Merrill, JC 2000, “Social Stability and Harmony: A New Mission for the Press?”, In Asian Journal of Communication, vol. 10. no.2, pp.33-52.
Today, there are two types of journalism paradigm. This is due to the expansion of its scope in media ethics. In this journal, Merrill provokes the reader old thoughts of the Western media by projecting its stability and harmony in replacing the social chaos. The journal highlights two factors to the Western media: Social Responsibility and Libertarian system. Both factors have its positive and negative aspects, which are produce ideal thoughts and threaten media ethics.
The Libertarian model is more popular in Western media than the Social Responsibility model, which invites critiques to the table. In the Libertarian system, it is rather different than the Authoritarian system (order). The information is not as limited and biases hence would serve the government interest. Although it is financially controlled, there are press freedom that is not constrained by the media ethics, society and government. On the contrary, the idea of Social Responsibility is to benefit the society. By doing so, the media pushed journalists to have an open debate on any issues that deliver the truth to the society. The model cannot encourage bias and unethical practices in return for the financial support. Also, without Social Responsibility, the Western media tends to limit the coverage of political issues and cover only the political candidates that can afford advertisements. Hence, for future media system, both Libertarian and Social Responsibility model are not applicable as societies are no longer dependent on mass media for information
