Communicating Democracy: The Media and Political Transitions 9781685851682

Table of contents :
Contents
1 Democratization and Mass Communication: What Is the Link?
2 Latin American Broadcasting and the State: Friend and Foe
3 The Unfinished Project of Media Democratization in Argentina
4 Notes on Freedom of Expression in Africa
5 Nigeria: The Politics of Confusion
6 The Media and Democracy in Eastern Europe
7 Institutions, Transitions, and the Media: A Comparison of Hungary and Romania
8 The Mass Media in Asia
9 Democratization and the Press: The Case of South Korea
10 The Media and Democratic Development: The Social Basis of Political Communication
Bibliography
The Contributors
Index
About the Book

Citation preview

COMMUNICATING DEMOCRACY

COMMUNICATING DEMOCRACY

The Media and Political Transitions

edited by Patrick H. O'Neil

BOULDER LONDON

Published in the United States of America by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1998 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Communicating democracy : the media and political transitions / edited by Patrick H. O'Neil. p. cm.. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55587-669-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Communication in politics. 2. Mass media—Political aspects. 3. Democracy. I. O'Neil, Patrick H„ 1966JA85.C66 1998 302.23—dc21 97-39364 CIP British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America ®

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

Contents

1 Democratization and Mass Communication: What Is the Link? Patrick H. O'Neil

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2 Latin American Broadcasting and the State: Friend and Foe Elizabeth Fox

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3 T h e Unfinished Project of Media Democratization in Argentina Silvio R. Waisbord

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4 Notes on Freedom of Expression in Africa Robert Martin

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5 Nigeria: The Politics of Confusion Louise M. Bourgault

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6 T h e Media and Democracy in Eastern Europe Owen V. Johnson

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7 Institutions, Transitions, and the Media: A Comparison of Hungary and Romania Richard A. Hall and Patrick H. O'Neil

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8 T h e Mass Media in Asia John A. Lent

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9 Democratization and the Press: T h e Case of South Korea Kyu Ho Yourn

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V

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CONTENTS

10 The Media and Democratic Development: The Social Basis of Political Communication W. Lance Bennett

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Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

209 215 217 225

1 Democratization and Mass Communication: What Is the Link? PATRICK H . O'NEIL

What is the relationship between the media—domestic and international—and the process of political transition and democratization? Despite the assumption that mass communication plays an important role in the construction of democracy, it is less clear how the media can affect the process of political change itself. Moreover, increasingly rapid changes in communications technology raise questions of how global media forms will shape the dissemination of information and whether this will be beneficial or detrimental to the cause of democracy. This book seeks to answer some of these questions to draw a better understanding of the variables and causal relationship between mass communication and democratization. The Media and Democracy There is a common understanding that a strong connection exists between mass communication and democracy. Simply put, the assumption is that for democracies to function, civil society requires access to information as a means to make informed political choices. Similarly, politicians require the media as a way in which they can take stock of the public mood, present their views, and interact with society. The media are thus viewed as a vital conduit of relations between state and society. But the media are not simply instruments of political actors, lacking their own independent power. Democracies are political systems that allow for the dispersal of power and public access to it, but liberal democratic theory also notes that such systems can be easily corrupted, thereby undermining participation and voice. Institutional checks and balances within the state structure are highlighted as necessary firewalls 1

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against such abuse, and the media are equally valued in this area. As the fourth estate or watchdog of government, the media are expected to critically assess state action and provide such information to the public. Ideally, then, the media not only provide a link between rulers and the ruled but also impart information that can constrain the centralization of power and the obfuscation of illicit or unethical state action. How effectively the media achieve such tasks in modern liberal democracies is open to question. Some argue that the media have moved away from their watchdog role, choosing to form close ties with political elites and thus limiting the degree of critical analysis within the news. Others, such as Ben Bagdikian, Edward Herman, and Noam Chomsky, have further developed this argument by pointing to the strong connection between the media and market forces. According to this argument, capitalism has created a system whereby communications have become more monopolized, centralized, less diverse, and too close to state power. As gatekeepers of information, the media have a powerful ability to shape the perception of society. Overt censorship gives way to informal relations of power and thus limits public access to information vital to critical analyses, political action, and the maintenance of civil society. 1 Market liberals, in contrast, attack such notions, arguing that only through open economic interaction can the "marketplace of ideas" be truly protected from government control and the agendas of cultural elites. Despite such debates, however, what is not open to question is the role of mass communication itself. In the view of some on the left and the right, the media in modern democracies may have strayed from their original tasks, but there is general agreement on the indispensability of mass communications in some form. The media, we assume, is vital to the creation and vitality of civil society; without it, freedom of communication, and thus the foundation of democratic rule, is undermined. 2 Indeed, the crucial nature of mass communications in modern democracies is reflected in the level of debate over the media itself. As John Keane noted, "the scope and meaning of freedom of communication and the process of representation will always be contentious, whereas a society . . . which contains no controversies over freedom of expression and representation, is a society that is surely dying, or dead." 3

Authoritarianism and Political Transition Clearly, mass communications in some form are critical to the establishment of democracy. Yet this leads us to ask what the role of

