Andrew Benson Jour 4721 12/8/11 Final Exam: Part I: 1) One could have the right to approach, interact

with or make use of the media. One could also have the ability to do the same. The right and the ability are the two dimensions of access. 2) To make a more democratic media, access to one or both of input and output could be extended across a wider portion of the population. It could also become more democratic through soliciting, and/or receiving, participation by a wider portion of the population 3) The difference between representative and participatory democrats is in how an individual should affect the whole. A representative democrat believes that individuals in the population have too little time and knowledge to make the best choices for the democracy. A participatory democrat believes that the best way to make society work is to have a wide base of informed citizens, each of which discussing and voting on choices are best. 4) There are two main definitions of public interest. The first says that the public interest is achieved by making the choices that create the most benefit, with no concern about the distribution of such benefits the homogeneous view. The second takes the pluralistic view the public interest is best served by actions which equalize the distribution of benefits. 5) 6) It may be hard for a media company to fairly report on its own interests. As such, allowing them to be part of a large conglomerate is very likely to hurt the press

functions, especially that of watchdog. It also would tend to decrease the variety of voices, as one story may be shown across a wide variety of outlets as a way to cut costs. 7) 8) Foreign news has relevance to U.S. citizens in three ways: self-interest, merit good, and altruism. Self-interest is directly relevant in that changes and problems in other countries may have a significant impact on Americans. Altruism is genuinely caring about foreign events impact on the people there; relevance comes from caring about what happened and how it affected the people in the area. 9) The monitorial citizen is essentially a newer MOD. They are non-participatory on a day to day basis, but stay informed and ready to act (participate), should the need arise. A monitorial citizen would tend to be relatively centered in our chart, possibly slightly towards the pluralistic side. 10) A global citizen would take on a more complete view of society, caring more about actions across the world. They may still have narrowly focused concerns, but might seek out people with similar views across the globe. Rather than uniting behind concerns of a local community, a global citizen would build a community around one or more concerns. Part II: 1) An Agency Democrat would not argue that more information is always better, while a Classical Democrat would. An Agency Democrat would prefer that the media cover a prioritized selection of news. In their MOD, citizens need only a basic level of understanding, as the agency which the citizen is involved with would tell them what to do (contact senator, vote, petition, etc.) on key issues. In the Agency Democrats view,

excess information in the media is of little use at best, and could even be damaging if the citizen does not fully understand all implications involved. A Classical Democrat, on the other hand, wants fully informed citizens. From this view, it would be difficult to have too much information. They feel that every citizen should be able to effectively discuss, and take action on, current issues. As such, there priorities beyond enough information would shift towards the forum function of the press but there is no inherent limit on how much information could be useful. The only significant exception would be that of polling. From this view, information on poll results is useless it provides no real information on the issues, and provides no context or discussion of why people answered in a particular direction. All that leaves is a risk of swaying opinion without any factual reason. Extra information is of no use in the Agency Democrats MOD, it is of no use to the citizens. Once citizens needs are met, the job of the press is complete, in this view. A Classical Democrat, on the other hand, would view this less as extra, but rather as more information to consider and debate. By their view, the job of the press is likely to have no end give the citizens as much information as they wish to consume. A Classical Democrat would be more likely to argue that more, relevant, information is always a good thing, while an Agency Democrat would consider enough to be ideal. 2) A journalists right to keep some sources anonymous has clear advantages to society, especially when it comes to the medias whistleblower function. With anonymity, citizens can freely give the press information which the press would not otherwise have access to. This may include insider trading, poor working conditions, abuse, etc. Anonymous sources may also bring everyday news, both governmental and

