ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four views expressed with respect to media. The functionalist paradigm advocates free-market and believes that economic freedom and intellectual freedom are intertwined. The interpretive paradigm believes that the news perspective is biased. The radical humanist paradigm believes that the media mobilize support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity. The radical structuralist paradigm believes that the major characteristics of the global media order are the centralization of media power, full-scale commercialism, and a drastic decline in both the relative importance of public broadcasting and the applicability of public service standards. In contrast, in the US, private ownership and control of commercial media is regarded as innately democratic and benevolent, and therefore there is no need to subject it to political discussion. The economic analysis of media processes illustrates that commercialization of the media is detrimental to democracy.
