Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Tomassi and I'm gonna be working with you on your citizenship lesson today.

Hopefully you're all settled, you've got everything you need and you're ready to go and then we'll get started.

The title of today's lesson is What is a Free Press and Why is it Important for a Democracy? This forms part of the unit on Should the UK be Called a Democracy? Hopefully by the end of the lesson today, you'll be able to explain what a free press is and its importance in a democracy.

We'll make a start with the keywords for today.

So the first one is democracy.

This is a system of government in which citizens vote in regular, fair elections for representatives who then make laws and decisions on their behalf.

The second keyword is free press.

This is the right of the media to report news and express opinions without government censorship or interference.

Both of these keywords will be in bold throughout the lesson and you'll be able to refer back to them here if you need to know what they mean.

So we'll start with the first two learning cycles.

What is the role of a free press in a democracy? You can start thinking about that question.

What do you think the role of a free press is? What does it do in a democracy? So if we recap what a democracy is, you might know already and if you do, great, you can start thinking about that question.

If not, we'll go through democracy now.

So demos comes from common people and kratos, rule.

So basically, democracy means rule by the people.

Now, concept of democracy has evolved over time and it looks different across the world.

Everywhere you go, you might see someone say, oh, we live in a democracy.

But it could look very different depending on where you are.

But there are some key features that make something a democracy.

Do you know what any of those key features are? Again, you can start thinking, you might have heard of some of these.

These are things like free and fair elections, multi-party system, protection of human rights, active citizenship, rule of law, separation of powers.

So you might know what these are, but basically what these do is these allow for a democratic environment by ensuring human rights are protected, allowing citizens to get involved, making sure everybody is equal in terms of the law and ensuring that there is a separation of powers.

So one person hasn't got control of everything.

Check for understanding.

Identify the missing key feature of a democracy.

Which one is missing? Did you manage to get it? It's protection of human rights that's missing.

Now, this is important to remember, these key features because we are gonna look at how this links to the media.

Now, for the media to operate effectively in a democracy, it needs three key characteristics.

Did you ever think earlier? Maybe you got some of these ideas.

So freedom, that's one of the most important ones and it's freedom from interference.

Transparency.

So this is clarity on ownership and how the media operates.

And then the third one is accountability.

So this is owners, editors and journalists taking responsibility for their actions and correcting errors.

We will look at these in more detail as we go through this cycle.

So when we say freedom from interference, sometimes you might also hear it as free press.

And this is what we mean when we're saying free press.

It means that the news outlets can report and share information without being controlled or punished by the government.

By having these, it helps people stay informed and it supports a democracy.

How does it do that though? Have you got some ideas for this one? How might a free press support a democracy? Well, it allows for democratic values and the free press allows for things like the open sharing of ideas, collective knowledge and understanding, communication with government representatives, peaceful social change and protection of individual rights.

Maybe you could think of some examples of maybe news stories you've seen or examples in the media that allow for these different things to happen.

True or false? A free press supports democracy by helping people share ideas and hold the government to account.

That is true.

And hopefully we'll see more of this as we go through.

So there are also three key roles that the media can be seen to have in a democracy.

So what their roles and responsibilities are.

Now, these are about informing and influence in the public.

They are slightly different, those two.

Form would be giving the facts and information, whereas influence might be about changing perceptions and ideas.

They then allow the exchange of ideas and opinions.

So it's allowing that space for people to be able to talk and share their ideas and opinions.

And then it's also about holding those in power to account.

So thinking about keeping maybe people like the government into check and ensuring that there's checks and balances there.

We start with that first one.

How does the media inform and influence the public? Maybe in some of them examples you thought of, you might have some ideas and you might be able to show ways that they do this.

By helping people to understand what's happening in the world, they will report on different issues and this can help people to make smarter choices, especially when voting because they have the information that you need.

Imagine if you didn't have access to any media.

Would you get as much information as you get now? Probably not.

Now, that's part of the informing process.

Here comes a bit more of the influence in when the media are the ones that get to decide which issues are reported on.

And this could be based on their news value.

So things like, you know, the impact is gonna have the timeliness, the conflict.

The end of the day, the media outlets are also probably businesses and they want to ensure that they're getting the most readers as possible.

They want to make sure the news they are producing is gonna get the most people interested in it.

And then that's the side that can lead to the influencing.

There are certain issues that may only be covered briefly in the media and other stories might get attention for a longer time and they can be used to influence the public.

Now we've heard about that, can you think, how does the media allow for exchange of ideas and opinions? Any ideas on this? Well, it's offering that space and it's allowing people to keep people informed on different issues through things like podcasts, radios, TV programmes.

