Role of the Media in American Politics - Essay Example

Role of the Media in American Politics The media plays a pivotal role in America’s political system. Since the creation of the constitution, the media has exercised freedoms of speech and rights of association extensively. This practice lured domestic and foreign interests because of the immense influence it held on the people. Industrialists and corporate heads made use of early modes of communication to advertise their products and services. This trend continued for two centuries as technologies used by the media spread and became easier for the people to own and equally easy for media heads to control. The democratic aspect of the media began changing radically during the twentieth century as the role of the media during both World Wars and the Cold War revealed its almost omnipotent characteristic. Today, political figures can openly alter the content a media house broadcasts in their own favor. Likewise for corporations that own the same media houses. This trend has led scholars and investigative researchers to question the democratic nature of the media in United States’ political system. The following paper explores and critically analyzes these academics’ works to provide a deeper insight into the democratic deficit or anti-democratic nature of the media in modern American politics. Since 2000, transnational media groups have surfaced and developed together with other global corporations. While there have been media houses essentially prior to the 1990s, a worldwide commercial media market surfaced during the early 2000s (Engesser 274). In 1996, Congress approved a Telecommunications Act unleashed a host of mergers and acquisitions that assisted in placing the foundation of the current media groups. In addition, this act reserved a large, valuable section of the country’s broadcasting frequencies for digital television services. The media effectively lobbied the acquisition of new airwaves at no cost instead of owning this section of the broadcasting spectrum (Engesser 277). This acquisition showed the powerful nature of corporate lobbyists in the media. Leading networks aired the political debate regarding the Telecommunications Act for less than 20 minutes. In contrast, the 1934 Communications Act faced considerable political opposition as the government was against corporation domination of the communications sector (McKelvey 597). Today, linking the increase in antidemocratic propensities amongst major media leaders to the rising wealth of America’s social layer is simple. These leaders belong to a social layer that has no concerns over the people. This layer largely caters to corporate interests. From this perspective, one can argue that these wealthy leaders operate as if society is a tool that only fulfills their shallow interests (Lax and Phillips 161). This interpretation of the people leads to an unfriendly attitude towards the efforts of working Americans when exercising their speech or voting rights. The media today appears as if it senses that broad layers of people who entered the political system would begin moving their social interests forward. Such an objective is dangerous to owners of media empires, which is why they work to change communication and news laws and personalities permanently in their favor. For example, media leaders would bribe and corrupt popular news anchors to push for the political agendas of corporate heads, much like salespersons. Linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky has opposing views regarding the deteriorating democracy in the media roles today in American politics. Chomsky says the claims and studies made about media propaganda aimed at serving the interests of a few elite are not comprehensive (Hedges 2014). Chomsky admits the media does broadcast intellectual propaganda aimed at diluting the thoughts of undecided voters. However, this propaganda is not effective in terms of changing public attitude. If anything, Chomsky argues that the media has not managed to truly alter the people’s attitudes towards politicians or election candidates (Hedges 2014). Author Jesse Drew also opposes the idea that today’s media in the United States exercises democratically deteriorated policies. In his book, Drew presents the notion of “communications from below” and compares it with “globalization from above” that illustrates numerous new advancements in global organization and media activities (Drew 61). Drew identifies the main political actors in this issue as market forces and investors exercising capitalism in contrast to owners of America’s media empire and bought off politicians. A privately owned media is a serious issue and an example of democratic deficit in the United States because of its ability to distort truth. The United States government has the duty to sustain the people’s rights and freedoms. However, this government has become dictated by a “hyperreality” wherein truth and false are indistinguishable due to the corporate sector’s reshaping of the media (George 900). This reshaping produced a media that spreads an insight fixed in a state of thrilled confusion and ignorance. For example, major news networks feed Americans indisputable, loyal information about political leaders and corporate heads. This “food” constitutes altered information that promotes public beliefs that discourage and deactivate any trial to change the corporate owned media towards a more democratic, decentralized community. The influential nature of the media inherently attracts the likes of political leaders and corporations who use it to manifest their agendas. This tendency is old in America’s political system as founding fathers used the newspaper houses to pass on democratic policies. However, since corporations own all media houses today, private interests have become priorities. With deregulation laws and committees having little to no power over these media empires, democratic deficit has become critical. During many occasions, these agendas are antidemocratic. More specifically is a unanimous agreement by a Florida Court of Appeals about FOX News’ legal ability to distort or fabricate broadcasted information. According to the court, the First Amendment, the media reserves the right to air propaganda or intentionally manipulate news on public frequencies (McKelvey 601). One can interpret this ruling and argue that only employers can exercise the First Amendment. Public frequencies no longer represent a mechanism for public debate and objective information. Instead, the media is a product and asset for corporations to sway. The situation with the Florida Court of Appeals shows the propagation of false news, shocking headlines, and deception to ensure the public is submissive and compliant with a media that denies them their individual rights and freedoms. The predisposition towards fictional reality, integral in contemporary media is very widespread. The average American is so highly engaged in consumerism that he or she just needs to switch on the television to experience this fictional reality (Lax and Phillips 150). Moreover, this cultural deterioration will