Journalism. Commercial Pressures vs. Fourth Estate Model Essay

Introduction

The fourth estate refers to the press and this includes the radio broadcaster, journalists, photographers and TV broadcasters among others. Most people in general terms come to an agreement that the fourth estate possess great social power as well as political power. The press can be made use of in shaping the societies. Since there is recognition of the fourth estate as being an important body, many countries have put in place laws that are used to offer protection to the rights of the press, making sure that people in the nation are allowed to give reports on those issues of interest.

Basing on the significance that is attached on the role that is played by journalism in the society, many of the fourth estate members abide by particular ethics (both professional and personal). A large number of journalists make attempts to create an environment of impartiality, putting their focus on reporting matters the way they are and allowing people to make judgment for themselves concerning these matters that are reported. At the same time other journalists put their focus on giving out analysis and commentary from a particular stand. In general terms, journalists take caution to ensure that the integrity of the press is protected, offering protection of the sources of information, and also carrying out verification of the information before it is published, and employing other methods and techniques to make sure they win the confidence of the public thus giving encouragement to the people to build up faith in the press (Smith, 2003). However, in the modern times, the commercial pressures have caused the forth estate model to lose its true meaning. This paper is going to argue that the commercial pressures rendered the forth estate model less meaningful.

The fourth estate model of journalism and commercial pressures

Attention has been drawn by Schultz to the hardships involved to boosting the ideals of the fourth estate within the context of a principally commercial media system, making an observation that journalism has been increasingly bound by the “paradox of holding its head in politics while its feet are grounded in commerce” (Schultz 1998: 45).

ICON Group International (2008), taking the case in the United States of America, points out that commercial pressures as well as political pressures on this country’s media have brought about a decline in hard-hitting journalism that is able to focus bright light on those people who are in power. This decline comes at the same time as the occurrence of a critical moment in history; this nation at the present stands out as the only superpower, and the only reasonable check on the abuse of that power is the vibrancy of the democratic process” (ICON Group International, 2008: 552).It is not only the welfare of the American people that lies at stake but the security of the whole world as well.

According to Preston, a “large and growing proportion of the media of public communication in Europe is owned, controlled and administered as profit oriented, private sector, commercial enterprises” (Preston 2009: 75). For a long time, this has been the case with the news media in the United States of America and in this nation, the local political culture has a powerful anti-statist orientation and private ownership of the media seems to be regarded as a norm that is naturalized or overall and also where the public service media have played a role that is marginal in relative terms. Certainly, most of the studies regarding newsmaking have given out reports in the international literature focusing on the private media that has been looking for profit.

However, if looking for profit is a representation of the basic goal of a large proportion of commercial sector media, this is not mostly given expression to as being the main mission of news organizations (Preston 2009: 75). But instead, just in the same manner as the rest of the commercial enterprises, they as well have a tendency of having particular organizational beliefs, involving attempts to “state in language of uplift and idealism, what is distinctive about the aims and methods of the enterprise in question” (Selznick, 1957: 151). Selznick points out that the news media organizations and the associated professions have seemed to give a definition to the role they have in terms of dramatically stated symbols of their mission in society. Preston gives an illustration that, in terms of the reigning institutional myths in the journalism of the United States of America, two main features have been identified in this line; the basic one being of the public service function of the news organizations and the operational one being of disinterested objectivity (Preston 2009: 75).

In regard to such tendencies, Preston (2009) makes an observation that the private sector media enterprises are assumed to carry the best possible basis for a sphere of maximum freedom of expression. On the other hand, the media organizations that are publicly funded are regarded to be exposed to political constraints brought in by political interests among other kinds of restrictions or influences. Preston (2009) observes that “the default assumption in contemporary neo-liberal discourse is that market-based, commercial media organizations are autonomous of any special interests or influences and so afford the sole or optimal platform for maximum freedom of expression” (Preston 2009: 75). Preston goes ahead to point out that this was not always the case. Among the earlier analysts of the growing social role and industrial scope of the press in the 1800s were critical of the commercial pressures as well as the political pressures on the news media and process of political communication.

The influential study that was carried out by Habermas offers a critical standpoint of the role of the commercial media organizations that are profit-seeking and the intensified dependence on advertising revenues in terms of the coming up and change of the public scope (Habermas, 1989: 91). In this regard, the ideas of the freedom of the media and also the watchdog or the forth estate role that media has with respect to the public scope, the interests of the public, have all undergone transformation, “losing much of the radical democratic thrust and challenge to entrenched powers they possessed in the early modern period” (Preston 2009: 75).

