Instruments
of democracy or demagoguery
Medieval rhetoric. Rubbish said fellow columnist
Rajpal Abeynayake last Sunday, summarily dismissing the phrase as
a kind of pseudo-intellectual attempt to belittle the characterisation
of the press as the Fourth Estate of the realm.
Abeynayake
rightly traces the original weighty description of the press to
Thomas Babinton Lord Macaulay, an English liberal, who attributed
to the press a vital position alongside what would today be called
the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
While the latter
were three arms of the state, the press as an institution that was
outside them, was granted the status of a watchdog, an institution
that watched the functioning of the state organs.
The beginning
If by "medieval rhetoric" it was intended to be a
historical comment, a remark about the period when the phrase "fourth
estate" was first used, then, of course, it is sadly out of
context and is indeed rubbish.
The printing
press, as it was first known, was hardly in existence in medieval
times. The press was invented by Johann Gutenberg in 1430 and it
was not till the second half of the 15th century that it revolutionised
Europe and gave birth to mass communication in the real sense.
Certainly people
communicated with each other from the beginning of man. First it
was with signs and later by means of verbal communication. Ballad
singers carried stories -- some true, some not -- from village to
village and later from town to town.
It might be
recalled that in the days of the Sinhala kings and later even under
British colonial administration, Royal or government announcements
were carried to the people by what were called "unda bera karayas"
or drummers who disseminated the message from village gathering
to village gathering.
If, however,
the contentious phrase "medieval rhetoric" had a philosophical
content, meaning that the description of the press as the "fourth
estate" was wholly misplaced or was no longer apposite, then
we are entering into a different argument altogether.
If the argument
is that the press should never have been elevated to the level of
the other three arms of state, then I submit that this stems from
a different media culture where the press had -- or was assigned
-- a different role.
If, on the
other hand, the argument is that the phrase is no longer applicable
or apposite because the media had progressed -- or rather changed
-- from being the fourth estate, then there is reason to examine
this more closely on the basis of empirical evidence.
Macaulay's
aphorism presupposed the existence of a free press. A fettered press,
however loose those fetters were, could not perform the responsibilities
that Macaulay hoped it would accept.
Throughout
the 17th century the press was under authoritarian control. Content
was restricted and the newssheets were subject to rigorous censorship
by the rulers of the times such as the Tudors of England, the Hapsburgs
of Spain and the Bourbons of France.
But the 18th
century was different. It was the age of revolution and witnessed
the blossoming of new ideas about freedoms and individual liberties,
of political rights and free expression.
It was a time
when objective information and unadorned facts were appreciated,
a situation that was improved on in the next century as newly formed
news agencies competing for clients were forced to be factual and
objective in the presentation of their news content.
But here we
are talking of societies that had freed themselves from feudalism
and authoritarianism and accepted democratic values. A free press
was an intrinsic part of that political value system.
News is
ideology
The value system in countries that had undergone revolutionary
change such as the Soviet Union and later the Soviet bloc, was of
course entirely different.
There the press
was an integral part of the state and its purpose was to further
the ideological beliefs of the then rulers. In fact Vladimir Lenin's
much quoted theory of news values says: " The press should
be not only a collective propagandist and collective organiser but
a collective agitator."
In short, news
is ideology and what goes into a newspaper in a state whose rulers
believe that this is the role of the media, will be determined by
that consideration.
Some years
ago the Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote on the front page: "Ideological
commitment and skill -- these are the two wings that lift journalism
to the level of the demands made on it by our complicated time."
If the Marxist-Leninist
ideology is not being pursued with the same vigour in today's Russia,
certainly in China the media are expected to serve the higher purpose
of the Chinese Communist Party which remains the supreme organ of
the state.
Again, the
role of the media in the developing world has been viewed as being
different from the western concept of a free press and that of the
ideological weapon in the former Communist world.
The developing
countries, emerging from decades and even centuries of colonialism
with their societies divided and their economies shattered, saw
the need to use the media as an instrument for social integration
and economic advancement and build nationhood. In the 20th century,
the period of widespread decolonisation, developing countries came
together under the banner of "development" and tried to
use their collective power for positive change.
In that process
the media were to play a vital role and did so up to a point.
But over the
years, agitation saw the emergence of political pluralism and democratic
polities with the media assuming a much larger role than that of
a mere purveyor of factual and objective news.
Informing people
by conveying news was not enough. There is a big difference between
the "informational" citizen, the one who is bombarded
with bits of news and the "informed" citizen who has not
only information but also the ability and a point of view with which
to make sense of it.
Today the media
in general face several problems, not the least of which is a question
of credibility. This is very true of the western media. Regular
surveys have shown that the public in the US, Britain and continental
Europe, have a very poor opinion of the performance of their respective
media though they perform in free societies.
This is largely
because in today's globalised and highly competitive world the media
have debased themselves by invading the privacy of people, engaging
in cheque book journalism and often descending to the no-holds-barred
levels of the crudest tabloid journalism.
Ownership
That is not all. One of the questions that increasingly confront
the media today is whether the ever-increasing concentration of
ownership, even cross-media ownership, permits the media to function
as freely as democratic society requires.
A case in point
is the ownership of Italy's key television stations, newspapers,
magazines and other media by the country's prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi and the stranglehold he has on opinion making.
Ironically
governments, which advocates a free media culture, are forced to
intervene to halt growing media monopolies that act as a break on
free expression in order to maximise profits.
Don't be alarmed
if one is asked this question: what is worse, corporate control
of the media or their control by megalomaniacal ideologues.
It is just
part of the running discourse of intellectual alarm at the disturbing
trends in the media industry and professional journalism that should
concern our own journalists, the industry and politicians.
|