the role of the media in civil society

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The role of the media in civil society

Presentation at the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) conference in Bishkek, K yrgyz Republic on July 6 th , 2000

Every time I read articles or books about the role of the media in civil society, I come across the image ofthe watchdog. Journalists are supposed to be watchdogs, so t hey say, but what exactly does that mean i n thecontext of the current situation of the media and civil society in Kyrgyzstan?

First of all, what are the responsibilities of a watchdog? A watchdog has to protect his owner, give himsecurity and react to possible outside interference with the r ights of his owner. Therefore, the watchdog hasto know his loyalties. If we now take the Kyrgyz journalists as watchdogs, who do they h ave to be loyal to?They have to be loyal to society, to t he people living in the Kyrgyz Republic. They are the watchdogs ofsociety and not the watchdogs of the government, so any attempt to make them the latter are against theirnature. Everybody who threatens democracy, freedom of speech, the basic rights of the Kyrgyz people, should bein one way or another attacked by the watchdogs. And this also includes the government in case t he leaders ofthe country try to restrict the citizens¶ rights.

Our aim as an international NGO working with t he independent media here in Kyrgyzstan is to make s ure thewatchdogs can provide that security to the people. N ow, what does a watchdog need, what are the basic elementsof a watchdog¶s life? A watchdog needs food, a nd a watchdog needs training. We give the watchdogs of Kyrgyzstantheir food in terms of equipment. We support r adio and TV stations with microphones, computers, cameras, etc.to make sure they can grow and live up to their expectations. People in the government c ould help here, too, ifthey lowered the taxes for media outlets or if they decided on a complete tax-exemption for the first fiveyears of a station¶s existence, a policy followed by various governments in the NIS. The taxes we have rightnow are limiting the food for the watchdogs. T heir growth is restricted and they are being kept like little

puppies because they don¶t have the means to g et more food for themselves.

What a good watchdog also needs is training; t raining to make him more professional in protecting his owner. Weoffer training for the Kyrgyz watchdogs by means of seminars, contests and residencies. It makes them aware oftheir role and gives them the background knowledge t hey need in order to find out how to react in differentsituations. They also learn their loyalties in these training sessions, meet with other watchdogs and find outall they have to know for their role a s the watchdogs of society.

Mr. Farid Niyazov, Head of the Information Department of P resident Akaev¶s Administration, said in an earlierspeech that there is no censorship in the Kyrgyz media. Dear Mr. Niyazov, I disagree with you on this point.There is censorship in the media, and there is also a very high degree of self-censorship. Censorship workslike a muzzle on the watchdogs¶ faces. The d og cannot bark and it cannot bite anymore. W hat we should beinterested in here in Kyrgyzstan is to take the muzzle of censorship off, so the watchdogs can s tart barking atthe people who try to restrict the citizens¶ r ights. Don¶t get me wrong, I don¶t necessarily want the dogs tobite anybody, but they have to be able t o bark, and actually they should be able t o bark very loud.

This leads me to the recommendations for the m edia that have come up during the last f ew months among NGOs andother organizations here in Bishkek, including UNDP, the Eurasia F oundation, Internews and others:

1. We have to take journalism to the regions. It does not make sense to have a watchdog protecting yourfront door while you have thieves breaking into your backyard or your garage. We have to h ave well-fedand well-equipped watchdogs everywhere in Kyrgyzstan which is not the case right now. The strongestdogs sit in Bishkek while the regions are neglected and left in a state of i nsecurity.

2. An independent center for journalists, a meeting point f or the watchdogs is needed in Kyrgyzstan. Thiscan be one of the already existing places that needs to be revived or it c ould also be a whole newproject. The main goal is that the watchdogs f ind a common place where they can bark t ogether to maketheir voices louder. The watchdogs need a common h ome where they feel free to voice their opinions andshare them with other watchdogs so they can combine forces in the protection of their owners. Theyhave to coordinate their actions, so they don¶t all guard the same corner of their owner¶s p ropertybut all different areas of it. This goes a long with the strengthening of the Association ofJournalists, an organization that is not yet strong enough for the time being. Dogs come in packs andthey usually have a leader, someone who is r espected by all of them and who leads the way. That isalso what we need in Kyrgyzstan, a strong leadership among the watchdogs. At the same time, of course,the leader has to be sure that h e has enough supportive watchdogs backing him up in case he gets introuble with people who try to harm his owner.

3. Professionalism and ethics in the media are still weak and need to be improved. This is a call fortraining for the watchdogs. They need to learn w ho to be loyal to and how to protect their ownersefficiently. If a watchdog bites, he will be p unished, especially when he bites the wrong people. Ifhe barks, he raises the same attention and u sually does not get punished for it. The f ine line betweencriticism on the one side and slander and libel on the other side is similar to the difference betweenbarking and biting. Criticism is okay, slander and l ibel are not. But the watchdogs have to know thatand they have to be told where t heir borders are. They do not always have the instinct naturally, inmost cases it is a matter of t he right training and the right education. So what we have to do is toeducate and train the Kyrgyz watchdogs to give t hem the background knowledge that is crucial for theirdaily lives.



4 . The last recommendation for the media in Kyrgyzstan that was raised in a lot of meetings o f NGOslately is the need for an independent printing p lant. Mr. Niyazov also earlier said that 80% o f thepaper for the Kyrgyz newspapers are independently produced. Of c ourse, this is true, but blank paperdoes not get us anywhere. There have to be articles on the paper, paper alone does n ot help us at all.Paper without letters is like a vacuum which h as to be filled with content. Just like a dog cannotbite without teeth in his mouth, the watchdogs h ere, the journalists, need the necessary tools fortheir work. The fact that we only have one big governmental printing plant means that only s ome dogshave the ability to bite and others are left without teeth. I think that it is very important that allwatchdogs have the same means and that they all are well-equipped with adequate tools. Only then theywill be able to provide protection to society and react to all different sources of threats.

Finally, let us compare the situation here in Kyrgyzstan with the situation in the neighboring CentralAsian countries. In Turkmenistan, watchdogs were never born nor raised. Their breed is virtually non-existent from the Caspian Sea to the Uzbek b order. In Uzbekistan, they are starving right now, becausethe government thinks they can do without them. Sometimes it seems like the watchdogs in the c ountryof President Karimov got their loyalties wrong. Are they really protecting society there or are theyprotecting the government? I think it is more accurate to call the Uzbek watchdogs watchdogs of thegovernment than watchdogs of society. Still, there are s ome who got their priorities right and bark atthe right people, but they are small and f ew. In Tajikistan the watchdogs are scared and s carred. Theygot into the line of fire too many times over the last decade. Also, there i s hardly any food for themin terms of economic support, so the Tajik w atchdogs are weak and lack training and education. InKazakhstan the situation is a bit better, but the watchdogs stopped - or should I say were stopped ±growing up several years ago.

Only here in Kyrgyzstan the watchdogs are alive and in a state of comparably good health. So let¶skeep feeding them and training them for our own protection¶s sake.

Chris SchueppCountry DirectorInternews NetworkKyrgyz Republic



Mass Media Influence

In the last 50 years t he media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper,magazines, television and now the int ernet.

We live in a society t hat depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, healthcare, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.

A common person in the city usually wakes up checks t he tv news or newspaper, goes to work, makes a few phone calls, eats with their family when possible and

makes his decisions based on the information that he has either from their co workers, news, tv, friends, family, financial reports, etc.

What we need to be aware is t hat most of our decisions, beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact, our assumptions and our own experience. In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies, however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and factsabout what is important and what we should be aware of.

We have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagersand society is so big that we should know how it really works.

How mass Media Influence works Of all the media distribution channels the most influential has been the t elevision, we are constantly exposed to t housands of images of violence, advertising, sex,celebrities and much more, in fact a its k nown that a child is exposed to about 40,000 ads a year.

But who owns the media, which are the companies or people that shape our values, beliefs and decisions? The media is basically dominated by five major companies they are:

y Time Warner

y VIACOM

y Vivendi Universal

y Walt Disney

y News Corp

Those 5 companies own 95% of all the media that we get every day. They own the major entertainment theme parks, entertainment movie studios, television andradio broadcast networks and programing, video news and sports entertainment.They also own integrated telecommunications, wireless phones, video games softwares, electronic media, the music industry and more.

Years ago there was more diversity in companies, but they have merged so now they are just a few and they have the power to shape the opinion and beliefs of usand our kids. So its important to be aware of what your kids are exposed to every day and y ou should also try to look at things from different perspectives and not

just from the one the media gives you.

How does mass media influence young people?

