Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: Is the Commercial Mass Media Necessary, or Even Desirable, for Liberal
  Democracy?   Is a commercial mass media, dependent on the market for its sustenance,
necessary, or even desirable, for liberal democracy? Yochai Benkler has argued
that a decentralized, peer-to-peer system of communications and information is
both possible with digital technology and preferable to a system based on
commercial mass media. He has contended in fact that the presence of
politically powerful, copyright-rich mass media imposes significant barriers to
the development of peer-to-peer information-sharing networks. In contrast, I
have argued that the commercial mass media play an important, and perhaps even
vital, role in liberal democracy by galvanizing public opinion, serving as a
watchdog against government and corporate wrongdoing, agenda-setting (which
enables public discourse), and serving as a relatively trustworthy source of
information. This paper seeks to push the ball forward on this issue. It first
isolates and enumerates the contributions that the commercial mass media are
said to make towards liberal democracy. It then briefly assesses the extent to
which the commercial mass media actually fulfills these constitutive functions.
It then asks whether alternative institutions might serve some or all of these
functions just as well or better. In so doing, it looks both to the past and
the future. First, it examines the political party-supported press that thrived
in the United States through much of the 19th century. Second, it examines
government-funded mass media. Third, it looks, skeptically, at possibilities
for peer-to-peer sharing of information and opinion in the digital network
environment. I conclude that, despite the weaknesses of commercial mass media,
an information policy suitable to liberal democracy should include a plurality
of types of voices, including commercial mass media.

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The categories of this paper are: funct-an
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The categories of this paper are: q-bio
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The categories of this paper are: hep-ph
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The categories of this paper are: quant-ph
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The categories of this paper are: q-alg
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The categories of this paper are: econ
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The categories of this paper are: stat
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The categories of this paper are: plasm-ph
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The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
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The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
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The categories of this paper are: supr-con
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The categories of this paper are: eess
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The categories of this paper are: math-ph
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The categories of this paper are: alg-geom
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The categories of this paper are: cmp-lg
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The categories of this paper are: nlin