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Media and Good Governance: The Way Forward

by Fackson Banda, SAB-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy, Rhodes University, South Africa

 

I want to start by expressing my thanks to the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) for according me this opportunity to address their 27th General Conference here in the Bahamas. The subject of my presentation – Media and Good Governance: the Way Forward – seems relatively straightforward. There certainly exists a positive correlation between good media and good governance. But it is just as difficult to quantify good governance as it is to measure good media, given the differing cultural environments within which both concepts manifest themselves.

 This observation notwithstanding, I am conscious that I am addressing a gathering of members of the CBA, whose origins have something to do with the cultural heritage of British colonialism. It is conceivable, therefore, that our understandings of these concepts may be coloured by this heritage. After all, the concept of good governance, which ascended into prominence from the 1980s to the 1990s, was embedded in the politics of international aid, resulting in its prescription as a conditionality for aid-recipient countries.When we speak of good governance therefore, we are cognisant of its historical encasing.

 I cannot stretch this argument any more than this. For I realise, also, that the post-colonies are embroiled in their own politics, deconstructing imperial definitions of media and society and reconstructing new ones. In some instances, such reconstruction is proving a little more successful than in other instances. For example, the reconstruction of South African public service broadcasting along lines of ‘national building’ and healing ‘the divisions of the past’is fundamentally different from the reconstruction of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) along lines that reinforce political monotheism and constrain journalistic autonomy. 

 Given these conceptual problems, it is perhaps advisable to start by posing the question: What media and what good governance? This question assumes that there is a problem with the way contemporary media tend to operate. It also assumes that there is a problem with the type of good governance often idealised. To me, the meaning of good governance is summed up in Benjamin R. Barber’s ‘strong democracy’. To quote Barber at length:

 Strong democracy urges that we take ourselves seriously as citizens. Not merely as voters, certainly not solely as clients or wards of government. Citizens are governors: self-governors, communal governors, masters of their own fates. They need not participate all of the time in all public affairs, but they should participate at least some of the time in at least some public affairs. Watchdogs, voters, clients—these are inadequate conceptions of the democratic citizen…Effective democracies need great citizens. We are free only as we are citizens, and our liberty and our equality are only as durable as our citizenship. We may be born free, but we die free only when we work at it in the interval between. And citizens are certainly not born, but made as a consequence of civic education and political engagement in a free polity.

 Viewed in terms of strong democracy’s emphasis on engaged citizenship, good governance should refer to those formal and informal, institutional and non-institutional arrangements which guarantee the active participation of citizens in the political community. Barber seems to characterise this type of civic engagement in terms of the paraphrased concepts of (i) participatory action, (ii) public or community creation, (iii) necessity or inevitability of conflict; (iv) deliberative and autonomous choice; (v) contextual reasonableness; (vi) transformation of conflict into cooperation; and (vii) independent deliberation and reflection.I will not elaborate upon these concepts.

 It is clear, then, that the public manifestation of good governance is centred in the citizen. In other words, strong-democratic good governance becomes operational through citizenship. The best measure of how democratic a political community is lies in the extent to which it inspires the citizen to participate in the civic life of the community. Under the principle of popular sovereignty, citizens collectively occupy the supreme office of democracy and hold its ultimate authority. This ultimate authority includes not only final decision-making power over who holds political office, but also the power to make and reconsider political choices.

 As such, citizenship is more than a legal status; it is an ethos that guides relationships among persons and fires individual and community commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy and good governance.

 Clearly, to realise this ideal of good governance, some demands must be made of the media. As I observed at the 2007 World Association of Newspapers (WAN) Congress, it is evident that most media practice is caught between what I characterise as ‘the hammer of the state and the anvil of the market’. 

 The ‘hammer of the state’ in the post-postcolonial societies endures in at least three ways: (i) the archaic policy and legal regime; (ii) the absence of enabling legislation; and (iii) the extra-legal manoeuvres of the state.

 To take the first point: In most parts of the postcolonial Commonwealth, there is still in place an archaic constitutional and legal regime, inherited from the colonial powers, which seems to limit media freedom further. In Botswana, the Public Service Act prohibits public servants from disclosing the contents of any document, communication or information in the course of their duties unless authorised. In Malawi, the Official Secrets Act remains in office, ‘gagging’ public servants and rendering journalism risky. In Zambia, there are several pieces of legislation that militate against media freedom; among these are the Official Secrets Act, the Public Order Act, and the Penal Code. In Zimbabwe, things are even worse, with the enactment in 2002 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which classifies certain categories of information held by government departments, statutory bodies and government agencies. It also requires that journalists register with the Media and Information Commission.

 Even where constitutions have been amended to reflect the post-1990 liberal dispensation now extant in most sub-Saharan African countries, the constitutional guarantees of media freedom are subject to such ‘claw-back clauses’ as ‘national security’, ‘public health’, ‘public morality’, ‘personal privacy’, etc.

