Media policy and constitutional principles attempt to allay fears about and serve hopes concerning the mass media. Each theory of democracy, with its thematic assignment of duties to the press, generates its own set of fears about how the media might fail. Thus, not surprisingly, each normative democratic theory has different implications for media policy. Of course, because some theories do not repudiate but rather add to other theories' assignments, neither fears nor responsive policies will always be unique to a specific theory. For example, although participatory democratic theories add citizen mobilization to the media's assignments, these theories share elitist democracy's fear that the press will be prevented from checking or otherwise unable to check government malfeasance or misfeasance. This chapter describes each democratic theory's fears about media performance and suggests potential policy responses.

First, a preliminary matter should be noted that could have implications for media policy. Do democratic media have any reason seriously to fear anything other than government? If not, maybe the government's media policy itself is the only real threat. The best principle might be simply: “Government, hands off!” Of course, fears necessarily reflect both factual assumptions and values. Factually, normal market processes may create precisely the press that democracy needs. But this depends in part on what democracy needs – the value issue. For example, if democratic institutions ought to be whatever people want them to be and if markets automatically respond to (or, better, reflect) people's wishes, then the “hands off” conclusion could follow.