The Media's Watchdog Role In Today's World

THE MEDIA’S WATCHDOG ROLE Name Course Institution Affiliation Date The Media’s Watchdog Role The news media entails the simplest or essential parts of the mass media that major on delivering information to a targeted public or the general public. These include the broadcast news, the print media, and the internet which is the most recent one. It should also be noted that there are two distinct forms of communication media, analog, and digital communications. The analog media comprises of the telephonic and television transmissions and not forgetting the conventional radio which is widely spread all over the world. The digital media includes the communications that are computer-mediated, networking and telegraphy CITATION Peg02 \l 1033 (Parks, 2002). The Impact of Media in Today’s World In today's world, the media has proved to be of paramount significance as food and clothing are to people. It has played an essential part in strengthening the society. The media is now being regarded as a ‘mirror' to the contemporary society, in fact, the media helps in shaving our lives. The primary purpose of the media is informing people about the present, new affairs and to reveal about the latest gossip and fashion. Another upcoming role of the media is trading and marketing of commodities and prejudices. Righteousness and equity are among the very many virtues that the media has claimed to be governing them, however, self-aggrandizement and greed has poisoned these virtues. As a whole media is in charge of, entertaining, advertising, educating, informing and correlating the parts of the society. The media has great influence on the society in so many ways. It is a media for the masses that assists them to acquire information about a lot of things and at the same time to create opinions and make judgments that concern various issues CITATION Mar13 \l 1033 (McLuhan, 2013). It has also been noted that media has inflicted bad effects to the present generation, mostly the youths are the ones very much influenced. In many cases, they dwell on the bad part of the media and try to be part of it. The Watchdog Concept The media is now being portrayed as the watchdog of the society and the fourth estate of the kingdom. This is actually among the many beliefs of journalism practice; the concept expects the media to be in charge of monitoring the government activities. Edmund Burke is believed to have come up with this concept in the eighteenth century so as to put the England government in check CITATION Dar16 \l 1033 (Issa, 2016). It was also used by the press of that time to indicate possession of their political powers. In accordance with Burke writings, the other three estates which had power, comprised of lords, churches, and commons, were at the same level with the British press. The growth of watchdog position goes further than the borders of the government investigation to take note of many different societal organizations with powers and also the powerful individuals who may lack an official relationship with the public office. Some democratic countries and in societies like Nigeria where there is a high level of political culture, the watchdog role of the media is highlighted very strongly. In countries that are democratic like Nig...