Media and media law

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

The media, as many are convinced, is the "fourth power". The influence of newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and online sources is so noticeable in today's society. What is the role and function of the media? How is the legal regulation of the media sphere carried out? What innovations can we expect in this aspect?

Definition of "Media"

According to the popular interpretation, the mass media are institutions that are created for public transmission to society or its local groups of various information through various technological channels. The media, as a rule, have a target audience and a thematic (industry) focus. There are political media, business, science, entertainment, etc.

Technological channels in question are now usually divided into offline (also referred to as "traditional") and online. The former include printed newspapers and magazines, radio, and television. The second are their counterparts that function on the Internet in the form of articles on web pages, TV and radio broadcasts online, as well as video and audio clips posted as a recording.and other ways of presenting content using digital technologies (flash presentations, HTML5 scripts, etc.).

The rise of the media

At the same time, according to some experts, the prototypes of the media already existed in those days when mankind had not yet invented not only the printing press and the alphabet, but even a full-fledged language. Rock paintings of antiquity, some scholars believe, could already perform a number of functions that are characteristic of those performed by modern media. For example, through them, one nomadic tribe could inform (intentionally or accidentally) another who came to their place about what resources are present in a given territory - water, vegetation, minerals, give general information about the climate, (for example, draw the sun) or display elements of warm clothing in the pictures.

However, the "mass character" of the media gained, of course, only by the fact of the invention of information carriers, which assumed the technical possibility of replicating sources in a large number of copies. This is the late Middle Ages - the time when the first newspapers appeared. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the telephone, telegraph, and a little later, radio and TV were invented. By that time, the communities of developed countries began to experience tangible communication needs due to processes reflecting aspects of political construction, socio-economic problems that were brewing due to the intensification of production and the introduction of new market mechanisms. Government and business have become activeuse available technologies to communicate with the community. This trend quickly became mainstream and the media as we know it today emerged.

The media have received a huge demand, primarily in the political environment. They have become a key mechanism for communication between the government and society, as well as an effective tool for discussion between various political organizations. The media became a resource, control over which could guarantee the ability of certain interested groups to control the minds of people on the scale of the whole society or its individual representatives. The power of the media has emerged.

The media have specific functions. Consider them.

Media functions

Experts call the basic function informational. It consists in familiarizing the community or specific groups that form it with information reflecting current problems, events, and forecasts. Also, the information function can be expressed in the publication by certain participants in the political process or business entities of information in order to inform not only society, but also significant figures or organizations of their level. This can be expressed, for example, in the publication of profile interviews, where an entrepreneur talks about the competitive advantages of his company - this kind of information can be designed to be read not so much by target customers, but by those who can be consideredcompetitors of the company or, for example, potential investors. At the same time, the forms of presenting information can be different. Among the main ones, two can be distinguished - in the form of facts and in the form of opinions (or through a balanced mix of these two models).

A number of experts believe that the media perform an educational (and to some extent socializing) function. It consists in transferring knowledge to target groups of citizens or society as a whole, which helps to increase the level of involvement in certain processes, to begin to understand what is happening in politics, in the economy, in society. Also, the educational function of the media is important from the point of view that the target audience understands the language of the sources they read, becomes constant, interested in obtaining new information. The influence of the mass media on the level of education as such, of course, is not so great. This function, in turn, is called upon to deal with schools, universities and other educational institutions. However, the media can harmoniously complement the knowledge that a person receives in educational institutions.

The socializing function of the media can be to help people get familiar with the realities of the social environment. The mass media can give people guidance in choosing those values that will contribute to the speedy adaptation to the specifics of the socio-economic and political processes.

Who controls whom?

The media, if we talk about democratic regimes, also perform the function of controlling certainphenomena in politics and economics. At the same time, society itself is called upon to be the subject that performs it. Interacting with the media, the society (as a rule, represented by individual activists expressing the interests of certain groups) forms the relevant issues, and the media themselves make it public. The authorities, in turn, or subjects of economic activity, enterprises, individual business figures, will be forced to respond to the relevant demands of society, to "account" for promises, for the implementation of certain programs, and the solution of urgent problems. In some cases, control is supplemented by the function of criticism. The role of the mass media in this sense does not change - the main thing is to convey the relevant comments and suggestions to the broad masses. And then, in turn, broadcast the response of the authorities or businesses.

One of the specific functions of the media is articulation. It consists in enabling society, again, in the person of activists representing someone's interests, to express their opinion publicly, to convey it to other audiences. The mobilization function of the media also coexists with the articulation function. It presupposes the existence of channels through which the same activists who represent someone's interests are included in the process of a political or economic nature. They become not just representatives of someone's views, but also direct figures at the level of government or business.

Media and the law

Russian mediainformation, like the media in most countries of the world, operate in accordance with the established norms of the law. What kind of normative acts regulate the activities of the media sphere in the Russian Federation? Our main source of law is the Mass Media Law, which came into force in February 1992. However, it was adopted in December 1991. Since then the USSR still formally existed, the body that adopted this act was called the Supreme Soviet of Russia. And it was signed by the President of the RSFSR, Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin. The Soviet Law "On the Press", which entered into force in August 1990, is considered to be the predecessor of this legal act. Experts note the fact that both sources of law were developed mainly by the same authors.

