Television and Media - Relationship between Society and the Media :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

The Relationship between Society and the Media As Americans we take pride in our liberating authorities. But, it is essential to ask how much we, the everyday public, know about our democracy. Because of the representative structure of our government, it is in our best gratify to remain as knowledgeable as possible about governmental affairs so that we can play an active role in our democracy by voting for candidates and issues. The media, which includes print, television, and the internet, is our primary link to political events and issues. (For the purposes of this strain only print and television will be considered.) Therefore, in society to assess the success of our democracy it is necessary to assess the soundness of our media. We argon lucky enough to have a media, in theory, free from government influences because of our rights to freedom of press and freedom of speech, hardly we are still assailable to the medias interpretation and manifestation of politics, as is the danger when depending on some(prenominal) source for information. So, we must address how the media informs us how successful it is at doing so and how we should respond to it.This essay will show, unfortunately, that our democracy is not as sinewy as it potentially could be because of television and prints omiting(predicate) coverage of politics and the publics resultant frustration and lack of knowledge. The reason this occurs is not because the media is trying to restrict our role in the government, but because it has other agendas to consider, such as producing maximum profits. Also, the media can take its incumbent on(predicate) role, often referred to as the fourth estate, to an extreme. John McManus, a former watchwordpaper reporter and current professor at Santa Clara University researching the social responsibility of news media, specifically uses this term in his book Market-Driven Journalism Let the Citizen take care? to explain the medias ideal role as the fourt h fall apart of the government. The media is meant to participate in our system of checks and balances and check the government to ensure that it does not withhold too much power from the people. However, this can pose a problem if the media tries too hard to keep a check on the government and ends up transcending its role as the fourth estate and comme il faut cynical of the government. These market-driven characteristics and overzealous tendencies are conveyed in the medias choice and presentation of language.