Pages: 28-33

Abstract

As societies move away from state-controlled broadcast, the news media progresses into new roles that are political in nature. Therefore, listing these new functions if any, and presenting a simple characterization of them would help to elucidate the assumptions about the political power of news media. This study has investigated how the newfound political power of the news media has been used by it, considering the point of political institutions being an integral part of any political system. Although, news media practitioners commonly try to be liberal in their pronouncement, they are expected to magnify any opposing views on political actors. This seeming opposition implies freedom and independence of the media even when it is clearly within the rims of dissension established by policies of an editorial board, whose common dogmas are in covenant with those of the political class. The ontology of an institutional realm, and the purposive actions of political actors, coupled with the analysis of the news media and its political tendencies have been deployed in this paper to emphasize the assumption that the news media is a political institution. This paper has also recognized that despite the institutional conflicts, paradoxes, polemics and the degree of political control or independence, the news media remains an axiom of the political class that sustains political actors and in extension, political power.