The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and that we are exposed to. We buy what we are told to be good, after seeing thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on Tv, newspapers or magazines to be a product we can trust and also based on whateveryone else that we know is buying and their decision are also base don the media.

These are the effects of mass media in teenagers, they buy what they see on Tv, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based onthe fashion that the media has imposed them.

There are some posit ive and negative influences in young people.

Here is a positive influence example, if there is a sport that is getting a lot of attention by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you willmore likely want to practice the sport and be cool with all your friends. The result is that y ou will have fun with your friends and be more healthy because of theexercise your are doing.

However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie stars, t he constant exposure of sex images, the excessive images of violenceand exposure to thousands of junk food ads.

Young people are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers, they want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of a beautiful men and women and tells you what are t he characteristics of a successful person, you can see it in movies and tv. I ts a subliminal way to tell you that if you are not like them you are not cool yet so its time t o buy the stuff they buy and look like t hey look.

Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years are anorexia and obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at thesame time they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the ideas image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.

Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese, there are many t hin women that want to look like the super models and thincelebrities so they engage in eating disorders which leads to severe health issues and even death.

Effects of violence in the Media



When we watch Tv or a movie we usually see many images of violence and people hurting others. The problem with this is that it can become t raumatic especiallyin our children as we see it more and more. Our kids that are starting to grow and are shaping their personality values and beliefs can become aggressive or theycan lose a sense of reality and fiction of what they are seeing.

In the past y ears there have been some cases of kids carrying a gun at school and even hurting others with it. Those kids have been linked to excessive use of violent video games and war images.

Another problem is that real war is used as a form of entertainment by the media, we should make our kids and t een aware that war is not a form of entertainmentand that there is no win or lose like in video games, in real war everyone lose.

How media influence public opinion

As i have said above, the media has a huge impact on society and also in public opinion. They can shape the public opinion in different ways depending of what isthe objective.

For example, after the att acks of 911 the media gave a huge coverage of the event and exposed Osama guilty for the attack as they were t old by the authorities.This shaped the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, t he same happened with the war on Iraq. The problem is that if media received un accurateinformation then the public opinion supported a wrong cause, this is the power of public opinion influence.

Other ways to influence are with polls and trends, especially in political campaigns. The candidates that can pay for more t v and media exposure have moreinfluence on public opinion and thus can receive more votes.



IN THE world of today, media has become almost as necessary as food and clothing. It is true that media is playing an outstanding role in strengthening the society, it¶sa mirror of the society. Its duty is to inform, educate and entertain the people. They help us to know whats going on around the world. They put their lives in dangerduring attacks or a natural disasters, just to inform us of the situation. It is partly because of them that awareness is spreading in the society . It is the media whoshape our lives. Our lives would be incomplete without the media.

Media is the watch dog of the political democracy. If it plays its role honestly, it will be a great force in building the nation but now a days, media has become acommersialised sector eying only for news that is hot and sells. Inste ad of giving important information and educative programmes, all that one gets on television issensational depiction of all ne ws stories, their only goal being gaining television rating points (TRPs)..

Every issue is hyped for a day or two, so much so that you switch to any channel, they all will be flashing the same s tory but then when the heat is over there is nofollowing of the case. The news then jostles for space with other stories that are carrying the heat then. Inspite we all cannot think of a world without television sets,media has become so much a part of us that to recognise its impact, we need to step back and consciously think about how they shape our lives and what they aresaying.

The media affects people¶s perspective not only through television, but also through radio and newspapers. In this way, even many messages, with which we cannotagree, inevitably coming to us from diverse constellations of media.. They can even be turned to our benefit by whetting our u nderstanding and articulation of what webelieve, today news channels and even some newspapers are mouthpiece of some political parties. Their work then, limits only to spread the ideology of the partyrather than give correct news. People have to judge on their own by looking and listening to different channels for the same news and then form a conclusion.

Media is an integral part of our society, but that¶s also a fact that its too much intervention in everything is a matter of concern. Sometimes, just for making money, aninsignificant news is given so much priority that the real news is not even brought into notice. Yes, it does also entertain but again it¶s a debatable issue because by¶entertainment¶ we mean healthy entertainment and not those nonsense TV serials. So at last, like science it is a tool, which we have to use by our judgment to providemaximum satisfaction side by side without harming ourselves. Sometimes, some channels also broadcast and publish the messages in such situation that the realmessages are left beyond our hands. The other disadvantage is that some times they also publish or broadcast some vulgar news, and sometimes unessential activitiesare served as ve ry important news and broadcasted again and again. This does not broaden the re ach of media.

