The timelessly charming Joeseph Stalin put it succinctly. "Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"
The internet is turning that dictum on its head. People without guns are becoming armed with dangerous, non-state media approved ideas. Even in a relatively free society like America, it's become possible to bring down establishment information gatekeepers like Dan Rather. Or drop the hammer on actual leaders, like Drudge did on President Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Even our 'free media' wouldn't touch those stories out of editorial bias. Now they have to.
Back to the more civilized lands of Europe, I'd hazard a guess that this process is still in it's infancy compared to what we've done in America because Europeans are largely trusting of their governments and state media. Probably for cultural reasons, it's easy to overlook the significance of a resistance media. In less developed places like Egypt, Tunisa or Syria, a bit of internet counter-media information flow goes a long, long way to countering politically fragile dictatorships.
Englad is different, of course. Your mileage may vary. Er, kilometerage...?
Good points. People here are still very trusting of the media in general. Heck, most of us still read newspapers, rather than getting all our news from the limited selection on the rolling news channels or from the net.
Some of the reasons I hear bandied about a lot are:
“The BBC is independent” - the BBC is pretty famous for this. The fact that it is run by the government, for the government and funded by a direct tax on every household, seems to evade people’s notice.
“There is a newpaper for every political spectrum, so if you don’t like the Mail’s editorial policy, read the Guardian” - One of the most interesting things in recent years is the rise of “free” papers in the major cities, especially London. Just think about it - 7 million people a DAY reading your opinion and your slant on the current national and international situation at the most vulnerable time - when they are on their way to work and with their minds still fogged by sleep and the sheer discomfort of the public transport system.
We do have some resistance media - Private Eye, which hides serious investigative journalism behind a facade of lampooning politics, is probably the best known in the UK. I think some of each issue’s content is available on thier website - I wouldn’t know, I get my copy delivered!
The Big Issue, which is a news and current events magazine sold by the homeless to get them back into society, also used to have surprisingly good articles, though the quality has dropped recently.