University of Gdańsk

Faculty of social sciences

Institut of Political Science

The power of midia at contemporaneous societies

Course: Diplomacy

Academic year: 2015/2016

stationary

2016

The power of midia at contemporaneous societies

Course: Diplomacy

Academic year: 2015/2016

Stationary

Full Name: Paixão António José

INTRODUCTION

The theme of this work focuses on reflection, study and drafting of the role of the media in contemporary society, through an inventory of various concepts inherent to the subject that covers the field of the media. It is important to know what the value, the power and the role of the media, and in particular the journalism, have today in an increasingly global society, increasingly built under the dynamics and the domain of several powers (political, economic, competitive, and others) and increasingly interested in media coverage.

Faced with the constant changeability that occurs today around public space and the changes in relation to the perception of  both the space and the time (with its growing dissolution thanks to increasing immediacy of information allowed mainly by technological advances and electronic), we try to assess the level currently the media in General and the particular regional Since the distance between the global and the local area is smaller. That is, it seems to us crucial inquire if still make sense to speak of "journalism" at a time when globalization seems to have definitely tax, in which, thanks to changes in the communications sector, the planet becomes increasingly in a neighboring district and in which we are daily "bombarded" with news from every corner of the world? Reserve place globalization at the local and regional press. Will the regional media can be an alternative to mass media? Or, on the contrary, will be more dependent on local and regional authorities?

These issues are mainly related to the local and the global, regional and national, which will try to decipher over the following pages, always analyzing the limits and obligations of media and, particularly, of its professionals who are increasingly imbued in a society that does not look the means to achieve the ends.

1.2- THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE MEDIA

There are many currents of thought about the media and specifically about the position today in contemporary societies. Politicians, engineers theologians, physicians, journalists, managers, communication is the subject of ongoing debate. But, of that much? What to say about the communication, about the media and, in particular, on the journalism, at a time when they are increasingly imiscuids in a global community? In an era in which there is suspicion, scepticism, mistrust and disbelief? In a society that, as Lucien Sfez, "doesn't know already communicate with itself" because its "cohesion is disputed", its "destroy" and "has too no longer spending symbols can be unifiers"? However, these are not issues that we seek to clarify now, but rather to show how this society, transformed into a real "discussion stage", intervenes in the performance of the media. It is true that we live in a society which is light, poor mind, without memory, averse to strong ideas, where there is little consistency and mouth. It is true also that, as they say in the opening of one of the most recent novels by Mário de Carvalho "ravaging the country a colloquial drive that puts everyone in a State of frenzied chatter, a multiplication anxious of duos, trios, ensembles, choirs (...) The talk is the cause of numerous despauterios, loose productivity and bad creations. There is talk, talk, talk about all the accents in all shades and decibels, in all azimuth. The country talk, talk, talk, talk and machine, huh little of what he says has the slightest interest. The country has nothing to say, teaching, However, these are not issues that we seek to clarify now, but rather to show how this society, transformed into a real "discussion stage", intervenes in the performance of the media.

That's the public agenda, if they seize the problems and stirs the debate. In this sense, a little critical but, in our opinion, appropriate, questioning what role social matter can assign to the mass media? "Provisionally, we believe that the social role represented by the existence of mass media has been greatly overrated". But what is this judgment? If the media take up a major role in shaping our society, reaching a wide audience, so why are the subject of so much criticism and concern. "Because so many grieving with the problems created by the radio, the movies and the press and so few care about the problems created by the automobile and the airplane, for example?". This question may not have anything interesting, but there's a logic behind it and the fact that many make the media a target of hostile criticism because they feel hoodwinked by the turn of events. Remember the recent case "Casa Pia" which remains one of the media events of recent times in Est Europe mainly in Portugal and that has motivated a lot of critics and involved in this case accusing the media by plot that has been created and has created around the children and, above all, politicians.

1.3- MEDIA SOCIAL FUNCTIONS

Robert Merton, and Paul Lazarsfeld argued that the mass media fill, undoubtedly, many social functions that can become the subject of many different searches.

Between them, these authors focus on only three:

1) function of assigning status – the media give to the public causes, people and organizations to social movements. "The everyday experience´s as well as research, shows that the social position of the people or a political program is favored when it impacts positively on the mass media". Point out that the most valued status is awarded to those that are only cited by the media, regardless of any editorial support.

