Synthèse notion Seats and form of power ; The power of media.

Synthèse notion I :

 Seats and form of power ; The power of media.

I’m going to talk to you about the notion of seats and forms of power, more precisely the power of media.

I. Freedom of speech…

        Firstly, the freedom of speech is the right to express one’s opinions without censorship, restraint, or legal penalty. Freedom of speech concerns in particular the press.

Freedom of speech for the media is a right which should be universal. However in some countries the media undergo censorship of dictatorships that’s impose unfair laws. Nevertheless, in countries like US, the liberty of the media id considered as the fourth power of democracy, because in a real democracy people need to have a critical judgment it’s only guaranteed if the press is free.

There are laws which forbid the government to censor the press, which is the watchdog of democracy.

We can take for example the case of The Naked truth. The photo of a journalist warned people about the horrors of Vietnam war in USA. The goal of the press was respected, the journalist inform population and told the truth, so he was unbiased.

It allowed to US citizens to take to the street to demonstrate and stop the war.

Yes the content was shocking but , the freedom of speech allowed to publish the photo and convey message and stop the war.

II. The press can be corrupted…

Motherless media on can be corrupted, or in internet hijacked, a lot of liberty can lead to abuse, like propaganda or the spread fake news.

We also have the case of Cambridge Analytica, which media data breach to harvest data to broadcast advertising aimed at in fluency the presidential elections of USA.

That’s why the liberty of speech needs laws and watchdogs to monitor the media.

To conclude, the liberty of speech is a double-edged weapon that can warn the population on what’s going on the world.

Yet, that can be used to spread the anarchy.

We can thank whistleblowers, who denounce when abuse takes place.

But this is not enough because the media mustn’t try to manipulate people.

Vocabulary:

• censorship                         -    demonstrate
• however                                      -    convey
• dictatorships                -   hijacked
• unfair laws                         -   whistleblower
• nevertheless                        -   propaganda  
• critical judgment                -   spread
• guaranteed                         -   fake news
• watchdog                          -   data breach
• unbiassed
• allowed
• take to the street

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