The Media and Democracy

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how the journalistic side of the 20th century can be defined as the struggle for democracy and an independent media against propaganda and subservience to the state. It looks at how that struggle culminated during the first half of this century in the seizure of the means of communication by the demagogues of the 1930s and 1940s, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, and their Cold War reincarnation of the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy, the ghost that still haunts U.S. journalism. It shows how modern journalism began around 1890 with the advent of a national system of communication and has had a pretty long run.

From the Paper:

"The media has come under fire and censorship many a time for exposing the truth. Zambia's transition to multiparty politics in 1991 has not led to significant changes in state-media relations. The independent media is weak due to a hostile political and legal environment and severe economic conditions. The ability of the independent press to contribute effectively to democratic discourse is further constrained by its failure to live up to the professional role of the press in pluralist politics. (21) In Bangladesh government supporters seized hundreds of copies of the national newspaper, Janakantha because it had exposed a local officials involvement in drug smuggling."

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