Access to mass communication is a basic necessity in any democracy. People have to be able to inform themselves about current political topics if they are to ta

Access to mass communication is a basic necessity in any democracy. People have to be able to inform themselves about current political topics if they are to take informed decisions. As such all that’s needed to access that information is not a luxury item. I agree that nowadays it’s possible to inform oneself equally well if one can access the internet (and a newspaper subscription was always a possible substitute), but I think it would be wrong to privilege certain forms of access to information, not the least because certain forms of accessing information might be harder or easier to use for certain groups of people. Consequently privileging, say, internet access would potentially exclude certain people from the political process. Mass media plays a central and important role in the democracy of any larger democracy. Its existence is vital and as many people as possible should have access to it.