Page 230 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

CONCLUSION

In the end, however, the merging of politics and mass
communication described in this book is not a process which can
legitimately be viewed as unambiguously ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in relation
to its implications for democracy. The roots of the phenomenon—
universal suffrage and advancing communication technology, in
the context of a dynamic and expanding market for information of
all kinds—cannot be seen as anything other than positive. Without
doubt it has the potential to bring into being, to an extent
unprecedented in human civilisation, something approaching real
democracy, as defined by radical progressive thinkers from Marx
onwards. The contribution of mass media to our political life will,
of course, continue to be determined by the legal, economic, and
social contexts in which they are allowed to function. Vigilance
will be required if those contexts are to be shaped by the views and
votes of the citizens as a whole, and not the particular interests of
the Berlusconis and Murdochs, the Campbells and the Mandelsons,
or the Wirthlins and Morrises of this world.

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