Information is among the principal instruments of democratic participation. Participation without an understanding of the situation of the political community, the facts and the proposed solutions to problems is unthinkable. It is necessary to guarantee a real pluralism in this delicate area of social life, ensuring that there are many forms and instruments of information and communications. It is likewise necessary to facilitate conditions of equality in the possession and use of these instruments by means of appropriate laws. Among the obstacles that hinder the full exercise of the right to objectivity in information,847Cf. John XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS 55 (1963), 260. special attention must be given to the phenomenon of the news media being controlled by just a few people or groups. This has dangerous effects for the entire democratic system when this phenomenon is accompanied by ever closer ties between governmental activity and the financial and information establishments.
The media must be used to build up and sustain the human community in its different sectors: economic, political, cultural, educational and religious.848Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica, 3: AAS 56 (1964), 146; Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 45: AAS 68 (1976), 35-36; John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio, 37: AAS 83 (1991), 282-286; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Communio et Progressio, 126-134: AAS 63 (1971), 638-640; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Aetatis Novae, 11: AAS 84 (1992), 455-456; Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Advertising (22 February 1997), 4-8: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 16 April 1997, pp. I-II. “The information provided by the media is at the service of the common good. Society has a right to information based on truth, freedom, justice and solidarity”.849Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2494; cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Inter Mirifica, 11: AAS 56 (1964), 148-149. The essential question is whether the current information system is contributing to the betterment of the human person; that is, does it make people more spiritually mature, more aware of the dignity of their humanity, more responsible or more open to others, in particular to the neediest and the weakest. A further aspect of great importance is the requisite that new technologies respect legitimate cultural differences.
In the world of the media the intrinsic difficulties of communications are often exacerbated by ideology, the desire for profit and political control, rivalry and conflicts between groups, and other social evils. Moral values and principles apply also to the media. “The ethical dimension relates not just to the content of communication (the message) and the process of communication (how the communicating is done) but to fundamental structural and systemic issues, often involving large questions of policy bearing upon the distribution of sophisticated technology and product (who shall be information rich and who shall be information poor?)”.850Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 20, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, p. 22. In all three areas — the message, the process and structural issues — one fundamental moral principle always applies: the human person and the human community are the end and measure of the use of the media. A second principle is complementary to the first: the good of human beings cannot be attained independently of the common good of the community to which they belong.851Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 22, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, pp. 23-25. It is necessary that citizens participate in the decision-making process concerning media policies. This participation, which is to be public, has to be genuinely representative and not skewed in favour of special interest groups when the media are a money-making venture.852Cf. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Ethics in Communications (4 June 2000), 24, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City 2000, pp. 26-28. V. THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY AT THE SERVICE OF CIVIL SOCIETY