Media as Constraint in Achieving Social, Political and Economic Liberty

Scientific Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Communications - Mass Media, Doon University, language: English, abstract: This text discusses the political, economic and social space available to citizens in nation states in oriental and occidental realms. Western states claim superiority by highlighting that their citizens have more social, political and economic space which contributes in individual and collective advancement of society. They discard non-western political systems as crude, despotic and totalitarian in nature which denies social, political and economic space to citizens. Various inductive and deductive methods of reasoning have been used throughout the text to draw inferences and conclusions to counter the self-aggrandisement of western world. It seems the occidental perspective has overpowered the oriental perspective completely in the 21st century. There is a claim that western outlook has a universal character. There can be no alternative to it. It is result of evolution. However there is no truth in these prepositions. It is true that west represents more refined outlook on certain issues. At least it would be justified to claim that popular struggles together with economic conditions ensured individual lifestyle choices to citizens in western nations. However, this struggle is far from completion yet. Most of the eastern societies could not sort out the issues related with individual liberty. West has launched an undeclared campaign to establish control over weaker societies. It uses media to establish its control over the world view of every person on planet and shape policy framework of every nation on earth. The increased power of the dominant ideology has curtailed liberty within the developed nations for citizens. Generally the contrary will be claimed in popular discourse. Citizens at large in all societies have limited liberty to function freely. Forces inimical to common man are limiting democratic space for people in general. It is wrong to consider west as one unit. Now west is struggling to maintain the level of wealth and income gap with the countries of second and third world. As people in west are becoming restless and demanding comparative economic equality, the unscrupulous methods western governments employ to deal with voices of masses are becoming more visible. There is no force driven by truth and justice which is shaping and giving directions to our societies. It is a human act. However it is difficult to claim that anyone is conspiring against anyone. It seems everything is beyond of control human activitie

(Mukesh Chandra Devrari, Assistant Professor (On Contract), School of Communication, Doon University, Dehradun - 248001, Uttarakhand Email - [email protected])