2) The media confer prestige and add value to the authority of individuals and groups, legitimizing their status. The recognition by the press, radio, magazines or television shows that a new personality appeared; a "someone" and significant behavior to attract public attention. The testimony of that person show publicly that "the great and powerful world of Commerce considers with sufficiently high status so that your opinion weigh for many people.

In short, your testimony is a testimony of his own status ".

3) the use of the mass media as reinforcements of social norms. Expressions such as "the power of the press" (and other media) or "glare of publicity" refer probably to this function, through which the media can arrange activities of debunking public. "The mass media serving mainly to reafirm social norms, exposing deviations from those standards to the public "and it is precisely due to this last function that the media are more criticised, exposing what for many didn't matter.

Many more roles there was to describe, but the important thing is that the social media effects vary according to the system of ownership and control. In England, for example, for several years, the station was, for all intents and purposes, Government-owned, controlled and operated by him. Today, although there are many private radio stations, remain big business financeries the production and distribution of the mass media and, obviously, one that paid say more. There comes a moment of social conformity, or whether, as the media are sustained by the interests of big business that if gear in this economic and social system, they contribute to the maintenance of this system. Commercially sponsored, the mass media "but actually developing indirect restrict aware of a genuinely critical vision"

1.4- THE POWER OF THE MEDIA

As is indicated by a large number of conferences, books and articles, the role of the radio, the press and the cinema come taking an issue of interest to many and a source of concern for some. A change that seems to be due to several factors. Generally speaking, it is commonly accepted that the media have a powerful instrumental that could be used for good and for evil and that, in the absence of adequate control, the last possibility is more likely. The mass media are the vehicles of propagand, advertising, and hence the fear that many individuals and institutions feel, because the advertisement shows up threatening.

The ubiquity and power of media power is therefore a factor of concern, since it leads us to believe in his enormous power. Robert Merton, and Paul Lazarsfeld consider, Furthermore, there are still other factors of concerning as the various types of social control that powerful interest groups exert on society. "Increasingly the major power groups, including the business world organized (organized bussiness) occupies the position of greater prominence, come by adopting techniques to handle the mass public (mass public) by propagand, rather than employ more direct means of control.

In this sense the ubiquity of media, we can salientering what defends John Pissarra Edwards, for whom "the media are today, arguably one of the most powerful factors of transformation of structures of the Public Space". Is that its action prints not only an increasing differentiation and complexity to these structures, as can put even the autonomy of public space itself, as such. Still, this author questions whether the power of the media, which initially was regarded as a projection at the highest level of public space, is today a threat or the symptom of a decline irreversible? A first consideration may be taken at the level of the principle of equality. The technical complexity of the devices and, above all, the economy-policy that governs the operation of media "an almost institutionalizing differentiated statutes of the participants (members of the public), which corresponds to a true hierarchical structure of power". A difference that arises in the first place, between those who have access to the media and others (the vast majority) that are limited to the status of more spectators.

With regard to media professionals, Pissarra Edwards is adamant and cautious. If, on the one hand, considers that "it is indisputable that its status is in itself a guarantee of a certain condition of power. It is up to them to a broad public communications produced control: manage centralized information networks, select themed, content materials produced, and ultimately manage the access to media; on the other hand, States that in the present situation, in which the margin for manoeuvre of these proprofessionals is very low, it seems very debatable that whether they are, truly, holders of such "fourth state". And highlights, such as Paradox, the fact that today the political communication (which is relegated to the background, examining files, abbreviating, making show) and those who produce it and seems interested in her own depoliticisation (just recall election campaigns).

Thus, a social field configured this way "does not have favorable conditions to the exercise of power on the part of its professionals, particularly in terms of" publicistic ", that is, journalists". The power games in this kind of political process in information sphere of action of other protagonists: the professionals in the "business of opinion", the activity of which is the "impersonal public handling, under" remuneration. It is also clear that behind these professionals are "always" other social actors, the major beneficiaries of this great "business" opinion: institutionally positioned actors and perfectly framed by private interests. "This situation represents a so brutal dismissal of power by" publicists "which became for them, too, a serious cause for concern, causing even attempts and a control effort, through the so called" professional "ideology". Hence, arise increasingly strong demands for a species of constitutionalisation of the legal "fourth state", under pressure from public opinion and their own governments who feel more and more like real or potential victims of the current situation.

