Liberiasm press freedom

Liberalism and the ‘freedom of the press’

Liberalism refers to a philosophy in politics, which is based on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberalism is established on the principles of equality, freedom and rights of individuals. Liberty exists in two forms. These are negative and positive liberty. Positive liberty refers to possession of power and resources to meet ones’ potential as compared to negative liberty which is the freedom from external control (Ryan, 2012).

The media practices and institutions in Australia have been conversant by a few political values and principles. Among these principles, the liberal principle has been found to be the most significant in shaping ones’ anticipation on the roles played by the media in the society. In addition, liberalism contributes much in structuring the media industry. Liberal democratic societies in Western countries regard to media as people’s servant and a major guardian to the political systems’ independence. In order to make this possible, the media society must be pluralistic and open in terms of its ownership. This requires the media houses to be privately owned rather than being owned by the government. This ensures that the media carryout their operations without too much interference from the government. Keane discovered that the request for freedom of the press is a clear, systematic dogma of the modern North American and European countries. He also discovered the practices and theory of openly expressing opinions by means of communication through media. The liberalism that is well known today was put down by the American, French and English revolution. The English revolution was in existence between 1640s and 1660s while the American Revolution existed throughout 1776 and the French revolution in 1789. The idea of liberalism was radical by then, and until its existence only classic and scientific means were taken into account. It is through liberalism that the concept of freedom of expression and press freedom were brought about. Liberalism facilitated various concepts such as contract rights, free trade and freedom of worship which enabled individuals to practice regions and faith of their choice. The principle concentrated not only on religion but also ensured that the tolerance of the society was maintained. This political philosophy and paradigm were based on the individual rights as well as the society as a whole. The philosophy was founded by John Lockehe who stated its main ideas as follows;

• Liberalism was a state of nature.
• Humans were born with natural rights for issues such as freedom, liberty and access.
• With time the natural rights were renounced to give rise to social societies such the government.
• The idea of society was a contract that existed between the society members and regulatory bodies such as the government.
• Liberalism was concerned on ensuring that there was a balance within the existing states.

Liberalism had become a significant term in political language of modern societies by 1840s. It was observed as the vision of the society depicted by the desire to liberate all individuals from illogical and redundant constraint. As mentioned earlier, liberalism as a political philosophy first began in Europe and then in American colonies. In 17th and 18th-century liberalism was seen as enlightenment that involved social and cultural movement. The idea of liberalism basically evolves from the vision of a society as essentially encompass individuals with intent contractual rapport with the government. It emphasizes individual liberty as the principal social good. Human beings have been given some common natural cravings and abilities, which are all reasonable and ethically equal. As these beings are able to perform self-determination, they require and want the freedom to better their lives as they make their own choices. The main principle of liberalism demands the government to secure the liberty of its people. The government does these through protecting such rights as religious practices, free political institutions, artistic and intellectual expression, equal standing before the law, and to private assets. A country should not hinder such rights in order to improve its economic markets. The main duty of the government is to extend individual liberty consistently to others. This is achieved through formation of a regime of rights, particularly to liberty, life and property. Any country is able to defend these rights if it is strong enough to make its desire reign over existing social agencies. A country can also threaten individual liberty by exercising unnecessary regulations. Liberals therefore, exercise limitations such as setting up independent judiciary, establishing separation of powers as well as schemes for checks and balances, preserving basic rights, exercising rules and laws and controlling use of executive discretion strictly. Normally, every market has a unique system for correcting its imbalances. This system operates well when the parties involved are let free and allowed to decide on themselves on what to do with their labor and income. If the government interferes with this system, it poses a threat to liberty of the individuals. Freedom of the press is directly related to liberalism. Liberals argued that freedom of expression was a right demanded by individuals, but obstructed naturally by laws. The idea of liberalism promoted press freedom. Freedom of the press was advocated in the west countries in 1600s and 1700s. This was made successful by the introduction of printing press in early 1400s. Organizations were able to distribute print materials without the need for licenses and taxes. This was not celebrated by religions and government because they were not able to influence information flow.

Thomas Paine (1737–1809), English- American political activist, wrote on pamphlets information about liberating slaves. His ideas were all about human rights even though the slave trade brought in a lot of wealth. He was later put on trial and evicted for being a rebel.

In the present day, the liberal advocacy for media is based on its main functions which are;

• Media plays the role of a watchdog. Through this function, media questions the government on behalf of the people.
• Media provides information. Both the government and people depend on the media for information.
• Media facilitates the public sphere in that it provides a space where individuals come together to discuss matters affecting the society thus influencing political decisions.