Among the well-known critiques of commercial news media in the United States of American situation is Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) “Manufacturing consent”. The two give a suggestion that the media play a propagandist role which serves to support the special interests of the privileged that control the state and private industry. According to Preston (2009:75), this view is supported by acknowledging that while most of the large media organizations are currently being possessed by a few large corporations or the state, it would be very much surprising to find these media organizations carrying out the expression of ideas or thoughts that are radical. In this regard, Preston emphasizes that it is argued that the “greatest challenge is to examine and specify which ‘structural or cultural features of the media’ can serve to keep ‘news porous, open to dissident voice’ and genuine debate” (Preston 2009: 75).

Several other studies have closely looked at the way commercial news and other media seems to be concentrated in regard to ownership and influence coming up from powerful economic incentives on an increasing level.. There has been much debate on the effects of such trends in the direction of media monopoly or oligopoly on the range of the news content just the same way as there has been debate on the rising reliance on advertising revenue (Preston 2009: 76).

Application of economic concepts has been carried out by McManus in several works to carry out the examination of several factors that are market-based. Such factors are the ones that are related to consumers, investors, advertisers, as well as the news sources (McManus, 1995). The analysis he carried out give a suggestion that the news making that is dominated by the interests of the private sector “fails to meet the minimum conditions that the economists have established as necessary for markets to benefit society (McManus, 1995: 301). This study offers challenge to the usual knowledge of the media industry that the news content that best serves the market also serves the public interest. McManus presents an argument that “the independence of the journalists is sharply bounded by more powerful actors within and without the newsroom (McManus, 301).

According to Preston (2009), in most of the nations in Europe, the broadcasting services were initially set up and institutionalized in the form of public service broadcasting institutions for the largest part of 1900s. This is among the features of the European media landscape that makes it different from that of the United States of America. In general terms, the public service broadcasting institutions like the BBC have been formed up as those bodies in the public sector having governance structures taken to be isolated from government interference that is direct or special interests from politicians. But it is established that the clear arrangements in funding these organizations, the way of governing them, and the mechanisms to ensure insulation of these institutions from the possible government interference is seen to vary from one country to the other.

Definition has been given to the public service broadcasting as offering a platform that is of significance “for the maintenance or renewal of the public sphere ideal in late modern societies, especially given the increasingly commercial goals and orientations of other media” (Preston 2009: 77). Just as it is not the case with commercially oriented and privately owned media, the public broadcasting institutions were set up with a mission that was very much specific. The mission included the duty to offer education to the audience, inform the audience and also entertain the audience and also to handle the audience in regard to their identities as citizens and also as consumers. However, the issues about whether or not and about the far public service broadcasting institutions have performed in regard to the objectives as well as the ideals they have declared, is a matter of dispute and subjects for empirical research.

Conclusion

The commercial pressures that have come up in the modern times have rendered the forth estate model less meaningful. The ideas of the freedom of the media and the forth estate role that media has with respect to the public scope and the interests of the public, have all undergone transformation, losing much of the radical democratic thrust and challenge to entrenched powers they possessed in the early modern period. Taking the case of a nation like the United States of America, it has been established that commercial pressures as well as political pressures on this country’s media have brought about a decline in hard-hitting journalism that is able to focus bright light on those people who are in power.

Herman and Chomsky (1988) support the idea that the media play a propagandist role which serves to support the special interests of the privileged that control the state and private industry. This standpoint is also supported by the view that while most of the large media organizations are currently being possessed by a few large corporations or the state, it would be very much surprising to find these media organizations carrying out the expression of ideas or thoughts that are radical.

In order to render the forth estate model in the current times, there is need to check on the commercial pressures that have come up and distorted the actual that is supposed to be played by journalism. This is of great importance given the media play a very crucial role in any society or country in the world.

References

Habermas, J., 1989, The structural transformation of the public sphere, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Herman E. S., and Chomsky N., 1988, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, London: Vintage

Inc Icon Group International, 2008, Declines: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases.ICON Group International.

McManus, J. H., 1995, Market-based Model of News production, C.A: Sage.

Preston P., 2009, Making the news: journalism and news cultures in Europe, Taylor & Francis.

Schultz J., 1998, Reviving the fourth estate: democracy, accountability, and the media. Cambridge: Press syndicate of the University of Cambridge.

Selznick P., 1957, Leadership in administration, New York: Harper and Row

Smith, S. E., 2003, What is the fourth estate?