Media, News, and Power
Q2: What is your favorite or preferred source of news that ‘asks questions of the powerful,’ and why?
In my opinion, the broadcast news, al Jazeera, in its special edition content, Listening Post, and its manufacturing consent, presents a transformative experience on power and media. In its revered texts, the news source discusses the blind spots and lapses that underestimate the media’s power. The news denunciatory tone asks for situations when journalists find the power to serve the public (Klaehn et al., p. 79, 2018). In reality, this qualifies as a perfect and comprehending analogy to understand the outcome of the established power on media. In circumstances when power is wielded top-down, then media and the public become underestimated. Libertarian model provides a foreseeable experience on media as an environment for dominance of ideas, a public arena. This, therefore, allows for the contest and emergence of inevitable truth. Through social responsibility, media facilitates the revision of shared policies, aggregation of interests, and helping communities develop appropriate responses to political and social strains. Indeed, the media provides an effective forum for public debate.
However, with the liberal analysis, there is a media paradox illustrated in al Jazeera’s special edition content, Listening Post, and the manufacturing consent. This provides a life-altering event for the conceptualization of power and media from a new dimension with regards to influence and ownership. In a common direction, media is often used by a few powerful forces to initiate wage battles in line with their interest, which could lead to understated media functionalities (Couldry & Curran, p. 10, 2003). This mechanism involves battling television coverage and other press reports with powerful forces to wage out their intentions. When this happens, the media’s social responsibility is often eliminated, thus remaining like a mere door for the contestants to realize their dreams. In this respect, media then becomes a transition tool through conspiracy theories by the powerful forces. This shows how negative influence on media can result in an understatement of libertarian and social media responsibilities. Similarly, through conspiracy theories, media’s soviet communists may also be compromised. Control of media production mechanisms is common in societies (Marx & Engels, p. 451, 1965). This has been on the rare side of debate due to the failure to explicit the wielded top-down power by the benefactors. This has indeed led to blind spots hence understating media establishment. In my opinion, this could result in the media’s failure to take objectivity in its foundational work and public arena, with consequences being an alteration of the truth for enjoyment by a few powerful individuals at the expense of the excluded parties.
References
Couldry, N. and Curran, J., 2003. The paradox of media power. Contesting media power: Alternative media in a networked world, pp.3-15.
Klaehn, J., Broudy, D., Fuchs, C., Godler, Y., Zollmann, F., Chomsky, N., Pedro-Carañana, J., Mills, T. and Boyd-Barrett, O., 2018. Media theory, public relevance and the propaganda model today. Media Theory.
Marx, K. and Engels, F., 1965. The German Ideology, 1845-46. Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, pp.403-73.