Freedom in the Modern World

granting immunity in the Modern arena Freedom of Choice, Religion and Rights all in all depends on the bill of Freedom of the electronic jamming indoors a farming. Remor J. Gamutan Reg. 1868 August 3, 2011 ENG 101 B Section 70 B Professor Hans Straub Introduction Unlike the past, the ground today is to a massiveer extent united in diversity. close to countries in the moderne creation, boast unity of peck from different cultures and backgrounds with the analogous populationality. With unity in diversity comes emancipation of op rouseed races and culture.Freedom is a word around of the newborn generations atomic number 18 rattling proud of however, it is only a theory for nigh concourse from Third World countries and non- republican populations. agree to Sudeshna Pal who is an economist at Georgia College and State University, racial tension and other instabilities within a untaught, such as, execration, religious problems, heathen clashes and many more, c an be solved by giving more liberty to the adjure. (Bailey, 2011) The media is regarded by many, as a authorful tool to create recreation within a country, given over that journalists ingest the impoverisheddom to write what they need.Creating a vindicate press allows a countrys citizens to not only criticize their governing bodys activities but also to give them more knowledge about what is accident within their nation, and what they can do to revolutionize it, to modify its situation. Criticism for governments whitethorn not be the easiest to handle, especially when its coming from the majority of the nations people. It could be viewed as futile for some countrymen nonetheless, it is a haughty way of informing the government of what the country needs through the peoples perspective, in addition to theirs. Rummel, 1989) This inquiry highlights the richness of liberty of the press, and its compulsory correlation to granting immunity of religion, immunity of quality , dutys and overall independence within a country. This is designed to comp ar and contrast the prevailing problems of different nations and the add of exemption the press have, in relation to the overall mightys of the people. Furthermore, I am passing to discuss the countries with the to the lowest degree(prenominal) amount of exemption and the countries with the or so, in the modern cosmea.My research also provides information about the conditions and concomitantors that contribute to the overall liberty of each citizen within a nation. Freedom of the press Advantages and disadvantages of Free Media Liberty in the press means that the government does not restrict much of whats being bring outed, especially the news that they think ar governmentally threatening. each(prenominal) sound-established newsmen know the importance of de put outring the truth to the people especially the things that relate to politics.According to R. J. Rummel, whitethorn it be insurance -makingly undermining or encouraging, the citizens of a country have the right to know the truth about the activities of their accredited governments. The reason why savedom of the media is the key to national stability is because the citizens possess the index finger to suggest or show their perspective and views towarf ards the government and it even promotes revolution if a policy-making get outy is generally viewed as corrupting the system. Rummel, 1989) This allows a nations leaders to work in tandem with the citizens on improving all aspects of the country, and thus eliminating corruption and weak political figures, much like the intrinsic selection in the theory of livelihood. such great advantages that comes with a separated press is putting green during the wads Power Revolution in the Philippines, in 1986. As an extype Ale of how a nation can be improved through media liberation, the act of revolution by the Filipinos that year is well documented and cognise th roughout the whole world.This shows that with unloosendom of the press, the whole nation has access to the rightful(a) intentions of their leaders and can groundwork united as one to overthrow him/her. (Delotavo,2006). Through overleap of media censoring by the Philippine government, the people were well aw ar of the corruption of its political leaders. Despite the implementation of martial law, underground newspapers were distributed and a call by the Catholic Church for the nation to stand united against one common enemy (the president), was successful.The success of the press united all the Filipinos, which caused an uprising and resulted into the menses regime (at that time), being overthrown, in the close non-violent manner. The streets of EDSA and majority of Manila (now subway Manila), were flooded with millions of people as they sought to remove from power the current president of that time, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. The people stood united, without any violent act. Th ey were simply chanting rowing with the intention of pleading the president to step down from power.With cameras feeding live videos of the revolution all over the world, it was inevitable for Marcos to surrender without any reaction. (Delotavo, 2006). not long after Marcos, another president Pres. Joseph Ejercito Estrada, got taken off from power and sent to jail, through the comparable process, in retaliation to the alleged can that he committed, which has been published by the press. After those ensuants, the nigh generation of political leaders in the Philippines aims to be real truthful and convincing in each of their annual State of the Nation Address (SONA), which is broadcasted live on TV.When the President states his/her plans and report the use of the government funds during the SONA, the entire nation is watching because that date is regarded as a national holiday in the Philippines. Such revolution is common all over the world today, and roughly countries have li cense of the press for the sole purpose of educating the people and property them knowledgeable about current political events. The sharing of non- illegalize information from the government to its citizens reduces the instabilities within a country.These instabilities atomic number 18 calculated in seven ways by Sureshna Pal as ethnic tensions, external and internal conflicts, crime and disorder, military preparation in government, and religious tensions. (Bailey, 2011), as she analyzed the information from 98 countries. She