POLS 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Liberal Democracy, Arab Spring, Influence Of Mass Media
3 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
In liberal democracy, freedom of press highly valued, legally protected. In authoritarian, media controlled, info access limited, turn news to propaganda. People in democracies rarely interact with politicians, exposure through media, way in which figures and issues represented to public important to both citizens and politicians, gap means manipulations can go on, different agendas pursued, info spun. Cutbacks can affect publically funded outlets, financing, commercial success, and competition affect private, change views to target niche markets. Ideological orientation of outlet can translate into bias, detected in types of issues and way covered. Commentators express opinions, reflect ideological biases, can be extreme, hostile, or aggressive. Information cycle of media speeding up, government can find out about breaking news same time as citizens. Cnn effect governments pushed to make premature decisions and public statements because of mounting public pressure caused by exposure to info. Harder for governments to hide info from citizens 2.
