The media plays a valuable role in keeping us informed and entertained. However many people believe it has too much power and freedom. Discuss your view on this, giving examples and presenting a balanced argument both in favor of, and against, the power a

Media plays an important role in our society today. The echoes from the media is so strong because of the fact it is all around us, from the shows we watch on our television, the news we heard on radio, and also the magazines we read every day. However, the large power of the media sometimes leads to an authoritative use of it. As a result, opinions and views regarding media’s role and freedom in society are still questionable.

On one view, media should have as much as possible freedom due to its massive role on surveillance. In surveillance role, media acts as a catalyst for events and information to be fast delivered for people particularly something crucial such as disaster events, military attack, and economic crisis. Besides that, media also act as an eye of the government and political issues. Furthermore, if this role integrated with the fast-spreading news technology will be extremely beneficial for society, as what happened in 2004 tsunami strikes on Aceh and northern Sumatra and the recent 2014 Presidential Election.

Another view, media’s role and freedom should be limited to minimum as possible due to the involvements of third-party and conflict of interests, notably on political issues. 2014 Presidential Election is a very obvious case, two national media and its groups did negative campaigns on its counterpart candidates due to the conflict of interests. As a result of this, limitation of media should be considered.

To conclude, role and freedom of the media have positive and negative influences. In either case, media should be professional and neutral for the information they published and also to wider its roles in favor of society and people while still on the limit of the freedom.