Role of media in promoting global, national governance

Promoting effective governance

Governance today is facing a myriad challenges, which are influencing the landscape of global business, operation of businesses and are continuing to impact the resilience and profitability of enterprises and entrepreneurs. The changes in global governance are also disrupting global value chains and supply chains. Changes in global governance are further causing fragmentation in the business sector and promoting a multipolar world. In the midst of all these global governance challenges is the role of the media in promoting effective global governance.

Governance, be it global, regional, national or institutional refers to a system of how institutions conduct their business, the rules, laws and regulations that govern their operations as well as how they manage their internal affairs. Governance extends to levels and character of cooperation and relations between countries, states, companies, stakeholders and non-state actors. It refers to guidelines and standards about how agreements that are drawn and implemented as well as the maintenance of relations resulting from those agreements. The same characteristics apply to national and institutional levels, what matters being the level and manner in which they are applied.

Agenda-setting role of information

A basic function of the media is to provide information to members of society on what happens in their immediate and distant environments. It does this by researching and gathering information that citizens do not know about in their immediate and distant environments, but which affect their lives.

The old adage goes that: ‘information is power’, which denotes the preeminence of information for informed decision-making processes, leading to making choices about their lives. Possession of relevant and up-to-date information is a bedrock for effective decision-making and making right choices about one’s life. The inverse is also true about lack of relevant information or ignorance, which impact the process of effective decision-making and choice-making.

Greater emphasis is placed on the relevance and updated information because citizens are living in days where they are exposed to varieties of information, including those that they do not need for their decision-making and making choices. Therefore, the expanded role of the media from information dissemination to society is that of influencing their decision-making processes by setting the agenda for what they need to do and not to do.

Though final choices lie with the citizens, the media provides them with the information to influence their decision-making so that it is accurate, based on verified information.

Citizens need to participate in ongoing policy discourses regarding how they are governed. They need to know the existing policy direction set by those they elected to power. There are discourses for instance, climate change, human rights and freedoms, social justice, economic growth initiatives of their government, state of service delivery and elections. Citizens are likely to participate effectively in the mentioned and other discourses when they are well-informed about them, the state in which they are and also the gray areas in these discourses. This information is provided by the media through news reports, analyses and insights.

The media does not only end at providing information on these discourses, but goes further to shape to set the agenda by prioritizing those issues within these discourses that they need to pay attention to. This the media does after critical assessment and investigation, presenting a variety of options for citizens from which to choose.

As far as governance is concerned, being equipped with relevant information is of essence for citizens to engage meaningfully in ongoing discourses and making their own choices. For example, micro, small and medium entrepreneurs will be able to make informed choices about business ventures or investment options when they have relevant and up-to-date information the global value and supply chains where they get their raw materials when they have the latest versions.

It is when MSMEs are furnished with trends and effects of the import tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration that they will make effective decisions about where to focus regarding exporting.