Value of information (VOI or VoI) is the amount a decision maker would be willing to pay for information prior to making

a decision. Freedom of information Freedom of information is an extension of freedom of speech, a fundamental human right recognized in international law, As of 2006 70 countries had comprehensive freedom of information legislation for public bodies, nearly half of which had been enacted in the past 10 years. Such legislation was pending in a further 50 countries.[7] A Free Information Infrastructure comprises No software patents, no patents for eCommerce and data processing. Free access. Network neutrality. Open standards. Little control by state. Free speech. Strong competition law. Sometimes: Free/Libre (Open Source) Software. Some groups such as EuroLinux and FFII refer to it. the free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content[1][2] by using the Internet and other forms of media.

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement is a loose collection of civil society groups, governments, and individuals converging on the idea that access to knowledge should be linked to fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. Lack of local or specific topical focus is a common criticism of mass media. A mass news media outlet is often forced to cover national and international news due to it having to cater for and be relevant for a wide demographic. As such, it has to skip over many interesting or important local stories because they simply do not interest the large majority of their viewers. An example given by the website WiseGeek is that "the residents of a community might view their fight against development as critical, but the story would only attract the attention of the mass media if the fight became controversial or if precedents of some form were set".[6] Freedom of the press and editorial independence On the local end, reporters have often seen their stories refused or edited beyond recognition. An example would be the repeated refusal of networks to air "ads" from anti-war advocates to liberal groups like MoveOn.org, or religious groups like the

United Church of Christ, regardless of factual basis. Journalists and their reports may be directly sponsored by parties who are the subject of their journalism leading to reports which actually favor the sponsor, have that appearance, or are simply a repetition of the sponsors opinion. [3][unreliable source?] Consequently, if the companies dominating a media market choose to suppress stories that do not serve their interests, the public suffers, since they are not adequately informed of some crucial issues that may affect them. Concern among academia rests in the notion that the purpose of the first amendment to the US constitution was to encourage a free press as political agitator evidenced by the famous quote from US President Thomas Jefferson, "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." [4]. Freedom of the press has long been combated by large media companies, but their objections have just as long been dismissed by the supreme courts. [12] "It is men, who in developing their material inter-course, change, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life" (Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe 1/5). Mannheim feared that this interpretation could be seen to claim that all knowledge and beliefs are the products of socio-political forces since this form of relativism is self-defeating (if it is true, then it too is merely a product of socio-political forces and has no claim to truth and no persuasive force). Mannheim believed that relativism was a strange mixture of modern and ancient beliefs in that it contained within itself a belief in an absolute truth which was true for all times and places (the ancient view most often associated with Plato) and condemned other truth claims because they could not achieve this level of objectivity (an idea gleaned from Marx). Mannheim sought to escape this problem with the idea of 'relationism'. This is the idea that certain things are true only in certain times and places (a view influenced by pragmatism) however, this does not make them less true. Mannheim felt that a stratum of free-floating intellectuals (who he claimed were only loosely anchored to the class structure of society) could most perfectly realize this form of truth by creating a "dynamic synthesis" of the ideologies of other groups. In Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, Foucault concentrates on the correlation between knowledge and power. According to him, knowledge is a form of power and can conversely be used against individuals as a form of power.[8] As a result, knowledge is socially constructed in order to maintain the power of the ruling class.[9] He argues that knowledge forms discourses and discourses form the dominant ideological ways of thinking which govern our lives.[10] For him, social control is maintained in the disciplinary society, through codes of control over sexuality and the ideas/knowledge perpetuated through social institutions.[11] In other words, discourses and ideologies subject us to authority and turn people into subjected beings, who are in turn afraid of being punished if they sway from social norms.[12] Foucault believes that institutions overtly regulate and control our lives. Institutions such as schools reinforce the dominant ideological forms of thinking onto the populace and force us into becoming obedient and docile beings.[13] Hence, the