In spite of being sensational and biased, the significant of media can not be ignored, especially in an age, in which globalisation and liberalisation have become theorder of the day. In this globalised world, task and duties of media are increasing day by day. There is still a lot to be done by the media for the betterment of thesociety.



WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE EFFECTS OF MEDIA ON SOCIETY?

Features - Speaking Out written by our senior staff thursday, 08 october 2009 18:56

WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE EFFECTS OF MEDIA ON SOCIETY? It can change opinions because they have access to people and this gives it a lot of strength. This strength can either be used constructively by educating the people or it can beused destructively by misleading the innocent people.

Power of the media can transform the whole society especially in the developing countries it can be used as a 'weapon of mass destruction'. But I think the most important use of media is to educate the people about the basic human rights.

The dilemma of the developing countries is that people are not fully aware of their basic rights and if they know, they don't know about what to do and where to go. They don'tknow their collective strength. Even they don't know how to protest and what is the importance of protests. Media should portray the facts. They should not transform thereality.

Education and discipline is key to progress. This is the difference between a nation and a crowd. Media men have access to people and they have an audience. Their programshave an impact and people listen to them.

That's why they are more responsible for the betterment of the society. They should work to educate the people, to help the people and to liberate the people and to empower thepeople

Media plays a very important role in the building of a society. Media has changed the societies of world so much that we can't ignore its importance. First of all we should know what the media is. Media is a source of information or communication.

Media includes sources like print media and electronic media. Newspapers, magazines and any other form, which is written or printed, is included in print media and inelectronic, media radio, television and Internet etc. are included.

When there are so many channels and newspapers we cannot ignore its importance in the society. Media has lot ofresponsibility on its shoulders as today's society is very muchinfluenced by the role of media. We believe in what media projects to us. We change our minds according to the information provided through it.

In the past when the media was not so strong we were quite ignorant about what is happening around us. But today we come to know very quickly what is happening around us.

We have the access to all the international news channels that provide us the facts and figures.

Considering this fact that media has the power to influence society, it should know its responsibility towards society. It should feel its responsibility to educate the society in apositive way. It should be giving us fair analysis and factual information

Media plays a vital role in every one's life. In today's modern society media has become a part and parcel of our life. Its duty is to inform, educate and entertain. It is consideredas the 4th pillar of our society.

They put their lives in danger like in times of terrorist attacks or natural calamity just to inform us about it. Media is a bridge between the governing bodies and general public. Itis a powerful and flexible tool that influences the public to a great extent. Media is voice of the voiceless and a great force in building the nation

The newspapers can play a very vital role in the reconstruction and regeneration of a nation by highlighting and pin-pointing the social, economic and moral evils in the society.Can be helpful in eradicating these evils from the society.

They can also start propaganda against the economic evils like short-weights and measures, smuggling. Black-marketing income tax evasion hoarding corruption and bribery.THUS the newspapers can help greatly in the nation- building activities.

Newspapers provide some material for every type of interest. They give us stories, the crossword puzzles, the post page, the expert's comments on certain affairs of national andinternational importance.

Some pages are meant for women and children as well. Newspapers also provide us information about various matters and things through advertisements. They can help theadvertisers to boost up their sale and the consumers to consume the new goods.

In other words, newspapers provide a wholesome intellectual food, trade contacts and also job opportunities. It is through the newspapers, many a time that marriages arearranged, and lost things are found. People pay homage to their dead relatives through the obituary notes in the newspapers.

In short, newspapers contain all what is needed and desired by every person relating to any field of life. Newspapers play manifold character in almost all fields of life and are becoming more and important day by day. Education plays a vital role in the all round development of the society. Educated masses help in the development of a civilized society wherein they carry on their activities smoothly and hassle-free.

People in a educated society communicate with each other, understand each other¶s problems and provide solutions. An educated society, city, state, and country lay thefoundation of a great world. Education plays the biggest role in society because without it, we wouldn't have doctors, lawyers, etc...Plus, some people who don't have educationusually end up as delinquents.

We commend the people of Bong County for many contributions to the Press Union of Liberia as it celebrated its 45th Anniversary in Gbarnga. We say Bravo! Bravo!! to thePress Union of Liberia and the People of Bong County.

the role of the media in civil society

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