the public opinion will be lacking the means to detect political lies and other many issues, which deteriorate the growth of a country’s public opinion. The public sphere is part of the news, which is a monarchy “consisting of individuals from the society gathering together in a public with the aim of articulating the society’s demands with the nation or state” This essay is going to discuss the ways in which news and public sphere are essential in the development of public opinion in reference to public sphere theory. The essay will also examine the media coverage of the UK 2010 elections as an example of how news and public sphere ensures sustainable development. According to Habermas, public spheres correlates with media news to bring light to public opinion, hence ensuring good development and leadership. Public sphere requires media news to the effect and flourish development of public opinion and democracy (Habermas 1989, p. 130). This is because both public sphere and media must work correspondingly in order to ensure effective governance and public opinion development. Therefore, it is logical to argue that, the sensitizing and informative nature of the media, news, which contributes to society discourse and inform the citizens on how to give reasonable public opinion concerning political governance, is a significant tool that widens the public sphere (Marris 2004, p. 90). The “watchdog” role of media news widens the public sphere, which is among the government organs that influence fair and free society. Some people argue that, news is just information, whereas others believe that, news is just political propaganda, influencing the supporters’ views. In societal perspective, news offers information about news media’s emergency, which acts as a central institution where the public opinion can gather social, political, and economical information. Additionally, Schudson argues that, news is subject to public forces that improves the culture of a country at large. According to many authors, news acts as a public mediator; it offers knowledge to the public, therefore, changing people’s character and allowing people to behave in a new and essential way (Schudson 2002, p. 4). Describing the media as a public watchdog means that, it plays a critical and a watchful role of monitoring the bad activities carried out by a country’s government or individuals. The media play a significant role of holding the citizenry, especially monitoring political leaders (Allan 2010, p. 65). Additionally, media news helps in ensuring that the culture of the public opinion is sustained, hence allowing growth for public opinion as well as influencing people to shift from private to public sphere. In order to come up with significant development of the public opinion, the media should ensure that the news it broadcasts to the public is relevant, accurate, fair, objective, and truthful. News also ensures the development of the public sphere by providing real time information and acting as mediator between public and nation’s government, hence bringing development to the public opinion (Barnhurst&Nerone 2001, p. 56). Since news is an essential organ in public development, which ensures social, ethical ideal to harmonize the contradictory views of individuals’ interests and public good, it therefore means that, media news merges with the public sphere to help shape the public opinion, perception, and dialogue procedure in a certain society. Therefore, the Habermas’stheory of public sphereeventually emphasizes on developed public opinion and critical debate Renaissance, which is media news’ role for the public sphere depends on the amount of those involved and benefits of the dialogue for its independent significance (Ward 2005, p. 45). For it to be significant, public sphere requires an institutional foundation such media news that enables people to acquire public information, hence ensuring public opinion growth (Barnhurst&Nerone 2001, p. 60). The roles of media news towards the public sphere are highly vital in ensuring contemporary globe of democracy (Allan 2010, p. 69). In addition, news assists in reducing and calming political violence, for instance, in the UK 2010 elections, which were accompanied by post elections violences. UK had remained as a conflict and the violence epicentersince people claimed that the elections were not fair. Due to engagement of the affected individuals in the public sphere, this isreallyhelping to solve this problem. It is through media news that this conflict between communities and politicians or communities and government can resolve (Schudson 2002, p. 6). The news media in the UK helped in broadening the public sphere frontiers for good development or governance in the area, which highly helped to solve the conflict. The media news group can ensure this by questioning the involved parties and preaching peace or amnesty deal. The media news being a major democracy institution and public sphere can aid in shaping the public opinion. Moreover, among the parties that contribute to the shaping and development of public opinion, media news has perhaps performed a critical role. For instance, in the UK, the newsgroup is responsible for ensuring peace in the country, hence ensuring the involved parties come up with a significant public opinion (Matos 2009, p. 34). The press always plays a vital role of managing conflict or violence situations in many societies. News also ensures confidence, hope, and