Media and Democracy: An Investigation on the Role of Journalist as Mediator

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to assess the socio-political role of journalists through a conceptual approach linking media and democracy and through an analysis of data from an investigation of journalists’ commitment to democracy that was conducted from the summer of 2008 to the spring of 2010. Our study is founded on the dichotomy between an active role for the media and an instrumental one in the face of the political system, and this dichotomy is applied to journalists. We believe that the media and journalists function as “mediators” in liberal societies, that is, as individual or collective agents through whom explicit or implicit messages pass. These agents add a layer of meaning by various methods, which include the selection of news, the ordering of issues and the framing of individuals or events.