found out from her analysis that a rise in freedom of the press creates a decrease of all the measures of instability within a country. These are the advantages of having a liberal media. According to the, World in the public eye(predicate) opinion a report of results from 22 nations released during the International Freedom mean solar day in 2008, most countries prefer freedom of the press.As shown in Fig. 1, most nations, omit for majority of the Mu slim dominated lands which compose of Egypt, Turkey, Palestine Territories, Iran, Jordan and Indonesia, voted for the idea of press freedom. The average vote for liberty of the press amidst the 22 countries is 57% while only 35% believed that the government must have the power to censor the media from publishing things that could be politically threatening for the government. (World Public Opinion).Most Muslim dominated countries believe that the government has the right of censorship because of the Islamic culture. Islam has a long history of authoritarian tradition, and press restrictions are considered as a right of the government by these countries to preserve political stability. Such stability is not necessarily the overall stability within the country which is described by Pal to be measured in seven different ways, but stability in toll of the people in power. However, this does not mean that such countries do not desire more press freedom.Countries like Egypt, Jordan, In donesia, and the Palestine Territories are among those Muslim countries who voted that their nations could do punter with more liberty of the media as shown in the chart below. Despite these figures and known advantages of having freedom of the press, many can still argue that too much liberty of the media, especially during conflict and war, can be a great disadvantage. This is because the press could be dominantly biased on one opinion, and that simple facts and figures could be manipulated. (World Public Opinion)According to K. A Soxmans article, TMI, Tet and the Media, most of the American people who are in the regular army during the Vietnam War were easily persuaded that USA was release to overlook the war, and many American soldiers have already died. The latter was in fact the truth however, the media were convincing enough that the American citizens assumed that reports from the press were blow% accurate. This resulted in to a lack of support to the soldiers in Vietnam from the USA, and the majority of the American people sought the return of the soldiers back home.The press were biased against the war and reported that the Tet offensive was a lost battle where in fact, US soldiers have won that fight and could have, arguably, carried on to ultimately win the war. (Soxman, 1980). The same happened during the war in Iraq. Since the tragedy of 9/11, rumors have spread that USA was trying to invade and conquer Iraq for their oil, and many other reasons. Those are rumors deemed to be true for some irresponsibly biased media who never revealed the true intentions of the American government.Since then, such reports took its toll on the government, and they have been heavily criticized as liars and devouring(a) by their own people. Biased reports made the US regime expect a heavy price after the war on Iraq with unfathomable criticism. (Grieder, 2004). The disadvantages of freedom of the press are that it could be misleading. During war and conflict, a s part of human nature, many take sides of a story and believe it to be true, even the media. With such beliefs, come strong line of credits that can be very convincing if manipulated well by the educated. It can also be true in terms of political issues.A certain group of the media may be on one side while another would be on the other side. This also explains why most of the Muslim dominated countries shown in Fig. 1 voted against press freedom because such countries have long history of documented internal conflicts. However, with the right precautions and the right of the government to question, not necessarily censor such reports, could resolve conflicts. With groups of the media on different sides of a story, the result could be disagreement in the short run, but, it is a entire way to debate and analyze the positives from each side and create a positive resolution in the long run.Freedom of the Press The Countries with the Least Freedom of the press and its conditions Accor ding to the article, Countries with the Least amount of Press Freedom in the World, which used the data that was released by Reporters without Borders in October 2009, the top five nations with the least amount of liberty of the media are Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran and Burma. Following the report in 2006 by the Committee to protect Journalists (CPJ) on the, 10 Most illegalize Countries, North Korea was always among the top because of its Communism. Most of these countries are hardly democratic.In a communist country like North Korea, reports of famine, poverty and even take by government officials are never reported. This is because all the domestic news-related matters are fully controlled by the government. Radio channels, television and even newspapers always publish their communist leader, Kim Jong Ils wisdom. On a tragic incident that occurred in April 2004 near the border of China, where a munitions train exploded, the amount of people who died were not reporte d, instead the North Korean press reported the consignment of the people towards their leader by saving his portraits before their beloved families.The deliver shown in Fig. 3, however, shows the devastation of such incident, provided by the World Food Program, where in that location were 150 people recorded dead and thousands were injured. (10 most censored countries, 2006). Many of the negative occurrences within the country are never revealed to the world, go forth its citizens at the mercy of their leader. Almost all of the top ten least free countries in terms of media liberty have the exact same problem in that their leaders isolate the country from the rest of the world to gain full control of their nation and to erase all threats that could potentially overthrow them.Freedom of the Press The Countries with the Most Freedom of the press and its conditions Shown in Fig. 4, in the 22 nations that were assessed by World Public Opinion, the country which had the most amount o f freedom of the media is the UK with 71%, voting