Mass Media and Democracy
By Lim Ming Kuok
Democracy?
In an ideal world, a healthy democracy would allow for each and everyone to present and defend his or her position on various topics and issues. Everyone would listen, weigh in, and provide further argument to support or go against that particular position-perfect deliberation. But of course, that scenario is all but impossible in real life. If everyone gets to say his or her opinion on what should be implemented, who should be in-charge, what is legal or illegal, so on and so forth...everyone on the planet would be long dead before that could happen. Just think about it, there are about 6.7 billion people alive now on the planet even if we exclude children which are roughly one-third of that, it still leaves us with about 4.4 billion people. For the sake of argument, let us imagine that there is a stage and everyone gets 15 seconds to say their piece, even then it would still take over 2000 years to reach the 4.4 billionth person...assuming he or she is still alive.
That is why for the most part we could only rely on voting on an election day to resolve various issues including deciding on which political party to lead the country. However, over time, the casting of the ballot has been equated to democracy. This would be an inaccurate way of understanding democracy. Democracy is more than the casting of a ballot on a particular date once every four to five years. Democracy needs and demands deliberation by as many of its participants as possible. This is where mass media plays a critical part in the process.
Traditional Media and Democracy
"Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all" (Thomas Carlyle, 1841)1
Thomas Carlyle was referring to Sir Edmund Burke, the eighteenth century British statesman and political philosopher who believed that the press plays an important part in the healthy running of a government. The first three estates refer to the three components of British parliament, the Lords Temporal, the Lords Spiritual and the Commons. The Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual combined being The House of Lords, the Upper House of parliament. And the House of Commons was the British Lower House. Even though it is called the House of Commons, the people that made up of that section are hardly commoners; many of them were rich and well connected individuals. Therefore, it was supposed to be the duty of the reporters or the press to keep an eye on the happenings of the Upper and Lower Houses-to be the fourth estate that represents the true commoners or the masses. Over the years, the three estates have come to mean simply the government and the fourth estate is equivalent to the press or the so-called watchdog of the government. Yet, as the watchdog of the government become ever more entrenched in the system-gaining information and recognition from the very system that they should be watching-they instead become more and more like the "fourth branch" of the government.
Scholar Bernard Cohen famously commented that the mass media specifically the press, "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about"2 Professor Cohen's line of thinking belongs to the school of thought that acknowledges the power that media has to shape our thinking, or at the very least encourages us to actively think about certain issues or agendas. This is generally called the agenda-setting function of the media. If the newspapers and the news broadcast highlight certain issues such as hunger or pollution, the audiences are likely to become more aware of those issues and start to think more about it. On the other hand, if the media ignore news on corruption or wrong-doings of politicians, most audience most of the time would be less likely to actively think about those issues.
There lies the power of mass media in a healthy democracy-to highlight issues that would best serve the need of the public. In order to perform that function efficiently, the mass media is generally thought to need a "free" environment.
In Malaysia, the issue of free and independent media is mainly two-fold, ownership and regulatory. The earliest known mass newspaper in Malaysia was the Government Gazette which later changed to the Prince of Wales Island Gazette3 which continued publication until early 1830s. The paper was a private trade paper, mostly with news about commodity prices, shipping schedules, and related information. The mass media in Malaysia has obviously grown significantly since then. However, we must be aware that multiplicity of media is not the same as diversity of media. This is especially true when we consider that much of the mainstream media in the country are own directly or indirectly by entities linked to the ruling political party. For example, media conglomerate, Media Prima4 owns controlling stakes in the New Straits Times, Berita Harian, Harian Metro, TV3, 8TV, NTV, TV9, several more radio stations, and even a billboard company, Big Tree Outdoor that makes giant billboards that line the highways in the country. Together these media make up almost half of the mainstream media available in the country-all being controlled by single company. Yet, even more distressing is the connection between Media Prime and the main political in the country, UMNO. With such complex web cross-ownership, there will be conflict of interest and it is hard to imagine that the mass media could be truly independent and free from political influence. In addition to the problem of ownership of the media by entities linked to political parties in the country are the myriad of regulations set in place which seriously hinders that freedom and autonomy of themedia especially news outlets.
Well-known laws such as the Printing Presses and Publication Act 1984, Official Secret Act 1972 and Sedition Act 1948 are virtual shackles in regards to the mass media. These shackles cripple the mass media and prevent them from performing their function of check and balance on government and nullifying them as the fourth estate.
New Media and Democracy
"...blogging is the most important development in the media in the last 50 years, at least more important than arrival of the television in terms of changing the world. I say that because it is about creating and new democratic discussion about reality and one that transcend the mass media propagation of narrow collection of cadre of editor's and intellectual's ideas about the way the world is or the way the world should be..." (Louis Rosetto, Co-founder of Wired)5
Every time a new piece of mass media technology was introduced to the world, prophecies of doom to the older media format and promises of ultimate democratizing tool follow. On the doom and gloom side was the argument that the newer media will displace the older media. In other words, the radio was thought to displace the newspaper, the television was thought to displace the radio, and the Internet will displace everything. None of that has happened yet. The newspaper is still around after more than 500 years despite suffering a chronic decline in sales, the radio is still around after its first broadcast more than 100 years ago, and the television, despite assaults from the Internet, is still very much the mainstay of the mass media. And on the other side, the technology has usually enjoyed some praises of being the ultimate tool that would free the masses from the control of the rich and powerful. The newspaper, radio, and television were all once thought to be that technology. Even photocopying machines were once hailed as the potential technology. The Internet also had the honor of being hailed as the destroyer of traditional boundaries, that is, until most of the Internet's best and brightest were co-opted by large corporations.
