what is the relationship between media and democracy
Answers
Generally a democracy has three columns to stand on - Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. But there is a need of fourth column too, which acts as a watch dog for the democracy - it is Press.
A free Press is good for healthy democracy, which serves as a medium between the government and the governed. A healthy Press is which criticizes when things go wrong and applauds when things are right. Without that the people do not have a feedback, whether during the polls they made a right choice or wrong. However, as we have seen in recent times, freedom of Press has been compromised by ideologues who, rather than showing complete picture, spin narratives to form opinion for or against those in power. But the power of media has also been challenged in recent times by what is known as alternative media, which now acts as watchdog of the original watchdog. With alternative media, one has to be careful, as people generally subscribe to those that confirms their bias, and with growing time, people become more and more partisan. This would not be true in case of a fully functional Press. With falling trust in Press, and growing popularity of alternative media, it may be question of when and not if, the fourth column of democracy falls down. The only way the Press can regain its position, is by being impartial and free from narratives, and by providing complete picture rather than distorted ones. Until then, the fourth column is in real danger of being overrun by interest groups and being made dysfunctional.
Public opinion is crucial for healthy and successful democracy public opinion links between the government and people's the media has to ensure the representive that they are answerable to the form of Government like a Watchdog for the democratic government however the media has to follow balance approach of reporting of event the media has envovled with the set of principal and code of conduct which is reflected in the reporting and writing distortion and sensealisation new should be avoided and the media should consecuquently provide basic factor for the information or news