Role of Privately Owned Media in a Democracy

The media has been referred to as the fourth estate, a bedrock element of democratic society. The term has its origins referencing the critical role that media plays in society. The first three estates are taken to be the clergy, the nobility and the commoners. This concept derives from England, in particular attributed to something that Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841 about there being three estates in parliament, but the reporters in the gallery were the fourth estate." Carlyle had written that they were the most important of all (Crichton et al, 2010).

When applied to a country's media, the terms "free" and "independent" reference privately-owned media that operate without undue interference from the government. The media is considered to be a bedrock of democracy because they are responsible for the flow of information to the populace. More specifically, this refers to organized media companies, prior to the digital age. Today's digital media and social media are different, and unorganized or unofficial sources of information are not included in the concept of media where referencing the fourth estate and its role in democracy. Terms defined, the role that the media plays relating to the conveyance of information is simple – an independent media provides scrutiny and criticism of the people in power in order to hold those people to account.

The fundamental concept of democracy is that it is government by the people for the people. The moral foundation of democracy is that democracy is intrinsically more ideal than other forms of government (Christiano, 2006). People in a nation have the inherent right to self-determination. Under other systems of government – be they monarchy or Communism or any other form of totalitarianism – the people living in a nation do not have self-determination. They are subject to the whims of the ruler or ruling party of the time. By allowing people the ability to determine how their country is run, democracy is morally superior because it does not subject any person to undue influence by another person, unless all parties were able to participate in the process of selecting the leadership. Of course this wasn't the case originally – voting rights took time to diffuse to all citizens.

There are differences in specific democratic structures, such as whether one has the ability to directly elect the head of state, but in general the foundational democratic principle is self-determination, so citizens have the right to elect their leaders. Going along with this, and differentiating democracy from other systems, is that all citizens have the right to run for elected office – opposition groups are allowed participation in the political process.

Democracy thus can exist simply if people have the right to vote and to participate in the political process. However, voting alone does not make for a well-functioning democracy. This is where the media comes into play. Media plays a critical role in the dissemination of information. Since the 17th century, the media plays this role because of its ability to transmit information at scale. In theory, anybody can gather information, but dissemination at scale has until the Internet required a certain amount of capital investment (Coronel, n.d.). First, it was printing presses, then broadcast towers, but there was always some capital investment required. So while information had previously traveled through informal channels (i.e. word of mouth), media allows for the transmission of messages consistently across large audiences.

The ability of the media to transmit information at scale also gives it considerable power. Consistent messaging at scale allows for ideas to diffuse quickly, giving media outlets considerable influence. With respect to printing presses, the barriers to entry are relatively small, so it is possible for many individuals or groups to gain access to this form of media, though for larger presses the barriers to entry are higher. The advent of broadcast media, first radio and then television, increased the barriers to entry. Not only was the cost of investment higher, but there were bandwidth restrictions. Devices to receive transmissions (i.e. radio and TVs) were limited in what bandwidths they could handle, and that placed a significant barrier to entry for broadcast media. Combined with the fact that broadcast media and massive printed media have high barriers to entry, the power of media increased during the 20th century.

Media outlets find themselves with only a handful of competitors. This power means that the messages that they disseminate will come to dominate the common discourse. People know what their information sources tell them. Thus, media plays a role in educating people, and plays a role in shaping the public discourse. The media determines what subjects to discuss, and what the tone and content of that discussion will be. For many adults, and in particular in the pre-Internet era, the media was the dominant way that information about politics, the economy and other subjects of governance and national merit were disseminated in societies. Even today, formal media maintains substantial competitive advantage over informal channels, though recent events suggest that perhaps this influence is waning in favor of social media propaganda (The Economist, 2017). That is a discussion for another day.

The high level of influence that the media has over public discourse naturally makes it a powerful tool in any society, but especially in societies where people elect their political leaders. The way that discourse is shaped influences public opinion about critical election issues, about candidates and about perceptions of government in general. By shaping discourse and influencing public opinion, media not only leads society on issues, but also has the ability to hold politicians to account for their actions.
Therein lies the critical difference between state-owned media and independent, privately-owned media. Independent media has the ability to hold government to account, whereas state-owned media typically has incentive to avoid controversial discussion, and certain has motivation to avoid criticism of leadership. Where government holds the purse-strings of media, it has the power to dictate through a variety of means what issues are subject to discussion and how those issues should be framed in public discourse. Government therefore can use this media to serve its own interests. A privately-owned media is not beholden to government in the same way, and thus has far more freedom to investigate, report on and otherwise discuss issues pertaining directly to government leadership.

The result is a more informed populace. It is this informed populace that is the critical element in a well-functioning democracy. Where people who vote are utterly uninformed, or misinformed about issues, their votes will not necessarily be a true reflection of their desires. For a democracy to function effectively, people need to be empowered with information to vote in a way that most supports the government that they wish to see. If this occurs, they will in general receive the government that they want; if it does not occur they will not receive the government that they want. Given that democracy is fundamentally about people having the government that they want, a well- and accurately information population is critical. Only a free, independent media can deliver that; state-owned media has perverse incentive towards biased coverage of the present leadership (Prat & Stromberg, 2013).

It is worth noting that there are some limitations to the role of media in capitalist societies. Privately-owned media companies are beholden to shareholders. They are obligated to deliver returns to shareholders (Friedman, 1970). While many journalists and managers in media reject the notion that the shareholder is the most important stakeholder in their duties, increasing it is evident that profits and market share are influencing new coverage. This creates a limitation where the quest for eyeballs – to satisfy advertisers and thus shareholders – may at times influence the media. This may or may not influence journalistic integrity but the way that events are covered becomes more sensationalist – stories that do not have inherent appeal to the mass market might be rejected or downplayed in favor of more salacious coverage (Coronel, n.d.). The rise of social media appears also to have influenced the way that news and politics are covered, to the detriment of quality discourse (The Economist, 2017).

These limitations actually showcase the critical importance of the news media in democracy. Consider the 2016 US presidential election. In this election, Russian actors were able to influence public discourse not via traditional media but through social media. It is difficult for a foreign country to influence an election via traditional media when that traditional media is strong enough to educate the populace and focus on critical issues that matter. The failure of the US mass media to effectively raise the level of discourse has proved on ongoing problem – a large part of the electorate has essentially voted against its interests, having been manipulated not just by social media but by an ineffective mass media that sought to draw equivalencies between candidates that simply did not exist.