LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

American model of liberal democracy

American model of liberal democracy

A role is defined as characteristic and expected social behaviour and the function, position or actions taken by a required person or group. Politics as we know it is inconceivable without the mass media. They are the central forums of political communication in modern liberal democracies and are known today as the 'fourth estate'. This essay will argue the role the mass media play in American politics by examining ideas of political propaganda; dominant ideologies presented in the media, polysemic meanings conveyed, political party campaigns, journalistic bias and their positions as gatekeepers. The mass media of the United States of America are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function.

Governments everywhere are aware of the political importance of the media. Governments therefore have developed philosophies about the political role to be played by the media in their societies and ways to control the impact of the media on government activities. The Latin definition of media is "middle" (O'Shaughnessy, 1999:2) as they are the middle chain of communication from the sender and the receiver of information. In society today, the media are situated in a pluralist model of liberal democracy and are often seen as fulfilling the vitally important role of 'fourth estate' being the guardians of democracy and defenders of the public interest. The mass media in American politics are known as the fourth branch of government in addition to the main three of the President, executive and judiciary branches.

Within contemporary society today, the media transmit political propaganda from the political to the public sphere. Propaganda is information or material spread for the specific purpose of promoting a doctrine or cause which reflects the views and interests of those advocating or opposing it. Journalists and their editors tend to frame political news in ways, which emphasise rivalries between leaders and, to a lesser extent, the contest between government and Opposition front benchers. Tiffen's position on the power of the media throughout politics is:

The political role of news tend to picture news content as a deliberate exercise of power - the expression of propaganda to further the interests and attitudes of those producing it (2000:184)

To an extent, news today is a form of popular entertainment and neglects to inform people in a reliable way. Hartley claims:

News is not the newsworthy event itself, but rather the report or account of an event. It is a discourse made into a meaningful story in the same way as speech is made up out of elements of language. (1982:11)

People are independent of television news as a reliable source of information compared with newspapers. (Lodziak, 1986:64) Television news, current affairs and prime time entertainment neglect to represent viewpoints, which contrast dominant interests. Ideology is apparent in the mass media as it reinforces the dominant ideas of the ruling class and elite corporations within American society. Television is a cultural agent that provokes and circulates these ideas, which serve the dominant interests within the ...