The internet and digital democracy

Digital media have drawn attention to people that are willing to put forward democracy. With the great advent of personal computers and internet in the 19th century, these media directed pleased the imagination future scientists, watchers and the people that adopted these media. The numerous advantages of personal computers and internet contributed to political democratization and society at large. By then, the internet was perceived as;

• Interactive medium that advances from a single-sided communication of existing mass media.
• Active and creative medium that enable users to become readers, viewers, listeners as well as participants.
• A platform that everybody is treated equally.
• Network medium that enables collective creation of products online by individuals and businesses.

As mentioned earlier, the media play three vital roles. These roles are; role of a watchdog, role of provision of information and the role of facilitation of the public sphere. There are three general orders of a society, also known as estates. These estates are; the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. The media or press is seen as the fourth estate of the society. This is because it acts as the custodian of the interests of the public, and at the same time it acts as the governments’ watchdog since it looks out on the activities that the government undertakes. As the fourth estate the media is neutral since it takes no sides, impartial and able to communicate many views and opinions as it acts to fulfill the interests of the public, in search of truth and revealing cases of power abuse. Just as the press is regarded as the fourth estate, the internet is regarded as the fifth estate. This is based on the activities of networked individuals getting and sharing own their information. Through the internet, the press can perform its second role which is passing information to individuals in the society.

As a public sphere, the press creates a public space where individuals meet to discuss on issues affecting them. Jurgen Habermas is a German sociologist who wrote about the transformation of the structure of the public sphere. The sociologist argued that the rationality was not based on individual minds but on ability to communicate. He came with his theory known as the Habermas’ theory of communicative action (communicative rationality). The theory is about a democratic concept that is emphasized by creation of a public sphere where people come together to discuss and then agree on the rules and laws that will govern them.

Over the years, the media and powerful government organizations have been in control of the public sphere while the public have been the primary consumers of the goods, services and political administration. With the introduction of electronic assemblies, where most things are done online, the public sphere have been rekindled. This has led to the presentation of digital democracy. Clay Shirky argued that the digital assembly promotes democracy. He further argues that to speak online is to advertise and to advertise online is to connect with others. Also, the freedom of speech is the freedom of press which is also freedom of assembly.

The social media enhance sharing ability, cooperativeness and unity. This is because many people have adopted the electronic media. For instance, facebook, and twitter are a few social sites that almost everybody in the world owns an account. Through such sites information including political, is conveyed all over the world very fast. This makes the people or organizations concerned to take necessary measures. For instance, if an organization is providing certain goods and services, the customers are able to provide their feedbacks to the organization through internet (social site) then the organization can improve their services if the feedback was a complain. Similarly, internet improves democracy in that the government gets to know what the public wants through it.

In the battle of Seattle in November 30, 1999 where many protesters overshadowed a convention by the World Trade Organization, digital media played a great role in offering new opportunities for collective action internationally. Manuel Castells is an author who stated that the internet enables associations to convey the emotions and hope that are required for changing from collective emotions to collective actions. In addition, Castells said that the digital social networks that are built on the internet as well as wireless platforms are vital gears for organizing, mobilizing, coordinating, deliberating and for making decisions. The combination of these qualities promotes democracy and hence freedom. Additionally, electronic democracy has the benefit of getting to the youth as a means to improve voter turnout of youths in elections and increasing awareness among young people (Fenton, 2010). Electronic democracy and voting methods can help improve the voter turnout that is consistently declining. Specifically, voter turnouts for youths have a significant drop in most industrialized countries. The use of electronic political participation method may be well known to youths, consequently, gather more participation by young people who would otherwise feel uncomfortable to use traditional methods in voting. Therefore, electronic democracy can help to enhance democratic participation, reduce voter apathy, decrease civil illiteracy and become an effective tool for education, political discussion, debate and participation. Furthermore, electronic democracy results to a simpler process and gain access to government information for citizens and public sector agencies. However, research conducted by Nielsen’s Online Landscape Reviews showed that many people are loyal to more than one news provider, and they are going to new sites every day. He also discovered that the big media controls the flow of information. Fenton made some claims that the internet has an inbuilt capacity to make political networks of resistance deal with major power structures, both nationally and internationally. He also claimed that as a result of the internet, there exists the easy-come and easy-go politics where a person just needs to click on the button to leave a petition.

To sum up, the internet is regarded a stepping stone in developing a new, progressive and strong social order.

