Comparative Journalism

With the power of social media continuing to grow with no end in sight, I do believe that state governments are and will increasingly use it to control media narratives as opposed to strict press censorship. The ineffectiveness of press censorship is becoming more and more apparent. Simply shutting down the internet is not enough to stop the flow of information, whether accurate or not. The world and exchange of information has existed for hundreds of years without the internet. Humans have always found a way to communicate, and shutting down the internet will not stop the power of word of mouth. Furthermore, the impact on a country’s GDP by blocking internet access will never be worth the attempted information control. In today’s capitalist society, countries value their economic power more than ever before. Sacrificing a country’s economic power would be more catastrophic to a country than a free flow of information. Riots are more easy to control t...

In the article “Journalism Isn’t Dying, It’s Returning to Its Roots”, Antonio Martinez argues that today’s American journalism industry is experiencing a shift away from the professionalization and objective standpoint established in the 20th century. However, the industry is not shifting towards something new, rather it’s going back to the style of original journalism in the 18th century. Journalistic objectivity in the enlightenment era was not a thing at all. If you were to show a copy of the New York Times to the founding fathers, the non-partisanship of the paper would be a foreign concept to them. Journalism in the era of Ben Franklin was highly partisan and biased, largely because the paper’s themselves were funded by political parties. It was not until the 1900’s that newspapers became more “objective”. This happened because newspapers had a new source of funding, advertisement. Advertising money freed newspapers from writing highly politicized content, and al...