News and Media

The means of producing and disseminating news, information, and entertainment to a universal audience, typically through the press, magazines, cinema, radio and television, and even paperback publishing and pornography. Developing historically with industrialization and urbanization, the mass media have come to play an influential role in every nation's economic, political, and cultural life. The mass media have been hailed at times as bulwarks of democracy and key contributors to social cohesion and well-being, and at other times reviled as agents of repression, or as promoting anti-social behavior and perverting cultural standards. In countries with authoritarian or totalitarian governments, government ownership or control directly affect the mass media. Most media organizations are operated commercially, though some are state-owned or, like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), public corporations. Mergers and acquisitions, as well as the integration of production, distribution, and equipment supply, have produced media empires operating on a multinational or indeed worldwide basis. Advances in satellite broadcasting have further strengthened the position of exporters of information and entertainment and have given rise to accusations of ‘cultural imperialism’ by the West at the expense of local values. The Internet poses a contemporary challenge by virtue of its freedom of access and interactive character.