| Media freedom is a concept drawing from the freedom of speech. Based on the western liberalism philosophy, it means the media lives in the society independently and being out of the control of political power. For the way of media getting the freedom, there are two research approaches in western academic circles. One is the study of political philosophy, appeared in 17ã€18 Century. It considered the freedom is a natural right, and the repression of freedom of speech or freedom of the media is the way of being deprived of the right and violating contract. Meanwhile, freedom of the media is the way for people to get the truth from marketplace of ideas, thus restricting the freedom is equate to restricting the truth. In such situation,if the people is deprived of this right, they can get it back through political struggle or revolution, even rebuild the government. In the guidance of this abstract freedom philosophy, media is gradually getting free. The other one is the study of sociology appeared in early 19 century. As abstract philosophy converted into positive philosophy, some scholars started to discuss the way media getting the freedom on the real social conditions. In this case, market economy is considered as the reason of the media freedom. Media became independent and grow into a huge social organization. Even getting the power from its public opinions and becoming the fourth branch of the government. The approaches based on philosophy and sociology is on behalf of the two periodical achievements in western social science. In fundamental respects, the intention of the philosophy study is to stress the culture and value of the western liberalism. The intention of the sociology study is to stress the relationship between the market economy and liberalism, and show off its institutional advantage. The keynote of the approaches is liberalism which all emphasizes the unification and universality of the theory and practice. Nevertheless, if seen from the real facts of the media development in western or other countries, there are some problems in these approaches.For example, Liberal philosophy and market economy produced a strange result of public media system in the United Kingdom. Even there has subsidy system in northern Europe. Moreover, after world war II, with bringing drastic political and social struggle and full of ideological color, it is not a smooth way for the free media institution to export to other countries. It can be argued that, until now, our understanding of the basic causes and evolution of Western liberal media system is still mired in the western value system.According to this theoretical problem, this paper attempts to change the research perspective from the paradigm of the liberal philosophy to the paradigm of system theory which has the characteristics of value neutrality. In this paradigm we can study the social phenomena from macro and historical perspective. In the view of system theory, the media and politics will be regarded as social subsystem with different social function. The process of the media freedom is the process of differentiation for the two social subsystems of media and politics actually, and also the process of the structure and function differentiation in the overall social changes in order to cope with the complex environment. In this framework of macro analysis, this paper argues that technology, market and law are the basic motives to drive the differentiation in culture, organization and system level of the media and politics. Take the example of the media development of western countries represented by The UK and US, this paper illustrates the essence and historical logic of western media freedom through analyzing the way and the result of the motives works with the method of taking technology, market and law as the warp, taking the print, radio and television and network as the weft. Specifically, the characteristics of this process are as follows. Technology is the first motive leading to the cultural differentiation of media and politics, which laid the foundation for the media to establish the independent and free position in the legal system in western countries. Market is the second motive leading to organizational differentiation of media and politics, especially the increasingly powerful media monopolies makes the relationship between media and politics converted. The law or judicial process is the third motive to drive the institutional differentiation of media and politics.From the perspective of system theory, the first stage is the differentiation process happened in the media system itself, the second stage is the differentiation drived by market system, the third stage is the institutional differentiation happened in political system itself through indirect power structure adjustment. From the print media appeared in 15 century, these three steps exist in every differentiation process of the media and the politics and gradually form the free media system. It should be noted that the reason of the different media system existed in western counties is only due to the different political structure adjustment during the differentiation process of radio-television and politics, there is no difference in the basic media system.Overall, the features of this paper which on the relationship between the media and politics based on the media freedom thoughts as follows. Firstly, it converts the studying perspective from the liberalism to differentiation in sociology based on the system theory. Secondly, in the historical dimension it repositions the functions of technology, market and law which studied separately in the past and clarify the inner logic of the evolution of the western media freedom. Thirdly, it makes the technology, market and law as the variables for comparing the media and politics relationship evolution between China and the west and makes a new understanding of the development of our own media industry. Compared with the traditional study of the relationship between the media and politics, innovation of this paper is combining varieties of research perspectives and managing to establish a comprehensive analytical framework. Especially the historical analysis of the three factors of technology, market and law will help to clarify the ideological media freedom and reflect the true relationship and the development of Western media and politics clearly. Naturally, this analytical framework is also of importance to the development of the media and construction of the relationship between the media and politics in China. |
