Media, Profit, and Politics

Competing Priorities in an Open Society

Joseph Harper

Anyone concerned with the condition of democracy today must be familiar with mass communication, for it is almost exclusively through mass media that we have come to know what occurs in the world of politics. Because the performance of the media has become inseparable from the exercise of democracy in our society, it is even more important to understand the multifaceted relationships among politics, the mass media, and the force that increasingly drives both of them: money.

A compilation of essays and related commentary delivered at the second annual Kent State University Symposium on Democracy, Media, Profit, and Politics recognizes and considers the fundamental differences that arise when the competitive forces of commerce clash with the demand for the open availability of information in a democratic society.