Definitely, all media are owned by some sort of people, used by people and meant for people. However the issue is with all the people owning them and using them, who manages them and who directs them as to what is news? There are many state-owned media organisations which are not owned by the people. Therefore which people are we talking about and how effectively the people can indeed own the media.

Today's mass media have become professional not only in its services but also in market sectors. In the third world political systems where most of mass media are anti-poor, pro-rich and important organ of caricatured democracies. Corporatisation of mass media by the elites and capitalist forces. For example, nowadays, Indian mass media gives more time and space to activities of celebraties and elites, Abhitap Bachchan's involvement in CWG-London and Hanna Hazare's Team's anti-corruption movements are taking unnecessary publicity while Assam and Manesar Maruti-Suzuki's Plant. In brief, media is best source-activity of money making than serving to poor.

are any colleagues interested in producing a joint article/book on this topic? The points raised here are very interesting and I think we could move further to produce something out of this.

How do you define "positively"? And what will be your sampling framework if you made a content analysis?

My view (for now, not definition) is how democratic governance and accountability has advanced in countries where 'democratic practice' had been alien, especially most of the African and Latin American countries where military dictatorships were the order of the day. Are we seeing changes in this as a result of the work of the media?

By the way, Haiyang, this is the reason I wish I could join hands with people like you and others to expand research on this topic

In my opinion, the media to a large extent have influenced global politics and indeed democracy positively. That is not to say that there are no bad sides of the media. In Nigeria and indeed Africa for instance, it is known fact that most media centers are owned by individuals or groups who would always present a view point that does not seem to favor other political sectors. However, the proliferation and multiplicity of the media industry have offered politicians choices of getting to attached to one in order to present their case to the public in a favorable way. In the same way, it has offered the public opportunity to scrutinize the varied information on certain political issues and take a stand. The result of such stands is what we are witnessing in Egypt and other parts of the world. To cut it short, the media have serve as a matching check-box to bad governance and other political practises that are inimical to the progress of a state which initially were hidden from the public. In Nigeria, most media reports are conflicting but on the other hand, they offer the public different perspectives and opportunities for analyzing the truth about certain.

The positive influence of the media is more a thesis of potential than reality. There can be no doubt of the potential positive influence that mass media could have on global democracy and society as a whole. The issue is that there is a wide gap between potential and actual performance. The media has an almost unprecedented potential to inform, especially in this connected world. However like all other systems within society, potential can be and is, deteriorated when bias and external agendas override the pure presentation of fact and become a pulpit for the ideology of the news organizations controlling agenda.

The media can be credited with presenting a generation of citizens with the ideology of democracy. Many of which who would never have had such a political system presented to them. Unfortunately, that ideology is tainted by the bias, through the presentation by the news agency. There is much to be said regarding debating the different internal ideologies of democracy, and that debate should be presented and become part of the discourse. However that debate should be presented in the same unbiased manner as the facts themselves. In this area mass media fails and thereby squanders their potential.

I am too interested in this topic and want to help if someone media expertise leads the editing and compilation of work...