Another interesting article, in the same vein is Pamela Taylor Jackson and James
Stanfield’s The role of the press in a democracy: heterodox economics and the propaganda
model, published in 2004, in which
“A free and independent press is one of democracy's most important institutions. The
press, idealistically, plays a role in the instrumental use of knowledge by enlightening the
citizenry, helping citizens to have an educated voice in the democratic
diverse information voters
However, if an issue is distorted or muted in the press due to corporate pressure or
government propaganda, as is often the case, the quality of the deb
democratic process cannot accurately assess society's problems or prescribe solutions.”
Their article is a very good and concise presentation of why and how democratic societies rely
on a free and active press to function well.
The United Nations also prepares and publishes many reports, many of which relate to
the questions of public interest, corporate social responsibility and how the media does, and
mostly does not perform its expected role in publicizing and educating the pu
misdeeds and/or good deed. A good example of these reports
Corporate Social Responsibility and S
Environment Programme (2003).
METHODOLOGY
The study is composed of several stages. The first phase, the subject of this report,
consists of a statistical analysis of number of articles covering corporate social responsibility by
four of the top major newspapers in the United States, ninety days be
the BP oil well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010.
The assumption is that if in fact the printed media is involved in the social responsibility
that is assumed it has as the guardian
citizenry in a democratic society, coverage
increase in the days following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
A survey of the articles in
Monitor and the Los Angeles Times
Table 1, in the Appendix.
RESULTS
Results of the survey, as depicted
statistically significant difference between the coverage of the corporate social responsibility by
these major daily newspapers in the United States after the BP oil spill disaster.
DISCUSSION
This study, which is essentially the pil
social responsibility by major print media in the United States, indicates that
catastrophic events which should
not seem to have caused more coverage of this topic. Further
this study may further shed some light on the reason.
Journal of Academic and Business Ethics
Media coverage of corporate, Page
they argue that:
process. The more
receive the more accurate social valuations they can make.
debate suffers and the
public about corporate
is Good News & Bad, ‘
Sustainability’, published by the United Nations
.
before and ninety days after
of public interest and information source to inform the
, of Corporate Social Responsibility should
Mexico.
the New York Times; Wall Street Journal; Christian Science
during this period was undertaken. The result is reported in
in Table 2 in the Appendix, does not show any
pilot phase of a larger study on coverage of corporate
the said
have arguably triggered a greater coverage of this topic does
sed research in the following phases of