ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the relationship between citizens’ perspectives on the news media and their beliefs about politics, democracy, and their own sense of political engagement. It examines this within the context of Welsh politics and the various challenges that arise in this context, from both a political, cultural, and media industry perspective and from the nature of the union between Wales and the broader concept of the United Kingdom. The Citizens’ Panel was interested in effective media regulation, as a way of making sure that ordinary people can trust what they are reading and watching. All schools in Wales could be mandated to appoint a Democracy and Citizenship education lead, with an attached teaching and learning responsibility. A relevant factor for the current media environment in Wales is a well-documented and marked decline of local newspapers, with some areas of Wales described as “news deserts”.