 In several other countries – Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Malawi, etc. – state broadcasting systems continue to remain largely in the service of ruling or monarchic elites. Although Malawi has set up the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), effective control of state broadcasting lies with the President as he is vested with the power to appoint and disappoint the board. In Zambia, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services is the final appointing authority for the boards of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), effectively perpetuating the state-centred media regulatory regime.

 With regard to the second point – the absence of enabling legislation – efforts by most governments to legislate a freedom of information law have largely failed. The mere absence of enabling legislation can be a form of negative media regulation. The unwillingness by most African governments, with the exception of South Africa, to legislate a freedom of access law is, in part, a function of the US Patriot Act, which many African governments are using to justify their reluctance to legislate in favour of access to public information.

 Even in South Africa, some old legislation inherited from the apartheid era remains in place, at least as of 2005. These laws restrict reporting on police and military activities, and may also be used to force reporters to reveal the identity of their sources. They include: (i) the Criminal Procedure Act  of 1977; (ii) the Defence Act of 1957; (iii) the Armaments Development and Petroleum Act of 1968; and (iv) Control of Access to Public Premises and Vehicles Act of 1985.

 In relation to the third point – the deployment of extra-legal tactics – some African states continue to employ a variety of political strategies and manoeuvres to cripple private media, such as withdrawal of state advertising from such media, harassment of reporters through ruling party cadres and state police, tax on the means of media production (e.g. import duty on newsprint), et cetera. In Zambia, it was united civil society pressure that compelled the Minister of Finance to rescind his decision early in 2006 to introduce value added tax (VAT) on the cover price of newspapers. 

The ‘anvil of the market’ is intricately bound up in the 1990s mantra of globalisation, with its associated discourses of liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation and commercialisation, presented a different set of possibilities for media regulation. For one thing, most states, fearing loss of hegemony, reasserted themselves. Rather than ‘privatise’ state media, they ‘commercialised’ them. They also adopted market-based forms of regulation, signalling the injection of private capital into media business.

 The market presented both opportunities and threats for media freedom. On the one hand, a liberal-pluralist view might suggest the following as opportunities: (i) the promise of media plurality and diversity; (ii) the promise of fair competition and quality media content; (iii) the promise of expanded communicative space for the citizenry; and (iv) the promise of greater liberal democracy.

 On the other hand, a political economy view might identify such threats as: (i) reduction of the use of independent media producers; (ii) media concentration on the largest markets; (iii) avoidance of risks; (iv) reduced investment in less profitable media tasks; (v) neglect of poorer sectors of the potential audience; (vi) homogenisation of media content; and (vii) less investigative reporting. 

An indisputable fact is that, as competition intensifies, media content is increasingly being shaped by the demands of advertisers and sponsors rather than public interest factors. In fact, it might even be argued that such market-driven media content tends towards the ‘tabloidisation’ of broadcasting, targeted at satisfying the lowest common denominator of human curiosities and pleasures, and not necessarily at serious deliberative programming that can fuel citizens’ democratic impulses.

 Caught up in this cocoon of mercantilist exploitation, the media, unwittingly and wittingly, tend to define their role in terms of the profit motive. As such, even their definition of ‘self-regulation’ entails accountability to themselves and the market imperative. Although notions of ‘social responsibility’ and ‘public interest’ are invoked, there is evidence to suggest that the media are, for the most part, keen on playing the ‘watchdog’ role, rather than being ‘watched’. While the media do have a ‘watchdog’ role, this individualist-libertarian view tends to neglect the broader participation of the citizenry in media work, leaving all the ‘journalism’ to be done by ‘media professionals’.

 This ‘professional’ trajectory reifies the ‘objectivity’ of the media. There is a de-emphasising of the journalist’s civic and political engagement. The journalist’s so-called professional disinterestedness borders on passivity. Thus, in the ‘natural’ scheme of things, the media become associated with elites, mostly those with links to political, economic, coercive and symbolic power (the politicians, the wealthy, the police, the clergy, etc.). In all this, it becomes difficult for vox populi – the voice of the people – to be heard over and above the crescendo of power. It becomes difficult for alternative forms of journalism to emerge and entrench themselves.

 

The problems I have outlined notwithstanding, we know that media can play a potentially influential role in enhancing the kind of strong-democratic civic life I have been at pains to describe. British media critic Peter Dahlgren highlights a very specific role for media in enhancing what he calls the ‘empirical dimensions’ of civic culture. 

 The first such role is the provision of relevant knowledge and competencies. People must have access to reliable reports, portrayals, analyses, discussions, debates and so forth about current affairs. Here the media’s role is central. The sources of knowledge and the materials for the development of competencies must be understandable, communicated in ways that connect with different groups of people.

