Cunningham & Flew (2000) De-westernising Australia?: Media Systems and Cultural coordinates in: J. London and New York: Routledge, pp 237-248.
What evidence is there that the author(s) of your chosen reading are influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and/or modernism? As far as you can, link your response to themes developed by significant Enlightenment thinkers mentioned in this subject.
The Cunningham and Flew article, De-westernising Australia?, printed in 2000 is written from a post modern perspective, given the date of publication, and the continuing themes throughout the article also show a distinct influence of the Enlightenment thinking tradition. Characteristics of Enlightenment thinking evident in Cunningham and Flew's article include, power struggle, political economy, reason and individualism, and finally the structure or layout of the article.
Cunningham and Flew highlight a basic power struggle between people, the government and our media system which they recognize to have a "strong corporatist flavour" (Cunningham and Flew, 2000: 237). Continual references throughout this article are made to "Media moguls" (Cunningham and Flew, 2000: 237) within the Australian media industry, an element that is restated to further emphasise their perception of a lack of free thought resulting from a highly privatised media sector and an officious government. This emphasis can be closely linked with the enlightenment thinkers who placed huge importance on the freedom- of the press- relying on it to be the overseer of society, politics and the economy. They were however - as are Cunningham and Flew appear to be to a certain degree - naive in judging the ability of the media to fulfil this role (Keane, 1991:28-29), as they neglected to consider elements such as bias (relating to ownership problems and governmental relationships) and commercial influences during the implementation of this function.