Media Democracy And Civil Society

Since independence in 1947 India has remained a stable and functioning democracy in the face of enormous challenges. Amid a variety of interlinking contraries and a burgeoning media – one of the largest in the world – there has been a serious dearth of scholarship on the role of journalists and dramatically changing journalism practices. This book brings together some of the best known scholars on Indian journalism to ask questions such as: Can the plethora of privately run cable news channels provide the discursive space needed to strengthen the practices of democracy, not just inform results from the ballot boxes? Can neoliberal media ownership patterns provide space for a critical and free journalistic culture to evolve? What are the ethical challenges editors and journalists face on a day-to-day basis in a media industry which has exploded? In answering some of these questions, the contributors to this volume are equally sensitive to the historical, social, and cultural context in which Indian journalism evolved, but they do not all reach the same conclusion about the role of journalism in Indian civil society and democracy. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journalism Studies.

Since the emergence of the dissident “parallel polis” in Eastern Europe, civil society has become a “new superpower,” influencing democratic transformations, human rights, and international co-operation; co-designing economic trends, security and defense; reshaping the information society; and generating new ideas on the environment, health, and the “good life.” This volume seeks to compare and reassess the role of civil society in the rich West, the poorer South, and the quickly expanding East in the context of the twenty-first century’s challenges. It presents a novel perspective on civic movements testing John Keane’s notion of “monitory democracy”: an emerging order of public scrutiny and monitoring of power.

*Winner of the AEJMC-Knudson Latin America Prize 2017* Social movements throughout contemporary Latin America are successfully influencing and shaping media policy. In this highly original, detailed, and in-depth study, Silvio Waisbord and María Soledad Segura scrutinize the goals, tactics, and impact of civic media movements across the region, demonstrating the full extent of media activism on domestic policy and politics. Media Movements goes beyond simple conceptions of 'the national' versus 'the global' to reveal the complicated process of media policy-making, and to evaluate the significance of local political elites and citizens, global actors, and legal frameworks. With success rates varying across the region, the authors offer an assessment of the impact of citizens' mobilization on policy-making, as well as the effects of legislation on ownership, funding, community media, non-profit media, and public media.

In this broad-ranging text, Peter Dahlgren clarifies the underlying theoretical concepts of civil society and the public sphere, and relates these to a critical analysis of the practice of television as journalism, as information and as entertainment. He demonstrates the limits and the possibilities of the television medium and the formats of popular journalism. These issues are linked to the potential of the audience to interpret or resist messages, and to construct its own meanings. What does a realistic understanding of the functioning and the capabilities of television imply for citizenship and democracy in a mediated age?

A state-of-the-art account of what we know and do not know about the effects of digital technology on democracy.

An overview of the press and mass media in Africa today and their contribution to democratization

A timely and critical investigation into the way media operates in a so-called global age, presenting new empirical data on key sites of news production and crucially tying these findings to ongoing debates on globalization and democracy.

Recent discussion of democratization in Africa has focused primarily on the reform of formal state institutions: the public service, the judiciary, and the legislature. Similarly, both scholars and activists have shown interest in how associational life-and with it a civil society-might be enhanced in the countries of the African continent. Much less concern, however, has been directed to the communications media, although they form a vital part of this process. Media and Democracy in Africa provides the first comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the role of the media in political change in sub-Saharan Africa. The central argument of the volume is that while the media may still be relatively weak compared to their positions in liberal democracies, they have come to play a much more important role than ever before since independence. Although they have not yet demonstrated sufficient effectiveness as public watchdogs and agenda setters, they have succeeded in creating new communicative spaces for people who have previously been intimidated or silent. Building on this the contributors argue that a different conceptualization of democratization than the mainstream currently uses may be necessary to capture the process in Africa where it is characterized by contestation rather than consolidation. This volume shows that the media scene in Africa is diverse. It stretches from the well-developed and technologically advanced situation in South Africa to the still fledgling media operations that are typical in sub-Saharan Africa. In these countries, print media as well as television and radio are just beginning to take their place in society and do so using simple and often outdated technology. The volume also examines how these growing outlets are supplemented by informal media, the so-called radio trottoir, or rumor mill whereby the autocratic and bureaucratic direction of public affairs are subject to private speculation and analysis. Media and Democracy in Africa is organized to provide a historical perspective on the evolution of the African media, placing the present in the context of the past, including both colonial and post-colonial experiences. It will be of interest to Africa area specialists, students of media and communications, political scientists and sociologists.

In this essay, John Keane rethinks the relationship between the media and democracy. He opens up and explores a cluster of vital questions: where did the modern ideals of republican democracy and 'liberty of the press' originate? Have they been destroyed during the twentieth century by new forms of state censorship, or the emergence of transnational media conglomerates, or the growth of electronic media? Do the new digital technologies, satellite broadcasting and the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications hinder or help these ideals? Is the free and equal communication of citizens through the media a feasible ideal at the end of the twentieth century? While these questions have long been neglected in social science and in the high-pressured world of print and electronic journalism, Keane restores them to the centre of political analysis and debate. He challenges many conventional assumptions of journalists, academics and policymakers. His essay sets out a radically new account of the importance of the media to democracy and elaborates a new conception of the public service model of communications - a model which would expose invisible power, publicize risks and facilitate 'a genuine commonwealth of forms of life, tastes and opinions'. "The Media and Democracy" is a remarkable book. It will be widely appreciated by students of democracy, politics and the media, as well as by all those interested in the expanding importantce of mass communications in contemporary society.