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the media is in those societies that are not yet democratic. If the media are vital to democracy and in thwarting the abuse of power, can we assume that they also play a role in u n d e r m i n i n g existing authoritarian rule? This question is n o t simply academic; after a long period of e n t r e n c h e d control worldwide, autocrats have in recent years been in retreat. As Samuel H u n t i n g t o n noted, between 1974 and 1990, over 30 countries shed authoritarian rule, leading to what he has termed the third wave in global democratization. 4 Whether this process continues, or falls victim to a reverse wave (as Huntington terms it) of democratic collapse, remains to be seen. Despite the fact that the recent spread of democracy has led to a commensurate amount of scholarly work on authoritarian collapse and democratization, little attention has been given to the media in this regard. Why has such an important facet of democratic development been absent from relevant discussion? Part of the answer lies in earlier struggles within the social sciences over democracy and development; our view of democratization at the end of the twentieth century has been strongly influenced by epistemological legacies—the way in which we theorize political processes around us. In the 1960s, democratization issues were subsumed under the rubric of structural-functionalist influenced modernization theory. Largely unilinear in its approach, modernization theory focused on the construction of Western-style political and social institutions as indicators of progress, arguing that such constructs were vital in the creation of vibrant industrial democracies. Institutions such as parliaments, constitutions, and educational systems were thought to serve as the source, not the product, of democracy. 5 Developing nations were thus expected to follow the path set by the developed countries and ultimately enjoy modern economic and political systems. The media, as a part of this modernization process, were similarly expected to emulate Western patterns of behavior and contribute to the construction of democracy. As Howard Wiarda stated, it was expected that as "countries achieved greater literacy, were more strongly mobilized, and acquired more radio and television sets, they would also tend to become more politically developed—i.e., liberal and democratic, just like the United States." 6 This idea extended not only to the third world but to the Communist bloc as well. Scholars, increasingly rejecting the old totalitarian model of terror and stagnation, argued along functionalist lines that communism was merely a variant of the development model, one that would sooner or later evolve into a pluralistic system akin to that of the West. 7

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Modernization theory was, of course, eventually discredited, unable to meet its own expectations. Economic growth failed to materialize to the degree and extent anticipated; Western-style institutions showed themselves to be poorly linked to the environment around them and quickly collapsed—or developed into "dysfunctional" mechanisms that served more traditional forms of political and social interaction. 8 Hopes for liberalization and progress in the Socialist bloc also crumbled with the downfall of Khrushchev and China's Cultural Revolution. The idea of a single road to development began to be challenged by many who rejected the notion that the path of the third world could—or even should—follow that of the first. By the 1970s, social scientists studying the third world turned their attention to a new view of authoritarianism based on radical theories of dependent development, which viewed power as concentrated in the hands of a narrow state elite, linked to and supported by their relationship to the global capitalist system. Such arguments moved the theoretical center beyond the domestic context, c o n c e r n e d instead with the connections between international capital and ruling regimes in developing countries. Interest declined in the relationship between particular domestic institutions and the potential for political pluralization and turned to studying state power and control. Modernizing institutions had failed to sustain fledgling democracies in m u c h of the developing world, and their potential as influential actors was therefore given little credit. While more complex investigations of divergent patterns of d e p e n d e n t development in the third world gave greater attention to the contextual role of state autonomy and strategy, the state remained an amorphous and aggregate term, limited to such rudimentary qualifiers as weak or strong,9 Society (beyond the idea of class) and particular social or state institutions fell victim to this reductionist view. Evolutionary views within communist studies also fell into disfavor, giving way to more bureaucratically oriented studies of political power that studied how the party-state mediated relations and thus avoided change. Although institutions within the partystate were disaggregated for purposes of research, as in third world studies, the state remained the center of interest. Although segments of the ruling order—trade unions, ministries, and mass communications—were given greater attention, the approach shied away from society and its interaction with the party-state. Bureaucratic conflict within the party elite was considered the central political dynamic and the media merely a public outlet for these struggles. 10

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In contrast to other areas of the social sciences, mass communication studies have been more successful in helping us understand the relationship between the media and social change. Yet here, too, it has been difficult to make a strong link between political change and the media. Scholars use the causal relationship between society and mass media—in a n o t h e r words, who influences whom—to distinguish a m o n g differing views of social change. Thus, in keeping with modernization theory, earlier idealist views of the media saw mass communication as the agent of positive social change, with the public playing a largely passive role. 11 For reasons already discussed, this idealist view gave way to a more radical view of the media as a tool of (global) capitalist domination and imperialism, which, as Robert Martin points out (see Chapter 4), served to justify authoritarian control over mass communication in the quest for i n d e p e n d e n t development. 1 2 Yet this paradigm also conformed to the old notion that publics were acted on, rather than serving as potential agents of change. 1 3 As elsewhere in the social sciences, media studies of developing and nondemocratic nations became static and state-centered, unconcerned with the potential that media institutions themselves might (or should) manifest power or give voice to and catalyze civil action. 14 By the 1980s, these theoretical constructs were forced to conf r o n t a groundswell of dramatic political change worldwide. In southern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, authoritarian systems began to collapse u n d e r social and international pressure. Even within the Communist bloc, regimes that had often been viewed as intractable and subject only to incremental change simply unraveled. Social scientists who had effectively eliminated the option of political transition were essentially left speechless; a new language of transitology would have to be written that covered both the collapse of authoritarianism and the construction of new institutions in its stead. Scholars of mass communication also found their conceptual arsenal empty when seeking to explain or even describe such changes. 1 3 In the past 10 years, social science has responded to these dramatic global changes with a diverse array of research and analysis. Much of the work in political science has been strongly influenced by the four-volume landmark study Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (1986). 1 6 This and subsequent studies have b r o a d e n e d our understanding of political transitions immensely, creating a virtual academic industry in transition and democratization studies. 17 Despite the progress made through such research, however, the role of particular political and social institutions in transition