There might be debate on current issues, newspapers, online comment sections that allow readers to share their opinions.

Social media platforms are really big as well.

National regional outlets that help to reflect local and national views.

So if remembering as well, we don't just have national news, we do have maybe regional and local news as well.

So we are hearing lots of different information and actually also global.

So you hear about what's going on across the world and that can help see lots of different ideas and opinions as well.

Now, for this third key characteristics, so how does the media hold those in power to account? Can you think about this one? Think about what we've seen already.

Any ideas how that might impact with holding people to account? So this one, the media helps to check that people in power are doing their jobs properly.

So for example in the UK, the free press can ask questions and they can share information with the public.

To give you some examples, we'll ask government representatives questions.

So during press conferences and then they can report what the response is.

TV programmes let politicians explain their ideas and answer questions so citizens can decide if they agree or not.

And actually, there are many different ways as well.

So if you wanna bring in social media as well has helped to make those in power more accessible and more easier to reach as well.

And all of this helps to ensure that elected officials are open about decisions and carry out the wishes of the electorates.

Match the role of the media to its correct example.

You've got inform and influence the public, exchange ideas and opinions, hold the government to account.

On the other side, you've got a journalist questions the government minister about how money is being spent during a press conference.

A live debate on TV allows members of the public to share their views on climate change policies.

And a news report explains the pros and cons of a new education policy to help readers understand.

How did you get on? Did you manage to get to the bottom one, that news report because they're giving the pros and cons for readers to understand they're informing and influencing? You've got exchange of ideas is the live debate on TV and holding the government account is the journalist asking questions.

Hopefully you managed to get that and well done if you did.

Now, that moves us on for our first task of today.

And this is a good chance to practise maybe your structure of your writing that you would in the GCSE as well.

So can you explain two ways a free press supports democracy? If you take some time to think about your response and how you would structure it, making sure you are hitting that explain criteria and then when you're ready, unpause and we can feedback.

How did you find that? Hopefully you've managed to follow a similar structure to this.

You might have different responses but that you are including all that information.

So we'll go through it now.

One way a free press supports democracy is by informing and influencing the public.

The media helps people understand what is happening in the world, especially around important issues like elections, education or healthcare.

This allows citizens to make informed decisions such as who to vote for.

The media also chooses which stories to report based on what is important, which can influence what people think about and how they see certain issues.

Another way a free press supports democracy is by allowing the exchange of ideas and opinions.

The media gives people a chance to hear different views and take part in debates.

For example, TV and radio programmes allow the public to share and challenge opinions.

Social media, online newspapers and podcasts also allow people to comment and discuss current events.

This helps everyone understand different sides of an issue and take part in democratic discussions.

Now hopefully, you saw in there, each one had an example and that's what helps to expand your answer to ensure you are hitting that explain criteria.

Gonna move on to the second learning cycle.

So this is, how does the media influence democracy in the UK? We're gonna look into a bit more depth in this learning cycle.

So we've said in that first one that the media does influence democracy and we've looked at kind of some of the positives, but actually, it can support and hinder democracy in the UK.

So do you wanna start to think of some ideas of disadvantages of a free press, so in terms of democracy, might be? Now, Jun says, "I don't think a free press supports democracy as it can make it more confusing, 'cause there's so many different outlets and so much fake news, it's hard to know what's actually true." Sophia says, well, I think that the free press is good because it lets people find out what's going on.

Even though it can be confusing sometimes, it's important that people can share different opinions and report the truth." This is the thing here.

We've now got two arguments that counter each other but both have really valid points.

This is something that we're gonna explore a little bit more to help you make your decision on whether you think a free press supports or hinders democracy in the UK.

In a democracy, free and fair media helps citizens make informed decisions and that's one of the support in democracy.

However, media bias can influence how citizens view political parties and government decisions.

Media bias, have you heard of that term before? Any ideas what it means? Now, if somebody's biassed, it tends to mean that they're more one-sided.

And in terms of the media, it would mean that those reporting might favour some people over others.

So to give you an example of how that could impact democracy, that might mean that they could be affiliated with different political parties.

When we say affiliated, we're saying that they might be, they're probably more gonna favour them, maybe they might have a connection with them.

Now, this means they openly support those parties and it can affect how the news is reported.

So things like the choice of stories that they choose, the language that they use and the perspectives given.

Maybe you could think of some examples or you could have a look in the media and you could see if there's any affiliations that you could find.

