unit8comparativejournalismsimilaritiesanddifferen.docVIP

Unit 8 Comparative Journalism: similarities and differences 1. News and News Value For years media scholars have attempted to identify press systems in order to analyse further the function of the press under different social conditions. The Four Theories of the Press proposed by three American scholars, Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm during the 1950s, is the most influential analysis. It divides the world press into four classifications: Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility and Soviet Communist. The Four Theories suggests that the authoritarian press existed universally in Europe of the sixteenth and most of the seventeenth centuries. It was born in the authoritarian climate of the late Renaissance when printing had just been invented and was in the process of being developed. The press functioned as a servant of the government. Truth was conceived to be, not as a product of the great mass of the people, but of a few wise men who were in a position to guide and direct their fellows ... The rulers of the time used the press to tell the people what the rulers thought they should know and the policies the rulers thought they should support. Private ownership of the press could be withdrawn at any time by the authorities. The authoritarian press set the original pattern for most of the national press systems of the world. West and East, whether democratic countries such as England, the United States of America and Australia or the communist countries such as the Soviet Union, North Korea, have passed through or are still in this stage. The period from the late seventeenth century to the nineteenth century saw the growth of political democracy and the rapid development of individual freedom in the West. The libertarian press mostly replaced the authoritarian and was adopted by the leading democratic nations such as Britain, the United States of America and many European countries. The Four Theories argues that in the liberal model