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processes remains largely obscure. Within studies of developing countries and state socialism, the level of analysis has been primarily that of political elites, remaining skeptical of institutional approaches that smack of structural-functionalist modernization theory. Past studies of authoritarianism—whether in the former Soviet Union or in Africa—concentrated on the arrogation of power to the center, elite politics and their domination of the state apparatus. When such systems began to experience a transfer of state power from authoritarian to more liberal systems, the preference for the study of elites persisted, to the exclusion of institutional forces or society as a whole. Accordingly, the dynamics of authoritarian collapse and democratization has commonly been viewed as the product of elite interaction—hard-liners versus soft-liners, bureaucrats versus military leaders, old elites versus new. Civil society and the various institutions around it have been viewed as secondary actors if not mere instruments in this process, lacking the power to shape transitions or to "craft" new democracies themselves. 18 Transitions have been described as the product of elite volition—largely indeterminate events in which institutional forces play only a minor role. Given this approach, it is therefore not surprising to find a paucity of research on the role of mass communication in transition events. Although the media are widely recognized as central to democratic construction (and the transition opening as well), our understanding of the role they play in the actual process of transition is poor and largely anecdotal. In Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, for example, the media are never mentioned—a silence that characterizes much of transitology. Although scholars of media studies have been much concerned with the relationship between mass communications and political change, their lack of a conceptual framework in which to study these events as well as their gravitation toward policy over theory has led to similar problems. This trend is notable in largely normative discussions of what is to be done—that is, how to democratize the media so that it will support a democratic order now that tyrants have been ousted and open elections called. Clearly such normative discussions are important, yet as within transitology, they take no account of the media's role in shaping events up to that point and the possibility that the effects of these past patterns may ultimately prevent an easy transformation that conforms to our expectations. These approaches are misleading and misguided. Although the elites undoubtedly matter, their visual presence is not necessarily

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commensurate with their power to dictate events. A major reason for this situation is simply that new institutions that are constructed in the consolidation phase of transitions are largely built f r o m the remnants of the previous order and are affected by its m a n n e r of collapse. In other words, the wider institutional environment—existing political, cultural, and market patterns—is likely to constrain and inform political choices, influencing the kinds of changes that occur. 19 By developing as organizations that are valued for their own sake, institutions such as the media can and do develop significant power and thus shape the process of political change and the prospects for democratization. Transitions, and the societies in which they take place, are not blank slates; the structures around them persist and resist change, both empowering and restricting forms of social action. While scholars of political transitions or the media within these societies concentrate on the f o u n d i n g of new democratic institutions, the historical role of social a n d political constructs becomes equally critical to understanding why and how authoritarianism collapsed—as well as what is likely to take its place. Without maintaining this regard for the institutional context, we r u n the risk of repeating the earlier mistakes of modernization or d e p e n d e n c y theory and failing to u n d e r s t a n d the institutional power of the domestic environment. We therefore risk assuming that f u n d a m e n t a l reforms typically based on Western models and assumptions can be grafted onto these societies with n o concern for the legacies of the social order.

Political Transition and the Media Mass communication merits special attention in this regard, given our assumption that the media can a n d often do play a central role in shaping the course of political transition. Clearly, we cann o t construct a simple theory that universally explains the media's f u n c t i o n in this area. In contrast to images of political transitions as narrow elite battles over the mechanism of state control, however, the media can be considered critical to this process, reflecting relations between state and society, the elites a n d the masses. How mass communication contributes to this process of transition and democratization d e p e n d s on the f o r m and function of the media in a given society, shaped by cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors. Beyond context-specific institutional forces, however, several issues that are raised by the volume's contributors are worthy of f u r t h e r consideration.

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Types of Mass Communication How information is disseminated affects its role in transition processes. One of the most fundamental questions here concerns literacy; in populations with high rates of illiteracy, the print media are likely to play a restricted role (of course, this can also be the case in literate societies). As seen in the chapter on Latin America by Elizabeth Fox (Chapter 2), radio and television often become the primary means of disseminating information. Such electronic media are more easily controlled by authoritarian forces, since technical and economic barriers are added to the political restrictions against independent broadcasting. Electronic communication, however, carries with it an aural and visual effect not matched by the printed word; this can have sudden and dramatic impact by relaying symbolic information (e.g., images of mass demonstrations or the transmission of public speeches) that can galvanize an entire population literally within minutes and can be re-created for audiences on demand (through rebroadcasting or the use of video or audio recording equipment). These effects are likely to develop u n d e r two specific sets of conditions. First, information can be disseminated by accident; that is, protests, speeches, or other mobilizing actions are transmitted by chance, before such information can be censored (Romania is a good example here). Second, the dissemination of information occurs as a product of a regime crisis, in which state-run media institutions come to believe that they can ignore the strictures of censorship with less fear of state reprisal. It is often the media's defection from the authoritarian camp that seals the latter's fate. Another important factor in the media's impact on authoritarian transition is the declining ability of the state to direct electronic broadcasting, u n d e r m i n e d by the increasingly global nature of electronic communication and the role of satellite dishes and private cable systems (see the separate discussion of this issue later in this chapter). Although the print media may n o t create the dramatic and sudden impact of radio and TV, its power to u n d e r m i n e authoritarian power is also great. T h e ability of authoritarian regimes to fully control the printed word is still more difficult than that of the electronic media, even though the reach of the print medium may be much more limited. Alternative print information may take the f o r m of u n d e r g r o u n d or samizdat publications, or state-licensed newspapers and journals with smaller circulations among specialized audiences or regions. These more peripheral publications are

