Cultural and Political Act on the Part of Media - Essay Example

Topic: Cultural and Political Act on the Part of Media [Name] [Institution Name] Cases which have been reported as cultural, economic and political crisis by the media have considerably risen in recent times. In the mid 1980s, the media treated certain incidences such as corruption, racism, unemployment, insecurity and denial of media rights as crisis (Norris, 2000, pg, 64). Incidences which are reported by the media as crisis are usually against the norms of society and most often affect a magnitude of its citizen or leads to the deteriorating of their rights, encroaches on their freedom or adversely affect their lives. In recent years, media has continued to open closed acts as crisis that were difficult to report on and has continuously highlighted such plights to the society. Unfortunately as the media has often termed such acts as crisis the more it has become at logger heads with the government. This paper is going to discuss the media categorization of some acts in political, economic and cultural settings as crisis. The effect of media categorizing such acts as crisis is also explored in the paper. One of the economic acts which are termed by the media as crisis is corruption. Why? We have seen corruption pervade all corridors of power leading to near downfall of companies and the economy of countries. From Enrode in the US, to Siemens in Germany, to Satyam Computer Services in India and to Daniel Dantas of Brazil, are a sample of the big companies that have been brought down by corrupt acts by their managers and employees. Yet without media interrogation one would tend to think that their downfall was due to purely the economic crunch currently affecting the world. Many more have gone unreported because the media has been kept at bay by the managers in collusion with state authorities. If anything, rapidly deteriorating economic conditions will only serve to encourage even more unscrupulous acts from employees and their managers and blame it on the economy (McNamara, 2008). It is unfortunate that only few individuals benefit from acts of corruption while the majority of the citizens get to suffer. In the above examples only a few benefited but after the companies were closed it led to so many people losing their jobs. This has affected their sources of livelihood, the state or country cannot get taxes depriving it of source of income. This is a crisis and can get replicated in many more problems in society with an end result of possible civil war. By media terming corruption as crisis it makes the citizens to start demanding for actions to be done against corruption by those in authority. Such reporting has often resulted in managers and politicians to resign paving way for corrupt free leaders. Reporting of corruption has been termed as a crisis world over. This has resulted in countries forming bodies like Transparency International to fight the vice. Unemployment has also been termed as an economic crisis by the media in the society. Unemployment makes some individuals to resort to criminal acts for livelihood. Disclosure of unemployment reports strengthens the effects of personal knowledge on the president performance rating (Norris, 2000, pg, 64). The coverage of high unemployment elevates the insights of national joblessness. Mass media coverage aids to divert individual attention towards the economic rating of a country. In U.S, the media has rated the government poorly for not recommending broad range of activities that can fast truck the economy. This media-made crisis resulted in the Congress passing laws that saw the US reduce its employment discriminations among the minorities. The media reports on wage discrimination on women in the United States resulted to the action of President Kennedy appending his signature on the Equal Pay Act to become a law. This resulted to illegalization of differential payments of women together with men who work in a similar establishment with substantially identical qualification. This has been consequential to a decrease in the gap that existed between the average payment of men and that of women. Recently in January 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter fair, the Pay Restoration Act into law. It is encouraging to note that this was his first Bill to sign nine days after assuming powers. This bill states that workers unfairly treated or dismissed and are not aware of this unfair discrimination can still have recourse when they find out later. All these actions by the government have been as a result of the free press in the US and it reporting of the unemployment and related acts that employers have used to discriminate against its employees as a crisis. Therefore the media is portrayed as a facilitator of information across the line of economic inequalities. Impersonal effects of the media describe the pivotal role prayed by the media in the developments and shaping of the insights of societal level trends (Norris, 2000, pg, 112). Racism on the other hand is reported by the media as a cultural crisis. Thirty years ago, the colored and the whites could not share amenities such as hospitals, schools and transport facilties.The media has eradicated such kind of discriminations by terming racism as a crisis world over. The media has achieved this by sensitizing the public on the destructive effects of racism. By media reporting the inequitable distribution of resources among the white and the colored to an extend that it has been portrayed as a crisis, the gap between the two races has dramatically reduced. The media has improved peoples relations in those countries where conflicts were common between the white and the colored. By highlighting racism as a crisis media aids a reverting the vice and promoting coexistence among people of different races. This then promotes unity among people in the society. Therefore the media can lead to politicization of individual’s personal knowledge and this in turn can influence individuals’ views and can make citizens take social action. Today the US president is a black man; Barack Obama. This is because the USA media have constantly portrayed racism a crisis making the citizens to be more enlightened and have shunned away from the vice. More cases are being reported world over where the minorities are being given equal chances like the natives. This is by virtue of the media campaigns against racism to an extent it has been portrayed as a crisis. Insecurity is portrayed by the media as social crisis. The media has disclosed different causes of insecurity in the society. The reported deaths of innocent people day in day out have seen security being seen as a major social crisis. This calls for urgent action to be undertaken in order to eliminate the crisis. The media has highlighted this by reporting insecurity incidences and the actions which the government has undertake in order to curb such crimes. The media has also depicted how unemployment as a crisis in itself has led to insecurity (Patterson, pg60, 2002). Unemployed citizens will as always get in involved in criminal acts for their livelihood. By terming insecurity as a crisis, the media has enlightened the government that insecurity is a threat to the country’s economic development because people will not perform optimally because of the insecurity fears. On the same note investors are very sensitively when it comes to security matters. They simple cannot invest in countries with high risks in security matters. Such countries therefore loose on the jobs which such investors would have created and probable eliminate the same insecurity. Such a crisis puts government on it toss and it has to do all the things possible to eliminate such a vice less it is voted out. Dictatorship has been illustrated by the media as a political crisis. For instance, although Italy is said to be a fully established democracy, but the political acts by the Prime Minister Berlusconi to control interest in the field of commercial broadcasting and his government’s role in influencing public broadcasting is seen as a crisis by the media (Popkin, 1994, pg, 58).This is dictatorship crisis. On the same note, most of the Latin American countries are made up of societies that are in transition from regimes of militarism. Through media influence and terming such militarism as crisis the countries are now getting liberated. This vividly shows that in the past two decades, media highlights on these issues have resulted in the fall of such political dictatorship. This clearly shows that the media can lead to the fall of a political power by reporting about the ills of the government to its people (Popkin, 1994, pg, 60). This is achieved due to enlightenment of the citizens about the negative impacts of suppression of the media by the government. Dictatorship as perceived as a crisis by the media incites the citizens who can turn against such dictators and demonstrate for the impeachment of such leaders from power. This in the long run has made it possible for the replacement of such dictatorial regimes by more democratic leadership. Media perspective on some acts as being in a crisis have resulted in fruitful avenues by which constructive changes in the society have been achieved. The reporting of some acts as a crisis by the media in most cases have sensitized governments, which in turn have taken appropriate measures and precaution to avoid negative image from its citizens. References Blumler, J.G, McLeod & Rosengren. 1992. Comparatively speaking. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Blumler.J. 1984. Communication to voters’ television in the 1979 European parliamentary elections: London: Sage. Norris, P. 2000.The virtuous circle: Politico communication in post industrial societies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, T. 2002.The vanishing voter: Public involvement in an age of uncertainty. New York: Knopf. Popkin, S. 1994.The reasoning voter.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Read More