ROLE OF EDITORS IN PRESERVING DEMOCRACY BY PROFESSOR CHINYERE STELLA OKUNNA DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR (ACADEMIC) PAUL UNIVERSITY, AWKA, ANAMBRA STATE NIGERIA

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  • Posted by: Imoh Robert

PREAMBLE

CLARIFICATION – STATING THE OBVIOUS: THE POWER OF THE MEDIA

  • It is indeed stating the obvious to say that the media are powerful.
  • Yes, they are, particularly in this Information Age of the 21st century when it has become incontrovertible that the media function as the most powerful tools for the dissemination of information.
  • This incredible power derives from the media’s marvelous ability to reach millions, to raise issues, to create awareness on topics and to disseminate information with great efficiency

CLARIFICATION – STATING THE OBVIOUS: THE POWER OF THE MEDIA

  • People’s increasing dependence on the media for news, views, information, enlightenment, education and even guidance on an astounding variety of issues and events, also make the media powerful
  • In fact, whether it is the ‘traditional’ mass media of radio, television and newspapers, or the new social media, the media are waxing stronger and stronger in their ability to provide information simultaneously to a vast, heterogeneous and scattered audience, resulting in the tremendous power and influence of the media in shaping public opinion and perception.

CLARIFICATIONS: OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS

  • Many other crucial functions of the media are predicated on the media’s powerful information function.
  • Several theories and theoretical approaches of media effects have argued convincingly that, under varying circumstances, the media can exert tremendous influence as moulders of society
  • They also argue that the media have the capacity to determine, to varying degrees, how media audiences react to particular issues and events, or how they perceive social reality generally.
  • Some of these theories/theoretical orientations can be used to ‘justify’ the power of the media and explain their various fundamental functions in democracy.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: CULTIVATION THEORY

This theory holds that:

  •  Persistent exposure to the media message leads to its adoption as a consensual view of society, even when it is deviant from reality in several key respects
  • The more people are exposed to the mass media, especially television, the more they will come to believe that the real world is like the one they observe
  • Higher exposure to television goes with the sort of world view found in the message of television (McQuail, 1987).
  • Thus, media audiences could ‘cultivate’ images of governance and democracy presented in the media.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: AGENDA-SETTING THEORY

In line with the tenets of this theory:

  • The media are believed to have the capacity to influence what members of the society, as media audiences, think about and consider important.
  • The media have the ability to influence the salience (importance) of topics on the public agenda.
  • If a news item is covered frequently and prominently, the audience will regard it as more important.
  • Consequently, public discussions, and ultimately public opinion, tend to follow the headlines because the media are able to tell people what to think about, by placing certain topics on the media agenda.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: STATUS-CONFERRAL

Through this concept:

  • The media confer legitimacy and importance on people, issues and events, simply by reporting them
  • In doing this, the media make such people, issues etc appear ‘right’ and important.

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: FRAMING THEORY

  • Framing Theory is very closely related to the Agenda-setting Theory.
  • In fact, they are so closely related that Framing Theory is actually regarded as an adaptation of Agenda-setting Theory.
  • However, framing is a step beyond agenda-setting because while agenda-setting tells us what (the things) to think about, framing tells us what to think about those things.
  • Agenda setting theory just tells what to think about but framing theory tells how to think about the information, so framing theory is also known as second level agenda setting theory.
  • Framing influences the mindset (perception) of people and impacts their decision making on a topic.
  • This concept describes the process by which a news item, travelling through channels, gains clearance at certain checkpoints along the way.
  • These checkpoints are ‘gates’; the individuals or organizations which give clearance at the check-points are ‘gate-keepers’; the process of doing this is called ‘gate-Keeping’. Thus:
  • A gate-keeper is an individual or a group of persons that controls “the travels of news items in the communication channel” (Lewin, 1947).
  • Gate-keeping is the ability to select some information for consideration and leaving some unexplored and unannounced (Branston & Stafford, 2006).
  • “There is little question that gate-keeping represents enormous power and control [because] gatekeepers have the power to determine the nature and flow of certain kinds of information” (Hiebert et al, 1985).

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: WATCHDOG JOURNALISM

Watchdog journalism:

  •  Is journalism that seeks to increase transparency and accountability of politicians and other public figures and institutions.
  • Is “a form of investigative journalism that often makes use of fact-checking, interviews, and research to bring greater transparency to issues or events” (Liberties EU, January 17, 2022).
  • “Performs a ‘checking function’ ensuring that elected officials uphold their oath of office and campaign promises and that they carry out the wishes of the electorate” (USAID).
  • Watches over democracy and protects it on a day-to-day basis, thus serving to maintain the very democracy it watches over

OPERATIONALIZATION OF CONCEPTS: WATCHDOG JOURNALISM…2

  • Performs an oversight function that ensures that everyone is playing by the rules
  • Triggers effective actions by policy makers to fulfil democratic principles
  • Strengthens accountability in democratic governance
  • Calls out bad behavior when it happens
  • Unleashes citizens’ action/reaction against bad governance
  • Generally, the press is expected to be the watchdog of the society, keeping an eye on political leaders who are governing with the mandate of the people. In this regard, it serves as the mechanism for ‘watching’ political office holders, with the aim of encouraging them to pursue the fundamental objectives of the state.

MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Democracy

  • ‘Democracy’ is rule by the people = government of the people, by the people, for the people.
  • It is a system of government by the whole population. But because the whole population cannot govern, governance is typically through elected representatives.
  • This is Representative democracy in which people elect government officials to govern on their behalf.
  •  Consequently, elections are the soul of democracy; without them, there is absolutely no democracy.

MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Freedom of the Press for Democracy

  • It is usually said the Press is the oxygen of democracy, mainly because no other institution possesses the capacity to gather efficiently, package professionally, and disseminate effectively the quantity and quality of information required to make democracy work.

Thus:

  • A free, objective, skilled Press is an essential component of any genuinely democratic society because it provides information which the electoratr/polity require to make responsible, informed decisions.
  • Democracy would be meaningless without information to inform, debate, shape policy or sound judgement.
  • Proper democracy entails an open society and a free Press is an indispensable prerequisite for an open society.
  • The media provide the platform for a multiplicity of voices to be heard at national, regional or local level.

MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Mandate of the Press to Preserve Democracy

  • In performing its many functions in a democratic society, the Press derives its general power and support from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which unequivocally guarantees the right to freedom of expression to all human beings.
  • Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
  • As a universal declaration, this obligation to guarantee that individuals freely hold opinion and express it, is therefore binding on every nation.
  • This is why all regional associations, like the African Union, as well as individual countries that are members of the United Nations have incorporated the Universal Declaration in their constitutions.

MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Mandate of the Press to Preserve Democracy

  • The best example of a clear incorporation of the Declaration in national constitutions is the First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution which guarantees the right to gather, publish, and distribute information and ideas without government restriction, stating that: : “Congress shall make no law… abridging the Freedom of Speech, or of the Press.”
  • Given the universality of the right to freedom of expression, there has been a measure of controversy over whether any special consideration should be given to the press in the exercise of this right, or whether the press should be granted any ‘special’ freedom different from the freedom of expression already guaranteed to everyone.
  • However, although freedom of expression is a universal individual right, it is a special collective right for the journalist.

MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Mandate of the Press to Preserve Democracy

  • In democracy, if the journalist is denied this right, which is exercised through freedom of the Press, the entire society/electorate is denied their right to information on the goings-on in their constituencies. Consequently, democracy can neither grow nor be consolidated.

In considering whether the press requires any additional or ‘special’ right, consider the following questions:

  • In the context of modern democracy and in this Information Age, can any other institution perform the multiple functions of the media/Press better than the Press?
  • If the answer is No, should there still be any controversy on whether or not freedom of the Press should be distinct from the general freedom of expression?
  • This question is eloquently answered by the First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the Freedom of the Press.”

ROLE OF EDITORS IN PRESERVING DEMOCRACY

The Editor: Who is She/He???

  • “A person who is in charge of a newspaper, magazine etc…and who decides what should be included” (Hornby, 2015).
  • “A person who is in charge of and determines the final content of a newspaper, magazine…” (Google).

The Editor as the Ultimate Gate-Keeper

  • As the person “who decides what should be included…and determines the final content of a newspaper, magazine” or other media, the enormous power of the Editor as the ultimate Gatekeeper is very obvious.

ROLE OF EDITORS IN PRESERVING DEMOCRACY

How can this power be deployed to preserve Democracy? :

  • Agenda-setting: What issues in democracy are you placing on your media agenda? How topical are they?
  • Status-conferral: Do those politicians deserve the high status you are conferring on them?
  • Watchdog Journalism: Be Watchdogs for democracy, NOT Lapdogs, NOT Attackdogs.
  • Provide platforms for freedom of speech for a variety of political voices/candidates and the electorate
  • Frame politics and governance in ways to achieve desirability of democracy and determine the emergence of a democratic culture.
  • Determine the appropriate images of governance and democracy to be ‘cultivated’ by media audiences/the electorate
  • Etc, etc, etc

PARTING SHOT

  • As Editors, you have enormous power as the Ultimate Gate-Keepers in a democratic society, in spite of the challenges – which are often exaggerated to the point of applying excessive self-censorship in your work.
  • Use this power!!!
Author: Imoh Robert

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