 The second is inspiring loyalty to democratic values and procedures. Democracy will not function if such virtues as tolerance and willingness to follow democratic principles and procedures do not have grounding in everyday life. Even support for the legal system (assuming it is legitimate) is an expression of such civic virtue. Just what are the best or real democratic values, and how they are applied, can be the grounds for serious dispute. The media can reinforce the commitment to democratic values by giving sustained attention to them.

 The third role is highlighting the practices, routines, traditions that underpin good governance. Democracy must be embodied in concrete, recurring practices – individual, group, and collective – relevant for diverse situations. Such practices help generate personal and social meaning to the ideals of democracy, and they must have an element of the routine about them, if they are to be a part of a civic culture. The interaction among citizens is a cornerstone of the public sphere, and the kinds of established rules and etiquette that shape such interaction either promote the practices of public discussion or contribute to their evaporation. Across time, practices become traditions, and experience becomes collective memory; today’s democracy needs to be able to refer to a past, without being locked in it. The media obviously contribute here by their representations of ongoing political life, including its rituals and symbols, yet increasingly also take on relevance as more people make use of newer interactive possibilities and incorporate these as part of their civic culture practices.

 And the fourth is to help in the construction of the identities of audiences, not as consumers, but as citizens. How we define citizenship is inseparable from how we define democracy and the good society. One can say that the formal status of citizenship conceptually frames much of political life in modern democracies. The media can do much to strengthen public perceptions of what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. The media can reinforce notions of participation, accountability, solidarity, tolerance, courage, community, etc. which define strong-democratic citizenship.

 This should give rise to a form of journalism and mediation that chimes with the mode of citizen participation envisaged by Barber. Such a form of journalism has been called many names, but it resembles what Jay Rosen has termed ‘public journalism’. It is also appropriately called ‘civic journalism’, resonating with Barber’s concept of a civically minded populace. Civic journalism recognises the fact that the journalist is a citizen first and a media professional second. It builds upon this conception to encourage journalists to undertake the following: (i) raising consciousness; (ii) facilitating change; and (iii) enabling resolution. 

In terms of consciousness-raising, then, the media play the role of surveillance, enabling the public to learn about an issue and becomes aware of its existence and meaning. Most of what conventional journalism does well plays to this first phase of the process. In living up to the call of objectivity, the media gathers and filters information on a wide variety of issues and then insists on their importance. But journalists could reduce the chances that people will give up on these issues by also helping the public to set an agenda. Citizens are looking for an agenda that corresponds to the problems they themselves see. The media is expected to highlight those issues that have a particular resonance with the public.

 This has a direct relationship to the virtue of citizenship participation. It follows that the media ought to expand the space for the public to participate in governing their lives. Indeed, to sustain public interest in an issue, the media should engage the public at their points of need.

 In terms of facilitating change, the media must embark upon a trajectory of change. When the consciousness-raising stage has been completed, the individual must confront the need for change. The media need to help people to struggle with the conflicts, ambivalence and defences that the need for change arouses in them. People must abandon the passive-receptive mode that works well enough for consciousness-raising. In other words, the media are challenged to go beyond the ‘administrative functions’ set out by Paul Lazarsfeld and Merton, which I paraphrase here as (i) conferring status; (ii) dissimulating deviance; and (iii) commodifying consumption. 

To go beyond such administrative functions, and to facilitate the kind of change I envisage, it is important that the media consider a different way of doing business. In the tradition of civic journalism, the media can:

 

In terms of the third principle of civic journalism – enabling resolution – the media must acknowledge that people never feel satisfied about their choices until those choices have been acted upon. Media professionals can help in this process of resolution by prodding action on the public’s choice.

 From the perspective of media practitioners themselves, the effect of a civic journalism project must be such that it emboldens them to actively seek the engagement of citizens in the process of public problem-solving. As Lisa Austin puts it aptly: ‘When public journalism is effective, it leaves something behind – a conversational effect, at the least, and, at best, an ongoing structure for citizen engagement’.

 As I conclude, I want to leave you with one fundamentally important thought. Another journalism is conceivable – a journalism whose ethos is people and not profit. What this needs is a deconstruction of conventional ways of seeing and doing journalism. The public (civic) journalism movement, albeit heavily criticised, is a welcome contribution to the strong-democratic process of citizen empowerment. Envisioning another journalism is not necessarily a radical thing; it is, in fact, located in the idea that all mediation is necessarily a political activity.

 For example, it can be demonstrated that the ‘news’ practices of the media are intrinsically political, such that they present a definitional flexibility for media professionals to reconsider ‘news’ in terms of its potential to enhance civic and democratic expression. What is important to emphasise here is the fact that it is possible to construct normative roles for the media. Normative media roles are those ideal-typical functions that people, at various points in their history, would like to see the media perform. The media has played different roles at different times in its historical development.

 The normative nature of the media opens up avenues for negotiating what the media can do to deepen the democratic experience of both developed and developing countries. Given the normativity of media roles, it is possible to conceive of the place of civic education in newsrooms. Such civic education might serve the aims of:

This is not only possible, but also desirable.