community sense, especially when a conflict occurs, for instance, the case of the UK 2010 elections. News also essentially develops public opinion during conflicts by broadcasting and streaming all the breaking news on such conflicts (Allan 2010, p. 70). Through broadcasting of the damages caused by a conflict, this aids in changing the minds of the involved parties hence assisting to end the conflict. It is logical to argue that, without media news, many countries will live in situations with unwelcoming democracy. Theoretical framework The theoretical support of this essay is referencing Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, which states that the public sphere is a monarchy “consisting of individuals from the society gathering together in a public with the aim of articulating the society’s demands with the nation or state”. In his work, Habermas emphasizes on the relationship between news, public sphere, and public opinion growth. According to the perspective of cultural theory, Habermasqueries about the public opinion condition in the practice of democracy and good governance (Habermas 1989, p. 129). Although the concept of public sphere affects the development of a community, many societies appropriate it since it deals with its desperate situations broadening the vital debates that lead to democratic changes. Further, the public sphere is a discussion place where individuals from the society meet to debate on matters affecting their democracy, and were likely to come up with a common judgement (Marris 2004, p. 84). According to other authors state that the public sphere is a site whose main purpose is to produce and circulate discourses that leads to the development of public opinion. Furthermore, many people argue that the press is always in the forefront in enthroning democracy in many countries such as the UK. The press is always also in the line to ensure independence among citizens. Currently, conflicts and wars are always initiated on the news’ screens and newspapers. Coverage of conflict events on news’ screen influences change in public opinion, hence resulting in injustice magnitude and oppression (Schudson 2002, p. 7). For instance, the global news such as CNN and BBC broadcast all news covering conflicts and political violence in all countries. This highly contributes to the development of public opinion globally since many people have access to TVs where they can watch these hazards and influence them to change their opinions. Finally, news media serve as a public knowledge. In a world where government, churches, business organizations, and politicians deliver information directly to people on their home computers, in such a situation, journalism will have no demand and abolished. Currently, citizens have access of all information they need from computer networks (Curran &Gurevitch 2000, p. 87). They also post their own views and comments on the social media networks. This means that each of us is our own news source. If this persists, criminal events will increase at a higher rate since the criminals have an access to the information they want on the computer networks. People will also be broadcasting their own information via the computer networks, hence affecting the development of public opinion. However, ensuring journalist press and banning posting information on computer networks will reduce such issues (Manning 2001, p. 86). Conclusion In conclusion, information is essential for the development of a public opinion and the more people hold it the more public opinion is developed. The content of this essay demonstrates that democracy, peace, security, good governance, and public opinion development results from combining media news and public sphere Information is essential for the development of a public opinion and the more people hold it the more public opinion is developed. The public depends on media, news because of its degree to serve effectively as the public watchdog over political affairs (Schudson 2002, p. 4). This is rather emphasized by countries such UK, which were conflict-intensive, but now due to media news and the public sphere are enjoying peaceful democracy. In a country, which experience conflicting individual views, media news is the key to developing its public opinion. Effective media news in conjunction with public sphere will spawn the demanded power to ensure change in a country. Effective media news also serves as a public knowledge offering the necessary information to the public. News also provides political, economical, and social information and guidance hence ensuring growth of public opinion in the entire world. Bibliography Allan, S 2010, News culture, Maidenhead, McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. Barnhurst, K. G., &Nerone, J 2001, The form of news: a history, New York [u.a.], Guilford Press. Curran, J., &Gurevitch, M 2000, Mass media and society, London : New York, Arnold, Oxford University Press. Habermas, J 1989, The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press. Manning, P 2001, News and news sources: a critical introductionLondon [u.a.], Sage. Marris, P 2004, Media studies a reader, New York, Univ. Press. Matos, C 2009, Journalism and political democracy in BrazilLanham, MD, Lexington Books. Schudson, M 2002, The power of news. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.], Harvard Univ. Press. Ward, P. 2005, Documentary: the Merging of RealityWallflower Press Read More