Media Power Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Media Power - Essay Example Persons with power are rather few in number and are associated with even few owners and corporations producing, directing, editing and selecting topics and issues deemed "newsworthy." Given media's extreme power to influence, study of media is most critical to understanding how political behavior is, or can be influenced. News should be logical and objective, applying every possible test to verify the data or information gathered. The journalist should constantly strive to eliminate personal feeling and preference. He or she must resist temptation to seek only the data that support his topic. There is no attempt to persuade or to prove. The journalist should elevate clear thinking and logic as well as suppress feeling and emotion in his analysis. Politics - the struggle over who gets what, when and how - is largely carried out in the mass media. The arenas of political conflict are the various media of mass communication - television, newspaper, magazines and the internet. What we know about politics comes to us largely through these media. Great power derives from the control of information. Who knows what helps to determine who gets what. The media not only provide an arena for politics; they are themselves players in the arena. The media not only report on the struggles for power in society; they are themselves participants in those struggles. The media have long been referred to as America's "fourth branch" of government - and for a good reason. Media power is concentrated in leading television networks, the nation's leading newspapers and broad circulation magazines. The reporters, anchors, editors and producers of these prestige news organizations constitute a relatively small group of people in whose hands rests the power to decide what we will know about people, events and issues. The Myth of the Mirror Media people themselves often deny that they exercise great power. They sometimes claim that they only "mirror" reality. They like to think of themselves as unbiased reporters who simply narrate happenings and transmit videotaped portrayals of people and events as they really are. Occasionally, editors or reporters or anchors will acknowledge that they make important decisions about what stories, people, events, or issues will e covered in the news, how much time or space they will be given, what visuals will be issued and what sources will be quoted. They may also occasionally acknowledge that they provide interpretations of the news and that their personal politics affects these interpretations. But whether or not editors, reporters, producers or anchors acknowledge their own power, it is clear that they do more than passively mirror reality. Government and the media are natural adversaries. Public officials have long been frustrated by the media. But the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of a free press anticipates this conflict between government and the media. It prohibits the government from resolving this conflict by silencing its critics. Media professionals are not neutral observers of American politics rather are active participants. They not only report events but also discover events to report, assign them political meaning, and predict their consequences. They seek to challenge government officials, debate political candidates, and define the problems of society. They see their profession as a "sacred trust" and themselves as the true voice of the