ABSTRACT
This chapter is about media transparency and good-faith attempts of honesty by both the sources and the gatekeepers of news and other information that the mass media present as being unbiased. Specifically, we discuss conceptual considerations for understanding media transparency and its antithesis-media opacity-throughout the world. The practice of purposeful media opacity, which exists to greater or lesser extents worldwide, is a powerful hidden influencer of the ostensibly impartial media gatekeepers whose publicly perceived role is to present news and other information based on these gatekeepers’ perception of this information’s truthfulness. Empirical data that the authors have collected globally illustrate the extent of media opacity practices worldwide and note its pervasiveness in specific regions and countries (Kruckeberg & Tsetsura, 2003). Media opacity creates difficulty accessing truth.
