News Media and Democracy

News media is essential to a democracy. This is easy to understand. In a modern society, no one has the time, expertise, knowledge, and resources to know and compare all candidates. We rely on news media such as TV programs, newspapers, now internet, to learn about political parties, policies, and candidates (also from family members, friends, social clubs, churches). Access to unbiased and complete information are critical to public discourse and democracy.  

For comparison, let us consider Athens in ancient Greece. By today’s standard, a typical city-state in ancient Greece was very small. Effective communication and debate among citizens would be hard if a city-state became too large. Aristotle wrote that the population size of a city-state should not exceed 30K(?) (I have seen a few papers specifically studied this topic). This is particularly true for democracy since it requires extensive discourse among all citizens. If the attendants near the edges of an assembly could not hear from a speaker in the forum, it was too big. Athens was big by ancient standard. Yet at its height Athens had only some 50K citizens. Clearly Athen’s example cannot be duplicated even for a small nation-state which has many millions. Without modern media, democracy would never work in a nation-state. (Besides its size, there are other differences between ancient democracies and modern ones [1].)  

So modern democracies need new design. Two excellent books are helpful to understand this topic: Smith’s Political Philosophy [2] and James Miller’s Can Democracy Work?[3]. I assume that you have studied these books.  

Can Democracy Work? Pages from 194 to 211 covers development of American media from l910s. This should help you to gain background knowledge. I have not spent much time to study media. There are two major reasons. First, the media today accompanied the development of Woodrow Wilson’s administrative state [4] and has a close relationship with it. I am more interested in political philosophy of the whole structure. Second, Niall Ferguson has written book, The Square and the Tower [5]. It is about the recent revolution in media technology, internet, social media. The old media could be outdated soon.  

Two important suggestions for anyone to understand politics through media. First, study political science principles. Social sciences are very different from natural sciences or engineering. Facts and theories in natural sciences and engineering often are fixed. Political science and theories all concern human activities which are uncertain fundamentally. Unless you know political theory reasonably well, you are likely to make mistakes. Second, you should read/watch relevant information broadly, both left and right [6]. It does not mean that you give each piece the same weight. You should weight each piece according to its reliability and authority against the theoretical model based on your knowledge (the first step). Then you may arrive at a conclusion with reasonable objectivity and confidence.  

Finally, Mainland Chinese often have big problems. Many predetermine some conclusion first. This could be due to some gut feeling or preconceived bias. Then, they try to find facts to “prove” the starting conclusion. Another problem is that a good conclusion needs complete information. So you need to consider all available information.  

References:  

(1) Smith’s Political Philosophy 

(2) James Miller’s Can Democracy Work? 

(3) 韩家亮：现代民主与雅典民主的不同 http://hx.cnd.org/?p=151214  

(4) What Is a Deep State? https://jiahan1.wixsite.com/my-site-2/post/what-is-a-deep-state 

(5) Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power Penguin Press, 2018. 

(6) Political Left or Right? (jiahan1.wixsite.com) (12-24-2023)