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often beyond the effective purview of ruling elites, and critical information may appear disguised by stylistic devices such as technical jargon or the use of allusion and allegory. As with radio and television, in times of crisis or liberalization, the printed word is vital in broadening public discourse, opening and sometimes reopening subjects previously considered taboo, providing an outlet for opposition views, and thus furthering the erosion of authoritarian control. The print media can also easily pluralize within a short period as new, temporary publications appear, only to fold shortly after a political transition ends. Degree and Form of State

Control

The degree and form of state control can most easily be thought of as censorship; in other words, to what extent does the authoritarian system allow for the expression of alternative viewpoints and critical discourse? Some authoritarian orders are able to stifle all forms of criticism by closing alternative publications, restricting access to electronic communication, and centralizing news services within an oversight framework to "precensor" the media, as Kyu Ho Youm points out in the case of South Korea (see Chapter 9). In other circumstances, state authorities lack either the power or the interest in direct control and rely instead on a system of postcensorship using means from socialization, harassment, economic sanctions against publications or programs for slander or public incitement, the revocation of licenses or supplies, jail terms against journalists to the extremes of torture and murder, which Louise Bourgault notes have become commonplace in Nigeria (see Chapter 5). The differences in transition outcomes between precensorship and postcensorship systems are unclear. A precensorship media system may be wholly discredited among the population, necessitating widespread media changes during periods of political transition that may ultimately prove positive. The sheer monolithism of the press, however, may effectively block any meaningful diversification and may even tempt new political leaders to retain this monopoly to achieve their goals. Also troubling is the issue of censorship itself: Often in transitional periods, arguments can be heard that censorship should be retained, temporarily, as a safeguard against elements "hostile" to democracy. In instances of postcensorship systems, in which some locus of alternative thought may remain, these ideas can act as an important source of political

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change and as a model for media pluralization. But the very existence, however marginal, of this opposition can also serve as an excuse by new elites to avoid real media reform in periods of transition. In either case, the proper role of journalism—be it advocacy, partisanship, or impartiality—will be unclear. This point is made strongly by several contributors to this book. Market, Property, and the Locus of Media

Authority

Ownership of the media is critical. Some systems, such as those of Eastern Europe and the USSR, sought to obtain total political control by eliminating private property and the market mechanism. Third world autocracies typically also seek to control property rights and market forces to consolidate power, although to a lower degree than under state socialism. By creating a monopoly over the media, the state creates a dependent relationship, both for the public in terms of information and for journalists in terms of livelihood. But control need not be so centralized to limit the power of the media. Ownership of the media may be private, although their owners may be state-run or allied industries in the hands of an economic elite, thus leading to media collusion with those in power. Businesses with close contacts to the government may resist advertising in critical publications or supporting critical programming; state monopolies on the importation of machinery or paper can also effectively block access to these necessary resources. Once tyrants have been overthrown and democratic elections held, the economic aspects of media reform become critical. As Silvio Waisbord points out in the example of Argentina (see Chapter 3) and Owen Johnson in the example of Eastern Europe (see Chapter 6), several difficult questions arise: How are media assets to be pluralized, especially if they are already concentrated in private hands? If the bulk of the media is run by the state, should these assets be privatized, or entrusted to the new democracy as public service institutions? Who will be in charge of infrastructure upgrades, and if private capital is lacking in this area, will state involvement affect media autonomy? Is there a role for the subsidization of the media to prevent the market from destroying new and fragile communication outlets, or does such support threaten press autonomy? As the preceding discussion underscores, the fundamental question is whether during transitional periods the media can serve as an instrument of both democratic consolidation and pluralization—tasks that may be at odds with each other.

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T h e r e is no easy answer to these questions, since they in part d e p e n d on the situation at h a n d — t h e institutional environment and the legacies of the authoritarian order. These can become pivotal in the struggle to create a pluralistic, vibrant media and a working democracy. Such a view, then, while asserting the n e e d for an open and democratic press, also argues that there is no single recipe to follow, based on Western experiences or purely ideological arguments. How a new media system can and should be constructed depends greatly on what has preceded it and the dynamics of the present domestic context.

