FREEDOM OF MEDIA

Mass media are mirror of the society depicting the political environment and making discourses on the issues of significance. Mass media can be defined as: "The methods and organisations used by specialist social groups to convey messages to large, socially mixed and widely dispersed audiences"

In 'The German ideology , Marx asserts that "the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class". Applying this to Marxism, the media are the means by which the ideas of the ruling class maintain their dominance as the ruling idea.

In studying the relationship between media and government, the most important role of the media is its ability to perform a watchdog role, monitoring and criticizing government behavior because when the media performs this function it is able to act as a forum for political debate regardless of other limitationson its freedom. In his press freedom index, Van Belle focuses on the ability of the news media to criticize the government and thereby serve as an arena for political competition. This more narrow definition of media independence is aimed more at the function and practices of the media. While the political, legal, economic, and professional environments each play a role in the capability of the media to serve as a watchdog and an arena for political competition

Media freedom around the world is different ,developed countries have a better state of media freedom than developing and under developed countries.Research shows that media freedom has relationship with other factors too. Media freedom is directly related to economy , technological advancement ensures media freedom similarly polity is a major reason behind curbing media freedom In the Marxist fundamentalist tradition, 'political economists' see ideology as subordinate to the economic base  Work by Graham Murdock represents the 'critical' political economy approach, locating the power of media in the economic processes and structures of media production. Ownership and economic control of the media is seen as the key factor in determining control of media messages.

The writer concludes Press freedom has become a very important political issue in Swaziland.In general, the government appears reluctant to hasten the process of democratization both in the area of communication and the general area of governance, thus creating problems for itself. The media need information to function and when they are denied this, they can react in several ways, one of which is being critical of government and its policies - and help paint an unfavourable picture of the country to the outside world. The country thus has to suffer in many aspects .

The issue of technological development with respect to media freedom is discussed by an author,In her article on " New media and freedom of expression in Asia" Ariel Heryanto of The university of Melbourne says about new media technologies that "the global technological change that the west has helped propel forward has given more favorable effects to less modernized parts of Asia the reason for this relate to both technology and social factors." She adds "In a sense world history can be seen as history of changes in media technology. The spread of radically new medium of communication always threatens existing power structures and hierarchies, and helps create new ones."

The government leaves it to people to settle issues with the mass media .Laws made in America at later stages have been all to give more freedom to media unlike Pakistan , where laws meant direct curb on media freedom. Few press laws are in force in the U.S. because of this broad constitutional protection of press freedom and analogous provisions in the constitutions of the 50 states. Existing laws tend to provide additional protections in categories not covered by the Constitution. The Privacy Act of 1974, for example, regulates the collection and dissemination of personal information contained in the files of federal agencies; the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 establishes protection from police searches of newsrooms. Additional examples include federal and state Freedom of Information and "sunshine" laws  which opens up executive-branch records to public and press scrutiny.