The Research On The Social Responsibility Ideas Of The Mass Media

The Social Responsibility Theory of The Mass Media is the most representative Bourgeoisie theory of the mass media in the contemporary West society, originating in the traditional libertarian theory of the mass media, but has carried on the important revision and the development to it.This thesis analyzes the background of the social responsibility ideas of the mass media, through concrete circumstance of the western thought, economic sector and journalistic circles of the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century. During this period, the traditional Libertarian theory of the mass media that was persisted by western journalistic circles before was questioned gradually when confronted with the great changes of social thought and economic environment. Besides, with the Media Monopoly and Vulgarity, Untruth of reports was becoming more and more serious, the request of making the journalistic circles shouldered the social responsibility became common. From A Free and Responsible Press (The Commission on Freedom of the Press) and Four Theories of the Press (Wilbui Chramm, Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson), more and more standpoints of social responsibility theory of the mass media emerged. Then, the journalistic circles and fields began to widespread discussed the social responsibility, caused the social responsibility ideas of the mass media rapidly to form the huge influence at mid 20th century. This thesis describes the generating and changing process of the social responsibility ideas of the mass media from the influence scope, the function key and so on. From this, we get a foundation for appraising the social responsibility ideas of the mass media in the end.Along with the research, we find that the western society responsibility ideas of the mass media are full of the capitalism characteristic, and they are unsuitable for our socialistic journalism. Therefore, this thesis believes that the journalistic circles in China must follow the Marxist view points for the socialistic journalism in order to serve for the people, serve for the socialism, and serve for our country.