The right to choose

The ability to choose those who wield political power is not a western or American right. It is a universal human right. All people deserve the right to elect their leaders and representatives. Any form of imposed rule that dictates to the people how their lives will be run is essentially just a form of fascism.

Democracy in the West

It is essential in any democracy that there is choice. The people need a choice of policies to vote for and a choice of ideologies to follow. Democracy in western societies such as the US is flawed because there is little choice. The public are given the so-called “choice” of voting for two parties that are in broad agreement on core issues. For example, in the US, there are no parties committed to eradicating global poverty, or ending wars in Africa. Those kinds of issues are simply not on the agenda, yet parties promoting such ideas are needed if democracy in the west is to be meaningful. To this end, there should be a degree of public funding for new political parties, so that these parties can get off the ground and give the public a genuine choice of policies to vote for.

The role of the media

In any democratic state, it is essential that there is a free media that scrutinises the actions of the powerful. However, in supposedly democratic western societies, the mainstream media often fail to bring political leaders to account. This may be because of political favouritism towards a particular political party, or because sections of the media are keen to maintain their access to the powerful, and so do not want to be perceived as being too critical of their own government.

A further problem is that because the media are so centred on ratings and popularity - hence the phrase ‘the corporate media’ - they do not spend enough time or money on investigative journalism or on reporting issues of life and death that really do matter. Disasters such as war and poverty are happening all the time. There are numerous conflicts in the world at any one point, and people are dying of poverty every day. These are the things that the media should be reporting.

However, the corporate media is so ratings-driven that it turns the news into a “show”, a drama dominated by events and personalities. There are “breaking stories”, and serious matters of global importance are trivialised to stories about personality clashes between individuals, if they are reported at all. News from powerful countries to which the media have greater access is given far more prominence than news from countries where TV cameras cannot so readily be used, giving the impression that the media value the lives of those from powerful countries more than the lives of people from less developed nations.

The corporate media treat news as a product to be sold. They seek to give the public the news they believe the public want to hear, so that the public continue to tune into their “shows”. In times of war, people want to believe that their own country is doing well and behaving decently and honourably, so this is what the corporate media will tell them, while keeping any news off message to a minimum. This amounts to an unforgivable failure to provide the public with honest and impartial information about the world around them.

The Internet

Thankfully, the nature and existence of the corporate media is much less of a problem with the advent and development of the internet. Many people now do not trust the corporate media to provide them with fair news or with all the facts. The existence of easily accessible information on the internet has meant that the power of the corporate media to influence the way people think has been rendered at least partly redundant.

The internet is a great advance for democracy. It means that all people can empower themselves with the knowledge to challenge the actions of the powerful. They no longer need to rely on the corporate media to hold the powerful to account. The people themselves can now perform this function.