1.5- MEDIA AND POLITICS

In contemporary society, the citizens receive information and form their own political opinions essentially through the media and, especially, on television. As already mentioned, the mainstream media are, in a democratic society, represented mainly by business groups, increasingly focused and globally interconnected, although, at the same time, great diversification and if Orient to targeted markets. The main source of income of the media business is advertising, and therefore they need to be sufficiently close to the politics and Government to have access to information, make use of the regulating for the press and, as occurs in many countries, enjoy considerable subsidies. On the other hand, "should also be neutral and distant enough to preserve its credibility, acting as intermediaries between citizens and parties in the production and consumption of flows of information and images, on the basis of the formation of  public opinion, elections and political decision-making processes.

In this way, we can see the relationship media/politics with election campaigns. "With the exception of activities aimed at raising funds, the main target of the policy forms" body to body "is to get people or your message appear in the media comunication social, entering the prime time in TV news, radio programs or any influential newspaper articles ". The political campaigns in many (if not all) countries show that the media are the stage par excellence. In Spain, for example, the main candidates, when talking in public on a particular occasion or event, you are warned by a red light in their computers the moment you are on live television, in order to change your address to a topic before prepared, no matter what you're telling the spectators present on. Is that, without the active presence in the media, the policy proposals or candidates have no chance to get a broad base of support. "The media policy does not apply to all forms of making politics, but all forms of politics necessarily have to pass by the media to influence decision-making,". In doing so, the policy is essentially framed, in essence, organization, and process leadership, by the logic inherent in the system of the media, in particular by electronic media In General, the media constitute the main source of political information and opinion to the general public. Television, newspapers and radio work as an integrated system, in which the newspapers reported the event, prepare analyses, television digest it and disseminate it to the public, and the radio offers the opportunity to participate, in addition to open space to discussions of these matters directed to issues raised on television.

Note that the power-relationship communication presupposes a political way of life that is foundation the public discussion. John Pissarra Esteves believes that "the political discourse to the level of everyday social life is thus also an essential affirmation of individuality medium: the resource for which to build their identities and that enables each individual to define its own personality".

Moreover, it is also noted that the tables of hands-on policy experience are today increasingly conditioned by the action of the media, acting as producers of news that operated the transformation of reality into events and these in new story. Under the apparent naturalness of the news hides a complex network of interactions and a no less complex combinatorial symbolic elements very different, the results of which are not easily predictable or rationable. As several authors argue, among them Tuchmann, "the Act of producing news is the Act of constructing reality itself and not so much the image of reality".

But there are those who defend still that, before these changes of behavior of the society itself, there has been a decline of which has been called "the public sphere". However, when did it start and why? The answers vary widely. Some critics blame the decrease of seriousness of the media, particularly encouraged by television.

Already critics blame politicians but the media blaming especially changes in political institutions, "especially the weakening of the politics parties lithic while mobilising the main interest of citizens for "policy. The policy in our societies is fundamentally structured by processes of communication, which induces essential consequences, both in the public sphere as in the configuration status of the mass media and the role of the journalist.

It is therefore from this set of reasons that matter to understand the media and independent "journalism" in the contemporary society, out of the abstractizante dichotomy "stage where the power displays" versus "opposition with critical functions of the stablished powers". In fact, the media assume today, within the framework of a permanent process of formation and affirmation of their autonomy while mediating instances, "or as the institutions that hold the power of confluence and reorganization of the universe from different subsystems, interest groups and their topics in pursuit of publicity and public notoriety with seeking to achieve political power, economic cultural, sports, or other, either as gross instances of various control activities, including political activity within the framework of parliamentary control influences and plural processes of horizontal legitimacy of State power.

1.6- MEDIA AND POWER

The conflict between the press and the power is for a century here, always current, but acquires a new dimension because the power no longer identifies unically and with the political power (which also sees its prerogatives undermined by the rise of financial and economic) and because the press, the media, are no longer in a relationship of dependency with the automatic political power. The reverse happens frequently.