Media Globalization: Source of Democracy or a Threat to It? A final area of interest concerns the increasing globalization of mass communications, as media systems move out of the domestic environment and into the international institutional framework. Over the past 50 years, the media have grown f r o m being local sources of information (with some international content) to international systems of communication (with local effects). Changes in technology, in particular radio and television, have provided the opportunity for the media to reach a much wider audience: In contrast to the narrowcast print media, broadcast communications are much less discriminating, unconcerned with and unaffected by national borders. Newly expanding technologies, such as fax machines, videocassette recorders, cellular phones, satellite dishes, and the Internet, pushing the boundaries of communication even further, changing our definition of the media themselves and blurring the line between personal and mass communication. 2 0 Such changes can have a dramatic impact on the potential for political change in authoritarian systems. Even in the distant past, the media, posing a challenge to autocrats, contained an international element: books, pamphlets, and newspapers published abroad in the local language, to be smuggled back into the country. With the advent of radio, information and propaganda were disseminated on a much wider scale; the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Radio Free Europe, and the Voice of America are good examples. Television, both terrestrial and satellite, has been similarly powerful. International media influences are also often unintentional, as in commercial broadcasts f r o m one nation that are received by its neighbors.

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As mass communications b e c o m e more global, authoritarian leaders lose their power to control information. Newspapers can be closed, journalists imprisoned, and local television stations censored, but domestic control over global communications is difficult if not impossible. States may seek to limit new technology, as in China's decision to restrict ownership of satellite dishes or Singapore's attempt to locally censor the World Wide Web. 21 Such steps are costly, however, less than total, and may run counter to the developmental interests of the state and economic elites. Already we have seen multiple examples in which the internationalization of mass communications has influenced the course of political change. At the regional level, events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union developed in a synergistic manner as news of reform and protest in one country informed elites and masses elsewhere in the region. No country—not even xenophobic and hermetically sealed Albania—could shut out the tide of information of these events that undermined regime credibility, raised expectations, and eventually helped to destroy communist rule. Such effects have been felt at the interregional level as well, as in the student m o v e m e n t in China in 1989, which was itself inspired by news of changes in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Philippines. The eventual protests and the sympathetic global response quickly became symbiotic, interconnected not only by television and radio but also by fax and the Internet. This heightened awareness in turn helped mobilize many Chinese protesters, making them aware of their global influence and the power of their actions and "reinforcing the sense of excitement about history in the making." 22 In broader terms, what international mass communications have the potential to do is to serve as a source of information otherwise restricted at the domestic level, and as an instrument of what have been termed demonstration effects. Demonstration effects refer to the process by which transition processes in one state influence the calculations of societal and state actors in another. Populations b e c o m e informed about and encouraged by changes elsewhere and begin to press for change at h o m e as well; elites bec o m e panicky over the downfall of autocrats abroad and in response become more conciliatory or reactionary, either of which may spark mass mobilization. For example, Huntington notes that changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet U n i o n not only reenforced o n e another but were clearly visible to rulers and ruled across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. H e concludes that

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thanks in large part to the impact of global communications, by the mid-1980s the image of a "worldwide democratic revolution" undoubtedly had b e c o m e a reality in the minds of political and intellectual leaders in most countries of the world. Because people believed it to be real, it was real in its consequences [italics added]. People could and did ask about the relevance for themselves of political events in far-off countries. Solidarity's struggle in Poland and Marcos's downfall in the Philippines had a resonance in Chile that would have b e e n most unlikely in earlier decades. 2 3

Huntington correctly notes that without the proper domestic conditions these demonstration effects are unlikely to spark mass action. One can imagine, however, that at least in some cases they serve as examples, helping to inform publics, deepening civil awareness, and fostering domestic antipathy toward the state and contributing to a future political breakthrough. As communications technology expands and diversifies, its potential for such political influence expands exponentially. One example already mentioned is the spread of legal or illegal satellite dishes throughout the developing world, coupled with the rise in regional or global broadcasts such as Cable News Network (CNN) or STAR TV in Asia. In the case of the latter, although access remains partially or wholly restricted in many Asian countries, one scholar notes that in the near future "technological advance will soon make it almost impossible to enforce legal restrictions on satellite television reception." 24 Other forms of incipient communications technology suggest dramatic implications that cannot be fully anticipated. The expansion of fiber optics and technology such as Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) dramatically increase the speed and amount of information that can be passed over phone lines. The expansion of these technologies into nondemocratic states will likely broaden and deepen access to global information; Leonard Sussman has (somewhat overoptimistically) proclaimed ISDN to be a "technology of freedom" that will eventually undermine dictators everywhere. 25 Other technology currently under development is that of global, satellite-based communication networks that are being developed to provide integrated voice and data services worldwide by the early twenty-first century. 26 Unlike other communication infrastructures that require large capital investments either by governments or private businesses (thus putting developing countries at a disadvantage), satellite communication systems can overcome the physical and financial barriers of terrestrial infrastructure by

