Media as a threat to democracy? The Influence of media on politics and public sphere

The most important factor for the right functioning of democracy is the existence of independent public sphere, which should create critical public opinion as a base for policy making. Nowadays, however, is the independence of public sphere still weak. Media play an important and rising role in this situation. They changed their position from pure mediators of informations to the main actors of social and political life. Media now represent lucrative business and their owners therefor aim for maximising of the profit. This development is associated with bulvarisation of media and loss of their critical role in society. It also influences the politics, which adapt itself in order to gain public popularity. At the same time, the politics try to manipulate media thanks to specialist on public relations or other experts on political marketing. Classical democratic triangle - society, political parties and media was replaced by new power scheme, which includes experts, media and populists political strategists, which create the public opinion instead of citizens. Society can have democratic institutions, but the culture and the way of functioning doesn't have to be democratic in all cases. The aim of this paper is therefor to describe the factors, which can spoil the relation between citizens and their political..