Press Freedom and Globalisation - International Press Institute

Press Freedom and Globalisation
images, and information are dispersed across the United States and
throughout the world.” 134
This policy serves both political and economic ends in the United States. Due to American
media’s influence on the whole world, all business elites with shared interests benefit from
this policy.
To legitimise and stabilise existing political order can be another purpose of press
freedom. A problem that arises is whether these media are true in their criticism or if the
criticism is modest not to jeopardise an existing order that media benefit from. 135 When an
issue is covered and opponents and experts on all sides are interviewed, the given image is
a critical coverage. In reality, however, arguments which do not fit into the case, or
opponents who are critical are left out of the debate. In that way, the press cultivate debates
within a mainstream framework. Such debates sound critical and legitimate decision
processes. In this way an effect of “critical journalism” can be to hide important views.
Hence, the press contributes to support an existing system. Globally, international news
media create similar legitimising conditions for the current world order. 136
When the purpose for press freedom is to maintain the existing system, press
freedom can be subordinated to other considerations. An example of this logic is how press
freedom has been subordinated to regulations to support war on terrorism. It has been
justified by the purpose which is to protect democracy. In that way press freedom has been
subordinated to protection of democracy as a superior purpose. 137
The NWICO debates in the 1970s and 80s, illustrate an early resistance to how
global media support rich countries. 138 Among poor countries a sense of being excluded
134
United States’ Department of Commerce, Globalization of the Mass Media, p. 1.
135
Patterson, “The United States: News in a Free-Market Society”, p. 252.
136
Shiller, Robert J., “Irrational Exuberance in the Media” in World Bank, The Right To Tell : The Role of
Mass Media in Economic Development (Washington: The World Bank/WBI Development Studies,
2002), pp. 83-86.
137
Elliott, Deni, “Terrorism, Global Journalism and the Myth of the Nation State” in Journal of Mass Media
Ethics (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), volume 19, number 1, pp. 42-43.
138
Abubakar, “The Mass Media and Ideological Apparatuses in Post-Colonial Africa”, p. 56.
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