Sunday, March 30, 2008

What belongs to who?

The task this week is to work out what two media philosophies Japan, Canada and the U.K. subscribe to. Not as easy as it sounds. So here's what I think:

The U.K:
Social responsibility and libertarian.
Why? I hear you ask. Social responsibility because they have a strong public broadcasting system and are required to have programs of 'public importance'.
Libertarian because they have media that is privately owned and entertains as well as it informs. It is run in order to make money, not just to benefit society. I think that most Western societies' media will be libertarian, because most are capitalists.

Canada:
Democratic-participant and libertarian.
I think it's democratic-participant because their radio and television stations are required to play a certain amount of citizen-created content.
Libertarian because they also have commercial stations.

Japan:
Libertarian and developmental.
We'll start with libertarian this time. Japan is a free country according to Freedom House, so therefore has free media. the media is not punished by the government if they print unfavourable comments. The media can keep the government in check and inform and entertain the public. There are commercial broadcasters.
Developmental because of the Kisha Clubs. While the government won't punish the media, it has the Kisha clubs to help develop relationships with the media, which is supposed to help them work together for the good of the country. But they could also help them control what the public finds out. Especially if the media becomes too personally involved with the government, and is then biased. they also promote a lot of their own productions, such as Anime and Japanese Reality tv shows, which they also export.