As for its operation, it should be noted that it is not possible to dissociate the different media: newspapers, radio and television HA. "Nowadays they are interconnected, working in a circle, the media repeating the media, imitating the media". Regarding power, considering the crisis that this goes through. We're having a vertical, hierarchical and authoritarian power to a horizontal power, networking and consensual. Crisis, dissolution, dispersion of power. Hardly know where he is. There are many authors who claim that the media and the power are together in a crisis of values and attitude in society, for that matter, in this context, what happens to the press and information, said, for a long time, that constituted the "fourth power", as opposed to the three traditional powers-legislative, Executive, judicial – defined by Montesquieu.

There's some sort of confusion between the dominant media and political power that leads citizens to doubt that the critical operation of the "fourth estate" still takes place.

Is that "to speak of" fourth estate ", it would be necessary, first of all, that the first three exist and that the hierarchy that the organized, in the classification of Montesquieu, continue to be valid. In fact, the first power is today clearly exercised by the economy. The second (whose interconnection with the first is very strong) is certainly newsworthy-instrument of influence, of action and of unquestionable decision-in such a way that the politic power.

It does not appear only in third place. Polls and surveys show the appearance, since some years ago, a suspicion of a critical distance of citizens in relation to certain media and, especially, in relation to a certain kind of journalists. Unin-bail which comes from the fact that the media proclaim as a counterpower, dominated by a reverent journalism, by industrial and financial groups, for a market thought, by collusion. A small group of journalists, omnipresent, imposes its definition of information goods to be a profession increasingly weakened by fear of unemployment. Serge Halimi is more daring critics of the "new" media. His book "the new watchdogs" faithfully reflects the current landscape of media and, especially, of its professionals, journalists, or rather the "directors of social and political reality, internal and external" form "continuously".

"Serve the interests of the world. Are the new guard dogs”

1.7- JOURNALISM "FOURTH STATE"?!

To consider and appoint the journalism as "fourth state" is an issue that is not yet truly taken, although, as already mentioned, start to emerge a stronger requirement of a species of constitutionalisation, under pressure from legal public opinion and with the sympathy of their own governments who feel more and more like real or potential victims of the current situation.

There are few communication theorists that think of journalism as such. Most are critical to this respect, specially when both are concerned the media for its inertia in relation to the system. Bad River Mosque belongs to the Group of skeptics, those who argue that the formula of the "fourth state" journalism "can only be seen as a Hyperbola which aims to put the media at the level of the institutions of power formed.

"Mistake" is the title of his latest work, devoted entirely to the power of the media in contemporary society, which mirrors clearly the position that assumes Mosque. William Safire also contends that, currently, the formula "fourth power" applied to the press is "outdated", being just "used with irony".

And goes further, stating that "the expression was used to place the press on a par with the great powers of a nation; in the 19th century. XX was adopted by many directors in their descriptions of the importance of journalism "but now" lost its appealing nature as the theory of other powers are swept from memory and has a connotation something stale and affected.

André Fontaine has a similar perspective. For this author "the power of the press just deserves to be considered if there was room for the exercise, a unifying body", which is out of the question, if only because "the interests and objectives of those who hold parts of that power are often contradictory, otherwise incompatible" .

For Fontaine, a good part of what sometimes is called "fourth power" should more accurately be classified accurately "in the category of feudal power". That's why many advocate that the expression "fourth state" lacks analytical rigor. Firstly, because neither the media nor the classical definitions of journalism correspond to power constituted as capacity for action and concrete means of coercion in the context of a policy. Second, because the set of organs of the media and journalistic practices not articulates in a unified and coherent decision making Center, analogous to the Executive, legislative and judicial. Third, and last, why do you want to have present the structure of media companies, wants to think about the forms of journalistic production, the degree of autonomy of the media and journalism is reduced. "The power of the media is conditioned and controlled by all the others, that is, by an economic, technological, political and military"

1.8- OR COUNTER POWER?!

The idea of journalism "counterweight" is invoked today more often than the formula "fourth state," which is endowed with greatest virtues as affirmation of the professional mode of journalism in the public space. Is it, as advocates Mario Mesquita, "the institutions of the press are regarded as an integral part of the system of checks and balances characteristic of democratic regimes, just remember the image of the" watchdog "press-" watchdog "of the institutions before the deviations, the prepotências and the abuses of power.

The image of the press counter power corresponds to the mythologies of glorificantes action of newspapers and journalists.