for a lot, and 22% voted for some, followed by the USA with 66% who responded with a lot, while 26% voted for some. Both countries are very democratic countries and have very few or no internal conflict between ethnic groups and racial tension.The same pattern applies for the top ten countries with the most freedom of the media, from the data collected by Reporters without Borders, in the article Countries with the Least measuring rod of Press Freedom in the World. The nations which belonged to the bottom of that list has the highest press freedom and least government censorship, and those countries are Sweden, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Finland, Denmark and many more which are mostly from Europe and North America. Such results prove R. J.Rummels argument on his article, Freedom of the PressA Way to Global public security, that free media promotes democracy to be and accurate claim. Overall freedom within a agricultural The Mea surement of Overall Freedom? Pal, according to Bailey in the article, Peace and the Press Media Bolster Social Cohesion, has conducted an analysis of the correlation between press freedom and the seven measures of instability within a country. These instabilities were measured as ethnic tensions, external and internal conflicts, crime and disorder, military participation in government, and religious tensions.Such instabilities are described by Pal to only improve with the increase of liberty by the press, quoting Thomas Jeffersons wisdom, Were it left to me to ascertain whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. (Bailey, 2011). Those measures were close to the actual bar of a countrys overall freedom once compared to the essential report of Freedom in the World 2011 the Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy, create verbally and compiled by Arch Puddington.Thus, the overall freedo m of a country is measured based on these conditions whether or not there is an open political competition, respect for religion and civil rights from the government, how significant the independent civic life is, independence of media, and strength of the rule of law. Given these conditions, three broad categories are derived, Free, Partly Free, and Not Free, with the conditions given in the Box (Fig. 5). A country, as stated in Fig. should possess positive values of the conditions written there, which includes freedom of religion, political right of the people, and right of speech which can be include in the category of independent media. According to Puddingtons report, there are 87 countries which represent 45% of the worlds 194 countries that are considered as free. That consists of 43% of the worlds population. However, there are 47 countries that were categorized as not free, which represents 24% of the worlds countries.In total, the population stands at 2, 434, 250,000 peopl e or 35%, a move number despite the increase of democratic nations throughout the years. Overall freedom within a Country The Countries with the least amount of overall freedom Of the 24% of the World countries (47 nations) which are categorized as not free, there are nine which are absolutely the worst in terms of Overall Freedom. In relation to having the least amount of Press Freedom, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran and Burma are again amongst these countries categorized as the worst.The people are thought to have no political rights, no freedom of choice and civil liberties which include freedom of religion and many more. This further proves the importance of a liberal media, and why it is considered by many as the most important tool within a country to keep its peace. It is well reported that lack of freedom only haunts the Authoritarian nations and cultures. Most democratic nations are categorized as free countries, where the press is relatively free of restriction and all t he other measures of instabilities are low.Overall freedom within a Country The Countries with the most amount of overall freedom In Puddingtons review, he did not state the countries with the highest amount of overall freedom because of its lack of importance compared to the not free countries, in which his report focuses on. However, in the regional patterns shown in page 9 of his report (shown as fig. 6 below), the Americas and western sandwich Europe, which has the most democratic countries, has the most number of free nations. This is similar to the Countries with the Most Freedom, in page 10 of this research paper some(prenominal) regions also had the most liberty of media.Analysis Freedom in the world According to all the data collected in this research, Democratic Nations are the most free nations in the world in terms of all the conditions that were mentioned before. In the figures and charts taken from Puddingtons thorough review, which will be shown on the next few pages , it can be derived that Democracy is indeed the best policy and in relation to the data collected earlier in terms of Freedom of the press, most free nations, are democratic and have a high press freedom. Conclusion Both Sudehsna Pal and R. J.Rummel are right when they claim that press freedom is the key for democracy and peace. In the Country Breakdown by status, Not free countries are the last in terms of the number of nations within that category. However, it has the second largest population, shown in the population breakdown. In the Regional data, it is clear that the regions found to have the most freedom of the press, have the most overall freedom. It is very surprising that the countries that are not free, which have few political rights and civil liberties, have 35% of the worlds total population, whereas the countries which are free has 43%.Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between press freedom and overall freedom of a country. This shows the importance of a liberal press within a nation, because with no restrictions to report what is needed, the government could stay honest to its people to empty negative criticisms. It also allows the citizens to be well educated about what is going on within their country and can act upon their own to religious service the government resolve internal issues. References Countries with the least amount of Freedom in the World. (2009), http//www. blatantworld. om/feature/the_world/least_free_national_press_hypertext markup language. 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