News media : is the "fourth estate a power?

Résumé du document

Today, the permanent and instantaneous flow of information pass through a wide range of channels, called 'the media'. There are two types of channels: print media (e.g. newspapers) and broadcast media (e.g. television, radio). It is precisely the capacity to create information, that is at the very heart of the issue of power of the media. What is the exact political role of the news media? The media is an instrument of major importance for the citizens who must control their government and grant it legitimacy. Therefore, the existence of the media is constituent of a free and democratic society. However, the media is not only a sum of mediums, it is also a political actor. The way a topic is chosen, treated and presented to the audience implies a lot of political choices, when there are at the same time a painful war where civilians are dying and a terrible economic crisis, choosing one of these events to be in the headlines of a newspaper is indeed a choice. That is why newspapers, and more generally the media, are called the 'fourth estate', or, more unequivocally, the 'fourth power'. But is the media really a power in the sense that it could make an event happen or prevail over an individual despite his or her resistance? If it is, who is deciding the use of this power, and over whom is this power exercised?

Extraits

[...] This choice has dramatic consequences: it can determine what topics are to be discussed in the public sphere and may eventually contribute to determining the political agenda[7]. That is why newspapers, and more generally the media, are called the “fourth estate”, or, more unequivocally, the “fourth power”. But is the media really a power in the sense that it could make an event happen or prevail over an individual despite his or her resistance? If it is, who is deciding of the use of this power, and over whom is this power exercised? [...]

[...] Moreover, the media may also have people not doing and even not considering doing something they would otherwise do. Bachrach and Baratz added a second face of power: power as non-decision-making. By studying the “mobilization of its origin and its beneficiaries, Bachrach and Baratz manage to shape a new aspect of power, belonging to persons who may have been directly instrumental in preventing potentially dangerous issues from being raised”[16]. As shown supra, the media, acting as an investigator or as a manipulator, has the ability to control what issues and how they are to be raised in the public sphere and thus control a part of the political agenda[17]. [...]

[...] What about the Internet? Since it is a “world wide used by individuals to interact, it seems that it can't be considered a news media: individuals are not supposed to be able to deliver a relevant information directed to a large audience. However, the Internet tends to be considered more and more as a media on the one hand because its recent evolutions allows individuals to direct content to a large audience and share live information 2.0 phenomenon) and on the other hand because other media uses the Internet in order to carry information to a broader audience. [...]

[...] This has long been denounced. See : Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," in Dialectic of Enlightenment, Continuum International Publishing Group. Macus M. Wilkerson Public Opinion and The Spanish-American War: A study in war propaganda, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Steven Lukes Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Robert Dahl The Concept of Power, Behaviorial Science 201-- 15 Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, Two Faces of Power, The American Political Science Review, Vol No (Dec., 1962), pp. [...]

[...] In the apparent conflict between the values of other's belief respect and of freedom of the press, morality pushed society to accept censorship. Morality is therefore a set of tacit rules for the media it is breakable, but at the expense of a dangerous clash within society. The media is also an economic actor: the very core of its functioning is based on the sale of information. As an economic actor, it is working on a competitive market. Indeed, whatever the goals or the motto of a given newspaper may are, their concern is the delivery of information to an audience. [...]