THEORIES OF THE PRESS AND THEIR RELEVANCE TO FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

The Universal declaration of Human Rights states: 'everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression'. The rights include freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and import information and ideas through any media regardless of any frontier.

Thus, this declaration is the fulcrum on which foreign correspondence is based. This arises a need for elite Press Corps at the international scene to fulfill certain functions related to the universal declaration of Human Rights.

Normative theories were first proposed by Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm in their book called, "Four Theories of the Press". A normative theory describes an ideal way for a media system to be controlled and operated by the government authority, leaders and public. These theories are basically different from other communication theories because normative theories of press never provided any significant explanation or prediction. These theories are more focused in the relationship between, press and the government than press and audience. They are more concerned about the ownership, funding of the media and who controls the press or media in the country.

This write-up however, seeks to state the six theories of the press and their relevance to foreign correspondence.

AUTHORITARIAN THEORY
This theory describes that all authorities have all rights to permit any media and make certain censorship. If any media violate the government policies against license and revoke it. Here, the journalist or any media person should not have any right to comment or discriminate or stand against the government.
In order to gain full license to operate in a given foreign country, the media organization or correspondent would endeavor to avoid delving into sensitive areas that would lead to criticism by the authorities.
LIBERTARIAN THEORY
This theory originally came from liberation thoughts from the 16th century in Europe. Liberalism means information is knowledge and knowledge is power. Libertarianism is free from every authority or any control or censorship. Libertarianism is an idea of individualism and limited government which is not harmful to another.
The theory sees people as rational beings with rational thoughts that leads them to find out what is good and bad. Freedom of Press will give more freedom to media to reveal things happening in the society without censorship or any authority blockades.
In this theory, individuals are free to run media institutions. Hence, censorship is based on good conscience, and this will enable the correspondent to effectively discharge his duties efficiently.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THEORY
Social responsibility theory allows free Press without any censorship but at the same time the content of the press should be discussed in public panel and media should accept any obligation from public interference or professional self-regulations or both. This theory lies between both authoritarian theory and libertarian theory, because it gives total media freedom in one hand but the external control on the other hand.
It moves beyond the simple "objective" reporting (fact reporting) to "interpretative" reporting (investigative reporting).
SOVIET MEDIA THEORY
Soviet media theory is imitative of the Leninist principles which is based on the Karl Marx and Engels ideology. Here, the government controls or undertakes the total media and communication to save the working classes and their interest.
The state has absolute power to control any media from the benefits of the people. They put an end to private ownership of the Press and other media. The government media provides positive thoughts to create a strong socialized society as well as providing information, education etc.
DEVELOPMENT MEDIA THEORY
This theory canvases media support for an existing government and its efforts to bring about socio-economic development. It argues that until a nation is well established and its economic development all underway, media must be supportive rather than critical of government, hence; assist them in implementing their policies. As the name implies, the theory relates the media in Third World countries. It favors journalism that seeks out good news, requires that bad stories are treated with caution for such stories will be damaging economically to a nation in a delicate throes of growth and change.

The media is seen to fulfill particular social and political duties hence media freedom should be subordinated to national integration, Socio economic modernization, promotion of literacy and cultural creativity. Development media theory seeks to accentuate the positive; it nurtures the autonomy of the emphasis to indigenous cultures.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPANT THEORY
This represents the sort of media purpose the idealist dreams of, it is one which any healthy democracy should regard as a goal. This theory challenges reigning theories and offers a positive strategy towards the achievement of new forms of media institutions. This story also stands for defense against commercialization and monopoly while at the same time being a resistance of bureaucracy of public media institutions. This model emphasizes the role of the receiver in the communication process and integrates the receiver's rights to relevant information to be heard as well as to hear and be shown. Media existence should be proved in respect of the interests and needs of the recipients and shouldn't be justified in respect of interest and needs of the media entity.

RELEVANCE OF THESE THEORIES TO A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
A fair knowledge of these theories would help the correspondent to understand the guiding principles behind the media system of host country. Such guiding principles includes control of the Press, ownership of a medium, the method of financing, the programming policies, feedback mechanism etc.

These theories also serve as framework to operate effectively as a foreign correspondent. It also explains the distinction in the professional ethics from country to country and relates these distinctions to the world's media ethics.
These theories are operant in different nations across the world, the foreign correspondent would have to carry out researches to ascertain which theory is operant in a given host nation, this will aid correspondent in productivity.
A grounded knowledge of this theory will give the correspondent an edge over contemporaries.

REFERENCES
Udofia (1987) Handbook For African Journalists
Abak Tibia Publishers

Herbert (1976) The Techniques of Radio Journalism
London: Adam and Charles Black

News Agencies Of Nigeria (1992) NAN Stylebook.
Lagos; News Agency of Nigeria.

UPVOTE, FOLLOW AND RESTEEM
Thank you for reading.