What are the advantages and disadvantages of obtaining political information from TV and newspapers?

Résumé du document

If the Media industry is often seen as information and entertainment generators, it is especially the basis of our Western democracies. Indeed, the Media industry is certainly the most efficient and at least the most use mean to inform the people about politics. Media is then empowering Canadians as it is the provider of information through the democratic process of voting and participatory politics. Canada is defined as a parliamentary monarchy, and is also a prime ministerial system. Actually, the Prime Minister is viewed as almighty whenever he enjoys a majority government. Indeed, the parliament does not really keep its role of representative of the people as the Prime Ministerial party follows, according to the responsible government principle meanwhile opposition parties are weakened in their criticisms. However, this information is not always reliable as the Media remains an industry. The example of Brockville shows the extent to which the Media can change and modify the content. At that time, they used a 6 month old video on people in Brockville burning a Quebec for reasons having no common link with the issue on whether Quebec should be declared a "distinct society".

Extraits

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[...] The Media Can Play the Arrogance of Power Game as well as Politicians and Business Do. August 2003 http://www.irpp.org/ferrabee/archive/0803.htm Roger Bowen, Innocence Is Not Enough: The Life and Death of Herbert Norman, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe Graydon, Shari and David Mitchell. Politicians, journalists and the need for Civil Dialogue in Donna Logan, ed. Journalism in the New Millenieum, (Vancouver: Sing Tao School of Journalism, 1998) p60-72. Found in coursepack of POLI498-J Media and Public Policy, course given by Aphrodites Salas. [...]

[...] What are the advantages and disadvantages of obtaining political information from TV and newspapers? “What we know about the world is largely based on what the Media decide to tell Walter Lippman, Public Opinion Outline If the Media industry is often seen as information and entertainment generators, it is especially the basis of our Western democracies. Indeed, the Media industry is certainly the most efficient and at least the most use mean to inform the people about politics. Media is then empowering Canadians as it is the provider of information through the democratic process of voting and participatory politics. [...]

[...] A Credibility According to the January 2005Edelman annual trust barometer[1] national channels and 1 American are considered to be the most trusted Media in Canada along with the Globe and Mail. Those three daily Media sources of news are CBC, CNN and BBC. Moreover, the study reveals that Television and Newspapers are still more trusted than the Internet and are more listened to than radio. However, TV has been often criticized for its tendency to over-simplify the message transmitted by politicians, especially through 20-30 seconds spots supposed to summarize a 2 hours conference. How then could the message be not transformed? [...]

[...] Indeed, The Prime Minister enjoys the power brought by the Constitutional Convention of responsible government as it obliges the MPs to stand behind their party line when in power. Hence, the Parliamentary system in Canada is often said to bring a Prime Ministerial “dictatorship”[10] as the opposition parties are seen as a weak source of check over the government. First, the existence of a disciplined government party which will follow the party lines and may control the legislature for long periods of time strongly weakens the power of opposition parties to question and criticize the government. [...]