Global Media Trends (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: A, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction
The media plays a very critical role in any country and the world at large. In any democracy, the media is such a critical tool towards the realization of the various countries' development objectives. The media effectively overcomes the temptation by the government to dominate information and practice its monopoly. Moreover, there is the gradual fostering of the development of an effective and mature information culture throughout the globe. Transparency and corruption free work environments in the public and private sectors can only be realized through the watchful and critical eyes of the media at a global scale. Among others, the media performs the informing, entertaining and education roles in the society. Much as the entertaining aspect seems to be taking center-stage, the other two are equally important and critical. The society, more often than not depends on the media to be informed on the government development progress and further still keeping it accountable to the electorate. It is therefore important for the global media to be keenly regulated and all the barriers towards its development dealt with at the earliest available opportunities. Moreover, the media ownership should be fairly distributed as opposed to the government exercising monopoly in the media ownership (Doyle 2002:3).
2. Discussion of the media trends
The first media trend is regulation and deregulation of the media. Being the watchful eyes of the society, journalists and other media personalities should be given the freedom to carry out their own fair investigations and report the various matters of public concern, furnished with enough evidence. The public on the other hand, should develop trust in the media so as to submit the most accurate information when so needed. Regulatory bodies for