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moving technology and the market incentive to the global level. This creates the opportunity for communications to reach areas previously isolated, owing to the lack of infrastructure, and to potentially move communication past the purview of the state. These technologies will obviously also have a tremendous impact on one of the most important recent developments in communication, the Internet and the World Wide Web. Ironically, these forms have their origins in the U.S. military, which sought to create a decentralized communication system that would survive a nuclear attack. The unintended outcome of the Internet has been that, by decentralizing communication to prevent it from being targeted, its creators lost the ability to control or guide its development or access to it. Largely anarchic, it lacks (for now) effective gatekeepers to select or hierarchically structure the system, relying on individual activity for content. The Internet has now expanded to a global level, serving innumerable roles simultaneously. Governments, nongovernmental organizations, international governmental organizations, political parties, domestic interest organizations, and individuals all play a role, creating loci of information that have a truly global reach. 27 The democratic transitions of the 1980s were only marginally influenced by the Internet and predated the rise of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. However, given this system's recent explosive growth—as of mid-1997 there was email or full Internet access (including the World Wide Web) in the vast majority of countries in the world—it behooves us to consider its impact on democratization processes in the future. 2 8 Technological changes have developed another source for information beyond the effective grasp of state authority; more important, however, they now allow for interactive communication at both the personal and mass level in a way in which radio, television, and the print media cannot. Autocrats may try to restrict, filter, or shut down local access to such information, but this may ultimately be impossible. In the struggle between state and society, opposition forces—both domestic and international—see the opportunity to create and access information through Web sites or email communications and to upload and download this information between the global and domestic public. This use of Internet capabilities has so far been perhaps best demonstrated in the Chiapas rebellion in Mexico, in which Subcommandante Marcos and others effectively exploited the Internet to pass along manifestos and (dis) information on the Zapatistas' battles with the Mexican government and military. This information

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travelled widely throughout the Internet and World Wide Web, eventually breaking into the mainstream media. 2 9 The old aphorism that "this time the revolution will be televised" might perhaps be in need of updating—to read that next time, the revolution will be downloaded. Of course, the development of international mass communications technology will be no panacea. Despite the claims of "the hucksters of high technology," as J o h n Lent has termed them elsewhere and reiterates in his contribution to this volume (see Chapter 8), such innovations will not solve fundamental problems of inequality or poverty, ethnic or other social divisions, communication access or content. 3 0 Furthermore, the wide-eyed view of global communications finally creating a harmonious global village ignores the fact that the introduction of new forms of technology can lead to consequences that are u n i n t e n d e d , less than desirable, and well beyond our control. Along these lines, as Lent notes in the case of Asia, one major fear regarding the process of media globalization is that it will (or has) become a means by which developed nations and international capital can monopolize information a n d its presentation on a worldwide scale (for example, Rupert Murdoch or Ted T u r n e r ) . This limits the possibility for less developed nations to maintain their own democratic mass communication institutions and threatens to overwhelm local cultures as well as foster the formation of global alliances between domestic and international political and communication elites. A diversity of voices thus gives way to the international consolidation of information and culture in the hands of a powerful few, and those in the process of throwing off the yoke of dictatorship may find that they merely trade local tyranny for an international o n e whose social effects are more pervasive. 31 Specifically, international media conglomerates not only have the power to stifle the domestic media through competition b u t also to buy into it, gaining control over newspapers, radio, a n d television (often during a process of state divestment of communications assets) or the content of those media. This narrowing of local ownership and product can erode the media's local public responsibility or, in the worst-case scenario, can create overly friendly relations between political leaders and those segments of international capital that seek market access. Under these circumstances, the question becomes one of whether the global media will be participatory and empowering for civil society, or a barrier to it.

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In search of remedies, in some quarters the idea of a New World Information and Communication Order (or NWICO) has begun to resurface since its original proposal during the 1970s. Under this notion, an international legal framework would be constructed and empowered to regulate the flow and content of international communication, creating a more equal informational relationship between rich and poor states.32 Yet such an idea, however positive it may appear in theory (serious reservations about it do exist), is unlikely to be realized, given that any such controls by domestic or international governmental structures would be blocked by the developed countries and their media outlets. One will recall that it was precisely the NWICO proposal that led to the United States' withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1984. In addition to being impractical, the original concept of the NWICO rests on an erroneous and outdated assumption: It places its faith in state mechanisms, at both the local and global level. If there is anything that the failure of closed economies in the second and third world has taught us, it is that the challenges of global integration are not easily addressed through bureaucratic intervention. Domestic or international governmental structures can play a vital role in facilitating and regulating the expansion of mass communications. However, the attempt to use such instruments to achieve normative outcomes through communication control places too much faith in statist solutions over those of individuals, by preferring to concentrate instead on structural agents as, paradoxically, both the enemy and salvation of the global underclass.33 The assumptions behind the NWICO remain burdened by the very notion of press freedom as merely a "product of cultural imperialism,"34 thus rationalizing state control over the media so long as it is in the cause of anti-imperialist struggle. These arguments accurately highlight the very real and potential dangers within changing international mass communications. At the same time, however, they fail to consider the potential for civil society to use these very changes to advance their own objectives. For example, while some forms of global mass communication threaten to homogenize and concentrate informational power, interactive technologies simultaneously become more accessible. National barriers to international computer communication shrink yearly, aided by much-maligned international organizations such as the World Bank, which has in recent years taken an active role in promoting modern communication infrastructures worldwide.35

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Technological innovation also reduces the technical and financial barriers to entry—not just with regard to personal electronic communications such as cellular phones, fax machines, or Internet access, but also in such areas as television equipment, transmitters, and desktop publishing. The outcome is one of publics with a greater capacity for decentralized mass communication, creating the basis for what Dowmunt terms channels of resistance to media centralization. 36 Communications relationships as centralized and purely vertical—from information source to public—are thus being challenged by the emergence of personal technologies with a horizontal or nonhierarchical structure. These two contradictory forms of organization may eventually come into conflict, with one destroying the other; or we may see a merging of the two or the development of coexisting, alternative levels of dialogue. In the case of the Zapatistas, the use of a horizontal communication form to break into or free-ride on vertical media structures illustrates both the possibility of such action and the still-dominant nature of the old media order. While obviously rejecting the argument that these changes will themselves be the salvation of peoples everywhere, I also argue against the assumption that technology is only a tool of the superstructure. As recent developments have shown, it can be equally powerful in the struggle for counterhegemony and the reassertion of local power and identity.

