Essay On Media And Society

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Normative Theory of media and society

One of the aspects McQuail talks about in this chapter is the role that the media play in a free society. He explains that besides “the require[ment] to do no harm”, the media don’t have any formal obligations to cooperate with the government or any other institutions to help them reach specific outcomes. Through history, however, “unwritten obligations” regarding the role that the media play, was established and put into practice. Several internal and external pressures also make it harder for the media to remain independent.
An important element discussed in this chapter is the public interest in relation to the media. There are several definitions to the public interest and many theories on how the …show more content…

The outcome of the commission confirmed the bias of the press and urged the media to undertake a social responsibility approach in their work. McQuail mentions the fourth theories of the press which are: the soviet communism, authoritarian, libertarian, and social responsibility. Through several examples, he explains the kind of political and social regimes that apply to some extent each one of these theories. From the perspective of serving the public interest and meeting the ‘needs of society and its citizens’, many countries resort to a system called ‘public service broadcasting’. In this section, the author enumerates the main goals of this system.
Influenced by Jürgen Habermas’s book, “The structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” (1962), the author gives clear definitions of the public sphere and the role of the civil society serving as a liaison between the news media and the

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