{"id":1598,"date":"2008-10-07T14:12:47","date_gmt":"2008-10-07T13:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2008-10-07T14:13:43","modified_gmt":"2008-10-07T13:13:43","slug":"journalisms-functions-in-a-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/10\/journalisms-functions-in-a-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism&#8217;s functions in a democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">W<\/span>hat are the functions of journalism in a democracy? In an article probably drawn from his forthcoming book, <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiley.com\/WileyCDA\/WileyTitle\/productCd-0745644538.html\">Why Democracies Need An Unlovable Press<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, (order yours now) <strong>Michael Schudson <\/strong>gives six:<!--more--><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Informing the public<\/li>\n<li>Investigation<\/li>\n<li>Analysis<\/li>\n<li>Social surveillance<\/li>\n<li>Public forum<\/li>\n<li>Mobilization<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>But the key quote for me (and the reason, incidentally, that I find the rationale for <strong>BBC<\/strong> journalism so politically enervating) is this observation on the US media:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[T]oday&#8217;s objective, information-providing, and non-partisan investigative functions of leading news organizations may have de-mobilizing effects. They provide people with information, but they do not advise them on what to with it.<\/p>\n<p>If anything they seem to imply that nothing can be done, that politicians are only interested in their own careers.<\/p>\n<p>The undertone of cynicism in news reports may well be a factor in encouraging an undertone of cynicism in the general public.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And so we&#8217;re de-mob happy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are the functions of journalism in a democracy? In an article probably drawn from his forthcoming book, Why Democracies Need An Unlovable Press, (order yours now) Michael Schudson gives six:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[15,1834,1855],"class_list":["post-1598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-bbc","tag-michael-schudson","tag-why-democracies-need-an-unlovable-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}