Institutional Challenges for Sustaining Mass Media Autonomy in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Mass media is one of the strong channels, which provides information in order to make the public informed of socio-cultural and politico-economic changes at local as well as international arenas. People become awareness and grasp the correct information through the mass media. Like the legislature, executive and judiciary play a very important role as methodical institutions to conduct the government in any country; it is not very simple service, which the mass media provides as an informal institution. Anyhow the mass media performs a very important task to organize the people's opinion. Mass media is the main channel to provide information to the public. Mass media has become the main method, which expose the errors that happen in the country. Because of these exposures, the influences aimed towards the tnass media are supreme. While the influence made to the mass media can be categorized as political and institutional, the political influence can be recognized very easily in the modern social process but it has been very difficult to recognize the influence made as institutional. Therefore, as the poser of this research, the matter of what are the institutional challenges, which influence for the mass media autonomy in Sri Lanka? was considered and conducted researches and as the main objective of this research was to inspect the institutional disturbances which are available for the mass media in Sri Lanka and as the sub-objective, recognize the operation of mass media in Sri Lanka and inspect the attitude towards the mass media by the government, can be indicated. Primary and secondary data was used for the performance of this research and as the boundaries of these research limitations by assignment, accuracy when obtaining information under the primary sources and had to face the problems such as loyalty. As the result of this research, making influences to newspaper journalists and reporters by owners of mass media and newspaper editors, and accordingly as the conclusion of this research of the mass media is a conception and it is a situation, which can be seen in the country. When a newspaper is also considered the discretion of the said editor of that newspaper has to be taken in to account. And that editor has to take the discretions of the owners of that institute and heads of the management into account. Because of these limitations avail inside the institute, the availing autonomy for the mass media has been blocked. This can be indicated that the said situation has been directly influenced the existence in a democratic society.