Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Normative Theories
Normative Theories
• Development
• Democratic-participant
• 16th & 17th century England. Widely adopted and still in
practice in many places.
• B. PHILOSOPHY:
• Philosophy of absolute monarch/ruler, his government or both.
• Authoritarian theory holds that journalism should always be
subordinate to the interests of the state in maintaining social
order or achieving political goals (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm
1956). At a minimum, the press is expected to avoid any
criticisms of government officials and to do nothing to challenge
the established order.
• Authoritarian concept: advocating the complete domination of
media by a government for the purpose of forcing those media
to serve government
• Responsibility of the media was To support and advance
the policies of the government in power and to serve the
state.
• The media in an authoritarian system are not allowed to
print or broadcast anything which could undermine the
established authority, and any offense to the existing
political values is avoided. The authoritarian government
may go to the step of punishing anyone who questions the
state's ideology
The fundamental assumption of the authoritarian system is
that the government is infallible. Media professionals are
therefore not allowed to have any independence within
the media organization.
• In the authoritarian theory system, the relationship between
the state and the media in an authoritarian system is vertical,
in that, the information is from the top (government) to down
(media).
• DEVELOPMENT:
• Adopted by England after 1688 and in the U.S. Influential
elsewhere.
• PHILOSOPHY:
• Writing of Milton, Loke, Mill and general philosophy or
rationalism and natural rights.
• In his book, Siebert goes on to explain the libertarian theory,
which is also called the free press theory. In contrast to the
authoritarian theory, the libertarian view rests on the idea that
the individual should be free to publish whatever he or she likes.
• In the libertarian system, attacks on the government's policies
are fully accepted and even encouraged. Moreover, there
should be no restrictions on import or export of media messages
across the national frontiers.
• that there should be no laws governing media operations. Free
press means that all forms of media must be totally
unregulated.
• If individuals could be freed from arbitrary limits on
communication imposed by church and state, they would
“naturally” follow the dictates of their conscience, seek truth,
engage in public debate, and ultimately create a better life for
themselves and others.
• Best known embodiment of the ideal is the First Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution, which specifies that
• “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press.” This formulation expresses the ideal
only in negative terms, as a freedom from state intervention.
• It asserted that all individuals have natural rights no government,
community, or group can unduly infringe upon or take away. The
ability to exercise dissent, to band together with others to resist
laws that people find to be wrong, to print or broadcast ideas,
opinions and beliefs- all of these rights are proclaimed as
central to democratic self government.
• Supporters of this theory believed strongly in the power of
unrestricted public debate and discussion to create more natural
way of structuring society.
• In AEROPAGETICA, a powerful libertarian published in 1644
by John Milton asserted that:
• “In a fair debate good and truthful arguments will always win out
over lies and deceit. If this is true it followed , then a new and
better social order could be forged using public debate.”
• This idea came to be referred to as MILTON’S SELF-RIGHTING
PRINCIPLE, and is still cited by contemporary media
professionals.
• These libertarian ideals are also seen as the heart of the United
States long-term experiment with democratic self-government.
The American Revolution against Britain was legitimized by
libertarian ideals. Patrick Henry’s famous comment
• “Give me liberty or Give me Death.”
• HOW ARE THE MEDIA CONTROLLED?
• By ‘self right process of truth’ in ‘free market place of ideas’
and by courts.
• WHAT IS PROHBITED?
• Defamation, obscenity, indecency, wartime sedition
• OWNERSHIP:
• Chiefly private