dominant ideology that serves the interests of the ruling class, all the while appearing as `neutral`, needs to be questioned and must not go unchallenged.[14] Deregulation is when government reduces its role and allows industry greater freedom in how it operates.[1] Critics of media deregulation and the resulting concentration of ownership fear that such trends will only continue to reduce the diversity of information provided, as well as to reduce the accountability of information providers to the public. The ultimate consequence of consolidation, critics argue, is a poorly-informed public, restricted to a reduced array of media options that offer only information that does not harm the media oligopoly's growing range of interests.[14] For those critics, media deregulation is a dangerous trend, facilitating an increase in concentration of media ownership, and subsequently reducing the overall quality and diversity of information communicated through major media channels. Increased concentration of media ownership can lead to the censorship of a wide range of critical thought. [15] In Britain and Ireland, Rupert Murdoch owns best-selling tabloid The Sun as well as the broadsheet The Times and Sunday Times, and 39% of satellite broadcasting network BSkyB. BSkyB in turn owns a significant part of ITV plc and 5% of Shine Limited. [46] In March 2011, the United Kingdom provisionally approved Murdoch to buy the remaining 61% of BSkyB[47], however this has yet to be finalised and the matter will be voted on by MPs on 12 July 2011[48]. In July 2011 the Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World was shut down, and the Leveson Inquiry was subsequently launched. Leveson opened the hearings on Monday 14 November 2011, saying: "The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?"[4]

limited-effects theory, which was originally tested in the 1940s and 1950s, states that "because people usually choose what media to interact with based on what they already believe, media exerts a negligible influence". The class-dominant theory states that "the media reflects and projects the view of a minority elite, which controls it". It continues by explaining that the people who own and control the corporations that produce media comprise this elite. The culturalist theory, which was developed in the 1980s and 1990s, combines the other two theories and claims that "people interact with media to create their own meanings out of the images and messages they receive". This theory states that audience members play an active, rather than passive role in relation to mass media

In an article entitled Mass Media Influence on Society, rayuso argues that the media is dominated by five major companies (Time Warner, VIACOM, Vivendi Universal, Walt Disney and News Corp) which own 95% of all mass media including theme parks, movie studios, television and radio broadcast networks and programing, video news, sports entertainment, telecommunications, wireless phones, video games software, electronic media and music companies. Whilst historically, there was more diversity in companies, they have recently merged to form an elite which have the power to shape the opinion and beliefs of people. People buy after seeing thousands of advertisements by various companies in TV, newspapers or magazines, which are able to affect their purchasing decisions. The definition of what is acceptable by society is dictated by the media. This power can be used for good, for example encouraging children to play sport. However, it can also be used for bad, for example children being influenced by cigars smoked by film stars, their exposure to sex images, their exposure to images of violence and their exposure to junk food ads. The documentary Supersize Me describes how companies like McDonalds have been sued in the past, the plaintiffs claiming that it was the fault of their liminal and subliminal advertising that "forced" them to perchance the product. The Barbie and Ken dolls of the 1950s are sometimes cited as the main cause for the obsession in modern day society for women to be skinny and men to be buff. After the attacks of 9/11, the media gave extensive coveage of the event and exposed Osama's guilt for the attack, information they were told by the authorities. This shaped the public opinion to support the war on terrorism, and later, the war on Iraq. A main concern is that due to this immense power of the mass media (being able to drive the public opinion), media receiving inaccurate information could cause the public opinion to support the wrong cause. In his book The Commercialization of American Culture, Matthew P. McAllister says that "a well-developed media system, informing and teaching its citizens, helps democracy move toward its ideal state."[22] In 1997, J. R. Finnegan Jr. and K. Viswanath identified 3 main effects or functions of mass media. The Knowledge Gap: The mass media influences knowledge gaps due to factors including "the extent to which the content is appealing, the degree to which information channels are accessible and desirable, and the amount of social conflict and diversity there is in a community". Agenda Setting: People are influence in how they think about issues due to the selective nature of what media choose for public consumption. After publicly disclosing that he had prostate cancer prior to the 2000 New York senatorial election, Rudolph Giuliani, the mayor of New York City (aided by the media) sparked a huge priority elevation of the cancer in people's consciousness. This was because news media began to report on the risks of prostate cancer, which in turn prompted a greater public awareness about the disease and the need for screening. This ability for the media to be able to change how the public thinks and behaves has occurred on other occasions. In mid-1970s when Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller, wives of the then-President and then-Vice President respectively, were both diagnosed with breast cancer. J. J. Davis states that "when risks are highlighted in the media, particularly in great detail, the extent of agenda setting is likely to be based on the degree to which a public sense of outrage and threat is provoked". When wanting to set an agenda, framing can be invaluably useful to a mass media organisation. Framing involves "taking a leadership role in the organisation of public discourse about an issue". The media is influenced by the

