Oral Anglais Bac Places And Forms Of Power

ORAL ANGLAIS : PLACES AND FORMS OF POWER

In politics and social science, power is the ability to influence people's behaviour. In order to live together members of a community accept rules, regulations, laws. This helps to create social cohesion but can also lead to conflicts and tensions. Even when authority seems absolute, there are always counter-powers which question it, aim at limiting its excesses and resist it.

The first three powers are legislative executive and judicial powers. For many years, new powers have influenced people. There are known as the fourth and the fifth power. The fourth power is the power of the media, of the press and the fifth power is the power of the economic system or the power of the Internet (and in some cases, the power of the Church).

To illustrate the notion I will base myself on the power of the media.

The Media: Counter Power, or Power in itself ?

At first we will see that the media is a power in itself and in a second step we will see that the media can be a counter Power.

On the one hand, the media are considered the fourth power, their role is to inform the public but also the power to develop policy ideas and to mobilize people around a common cause and a common vision. For example, the population can participate in the life of the media report what they know about a topic or when using the mobile phone can shoot events. This is called 'citizen journalist', so the media are closer to the people and is part of the life of every day of an average person.

Moreover, the media have a large number of communications media: radio, television, newspapers, magazines and internet. This will apply to a wider audience and accurate according to the media. For example, in England a lot of people read tabloids because it is newspapers that have a reduced content like 'the sun', they will address the issues in order to bring the most juicy details by ignoring the bottom and the complexity of some subject in order to be more attractive counter to conventional newspapers as 'the times' or 'the independent'.

Then the media have great power : the freedom of the press and expression. This will denounce the atrocities around the world and help the overthrow of dictatorships. Thanks to that power many cases the day we saw through the media as for example the case wikileaks, scandal of the media or the scandal of horsemeat in lasagna the brand findus.

On the second hand, the media can be a counter power that is to say political power capable of competing or overthrow the power of another. This is due to the fact that the media sometimes used abusive practices and prohibited to be ever more efficient and innovative in the information. For example with piracy concern telephonic newspaper 'News of the World', which belongs to the powerful tycoon Rupert Murdoch so in 2011 it was discovered that the tabloid had tapped telephonic parents of two murdered people girls. This shocking case has called into question the journalistics methods.

Furthermore the media can stir up hatred exaggerating or creating the controversy over

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