Sunday, January 18, 2009

Episode #10: Media and Democracy

The January broadcast of Reform Radio features one of three conversations with Ohio University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Algis Mickunas. Mickunas is world renowned for his scholarship on contemporary European philosophy, Marxism, phenomenology and hermeneutics. In this segment Mickunas discusses the relationship of the media and a healthy, functioning American democracy. Mickunas says that democracy requires an active, involved citizenry that keeps an eye on not only its elected representatives but its media as well. "If we don't participate, democracy is gone. Democracy doesn't grow on trees, doesn't sit in some sort of a brain cell," says Mickunas. Mickunas explains how and why citizens must be involved with their governments in order to legitimate them and keep them focused on the people's business and how media is intimately involved in the political process. He also outlines how media have neglected their roles as the constitutionally privileged, so-called "fourth estate."