ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the design and the trying out of a project for teaching the role of an autonomous and critical press in a democratic society. School curricula tend to discriminate against teaching the role played by the mass media and the press in democratic societies. The loss in focusing on the exposure of media manipulation in programs of media literacy is the reinforcing of the public’s existing suspicion and discreditation of television and press reporting, and of the journalists themselves. Education for the principles of democracy under the label of “communication” has an advantage over other kinds of programs for the study of democracy. The greater readiness of students to expose the weaknesses in the management of the school than to examine critically the more distant social of power is not necessarily self-evident. Public criticism of the school management may result in punishment, unlike the criticism of failures in the political or military establishment.
