The Role of the Press in a Democracy: Heterodox Economics and the Propaganda Model

Abstract

The central thesis of this paper is that there is need to reinstitute the public purpose requirement for broadcast licensing. On that path, this paper develops an instrumentalist concept of democracy and from there expands to evaluate the ideological function of the press. With a conceptualization of democracy and the press's role established, this paper addresses what is interfering with the news media's ability to inform and educate the citizenry and the consequences of this corruption of media democracy. Recent deregulation and concentration of ownership of media, and controversies concerning the reporting of the war in Iraq have cast doubt on the independence of the press and the vitality and viability of American democracy. In this light, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's propaganda model (1988) deserves further consideration. It also is important to examine Karl Polanyi's protective response to the media democracy crisis: the citizenry's dramatic attempts to change the trajectory of news away from corporate serfdom to a renewed sense of public purpose. In addition, this paper contends that the retrenchment of the public interest standard makes it necessary to reestablish that standard based on a democracy criterion as a requirement for continued free use of the broadcast spectrum.