We Media & Democracy

Summer is over.. It's time to get back to work!
In the first few lessons back we have been learning about 'We Media and Democracy' and I wanted to summarise what I have learnt on here!


We media puts forward the theory that the media is becoming more democratic; Dan Gilmor backs up this with his own theory from the book 'We the Media' (2004). He argues that we no longer have to get the news from 'Big Media' and that is allowing for a wider range of voices and perspectives to be heard which will make the media more democratic and representative of people.


'Big Media' includes big organisations such as BBC, Google, Daily Mail etc. The actual definition is "the main means of mass communication, i.e. television, radio and the press, as opposed to blogs or personal websites".Murdoch owns 3 major organisations including Sky, The Sun, The Times and Press Association. These agencies are where the majority of news content comes from. Then newspapers, websites and TV stations often will re-report this news to their audience whilst putting their own slant on it. Metro Newspaper is a good example of an organisation which mainly uses agencies which allows them to give it away for free.


Many problems are created within 'Big Media' for example, the owners are able to add their own opinion when reporting the news to their media which may be biased. E.g. Murdoch makes no attempt to hide his political views and analysing the news from the organisation you will often find many of these views present. BBC does not have these problems because, it is funded by the taxpayer and has strict rules about giving both sides of the story; they have to try to be impartial.


These are just brief explanations about the basics of what I have learn in 'We Media and Democracy' and I will make more blog posts in the near future about what else I learn in my theory lessons.


Thanks for stopping by!