Conclusion There is a consensus that mass communication is at a turning point. How we obtain information is rapidly changing, which thus creates opportunities to transform societies and political systems worldwide. Old forms of oppression may be destroyed by this wave of global communication, although new threats to democracy lurk as well. Who is empowered, and to what end, will be strongly shaped by the way in which these technologies develop and are applied, and in what manner mass communication technologies become institutionalized and interconnect at local and global levels. Although technology creates the potential for information to be centralized, it can also provide new communication oudets to small groups and individuals. Ultimately, the conflict between these two countervailing movements will define the debate over free speech and will powerfully influence the prospects for global democracy in the coming century.

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IMotes 1. Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988); Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). 2. For more on this discussion, see Slavko Splichal and Janet Wasko, Communication and Democracy (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1993). 3. J o h n Keane, "Democracy and the Media," International Social Science Journal 43, no. 3 (August 1991): 538. 4. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 5. Andrew C. Janos, Politics and Paradigms: Changing Theories of Change in Social Science (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), esp. 51-54. 6. Howard J. Wiarda, "Comparative Politics Past and Present," in Howard J. Wiarda, ed. New Directions in Comparative Politics (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985), 15. 7. John H. Kautsky, "Comparative Communism versus Comparative Politics," Studies in Comparative Communism 6, nos. 1-2 (spring-summer 1973): 135-170; also Talcott Parsons, "Communism and the West: The Sociology of Conflict," in Amitai Etzioni and Eva Etzioni, eds. Social Change: Sources, Patterns and Consequences (New York: Basic Books, 1964), 390-399. 8. Wiarda, "Comparative Politics," 17-18. 9. Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989). 10. Ellen Comisso, "Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going? Analyzing Post-Socialist Politics in the 1990s," in William Crotty, ed. Political Science: Looking to the Future, Vol. 1: Comparative Politics, Policy, and International Relations (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1991), 77-122. 11. For a discussion of the various images of the interaction between media and social change, see Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (London: Sage, 1983), 39-47; also William A. Hachten, The World News Prism: Changing International Media of International Communication (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992), Chap. 2. 12. See also William A. Hachten, The Growth of Media in the Third World: African Failures, Asian Successes (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1993), Chap. 9. 13. Ibid., 44. For an example of the cultural imperialism model, see Thomas L. McPhail, Electronic Colonialism: The Future of International Broadcasting and Communication (Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1987). 14. Adigun Agbaje, "Beyond the State: Civil Society and the Nigerian Press Under Military Rule," Media, Culture and Society 15 (1993): 456-457. To be fair, the "interdependent" model of mass communication posited a strong, interactive relationship between the media and society in creating social change, although this line of argument seems to have carried little weight in media studies, particularly those concerned with nondemocratic countries. See McQuail, Mass Communication Theory, 40. For an expanded discussion of the interdependent model and its relevance to events in Eastern Europe, see Karol Jakubowicz, "Media as Agents of Change," in David L. Paletz, Karol Jakubowicz, and Pavao Novosel, eds. Glasnost and After: Media and Change in Central and Eastern Europe (Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1995), 21-22.

