Includes bibliographical references and index.

Myth of ‘Free Media’ and Fake News in the Post-truth Era reveals the story of ‘fake news’ hysteria and myth of ‘free media’ in the post-truth world order, starting from the question of whether there has really been a ‘truth’ era. The book examines how the news media is battling for relevance in the age of Internet. It shows how the wave of media ‘liberalization’ has weakened the basic premise of Libertarian Media Function Theory, which states that the media is the ‘Fourth Estate’ that protects the citizens from abuse of power by the government. It analyses how excessive commercialization of the media and the commodification of news has changed journalism globally. The book recommends a new paradigm and explains how it can be used to transform news reporting from an adversarial model to a human-centric one.