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Comunicar Journal 25: Quality Television (Vol. 13 - 2005)

Citizens and screens: passivity or responsibility

Abstract

One of the main challenges facing the information society is the decline of citizen participation. Despite the ease of communication, citizens close into themselves within their small familiar and social context, turning their backs on world problems and becoming more and more isolated. For decades, information offered through the media, especially from television, is influenced by the large economic powers, who organize world information so that the citizens read it, understand it, assimilate it and use it in a controlled fashion. When it comes to the media, citizens take on a passive, alienated, without implication and with one non participative posture. Faced with the need for citizens to become aware of their responsibilities, television and other media should adopt a commitment to raise the citizen out of his or her apathy, proposing and suggesting active and participatory attitudes. Television channels should become aware of their educational function.