What is the role of the media in a democratic country? What distinguishes democratic communication from communication in a dictatorial state? With regard to dictatorship, the answer is simple: the role of the media in dictatorship is to convey the will of the ruler to the subjects. New dictatorial states deal with reports on agricultural crops in remote colonies, promotional photographs from a new tractor factory, broadcasts of military parades, and, of course, fake nostalgia films.
Broadcasts from dictatorial countries make us laugh. Those who are not aware of the genre are invited to search YouTube for broadcasts from North Korea. But as ridiculous as television and radio broadcasts in the Soviet Union at the time or in Russia or North Korea or Iran as they may seem, internally they are particularly effective.
It is not for nothing that on the front lines of the war in the USSR were radio stations such as the Voice of Free Europe and the Voice of America. The way to break the Communist Party's monopoly on the minds of Soviet subjects was through small AM shelters. My mother told me years ago about her childhood in the Soviet Union, how they clung to the radio receivers during the Six-Day War to get some good news about the great victory of the little Jews over their enemies surrounding them. Had it not been for Voice of Europe radio in Russian, she and her Jewish friends would surely have been forced to believe Soviet state propaganda. Without free radio from the West, the underground Zionist movement in the USSR would not have arisen and strengthened, and I would not be here with you.
Therefore, the role of the media in a democratic state is not to broadcast the will of the ruler to the subjects, but to convey to elected officials the wishes of the voters. While Soviet radio and television broadcast the (fake) wheat production to the subjects, Europe's free radio broadcast the clear message to the rulers of the Soviet Union: Let my people go.
Radio and television in Israel were established by Ben-Gurion on the Soviet model: Abba Eban speaks at the United Nations, a cow born on Kibbutz Ma'ale Gira, and a textile factory in Sderot was declared the most efficient in the world. Without criticism, investigation or competition, and especially without the voice of the people. With the upheaval and the beginning of democratization in 1977, there was no process of competition and fairness in the Israeli media. Although competing channels were created in the early 90s, they were subordinate to officials at broadcasting councils, and news broadcasts remained heavily regulated. National radio remained under the control of officials in IDF Radio and the Israel Broadcasting Authority. 46 years since the revolution, the people receive free media on only one channel and one regional radio station, and these too are attacked daily by officials, politruks and activists.
We see the damage caused by the media cartel that has been created in the discourse on the reform, in which the mobilized media refuses to confront the representatives of the sides with facts, refuses to ask questions and create discourse, and only chases ratings in the form of pictures of demonstrations and shouting commentators.
The situation in Israel is unparalleled in the democratic world. In the Media Freedom Index, Israel ranks dozens of places below countries such as Poland or Hungary. This is where Karai's important reform comes in, which reduces regulation, stops interference in content, the need for licenses, stipulations and excess costs in Idan + broadcasts, adopts new technologies, and opens archives for free use and national radio broadcasts to competition.
Opening the media to competition is, in fact, democratizing it. What democratic countries around the world did decades ago, and dictatorial countries will never do, will be done in Israel.
Democracy is the opposite of censorship and official control of content, does not require licenses to broadcast news, and does not impose obedience obligations on journalists. Democracy breaks down media and news cartels. If the people shouting D-M-O-K-R-T-I-H were true to their messages, they would welcome the media reform, not oppose it.
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