[1] Additionally, the approach argues that the media system itself should be democratic in its own construction,[2] shying away from private ownership or intense regulations.
[4] Both the concept and the social movements promoting it have grown in response to the increased corporate domination in mass media and perceived shrinking of the marketplace of ideas.
[11] The ability to comprehend and scrutinize the connection between press and democracy is important because media has the power to tell a society's stories and thereby influence thinking, beliefs and behaviour.
[12] Cultural studies have investigated changes in the increasing tendency of modern mass media in the field of politics to blur and confuse the boundaries between journalism, entertainment, public relations and advertising.
For instance, they prefer local news sources, for they allow for a greater variety in the ideas being spread thanks to being outside the corporate economy,[19] since diversity is at the root of a fair democracy.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allowed citizens to connect quickly, exchange information, and organize protests against their governments.
While social media is not solely credited with the success of these protests, the technologies played an important role in instilling change in Tunisia,[23][24] Egypt,[25][26] and Libya.
Individuals who did not have the facility to access these social media platforms were still able to observe news through satellite channels and other people who were able to connect online.
This 2014 election is remembered as the first time in which virtual ambition and the use of social media translated positively and directly onto polling numbers.
"[36] This form of media democracy is organized through the scanning of the real world of people, status and events, and potentially relevant sources of information.
[36] Facilitative role Media democracy uses journalism as a means to improve the quality of public life and promote democratic forms.
[37] Radical role Going to the "root" of power relations and inequality and exposing their negative impacts upon the quality of everyday life and the health of democracy.
Oppositional to commercial/mainstream media which tend to protect the interest of the powerful and fail to provide information that raises critical awareness and generated empowerment.
[41] According to some feminist media theorists, news is like fictional genres that impose order and interpretation on its materials by means of narrative.
[42] Further to this point, feminist media theorists argue there is an assumed sense of equality implicit in the definition of the public that ignores important differences between genders in terms of their perspectives.
So while media democracy in practice as alternative or citizen journalism may allow for greater diversity, these theorists argue that women's voices are framed within a masculine structure of objectivity and rationalist thinking.
[46] Others, such as the creators of the Indonesian television program Newsdotcom, focus on increasing the population's media literacy rate to make the people more critical of the news they consume.
[47] The media has given political parties the tools to reach large numbers of people and inform them on key issues ranging from policies to elections.
However, critics such as Julian King have argued that malicious actors can easily hijack those same tools - both state and non-state - and use them as weapons against people.
[49] Many social media platforms, such as Facebook, utilize surveillance infrastructure to collect user data and micro-target populations with personalized advertisements.
Each type poses a threat as it floods social media with multiple, competing realities shifting the truth, facts and evidence to the side.
[53] Social media follows an algorithm that converts popularity into legitimacy, this is the idea that likes or retweets create validity or mass support.
Some social media platforms have user policies and technical features that enable unintended consequences, such as hate speech, terrorist appeals, sexual and racial harassment, thus discouraging any civil debates.
those in authority, officials and the elite use their power to dominate the narratives on social media often times to gain their support and misled them.