MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
is also the internet bringing social networking websites. There is no
doubt that the media in the second half of the 20th century became part
of decision-making in politics. This was due to the massive development
of various types of media and their spread among individual segments of
the society regardless the social class worldwide. In my opinion, technical
globalisation processes have brought, even caused, revolution in political
marketing and political conduct due to revolution in communications. It
made media called “shadow super-power” directly inluencing not only
political decision-making but also topics discussed in the society and
thus the line of awareness of wide public.
Media play a special role in western liberal democratic societies where
the media are regarded to be one of the powers effecting the events in
the country´s direction, the way what and how to decide on domestic
and foreign matters. This can be traced back to the very beginning of
the media´s life, because the media from the beginning were formed as
a kind of mediator between the public and policy makers or people´s
representatives. It is impossible to say that media have lost their original
function and still have a signiicant impact on the recipient of information
(whether it is the reader, listener or user of online social networks), on
the contrary, it must be said that this role was extended (as proved in
this paper).
The basic function played by the media from the very beginning,
regardless their form of publishing, in a democratic society is to inform,
i.e. to share information as objectively as possible so that the citizen – the
recipient of information - is enabled to create his own opinion, attitude.
The ways, forms and methods should vary from domestic to foreign
topics and from young to elder recipient. Sharing information may have
various purposes, known from an informative up to an educational one
to provoke a critical thinking or insight into the issue while inding the
most suitable way how to explain the people the essence of the current
problem and pros and cons of each solution. Media fail in their role of an
objective mirror and this determines an ethical challenge associated with
the media and their role. So if we say that the media should be involved in
the creation of public opinion, shouldn´t be some ethical limits granted?
As provided by many experts in political science, Western – liberal
democracies are laid on some special principles distinguishing them
from non-democratic regimes violating the human rights and freedoms
and breaching their own legal order. As given by Blondel and Curtis in
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