desire for balance in coverage, and the resulting pressures can come from groups with particular political action and advocacy positions. Finnegan and Viswanath say, "groups, institutions, and advocates compete to identify problems, to move them onto the public agenda, and to define the issues symbolically" (1997, p. 324). Cultivation of Perceptions: The extent to which media exposure shapes audience perceptions over time is known as cultivation. Television is a common experience, especially in places like the United States, to the point where it can be described as a "homogenising agent" (S. W. Littlejohn). However, instead of being merely a result of the TV, the effect is often based on socio-economic factors. Having a prolonged exposure to TV or movie violence might affect a viewer to the extent where they actively think community violence is a problem, or alternatively find it justifiable. The resulting belief is likely to be different depending of where people live however.[22] Since the '50s, when cinema, radio and TV began to be the primary or the only source of information for a larger and larger percentage of the population, these media began to be considered as central instruments of mass control.[23][24] Up to the point that it emerged the idea that when a country has reached a high level of industrialization, the country itself "belongs to the person who controls communications."[7] Mass media play a significant role in shaping public perceptions on a variety of important issues, both through the information that is dispensed through them, and through the interpretations they place upon this information.[23] They also play a large role in shaping modern culture, by selecting and portraying a particular set of beliefs, values, and traditions (an entire way of life), as reality. That is, by portraying a certain interpretation of reality, they shape reality to be more in line with that interpretation.[24] Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, biases the media in some countries, for example North Korea and Burma.[2] Market forces that result in a biased presentation include the ownership of the news source, concentration of media ownership, the selection of staff, the preferences of an intended audience, and pressure from advertisers.

The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology, but other common forms of bias include Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers. Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media. Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone. Sensationalism, bias in favor of the exceptional over the ordinary, giving the impression that rare events, such as airplane crashes, are more common than common events, such as automobile crashes. A highly cited academic study showing a liberal media bias in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists

Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and broadcast networks. The survey found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were considered to be more liberal than those of the general public on a variety of topics, including hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. They then compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integratioStefano Mario Rivolta lists three forms of media bias: [7] 1. gate keeping bias, i.e., deciding whether to release a story or keep it under wraps (see Spike (journalism)) 2. coverage bias 3. statement bias The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality. However, the book itself has been accused of a conservative bias and of using data that is neither statistically sound nor thoroughly examined for variables[3]. igher numbers of Fox News watchers held certain misconceptions about the Iraq war Copererate censorship Advertising Age (10/13/03): "The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in.... If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat.[9

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Ownership of the medium Medium's funding sources Sourcing Flak Anti-communist ideology For Chomsky and Herman "flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. The term "flak" has been used to describe what Chomsky and Herman see as efforts to discredit organizations or individuals who disagree with or cast doubt on the prevailing assumptions which Chomsky and Herman view as favorable to established power (e.g., "The Establishment"). Unlike the first three "filtering" mechanisms which are derived from analysis of market mechanisms flak is characterized by concerted efforts to manage public information.

During the war between the United States and North Vietnam, Vice President Spiro Agnew accused newspapers of anti-American bias, and in a famous speech delivered in San Diego in 1970, called anti-war protesters "the nattering nabobs of negativism."[49]