Social media and contemporary sociality

In the olden days, man has used various signs, symbols and facial expressions to communicate. In those days, man used to make use of sounds and drawings to let people know about the information he wishes to convey since verbal communication was not available. In this century, improvements in technology have created a way for effective means of communication. The effect of these technologies is witnessed in the society, government policies and the corporate world (Hepp, 2008). The abovementioned means of communication can be termed as social media. This is because social media plays the role of participation, sharing of information and content sharing. Sociality refers to the tendency of persons or groups to build social relations and create communities. Similarly, sociation refers to the various forms of interactions that join individuals to one another or society.

According to Fenton and Freedman, the fame and time spent on the social sites and others that promote active production and are characterized by a high level of interactively have brought about new rituals of communication. As a result of taking lots of time in a digitally connected environment, much information is shared and people also tend to leave more tracks of themselves in public places online (Fenton, 2010). Social media leaves people with two points of views. These are;

• That social networking sites support the maintenance of pre-existing social networks while it also helps people connect through shared interests, political activities and views.
• Social media demands that one puts his/her life on the display. As a result, public issues are belittled, existing inequalities are highlighted, and corporations are issued with data for online marketing and business promotion.

Previous research on social media showed that social media works to strengthen the social hierarchies that are already existing and at the same time reinforce communities that are close. The research also confirmed that social networking sites favor consumption over friendship as well as building social communities. Social networking sites are a form of business run by corporations. The uniqueness of this form of business is that the users can access it freely and when this happens, the business accumulates the profit through selling its users as commodity to the advertising corporations. Ellison et al. made recommendations on strong and weak connections. He recommended a more flexible form of relationship management that was enabled by SNSs, bringing up large sets of weaker ties, the ability to make temporary relationships last, and more suitable methods of nurturing social relationships with strong and weak connections.

Pierre Bourdieu made significant contributions to sociological theory. This was an effort to get a middle group amid individual agency and structural determinacy. He designed a theory known as Bourdieu’s theory of distinction. In his theory, he explains how differences in cultural tastes have a particular social functionality. Taste works to build social relations and vibrant people. According to Bourdieu, taste is a vital element and a signifier of social identity. Bourdieu came up with three main concepts as outlined below;

• Field
• Capital
• Habitus

At the outset, Bourdieu looks on the society as a social space that is made up of interrelated fields. He considers a field as a site of struggle where individuals and groups look for ways to maintain or amend the distribution of the numerous forms of capital that are specific to that site. The field is made up of forces whose need is compelled on agents, who are involved in it. Further, it is also a struggling field where agents confront each other with differentiated ways and settle according to their structural positions in the field of forces. This contributes to the conservation of its structure.

Bourdieu argued that capital (resources) in various fields took different forms. The forms are; economic capital, social capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital. Economic capital relates to the market, social capital refers to various relations with significant others, cultural capital refers to various types of knowledge that is regarded as legitimate and finally, symbolic capital is capital that passes on prestige and social status.

Habitus refers to a structuring structure that organizes practices and their perception. The position of a person and his/her ability to access capital is related to his/her ability to adapt to a relevant habitus. Habitus is developed through social, rather than individual processes that lead to patterns that are lasting and movable from one context to another. It is as a result of individual’s family, status, social class, ideology, education and individual tastes and can be derived from a specific social or ethnic group. Habitus is generative rather than a fixed system since it can change under unexpected situations over a period of time. The habitus forms the habits for assessment and acknowledgment.

Friendship in social networking sites occur through individuals sharing too much information online. Through the shared information, that includes personal information such as photographs, people learn to trust each other and with time a mere chat develops into a friendship. Over time, friendship has become a valuable currency since through social media marketers meet with clients. The sites take the form of a business corporation making friends be a valuable currency.

In conclusion, Goffman came up with two concepts that are applicable to online environments. He argues that individuals have impressions that they give and those that they give off. The ‘give’ impressions are those that they wish to produce and communicate while the ‘give off’ impression refers to the impressions that reach the audience without the intention of the character. Bucher argues that online friendship is driven by technology and motivated commercially. This is so because social networking sites are created through a technological process and are maintained commercially by individuals who share information online to accumulate profits. Finally, I agree with Bucher when he says that friendship on facebook is a programmed sociality. This so because for one to have facebook friends, one must be able to maintain a facebook account which a programme on itself.

References

• Fenton, N. (2010). New media, old news journalism & democracy in the digital age. Los Angeles: SAGE.
• Hepp, A. (2008). Connectivity, networks and flows: Conceptualizing contemporary communications. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
• Ryan, A. (2012). The making of modern liberalism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.