societies would remain in the darkness of ignorance. Moreover, a free press and democracy are complementary to each other. The media helps to preserve and promote democracy by safeguarding the independence of its institutions and ensuring their accountability as well as by facilitating the communication of ideas and policies. A free press performs three essential features for a democracy: a “watchdog” role, the provision of knowledge and information, and the facilitation of public discussion (Baker 2003). The press must be able to expose failures of and abuses by government and government officials–with this capacity providing probably the greatest democratic safeguard against both malfeasance and misfeasance by government (Blasi, 1977). Democratic development absolutely depends on the press being permitted to perform this “checking” function effectively; the aim of preventing the press playing this role may be the single biggest reason for governments’ censoring the press or abridging its freedom. The acts of omission and commission, of corruption, waste, inefficiency and negligence on the part of the authorities, can be exposed by it. Through investigative journalism, scams and scandals can be unearthed, anti-social activities exposed and implementation of the policies and programmes monitored and pursued. It is the accountability of those in power that distinguishes democracy from other political systems, and to the extent that the press acts as an instrument to ensure day-to-day accountability, it helps to make democracy real and effective. Of course, as stated, this condition sounds so ideal that in reality even the most democratic country will not fully live up to it. Further, advocates of a free press always feel that government has a tendency to manipulate the media and cannot be trusted because of the power it holds. However, a free press does not mean free only from the Freedom of The Press in The Public Sphere overt restrictions of the government, which is a narrow conception of the freedom of the press, but also from other overt and covert influences; externally (i.e. from foreign powers and ownerships) and internally (i.e. the ownership of individuals who are close to the government and editorial censorship). The legitimate influence to the press is when the press is openly allowed diverse opinions from diverse sources to be debated and discuss as long as the opinions are not to be used to trigger disharmony situation. The illegitimate influence to the press is surely when all or almost all the media
the term can also imply the combination of two functions, or the interaction of two firms, where one is a producer and the other a distributor. Describing the phenomenon, Tomaselli and Dunn (2001:1) note that: Convergence is the current buzzword in telecommunications studies. It is the term applied to the standardization of transmission systems, while digitalization is the common factor in transmitting technologies. This occurs through computerization, which brings together print and electronic media channels. This is the period during which productive forces have shifted from an industrial to an information-based economy. The potential reach or technology in this epoch is global and trans-disciplinary (Tomaselli, and Dunn, 2001:1). Sentech exemplifies the concept of convergence in two ways: its diversification from providing broadcast signal distribution alone to providing a variety of services, including Internet provision; and its capacity to service SABC together with competing broadcasting stations after its formal separation from SABC. The concept of convergence focuses on technological changes, “the so-called digital convergence” (: 2000). It results in creation of different genre. Convergence has led to new methods of media production and access, demanding new computer-related skills from media workers. Technologically, convergence denotes greater overlap between broadcasting and older media forms such as newspapers. For example, more homes are now linked into the advanced high capacity communication networks and, through these, are able to receive a range of multimedia, interactive and other ‘new’ media communication services as well as conventional television and telephony (Doyle, 2000b: 3). Digital technologies that first affected convergence in the media, information technology (IT) and telecommunications sectors went on to trigger further convergence in a growing range of communicating consumer electronics devices (: 2000). 6.5 Digitalization of Technologies Digitalization is “the reduction of pieces of information to the form of digits in a binary code consisting of and ones” (Doyle, 2002b: 3). Digital technology is an important element in the dissemination of