Media Censorship
Compare and contrast on the media censorship in Cuba and Eritrea
The media can influence the society as it helps to provide the facts of an event and the necessary information that can be useful for a person. The media can also provide the political agenda of the government and attach the people with the overall country and can thing good or bad for it.
On the other hand, the media also provides information and security system of a country to the terrorists that can be harmful to the people (Casilli and Tubaro, 2012).
Most of the time, it is determined that media provides the completely censored information like terrorism and sex related data that can affect the mind of the children and teenagers.
The censorship of the media can protect children by removing the bed ideas or sexual topics that can affect the mind of children. Sometimes media spreads the wrong information that makes it hard for the people to understand the facts.
The media censorship is suppression of some information and images that are harmful, sensitive and objectionable for the public or any community (Dimitrov, 2017). Cuba and Eritrea have prohibition on the media to protect the individual who is arrested for the crime.
Additionally, they also avoid the graphic details and images related to the sexual depravity or any heinous act of violence. Cuba and Eritrea are also highly restricted for the private media because they can break the security information system of the country.
The media censorship is developed in some countries in the name of stability and development of the country. In the words of Tai (2014), Cuba and Eritrea are the media censored countries where the private press is mostly restricted by the government.
In 2001, President Isaias Afewerki has provided a successful campaign in Eritrea that crashed the independent journalism by arresting the journalist. The government restricts both the print media and internet media to censor the harmful and objectionable information for the nation.
Cuba has a censorship on the establishment of a free press and it has a great attention on the censorship of internet access by providing limited access to the internet (Hetherington and Suhay, 2011). Both Cuba and Eritrea provide the limited access to the internet to the citizens by the high control.
The communist party of Cuba has a right to seize a news outlet for any reason and they can also stop publication for any reason in the news outlets. All the publications are governed by the state government print media as there are no private media (Baker, 2011).
Cuba has an essential monopoly on the media like print, broadcast and internet media. As well as, the government of Eritrea has also restricted the freedom of media. There is no rule in the constitution of Eritrea that the private media cannot publish any publications but the private media has a fear to be sentenced so that they do not publish.
The constitution provides the freedom of speech or press but these rights are ignored in these types of countries. Additionally, in Eritrea, all the internet service providers have to use a gateway that is controlled by the government (Zuckerman, 2010).
Cuba has a prohibitive environment for the media because the government suppresses the independent journalism to secure the country’s information and ensure the individual security. The country censorship protects the privacy of an individual, avoids the objectionable graphic details and images.
In Cuba, the print and broadcast media are organized according to the constitution and it provides the freedom to the press but clearly prohibits to the mass media for the private ownership.
The independent journalists and bloggers can use the internet for the media because most of the Cubans do not use the internet but they are also prohibited for the sensitive or harmful news or information (Dye et al., 2016).
The government provides only two daily newspapers in Cuba first Granma and Juventud Rebelde. The public has a freedom of the sharing their opinions by the public speech.
In Eritrea, the only state government has permission to disseminate the news in the state. It is heavily censored state for the press and public and they have fear of arresting on any wrong news or leak information outside the country.
The media has freedom of telecast the news but in any case, the news should not leak outside the country otherwise the journalist can be jailed. Eritrea is the state of the Africa that has most suspended private media and their many journalists are in jail. None of the journalists, who were arrested, are taken to the court.
So, the private media has a fear of arrest and there is no any private media (Casilli and Tubaro, 2012). The public can use the internet media for the online news but there is a high control on the online access because the only single company provides the mobile and internet connection in the country.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Eritrea and Cuba have high censorship on the media. It impacts the public because they have a right of free speech in the constitution.
The high implication of strictly censored media removes the freedom of the citizens. There are some benefits of censored media in both the countries but it should not affect the freedom of the people. It is also concluded that Eritrea allows the private media but the public has a fear of jail in any leak of information outside the country or mistake in the media presentation.
But in the concern of Cuba, the private media is fully prohibited by the government. The news and other media are provided by the state government having control on the internet service also.
Baker, G. (2011) Cuba Rebelión: underground music in Havana. Latin American Music Review, 32(1), pp.1-38.
Casilli, A.A. and Tubaro, P. (2012) Social media censorship in times of political unrest-a social simulation experiment with the uk riots. Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique, 115(1), pp.5-20.
Dimitrov, M.K. (2017) The Political Logic of Media Control in China. Problems of Post-Communism, 64(3-4), pp.121-127.
Dye, M., Antón, A. and Bruckman, A.S. (2016) Early Adopters of the Internet and Social Media in Cuba. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing(pp. 1295-1309). ACM.
Hetherington, M. and Suhay, E. (2011) Authoritarianism, threat, and Americans’ support for the war on terror. American Journal of Political Science, 55(3), pp.546-560.
Tai, Q. (2014) China’s media censorship: A dynamic and diversified regime. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14(2), pp.185-210.
Zuckerman, E. (2010) Intermediary censorship. Access controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. Ed. by Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachuset
