Diana R. The role of mass-media in securing the civil rights and freedoms in a democratic society

Dissertation is devoted to the research of the role of mass-media in securing the civil rights and freedoms in a democratic society. The author discovers mechanisms of securing political rights and freedoms of citizens through the mass-media and the influence of interaction between journalism and political fields on the problem of securing of political rights and freedoms. The author uses integrated methods of mass-media research and their correlation with political system. In the first place the work is centered on the role and place of mass-media in relation to civil society and jural state as a constituent of democracy. Research discovers new opportunities of mass-media in democratic conditions as well as risque which appears in the process of mass-media activity. The main attention is drawn to the political journalism and its place in securing of political rights and freedoms of citizens. The analysis includes major tendencies of political journalism development in the world and in Ukraine for thepast ten years of the twentieth century. The author has examined relations of political journalism to the similar social sciences, has offered a periodization of development of political journalism in Ukraine since 1990 to 2000, and systematized data on the development of the freedom of speech in Ukraine and in this sphere during the above mentioned period.