Alexander Craig

Information and Politics: Towards Greater Government Intervention?

The central question in the study of politics is power: who has it, why do they have it, how do they use it? To examine this question, we need information about politics which in turn requires some knowledge of the politics of information. Information does not exist in a vacuum. Its shape and role in any society cannot be understood in isolation from that societys economic and political systems. Definitions of news, of freedom of the press, and of other basic concepts can differ substantially from country to country. The production, transmission, and distribution of information are all affected by how the government in power interprets these concepts. This article examines the traditional forms of relationships between governments and media, and how and why these differ within the Western democracies. Some of the pressing problems confronting the media and society, particularly those presented by technology, perceptions of government overload, and the process of media concentration, will be discussed. The views of various sectors about the present and prospective government regulation of the media will be considered. It seems very possible that such regulation will be increased, in response particularly, but by no means solely, to increasing pressures to recognize the right to information. In discussing all these issues it must be kept in mind that the world of information and, more generally, of communications, is complex. It is also dynamic, booming, and constantly growing. Speaking to a conference of financial analysts in New York in September 1978, Robert Scrivener, chairman and chief executive