Vidzemes augstskolas Socioloijas fakulttes Politoloijas nodaas 1. kursa studenta Ja Crua Mjasdarbs kurs angu valoda 10.11.2008.

Summary of J.M. Balkin ,,How mass media simulate political transparency Article is about mass media and their methods of delivering information. It explains essence of political transparency and analyses mass media role in political transparency. Author in beginning introduce with three main elements of political transparency. As first one mentioned informational transparency. It basic function is to provide casual peoples with information about government laws, activities, provide them with access to this information. Second participatory transparency consists of rights to participate in process of governments activities. Last one, accountability transparency is abilities to hold government official accountable in work they do. Afterward author attracts attention to strategies of simulation. Mass media use tactic of realize massive amount of information. Therefore they turn away their focus on main problem. This kind of strategies works against weaker opponents, who posses not enough resources. Against stronger opponents are strategies of attention diversion by the means of television, internet. Television from the many different sources of media has the biggest influence. Problem is that television is willing to make their program more entertaining, in that way attract more peoples and became more popular. During this process television often lost some important facts, and so became in favor for some subject. Also the internet has made its impact on television. It creates large diversity of news and sources for them. Meanwhile news and organizations quickly learn that it take less effort to accept what is given them by politicians than to develop news on 5their own. Therefore media is quite depending on one side political reality. Nowadays line between private and public are harder to seen. Often there is articles about private life of public figures, and frequently including scandals. By adding scandal to the mix of competing stories journalists change odds that their form of information wont survive after filtration of news. In conclusion author concludes that public needs to demand more diverse of news. Though there are still problems in news creation process. Also there is much more to explore.

Reflections J.M. Balkin ,,How mass media simulate political transparency After reading this article I agree that mass media play vital role in nowadays political, information process. Like the article say that in theory mass media role is definite and good. But in real life the mass media actions not always is on best consciousness. In my opinion mass media in modern life situation is using one side information. They speak about problems of one side because its easier than to analyze and look for both sides. Also if the mass media guide the voice of conscience they lost the powerfully sponsors or supporters. Because almost everyone organization, people is something hided. Thing is that mass media is not willing to execute political transparency by the book because they are not interest and it may be lethal to them. However mass media still need to achieve the best political transparency that they can. Its important that the main instruments of mass media as television, radio are becoming more liberal. Meantime while this process is going on simple citizens need to become more critical on news they receiving. Many too many individuals are blindly host information from press radio television, but its wrong. From other hand 21 century provide as one massive information source which different of visions about happening affairs. This source is internet. Still it wont solve every problem. We need to learn how to use it properly. Combinate this internet source with television, newspaper information to create own opinion, without influence of others. Vocabulary J.M. Balkin ,,How mass media simulate political transparency Transparency- the quality of being free-Cauredzamba Supplementation- the act of supplementing- Papildinjums. Litigant- is legal action which is brought, regardless of its merits, solely to harass or subdue an adversary. Prva Travesty- parody of something. Farss, parodija Appropriate- suitable fo- piemrots