History of Russian media legislation

What legal acts preceded the two that we named above? Historians note that the laws governing the activities of the media were in force even before the October Revolution. However, after the change of power, they were canceled. Very soon, however, the Decree on the press appeared, signed by the Council of People's Commissars in October 1917. It said that as soon as the new political system is stable, any administrative influence on the work of print publications will be terminated. It was assumed that there would be freedom of speech, limited only in possible measures of responsibility before the judiciary. True, the adoption of a law that would consolidate these provisions did not take place until 1990.

Censorship and publicity

The Bolsheviks, as historians note, almost immediately after the establishment of their power closed several dozen newspapers, introduced censorship. The activities of the Soviet media were not regulated by any law and, according to experts, were under the direct control of the CPSU and the USSR Council of Ministers. The interaction between the media and the authorities in the USSR took place in fact unilaterally. The functionaries of the central bodies or their subordinates as part of the structures at the level of the Union republics and their constituent entities, as historians and lawyers note, adopted the relevant resolutions concerning key aspects of editorial policy, appointed leading officials in publications, and resolved organizational issues. A similar situation also took place in the field of radio and television. Thus, in the USSR, only state-owned mass media operated legally.

However, in the second half of the 80s, publicity appeared in the country. The practice of direct interference by the authorities in the activities of the media somehow did not fit in with the emerging reality in this area. De facto, publishing houses began to play a huge role in the socio-political development of the USSR. But de jure they were powerless. Publishing houses did not have the opportunity, as some experts note, to dispose of the profits from the sale of huge circulations. As a result, the country's leadership decided to develop a law on the media, which would legally consolidate the importance that the media acquired in the era of glasnost. It was necessary to create a media sphere,acting regardless of party line.

Thus, from August 1, 1990, the opportunity opened up in the USSR for the functioning of the media within the framework of glasnost. The only mechanism that many experts considered an echo of the times of censorship was the mandatory registration of media outlets, which required compliance with certain formalities. Such as, for example, determining the person or organization establishing the mass media - the law prescribed to do this.

New media law?

Adopted formally back in the USSR, the legal act regulating the activities of the media is still in force. However, throughout the existence of the law, periodic amendments were regularly made to it. And today, discussions on the subject of whether to edit this legal act once again, to enter this or that norm, do not subside. Of course, we are not yet talking about the adoption of a fundamental law (in any case, there are no public data known to the general public about this). However, there are a lot of proposals for various kinds of amendments that would affect the activities of the media in Russia.

Among the most recent, which were adopted by the State Duma, is the one regarding the restriction on the ownership of shares in the media for foreigners. What exactly is meant here? Until recently, foreigners could be present in the shareholdings and authorized capital of the Russian media in any proportions (excluding the sphere of radio and television). In the autumn of 2014, the State Duma adopted amendments to the media law in three readings, according to which, from 2016, foreign investors will be able to own no more than 20% of the assetsRussian media.

Limiting the share of foreigners

According to experts, more than one mass media may face the consequences of the adoption of the new law. Examples abound. There is a large share of foreigners in the assets of such publishing houses as Sanoma Independent Media, Bauer, Hearst Shkulev and many others. Bypassing the norms of the law, lawyers believe, is problematic. The norms set out in the act do not allow foreigners to own shares in media assets through an intermediary chain of different legal entities. What could this lead to?

Experts believe that the result of the entry into force of the amendments may be the desire of some media brands to stop their activities in the Russian Federation. Largely because, analysts believe, that media owners will not have the opportunity to build an editorial policy in the desired format. In this connection, the recognition of the style of a media brand may lose in quality, readers will stop buying the relevant publications, and the owner will incur losses. According to a number of experts, the expediency of the law may raise doubts due to the fact that the most sensitive areas of the media space in Russia for the legislator (politics, society) are not controlled so significantly by foreigners. There is much more foreign influence in "glossy" publications that have little to do with matters of national importance.

Bloggers Act

Among other high-profile initiatives of the Russian legislator are amendments related to the activitiesbloggers. In accordance with them, the owners of Internet portals (or pages on social networks and other similar online projects) are equated to mass media in certain terms if the audience on the respective pages exceeds 3,000 users daily. True, in this case, the amendments do not concern the law "On the Mass Media", but another legal act related to the regulation of the field of information technology.

What kind of media specific obligations will popular bloggers have to fulfill? First of all, this is the provision of a real surname, name and patronymic. The blogger is also required to provide an email address in order to be able to conduct legally significant correspondence with him. In turn, the full name and e-mail of the blogger or the hosting provider of the site where the project is hosted should be redirected to Roskomnadzor.

The blog should not publish information that, due to its content and direction, may be contrary to the law. For example, unreasonable and negatively affecting the interests of other persons statements, judgments, publication of compromising and personal information become unacceptable.