Find some examples. One of them occurred in an embryonic stage of the profession of journalist, "Dreyfus affair" that had its main protagonist in an intellectual and writer Emile Zola, who fought the judicial error and the racial prejudice installed in traditional State bodies. In this case, the press had a critical role by opinion and controversy. Can also include Watergate, in which the heroic role was assigned to a reporter of General information. However, the activities of the press cannot be evaluated in a way off of other social institutions. Edward Jay Epstein and Michael Shudson analyzed certain ideas made about the role of journalism in the Watergate, journalists from the Washington Post not acted alone. Although the account of the journalists involved – Woodward and Bernstein in the best-selling "President's men", the secundarizetions contributes to non-journalistic institutions, the advancement of the investigation would not have been possible without the contribution of magistrates, the police, the courts and congressional committees of inquiry. Remember that Watergate showed well in the years 70, that two simple, journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, an important but not dominant newspaper the Washington Post, could bring down the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. It was a case of systematic abuse of power that manifested itself everywhere. A President of the United States had used its functions to distort the democratic process, ordering wiretaps, burglaries by burglary, fire and still warrant beating demonstrators.

However, the great sagas of journalism investigating 70-the years followed, in the next decade, several regrettable episodes in terms of ethics. The Gulf war (1991) is just one of many cases of manipulation of  television journalism and successive slippage.

"The fragility of the journalistic investigation processes, the absence of scruples and the quest for the successful professional without looking at the media, the pressure of ratings and sales are some of the reasons that contributed to accentuate, particularly in the last two decades, situations detrimental to the credibility of the media". Daniel Cornu identified six sensitive areas related to the context in which journalists work, and some reflections of structural limitations: "the decline of the autonomy of journalists vis-à-vis various forms of power; the weakening of the verification and collation of information (...); How set the agend (...); the spectacularization of the information; attacks on individual freedom and the protection of the intimacy of private life; and, finally, the submission of "agents of the media" to their employers and the conflicts that generate between intellectual logic and the logic of corporate profitability ".

A description that, in our view, reflects perfectly the topicality of journalism and of the media that before they went and counterweight are, in normal times, an instrument of power. Still, Marsh concludes that, "at certain times, under certain conditions, the journalism and the media associated with the other institutions of democratic societies, played roles that approached the counter power function".

 CONCLUSION

The power of the media is conditioned to the other powers of the society. This is, in our opinion, the most obvious conclusion I can draw from this work. Although the media have a role absolutely necessary and indispensable in a democratic society and in the organization of public space in the last decades "sinned" by leaving influency and manipulate for political and economic power, conditioning them to a new attitude. Everything is perverted. The aura that the media had in the 70, in which functioned as true opposition (remember the Watergate scandal), collapsed and today they are seen as a mere instrument of society.

In fact, the ubiquity and the power that the media still have concern a lot of people, especially those who feel harmed by news that, against his wish, are revealed. In this context, we can raise their position, as a means of information, without which many times we don't know what happens at the end of our street. That is why the power and the role of the media and, specifically, of journalism can be analyzed in the light of various currents of opinion, although, as we have been able to find out in the course of this work, the latest are essentially critical.

Hence, the fact that the expression "fourth state" still be by check to the media. They were for a certain time, but today this question is posed to the theorists, who increasingly regard them as a "misunderstanding" (Mario Mosque), a "fourth weakness" (Jader Jacobelli). Its function of counterweight has disappeared, and today they are just "a humanity and an industry governed by a production process distribuition.

and consumption, respectively characterised by industrial rules and procedures, and regulated by the market "(José Luis Garcia). Is the mass media, where journalists overwhelm him and become morbid and lazy-çosos, because they don't need to worry, the information reach them through the own industrialization.

We have reached a time when journalists do to earn a place in the Sun "and the much-vaunted journalistic objectivity is nothing more than a hollow slogan, without any legitimacy. There are more and more information, more and more competition and the need for better box is an imperative, so no matter how can certain news and if she is completely true or whether it is more a "game" of certain press agent or public relations office to divert the attention of public opinion.

With regard to regional journalism, we conclude that, despite being a means possibly more effective as regards the suitability of the information for the region and population it serves, it also has quite a few limits. More significant are the lack of organisational or business structures, the lack of professionalization and specialization of professionals and information, and, especially, the lack of a strong financial base to avoid dependence on advertising and above all the various economic social, political and financial agents. If, on the one hand, regional journalism can be a complement to the national journalism, on the other, turns out to go down the same path of addiction, just at a lower level.