Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Media's Role in Politics

      The media is an independent vital feature of any democracy. If the government were to control the media then they would never have to be held accountable for their actions as there would not be any immediate proof and they would have a huge influence over its people. A free press is a very important thing in a democracy. Its role is to criticize the government and keep the people up to date so they can know exactly what is going on.

      The media some may say is actually corrupt and one sided. In some cases, this is true. Major organizations tend to take one side of the political spectrum and report biased coverage or act as propaganda for a political party. The media fails to share in depth information and just shows what they see. The concern is that politics is is emerging as a media empire and only portraying the things they want their people to see.

      In 2000, Jeb Bush ordered election supervisors to purge 58,000 voters on the grounds as they were felons and not able to vote (http://www.wanttoknow.info/mediacorruption).  Once looked in to, only a few of the voters were felons and the rest were entitled to the right to vote. This news story ran in the papers but not in the United States. Instead, it was printed in Britain. As a result of this whole ordeal, over 50,000 people were unable to vote.

      The media is one big biased organization. Major media corporations are opening up to government intervention which allows them to get away with many things without the media announcing them to the public. Some media corporations are taking charge and switching to private terrestrial and satellite TV. Even with efforts such as these, the government will always have its hand in the media world.

2 comments:

  1. It's true the media is paid off by one organization or the other, but the internet exists. It's a free (for the time being) median. All ideas are equal there, so I wager, with proper documentation to support their claim, any YouTube video or post on Reddit/imgur would gamer enough attention to cause at least some people to care.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's true the media is paid off by one organization or the other, but the internet exists. It's a free (for the time being) median. All ideas are equal there, so I wager, with proper documentation to support their claim, any YouTube video or post on Reddit/imgur would gamer enough attention to cause at least some people to care.

    ReplyDelete