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media democracy

                          media democracy

   Here I want to talk about the media democracy.

   From Wikipedia, the mean of the media democracy is “a democratic approach to media studies that advocates for the reform of mass media to strengthen public service broadcasting and develop participation in alternative media and citizen journalism in order to create a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of society and enhances democratic values. ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_democracy

     First, let me talk about what is my thoughts about the media democracy, it is a very simple thought, that we have the right to know those things which we are supposed to know. I mean, not those classified secrets, what can I do with those secrets? What I expect is “ The True Fact” but not the fake data and details which are been created to appease or to deceive the public. I will give my further opinions after I give some examples.

  <In Turkey, Media Bosses Are Undermining Democracy>

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/in-turkey-media-bosses-are-undermining-democracy.html?searchResultPosition=1

   It is a article from New York Times which is written by Yavuz Baydar and published in July 19,2013.

   In this article, it mainly describes the influences to the public by the “cooperation” between the Turkey government and the local media companies.

   The result of this actions is that the influences even reach far beyond Turkey. Across the globe, and especially in young or struggling democracies like Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, Hungary and Albania, the lack of media independence is doing real damage. Their handshakes behind closed doors damage journalists’ role as public watchdogs and prevent them from scrutinizing cronyism and abuses of power.

   You may ask this question, “what is for?”, the answer is quite simple— for the money. The government or those people who have great power will “take care of” those who show benefit to them, prevent them from being published by the journalists, as a result, a little bit “reciprocation” is been required. That’s what we called “corruption”.

   It’s not possible to conduct serious journalism in such a polluted system. These conflicts of interest have transformed Turkey’s major newsrooms into prisons: coverage of economic corruption in Turkey today is almost zero. There are a few tiny, brave independent outlets, which break stories that are critical of the government, but these stories are hardly ever picked up by the mainstream media and therefore have little impact.

   The second article is called: <Stop the Manipulation of Democracy Online> which is also an article from New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/opinion/fake-news-russia-kenya.html?searchResultPosition=5

   In the beginning of this article, one example of “Using the internet to drown out dissent and undermine free elections” is been employed. Governing parties used paid commentators, bots, false news sites and propaganda outlets to inflate their popular support and essentially endorse themselves.

   In the Philippines, members of a “keyboard army” said they could earn $10 a day operating social media accounts that supported Rodrigo Duterte or attacked his detractors in the run-up to his May 2016 election as president. Many of those social media fabricators have remained active under his administration, amplifying the impression of widespread support for his brutal crackdown on the drug trade.

   During the 2017 election season in Kenya, political camps set up teams of paid bloggers, social media influencers and bots to shape public opinion online. Overt disinformation, propaganda and hate speech targeted individuals and organizations affiliated with the opposite political camp via Twitter hashtags, Google Ads and Facebook sponsored posts.In the lead-up to presidential elections in Ecuador, social media accounts belonging to politicians, journalists and opposition activists were hijacked and used to disseminate messages against the opposition’s vice-presidential candidate.

   All those behaviors they did were to keep their power. Just like the sentences in the novel 《1984》 by George Orwell, “Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/153313-nineteen-eighty-four

   Now, I want to talk about the China’s Media Democracy since I am a Chinese. In my thoughts, I think that compared with other countries,  the media democracies in China are quiet unbelievable opaque. I will give two instances. First is the current situation:Coronavirus.

https://voice.baidu.com/act/newpneumonia/newpneumonia

   The Coronavirus first comes into the public’s vision is around the beginning of the January. The internet exposures several infected people and then the government confirmed the Coronavirus’s presence. But anyway, this is a late report. At present, there are over seventy thousands people are infected in China, but I do believe that it is not a exactly real number. There must be much more numbers which are concealed by the government.  Though that we know the reason for this is to prevent the public from panic, but we also have the right to know the true data.

   Another example I want to use is the sensitive words which are created and been used in all kinds of social medias in China. Let me give an instance for this. “学习” which has the mean “study” in English. If I want to type this word, the result will come out like this “学** ”，the second word is been eliminated automatically by the media system for the reason that “习” is the second name of our president. Even though I just want to express a simple mean of “study”.

   I mean, it is quite unbelievable right? But it is the truth in many social media websites. In the U.S.A , I can find some spoof pictures about Donald Trump in google or in other searing websites, but in China, jokily said, do you want to go to prison by doing this?

   I just want to prove that how “democracy” shows in different countries.

   I do believe that media democracy is important, it do has relative to our lives.