And then have a look at that news article and see how it impacts the way that that story is written.

And sometimes this is the case.

You might see like two different stories about the same topic, but they have a completely different light on it.

Maybe one's quite positive and one's quite negative.

This could link to bias as well.

Sophia says, "I always make sure that I compare different sources to make sure I'm getting a balanced view." And actually, this is one way to overcome media bias because if you are comparing those different sources, like we said about having a look at them two articles, and then you are identifying the language, the tone of the story, maybe you are investigating who owns that media or you are quite aware of it and how this might influence the content and the fact checking, then it means that you've become an informed citizen because actually your checking whether or not the story you're getting is balanced and also then able to make your mind up on where you stand on that issue rather than just receiving one-sided content.

Now, by doing this it means it helps citizens to encourage critical thinking because you are not just taking it in and going, well, that's fact then.

You're going actually, do you know what? Maybe I need to check this.

Maybe I need to check this out.

Or you want to double check what you are reading or how to what you are reading is.

It also helps voters to understand different perspectives, 'cause at the same time, we don't just wanna receive one perspective all the time.

You do wanna hear different viewpoints and then you can take from that and go, okay, well, actually that point was valid; however, maybe this could be changed, et cetera.

And you are starting to, again, develop more of that critical thinking and it supports informed democratic choices.

When you are making democratic choices, you've really thought about the different sides, you've got loads of different perspectives that can help you to make an informed decision.

That shows one of the ways that the media can hinder democracy.

However, it can be overcome through the citizens taking that responsibility and checking those different sources.

There's another way that can hinder democracy and this is concentration of media ownership.

That is a lot of words in that part.

Any ideas what that means? So when we say concentrated, it means it is very compact.

And when we're talking about media ownership, it's who owns the media.

So actually in the UK, there are very few big companies or individuals who own most of the media.

So to give you an example, three companies, which is DMG Media, News UK, and Reach, control 90% of the UK's national newspaper market.

And that's just three companies.

You've then got over 70% of the UK's local newspapers are owned by just six companies and most of the online platforms used to access news in the UK are owned by Meta, Google, and X Corp.

If we go back to think about media bias, again, that could link in here because you've got so little people producing mass amounts of news, it could limit the range of opinions available.

And again, lead to media bias and a lack of accountability because there's so few views contributing to that.

Identify one advantage of citizens being aware of media bias.

Now, I've given you a few different ones here, but obviously you just needed to get one of them and hopefully, you did.

So that's helped to encourage critical thinking.

Voters understand different perspective, support/inform democrat choices.

I mean, you might also be fact checking and checking your content now and you could have got some different advantages that will also be correct as well.

You might have started already critically thinking and fact checking your sources with others.

So you might actually have some different advantages, which could be right as well.

So well done if you managed to get something there.

Now, regulation is, so now, we'll start to look at some of the positives again.

So regulation is needed in a democracy to help ensure integrity, make sure reporting is accurate, and it helps to build trust in the media.

We've said regulation, but do you know what regulation is? So if we maybe put rules in place and we regulate something, it is ensuring that there are processes that are being followed.

So in terms of the media, you've got Ofcom, which is the UK's communication regulator.

According to them, in 2023, they received 69,236 complaints, opened 57 broadcast standard investigations and found 35 cases where rules were broken.

So what their job is, is to ensure that there is integrity and that people are following the rules, basically.

You've then got the independent press standards organisation, the IPSO, and they are the UK's print and digital news regulator.

And again, they're there, the aim is to protect the public freedom of expression by upholding high editorial standards.

So once again, ensuring that those rules are followed to make sure that that reporting is accurate and ensure that there's that integrity there.

Sophia says there has to be a balance because if regulation is too strict, that could hinder democracy as it could threaten freedom of speech.

And again, that's another point.

Hopefully you're starting to see a bit of a theme here that every time we kind of get a positive, we might get a negative and then another positive to counteract that.

And again, this is all because we're going to use those critical thinking skills to have a look at the different sides.

So it's being aware that actually yes, regulation is good, but again, if it was too regulated and there's too many rules, well, then there maybe might not be as much freedom of speech that could be allowed.

And maybe, again, we are then going to limit in those perspectives.

So it's making sure that there is a balance.

Another job that the media do is they hold people accountable, which we said, and that's by investigating and sharing the truth with people.

You might have heard of investigative journalism, maybe you might have seen some documentaries where different issues have been investigated and then the outcomes of them.

But what investigative journalism is, is it's investigating a single topic of interest.

So something like maybe it could be something like political corruption.

