Page 247 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

COMMUNICATING POLITICS

In the end, however, the merging of politics and mass communi-
cation 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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