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Running Head: ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE MEDIA 1

ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE MEDIA 7

Accountability in The Media

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This paper analyses the how the media is supposed to carry itself when releasing information to the people and how it should be accountable for the information it publishes as well. The media, being a free press should be able to define the features of a free society. Is the media out of control? Has the press become a limitation to democracy instead of being a foundation for it? Finding the answers to these questions would help to understand how and why the media should be accountable for the information it gives to the society ((Fengler, Eberwein, Mazzoleni, Porlezza & Russ-Mohl,2014).

Well, the content of this paper is from a consumer standpoint. It represents the people that are on the receiving end. Most of the media consumers wake up to a radio; they read the newspapers and watch TV programs. The media shapes, packages and forms the consumer to the extent that whatever the agenda of the media may be is to some extent supposed to be that of the consumer as well even if the consumer tries to take a contrary view. A consumer is dimly aware that a large part of what he/she is dictated daily by other people and it concerns him/her. This is the consumer's approach (Fengler, Eberwein, Mazzoleni, Porlezza & Russ-Mohl,2014).

Today the media can be considered as just tabloids, radio, and television. The world is abuzz that has conversations and exchanges to a particular level that makes it difficult to point out to a single phenomenon. Can some of the magazines such as the motorcycle and the sex magazine be considered as part of the media? Well, the list of the means of communication is growing. There are mobile phones, text messages, movies, overhead projectors and many more. This means that there are many means of communication and taming the type of information it releases to the people is very difficult. For this reason, it is essential to be clear about our cherry-picking and the reason for doing it (Fengler, Eberwein, Mazzoleni, Porlezza & Russ-Mohl,2014).

However, everybody has a different understanding of the media. But accountability, on the other hand, is not an easy idea. It is somewhat an obstruction and challenging to understand for many people. No matter how obscure accountability may be, there is no denying its importance. The human race happens to live in a culture of accountability to other people, and those that claim that they are not accountable are condemned by their mouths. The reason why accountability may be obscure is that in words it merely means being required to explain the decision, but in practice, it means more (Diakopoulos, 2017).

This is one of the reasons that accountability in the media may be difficult releasing information to the public is one thing but how the public interprets the data is different. Information published by the press may be straightforward and mean no harm to the public, but the manner in which the society chooses to do with that information is entirely different. The blame may be put on the media and be asked to account for that piece of information that may have had adverse impacts on the society (Diakopoulos, 2017).

The area that has the most confusion regarding accountability is in the direction of accountability, one may wonder, accountability to whom exactly. For instance, a head of a university or any school may be accountable to the governors, the staff, funders among others simultaneously but in the case of media, it is a more complicated structure and a set of uncertainties. It is possible to ask if a newspaper editor is supposed to be judged accountable the owners or readers to what is fit for print? (Diakopoulos, 2017).

The media and the editors assert, require freedom of operations because the preass is supposed to be an accountability holder in the society. The media’s job in the first place is to hold everyone into account. For this reason, it is not the press that is supposed to be held accountable to the owners, officials and the audience. On the contrary, it is the members of the public, capitalists and the politicians that are supposed to be held to account by the media because they are the ones on the dock. In the event a report sneaks his/way into a palace or a highly guarded and secret place and the reporter happens to gather information and splashes the information to the public, it is not the reporter or the media for that matter that should be held accountable. On the contrary, it is the palace and the police that should answer (Strömberg, 2015).

However, just like the media itself, the accountability idea also keeps changing. On some issues, the rules become slacker and tighten o others. Goals posts shift, and it becomes difficult to know where one is. Some problems that were forgivable yesterday become misdemeanor today and tomorrow’s crime. Things that one could quickly get away with become difficult to (Strömberg, 2015).

The critical point is everybody fears and at the same time celebrates the media. Majority of the people desire a press that can hold the powerful people to account for their actions. However, people carry around a significant confusion of what they fear, celebrate or what exactly to keep to account regarding the media. If the overabundance of interpretations masked the press, it would not be a surprise for the public would be confused and the stories about accountability in the media get minimal attention. However, the primary issue exists (Strömberg, 2015).

It is essential to understand that the media does not decide nor order. It is just a tool and a weapon that offers facts, interpretation and the opportunity to debate over issues. What the media does is facilitate, stimulate, germinate and irritate. In the event the press sets agendas, it does not lead the opinion it follows the view more often. These essential functions are necessary, but they do not amount to power in any way. However, they can be destructive and sometimes necessarily so (Strömberg, 2015).

In the event there is a tension between freedom to and freedom from in the scope in the scope that we need to give the media, there happens to be another interlocking tension between the restraints and the imagination. Too much accountability results in too much checking up, too many accountability holders and there is too much fear of being punished for the failure of accountability. This scares the right people and demoralizes the employees. It is not wrong to keep the media on watch, but too much accountability and punishing of individuals for the failure of accountability may result to them not having much incentive to create or raise new ideas in the future (Strömberg, 2015).

How is it possible to keep people under control without controlling them? The media already enjoys the extraordinary degree of freedom. The press does not abuse it. However, there is the name and price of freedom. Information that is released to the public is under watch by the relevant bodies (Pollock & Roderick, 2018).

Media consumers are left with the uncertainty of what to what to believe in the media content or what to reject. The media, newspapers to be precise undermine and destroy the lives of private individuals. They also do it to whole parties and politicians as well. This is not to mean that the media is out of control because most of this happens when it puts people to account for their actions and in most cases, they happen to the people that have been set to explain their decisions are unable to, it results to reputation damaging and career ending (Jacobs & Schillemans, 2016).

In summary, there are no clear answers as to whether the media is out of control. However a tidy, neat and a democratic fourth estate does not exist, it never existed neither shall it ever exist. The media is a newcomer to the political scene. This is because there were no televisions; this is mean that the whole media idea just came in not very long ago. Today, there are internet cafes almost everywhere. For this reason, it would be ignorance of the highest order to lay down a scheme that forces the media into accountability as if a newspaper or a television was just a university. However, this doesn't mean that the press should sign off responsibility. The media needs to be accountable to the audience just like it needs to be accountable to itself (Jacobs & Schillemans, 2016).

References

Diakopoulos, N. (2017). Enabling Accountability of Algorithmic Media: Transparency as a Constructive and Critical Lens. In Transparent Data Mining for Big and Small Data (pp. 25-43). Springer, Cham.

Fengler, S., Eberwein, T., Mazzoleni, G., Porlezza, C., & Russ-Mohl, S. (2014). Journalists and media accountability. An international study of news people in the digital age. New York.

Graber, D. A., & Dunaway, J. (2017). Mass media and American politics. Cq Press.

Jacobs, S., & Schillemans, T. (2016). Media and public accountability: typology and exploration. Policy & Politics, 44(1), 23-40.

Pollock, A. M., & Roderick, P. (2018). Why we should be concerned about accountable care organisations in England’s NHS. BMJ, 360, k343.

Strömberg, D. (2015). DP10638 Media Coverage and Political Accountability: Theory and Evidence.