New Media or Web 2.0 is the latest darling of this long tradition of speculating on the power of the mass media technology to offer the promise of true freedom from big corporation and the government. While it is too soon to know for sure if the Web 2.0 will indeed "deliver" freedom to the masses, there are some striking characteristics in Web 2.0 technology which differentiate them from the previous generation of technologies. Web 2.0 is a generic term used to describe the group of media technology that enables user-generated content. Video-sharing websites such as YouTube.com, social-networking websites such as Friendster and Facebook, and blogs are examples of Web 2.0. The main difference between Web 2.0 and more traditional form of mass media is the users' ability to publish their own content and for the readers of that content to respond to it without the interference or "gatekeeping" from editors. Web 2.0 alsoallows users to circumvent existing laws and regulations that govern traditional media such as print and broadcasting. In Malaysia, especially since the last General Election in 2008, there is growing awareness that the outcome of the election has been influenced to a certain extent by these New Media.
There are three main ways in which these New Media help deepens a healthy democracy. First, user-generated content functions as the fifth estate, performing the function of check and balance not only on the government but mainstream media as well. Secondly, the New Media, special those with an emphasis on social-networking component, facilitate networking. Networking could be virtual or as in some cases, cross-over to the real world as well. Thirdly, and this is in no small significance is that New Media provides a platform for self-expression.
The fourth estate, which has came to mean the print and broadcasting media especially the ones in the news business, was meant to be a check and balance of the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive branches of the government. They still do that of course, but due to various reasons they sometimes fail to do so and sometimes they fail miserably. For example, a number of public protests which took place in Malaysia in late 2007 were practically ignored by mainstream newspaper. Most notably the BERSIH Rally which took place on November 10, 2007. The BERSIH Rally was participatedby an estimated 40,000 people calling for clean and fair election. It was the first mass rally in almost a decade yet the news was buried in mainstream newspapers. For example, the local English daily, The Star, titled the news as "Road closures, checks cause massive jams in Klang Valley"6 instead of calling it as a "street protest". Putting aside political leanings, by most journalistic standards, the BERSIH news warranted front page attention and definitely not filed under "traffic congestions". One could view this as a case of the mainstream media failing in its responsibility of being the fourth estate. When fourth estates fail, the fifth estates fill the vacuum. Ne w Media especially in the form of blogs is especially potent in this respect of keeping in check the mainstream media. Bloggers, especially social-political bloggers perform on a regular basis, fact-checking of news, challenge the predominant point of view in the mainstream media, and give attention to issues sometimes neglected by mainstream media. This forces the mainstream media to be alert and in the process lifts the standard of journalism, the quality of the reporting, and ultimately benefits the society on a whole. No one party, neither bloggers nor mainstream media or the government is assumed to be doing their job faultlessly. It is these constant check/rechecking that helps keep things transparent and accurate.
The second property of New Media is its network-based configuration. For example, the blogosphere is organized as a distributed network. There is not central hub per se but instead blogs link to a number of other individual blogs. These links form a network which allows for further sharing of information and exchanges of ideas. Blogging facilitates two forms of networking, first the networking which exist primarily online and networking in the real world that started out in the cyberspace. Networking has allowed the bloggers to meet one another in the real world and enable the forming of groups. One of the most prominent groups in Malaysia is the National Alliance of Bloggers or All-Blogs, which could be attributed to the existence of a network amongst bloggers. The formation of networks is akin to the grassroots movement, fundamental to community activism. Through these networks, fundraisers, meetings, gatherings, and yes public protests could be organized. All these things are part of a healthy democracy.
Lastly, New Media provides an avenue for everyday common person to express him or herself. This ability to self-express is vital not only to democracy as a process but to the person as well. It can be a frustrating thing, if letters we write to the newspapers never gets published and our thoughts never travel further than the circle of friends and family that we have. Also, when we express ourselves we would like to know the response to that particular expression. In this regards New Media that has feedback functions is ideally suited to fulfill that need. For example, blogs with its commenting function allow for free discussion with some minor exceptions. In the first instance, a blog allows the blogger to formulate and articulate his ideas and opinions. In the second instance, the comment or feedback section of a blog allows for others to participate in the formulation and articulation or re-formulation and re-articulation of these ideas and opinions.
1 Carlyle, T. (1901). Heroes, Hero-worship: And the Heroic in History. Boston: Ginn & Company Publishers.
2 Bernard C. Cohen, (1963). The press and foreign policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
3 Lent, J. A. (1978). Malaysian mass media historical and contemporary perspectives. Amherst, N.Y.: Council on International Studies, State University of New York at Buffalo.
4 Media Prima. Available here.
5 Louis Rosetto about Blogging. Available here.
6 Road closures, checks cause massive jams in Klang Valley . Available here.
Lim Ming Kuok is a product of Malaysian, Japanese, and American education. A final year PhD. Candidate at the Pennsylvania State University (U.S) in the field of Mass Communication, he is deeply interested in the relationship between media, society, and democracy. Currently, he is researching on the connection between blogging and democracy, using Malaysia as a case study. He recently concluded a series of interviews with prominent bloggers, academicians, and media practitioners in the country on the same topic.