The social responsibility and the libertarian theories were formulated to establish what is supposed to be done and what is being done by the media, thus the media practice. These theories are mostly dependent on a country’s political system.
According to McQuail, “the theory of Social Responsibility involves the views of the media ownership as a form of public or stewardship rather than an unlimited private franchise”.
The Social Responsibility Theory and the Libertarian Theory both enable the media to express themselves freely. They both lay emphasis on on freedom of expression. The media are free to publish information for the public.
However, the Libertarian Theory is democracy and individual freedom based. It stresses on democracy, personal liberty and the freedom of expression of ideas with the only limitation being the ability to pay while the Social Responsibility Theory has the society in mind and does not publish any material to the disadvantage of the state. Thus governments should just not allow full freedom but it must actively promote it.
Furthermore, under the Social Responsibility Theory the media (which is state owned) is restricted in its expression of ideas by code of ethics set to govern the media whereas under the Libertarian Theory the media (which is private owned) is not restricted because it is private owned.
These two theories were formulated to help the media to be able to get the freedom they deserved to be able to carry out their functions of educating, informing and entertaining the pubic.
Reference
Mass communication, an introduction by McQuail
Journal article by Scott Lloyd; Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Vol. 6, 1991
NII QUARCOOPOME HANSEN-SACKEY
DCSA 2010058