persist so long as the experience that sparked it, antidemocratic, corporate media, is operational. The media’s power over the public with respect to the political system is against the founding fathers’ democratic goals. Writers of the Declaration of Independence aimed at making a drastic idea of governing a country built on the people and their interests. Founding fathers implied equal governance or responsibility enjoyed by all citizens. The United States constitution implies that this influence is a common product for America. Communication produces power. As a result, a democracy should allow the source of this power, the people, to govern the media and the issuance of information since a democracy allows the people to practice power. The founding fathers did not want the people to be uninformed and confused. From the media’s perspective, the public always willingly joins a movement of any consistent political consensus. This confusion reveals the people’s lack of knowledge that is necessary for decision-making (George 900). As a result, owners of media houses today reserve the decision-making process. An antidemocratic media compels the public to seek leadership from the arising aristocracy. This type of manipulation enables the media to mutate the public’s choice into property belonging to the elite. The more confused Americans are, the easier it is to violate or restrict their rights and freedoms. The media produces and propagates this confusion because it is not integral in communication, as evidenced in the Communications Act of 1934 (Lax and Phillips 153). Exchanging free speech for noise in the airwaves causes the media to berate the people with saturation of pictures and news. This information often shocks and blinds the people, leaving them vulnerable to any deductions the media wants them to believe. Broadcasting partly true reports fitted within socio-emotional scenarios that compare some overseas evil with patriotism and religious passion. Capitalist-supported political figures often defend these aspects of social America and integrate them in the media. The media’s role for the last decade has been to build public passion, direct it, and form an organized force. This role greatly depends on the generation of confusion through fabricated reports as it facilitates the negligence of social, financial, military, and political duties. Confusion amongst the people lowers complaints, lowers the responsibility of political leaders, and decreases the demands of the people who are rest satisfied in misled status quo. The media confuses its viewers, listeners, and readers to make sure they are not aware of their exploitation. America has seen a substantial decrease in the involvement of the public in media activities. Rather than being a democracy governed by the people, the United States media has turned into a broadcaster operated by corporate heads working alongside prominent figures from Washington (McKelvey 601). The power to practice their civil freedoms and enact political responsibility is open to the people. However, the media has ensured this aspect of democracy has turned into another lost concept of the nation built by the founding fathers. Manufacturing public opinion is another reason why the media’s democratic deficit is a serious issue. The media generates public debate that spreads amongst viewers, listeners, and readers. The American community and is features slowly consume this debate. Within several years, the public believes the startling and biased content of this debate, which leads to a public opinion based on a media-generated headline. Clearly, heads of media houses collaborate with political leaders to manufacture public opinions. The propaganda engine has dominion over the foundation of decision-making in America’s political field. In the process, the people are stripped of their individual civil liberties that make up a democratic republic (George 905). The constitution holds bits and pieces of fundamental rights and freedoms indicated by the ability of the public to make channeled political choices that govern the collective life. However, the media weakens and robs the public of these bits and pieces by manufacturing public opinion. A solution to the democratic deficit in American media today is devoting to strong multilateral cooperation. The media’s democratic deficit is a political matter and the government needs a political solution to a political problem. This cooperation must be built on values of democracy such as equality, association and speech liberties, leadership responsibilities, the power of the people, and transparency. The government can encourage support for institutes or individuals striving towards democracy against dictatorship and autocracy in the media. This support can be accompanied by working to combine democratic changes. These changes have to obtain the most priorities on agendas of national cooperation in consistency with communication and information goals (Engesser 279). Finding loopholes in acts that the media normally hinds behind while denying the people the right to true information is part of this solution. The government has to regulate the power of the media with respect to the people’s demos and the interests owners of the media empire along with their political accomplices. In conclusion, corporate leaders, who pay off political leaders to further their antidemocratic agendas, head the media today in a highly manipulated, strategic, and predetermined manner. This approach by the media formally took off in 1996 with the approval of the Telecommunications Act in spite of a history that goes as far back as the eighteenth century. A handful of billion-dollar corporations oversee the mass distribution of reports and information in the United States. The interests of these corporations entail the limitation of civil liberties and the people’s rights though the fabrication of news and manufacturing of public opinion. These processes incapacitate or blind the public from discussing the responsibilities of the media, political leaders, and their abilities to oversee broadcasted content. A solution to this problem is multilateral cooperation amongst agencies, nongovernmental entities, the public, and the private sector. Works Cited Drew, Jesse. A Social History of Contemporary Democratic Media (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies). New York: Routledge, 2013. Engesser, Sven. Media systems and political systems: Dimensions of comparison. International Communication GazetteJune 73.4 (2011): 273-301. George, Cherian. "Credibility Deficits." Journalism Studies 8.6 (2007): 898- 908. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. Hedges, Chris. Chomsky: The System We Have Now Is Radically Anti-Democratic. 2014. Alternet. Web. 2015, January 20. Lax, Jeffrey R. and Justin H. Phillips. “The Democratic Deficit in the States.” American Journal of Political Science 56.1 (2012): 148-166. McKelvey, Fenwick. "Algorithmic Media Need Democratic Methods: Why Publics Matter." Canadian Journal Of Communication 39.4 (2014): 597-613. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 20 Jan. 2015. Read More