Now, what the media might investigate, they might investigate specific companies and individuals and then go to the government and say, you need to take action on this issue.

Or they might even be investigating the government themselves.

And that's to promote transparency and accountability.

To give you an example, in the Panama Papers, case of 2016, over 11 million secret documents were leaked from a law firm in Panama.

Now, this was on a global scale.

So journalists from many countries worked together to investigate.

They found that a range of wealthy people, politicians, and world leaders were hiding money in secret bank accounts to avoid paying tax.

Now, following this, the UK government was actually one of the first to act and they created a public register of company owners to stop people using fake names.

What that meant was it was to prevent them hiding any of this illegal money.

And they also set up a tax evasion task force to start the investigation of the people and companies that were named on the papers and then hold them to account because of that.

And this came from the work of journalists, or if we have a look at an example of investigating the government, an example is the MP's expense scandal in 2009.

And this revealed that some MPs misused taxpayers' money by claiming expenses for personal or unnecessary items, things like second homes and that.

After this, the public was outraged and the media coverage led to resignations, repayments and even some criminal charges for some MPs.

So once again, this shows the impact that the media can have.

It highlighted that it was needed, a greater accountability.

And then after that, reforms were put in to ensure that MPs' expenses were monitored.

This was a new organisation and they were set up to manage the expenses.

Now, things are made a lot more public as well, which is ensuring that there is still accountability now.

Tick the correct box to show if these events support or hinder democracy in the UK.

You've got media bias, the media exposing the MPs' expense scandal, press regulation and concentration of media outlet ownership.

Which ones? So that first one, we've got, it could support and it could hinder.

The media exposing the expense scandal supports, press regulation supports and concentration of media outlet ownership hinders.

Now, if you have really been paying attention in this lesson and you've got your proper critical thinking hat on, you might go, well actually, I put press regulation can hinder or I put that this one might support.

I mean, if you've got valid points, of course, they are correct too.

But from a basic idea on when we first think of these issues, these are the boxes that we might tick.

But now, you can use your real critical thinking hat as we move onto the task.

So can a biassed media still help a democracy function? You've got a judgement line there.

So you can mark your position along that line and explain why you've placed your opinion there.

So this is your chance to really start having those counter arguments.

So if you take your time, maybe you might even wanna talk to somebody first and you could have a bit of debate about it before you make your decision.

Once you are ready, unpause, and then we can go through the feedback.

How did you find that? Did you manage to have a good debate about this? And did you even manage to find somewhere along the line that you sit? Now, because this is an opinion and there's so many different places you could have put your answer, we've kind of tried to give you two different responses.

But again, your answers might be very different, but it's just about the structure that you're looking for to ensure that you've got some similarities there.

So if you answered closer to no, your response could look like this.

I placed my answer closer to no, because while media bias can exist, it's important to ensure that there's a wide range of views.

If too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few media outlet owners, this can limit the diversity of opinions.

However, the media can still contribute to the democracy by holding the government accountable.

The Panama Papers investigation's a good example.

Journalists from many different newspapers worked together to expose corruption, which led the UK government to introduce a register of company owners and set up a tax task force.

If the media was less biassed, it could contribute more to democracy as more people would be held accountable.

So that's one idea.

If your answer was closer to yes, it could look more like this.

I placed my answer closer to yes, because even though some media outlets are biassed, they still help democracy by keeping the public informed.

In a democracy, people need access to information, even if it's from different viewpoints.

A biassed media can still raise awareness about important issues and hold powerful people to account.

For example, the newspapers reporting on the MP's expense scandal might have certain political leanings, but their investigation led to real change, including resignations, repayments and even new rules on how MPs claim expenses.

As long as citizens are aware of bias and can compare different sources, a biassed media can help democracy to function.

So take that in.

How did that compare to yours? Maybe you might have even got some different ideas from these responses to add to your own.

And this is the thing.

We're receiving different information and then we can use them to inform our own decisions.

With that, we're gonna move on to the summary for today.

So to summarise, a free press is a key part of democracy 'cause it helps inform the public and hold people to account.

Media regulation and investigative journalism support democracy by highlighting the issues for the government to address, for example, the Panama Papers, and holding the government accountable as seen in the MP's expense scandal.

The media can hinder democracy through media bias and concentration of media ownership.

This could be overcome by citizens being aware of bias and using critical thinking skills when engaging with the media.

And that's it now.

So hopefully, you can go away now and practise your critical thinking skills when it comes to the media and have a better understanding of what is going on.

Thanks for working with me today and enjoy the rest of your day.