corporate, forward before it would have been released, or the press would otherwise have discovered it. We value the watchdog function of the media, and anonymous sources are incredibly valuable in this role, as without anonymity, sources may be afraid to come forward. Anonymous sources may also, however, hurt our democracy. An anonymous source has little or no incentive to be honest, as their anonymity protects them from any repercussions. This has the risk of lowering the quality of the reported news, or of increasing the amount of noise in the media, each of which would hurt citizens ability to be well informed. While there are clear disadvantages to anonymity, the advantages are much too valuable to give up. Whistleblowers would be very unlikely to come forward with inside information possibly allowing embezzlement, discrimination, and bribery to continue unabated. The societal cost involved includes a further reduction in trust of government and large companies, as well as the direct costs of such illegal activities. Anonymity of sources allows us a chance to discover and mitigate these costs where we might otherwise be unable to do so. 3) [Assuming that Americans are significantly self-interested] Americans tend to seek out stories which are relevant to their own self-interest, and overlook those that only affect other parts of the world. To counteract this, CNN should frame foreign stories mainly from an altruistic or merit good point of view. By telling stories from a point of view besides the impact they may have on the U.S., CNN can give Americans the chance to see the story from the other side. This can help serve

the interests of those who would care if they saw it, as well as those who are simply underserved by mainstream priorities. However, citizens needs may be better met if CNN frames foreign events in terms of their impact on the U.S. People use the news media in order to serve their informational needs. CNN will best fulfill the needs of their typical viewers by catering to viewers existing priorities. By fulfilling the viewers needs, CNN can also ensure that they are more likely to come back more frequently, knowing that CNN covers stories which are relevant to their needs. I feel that the average citizen will be significantly better informed if we dont try to shove information at them, which they dont have an existing interest in. Most viewers have limited time, so we need to focus on the topics they care about those which have a direct effect in their lives. If the media doesnt listen to the wants of their consumers, they may well stop using their limited time to stay informed at all. 4) 5) Increasing public funding of the media inherently weakens the press watchdog function. Anytime that a substantial portion of income comes from a single source, the priorities of those receiving such funds shift towards those of the source. This can be seen in even the scientific community, a place that specifically works to prevent such bias a great set of examples are discussed at length in Gary Taubes book, Good Calories Bad Calories. Given that even the scientific method fails to prevent bias, how can we expect the media to avoid it? An increase in public funding, however, is likely to mean either a larger overall budget, or a reduction in funding from advertising. Funding from advertisers would have

the same tendency to reduce the chance of running stories against the source of funding, so an increase in public funding should reduce such bias. Alternatively, the public funding could be used to hire more journalists, and therefore, the chance that a cover-up may be found and reported this could offset any bias introduced by the funding. I think that public funding would tend towards reducing the ability of the press to perform the watchdog function effectively. While bias may already exist due to advertising, this is spread across many individual advertisers; it doesnt hurt too much to lose any one advertiser, so it is worthwhile to report against them. Any significant government support would be likely to comprise a large enough portion of income that any risk of losing it would be unacceptable media would be unable to effectively provide a watchdog function over the government. 6) 7) 8) A Classical Democrats ideal of a good citizen is no less relevant today than it was 100 years ago. Today, it is much easier to become well enough informed to make good decisions. We are surrounded by news sources throughout the day TV, newspapers, and of course, the Internet. We can hear an interesting tidbit on the morning news, research the issue on our smartphones while we ride the bus to work, and discuss with our peers through forums and comments online. Today, most of the population could stay informed about many current issues, just in their spare time no one could have done that fifty, let alone one-hundred, years ago. However, there are some clear changes in society relating to a Classical Democrats ideal. Today, most Americans just dont care enough to stay informed about

most issues. We also tend to get caught up in the vast rivers of information coming from the media, so much so that we rarely get beyond the surface. Finally, no one would, or even could, make time to participate and/or vote on every issue that we as a society face. I feel that, to a large extent, the arguments against a Classical Democratic views relevancy hinge on that it is idealistic: wide participation, single right/best answers, and well informed citizens. Each of these seems at least somewhat unrealistic. But thats all we are talking about an ideology. It seems to me that we have made progress in fulfilling the press functions valued by such an ideology, even if citizens are unlikely to fulfill their end and looking on the Internet, Im not convinced that there are not many citizens who do indeed fill such a role. If we can fulfill a good citizens needs today better than we could have in the past, it seems clear that the ideals are still quite relevant.