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15. Agbaje, "Beyond the State," 457. 16. Guillermo O ' D o n n e l l , Philippe C. Schmitter, a n d L a u r e n c e W h i t e h e a d , eds. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, 4 vols. (Baltimore: J o h n s Hopkins University Press, 1986). 17. T h e literature on democratic transitions a n d post-transition consolidation has grown dramatically d u r i n g t h e 1990s. Notable works include (but are by no means limited to) Giuseppe DiPalma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990); Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Stephan Haggard a n d Robert Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton, New Jersey: P r i n c e t o n University Press, 1995); Richard Gunther, ed. The Politics of Democratic Consolidation (Baltimore: J o h n s Hopkins University Press, 1995); Yossi Shain a n d J u a n J. Linz, eds. Between States: Interim Governments in Democratic Transitions (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995); a n d J u a n J. Linz a n d Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Postcommunist Europe (Baltimore: J o h n s H o p k i n s University Press, 1996). See also t h e compilation of imp o r t a n t articles in Geoffrey Pridham, Transitions to Democracy (Aldershot, England: D a r t m o u t h , 1995). 18. This t e r m is taken f r o m DiPalma, To Craft Democracies. 19. This p o i n t is also s u p p o r t e d by Haggard a n d Kaufman, The Political Economy. For m o r e on the institutional a p p r o a c h , see Walter W. Powell a n d Paul J. DiMaggio, eds. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 20. See, f o r example, Merill Morris a n d Christine Ogan, "The Intern e t as Mass M e d i u m , " Journal of Communication 46, no. 1 (winter 1996): 39-50. 21. Tom Fawthrop, "Chinese Shadows," Index on Censorship 23, nos. 4 - 5 (September-October 1994): 46-48; also the s t a t e m e n t of t h e Singap o r e Broadcasting Authority (SBA), "SBA S t a t e m e n t o n the I n t e r n e t , " . 22. Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 204. 23. H u n t i n g t o n , The Third Wave, 102; see also Larry Diamond, "The Globalization of Democracy," in R o b e r t O. Slater, Barry M. Schutz, a n d Steven R. Dorr, Global Transformation and the Third World (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1993), 51-57. 24. J o s e p h Man C h a n , "STAR TV in Asia," Journal of Communication 44, no. 3 (summer 1994): 129. 25. L e o n a r d R. Sussman, Power, the Press and the Technology of Freedom: The Coming Age of ISDN (New York: F r e e d o m House, 1989). See also idem, "Toward the Universal Interactive N e i g h b o r h o o d , " in Kaarle N o r d e n streng a n d H e r b e r t I. Schiller, eds. Beyond National Sovereignty: International Communications in the 1990s (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1993), 432-441. 26. Carol Levin, "Space Race: Competition Intensifies f o r Satellite Networks," PC Magazine (12 March 1996): 31. 27. H e n r y Edward Hardy, ' T h e History of the Net" (master's thesis, G r a n d Valley State University, 1993), .

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28. For specific details, see the regularly updated connectivity map provided by the Internet Society: . To provide a more specific example of Africa, where Internet development has been slowest: As of mid-1997, fewer than 10 African countries had no email or Internet access, whereas the majority had full access to the Internet. For details, see the Web site of the Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department: . 29. Deedee Halleck, "Zapatistas On-Line," NACLA Report on the Americas 28, no. 2 (September/October 1994): 30-32; and Tod Robberson, "Mexican Rebels Using a High-Tech Weapon; Internet Helps Rally Support," The Washington Post, 20 February 1995, p. A l . 30. "Four Conundrums of Third World Communications," in Nordenstreng and Schiller, Beyond National Sovereignty, 253. 31. See the various contributions in ibid. 32. Johan Galtung and Richard C. Vincent, Global Glasnost: Toward a New World Information and Communication Order? (Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1992); George Gerbner, Hamid Mowlana, and Kaarle Nordenstreng, eds. The Global Media Debate: Its Rise, Fall and Renewal (Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex, 1993). 33. Leonard R. Sussman, "What Has It Produced?" in Gerbner, Mowlana, and Nordenstreng, The Global Media Debate, 69-72. 34. C. Anthony Giffard, review of Transnational Media and Third World Development: The Structure and Impact of Imperialism by William H. Meyer, in Journal of Communication 40, no. 2 (spring 1990): 143. 35. See Nagy Hanna and Sandor Boyson, Information Technology in World Bank Lending: Increasing The Developmental Impact, World Bank Discussion Paper no. 206 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1993). For a number of interesting documents on this issue, see the Web site of the World Bank Electronic Media Center: . 36. Tony Dowmunt, ed. Channels of Resistance: Global Television and Local Empowerment (London: BFI Publishing, 1993). 37. For a more skeptical view on recent communications developments, see Hamid Mowlana, "The Communications Paradox," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (July/August 1991): 41-46.

Latin American Broadcasting and the State: Friend and Foe ELIZABETH FOX

During the 1980s and 1990s, Latin America has gone from a continent ruled by authoritarian, nondemocratically elected regimes to a region of largely democratically elected governments. In 1976, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and all Central American countries with the exception of Costa Rica were under dictatorships. By. 1995, only Cuba remained nondemocratic. The Latin American media rode the wave of democratizations that rolled over the region. New voices and faces appeared on domestic radio and television stations, and newspapers that had long been suppressed or censored returned to the newsstands. Thè relationship between the media and democratization in Latin America, however, was very different from that which occurred in the countries of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and African and Asian countries with traditions of state control and ownership of the media. The Latin American media had been privately controlled and commercially operated from their inception. Even the most repressive authoritarian military regimes rarely took over domestic radio and television stations, although they routinely shut down and censored newspapers, and journalists often numbered among the disappeared. The role of the Latin American media under authoritarianism and democratization must be understood as part of a longer tradition of statemedia relations. These relations are marked by complicity, compromise, and mutually shared goals, culminating today in the emergence of monopolistic, largely unregulated domestic media giants. Throughout Latin America, the 1980s and 1990s, including the periods under authoritarian rule, have witnessed an explosion 21

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of the commercial media, especially broadcasting. Today, Latin American broadcasting is well developed and overwhelmingly commercial. In almost all countries about 9 in 10 people have access to radio and television. Elite audiences are targeted with a wide range of news and information programming from home and abroad. Large mass audiences are segmented by types of radio and television stations, with news and entertainment tailored to different markets. Mexico and Brazil have two of the largest media monopolies in the world, Televisa and TV Globo respectively. These giants, both with significant transnational operations, are rooted in the practically monopolistic control of their enormous domestic markets. The Televisa and TV Globo empires, controlled by individuals and their families rather than by corporations, encompass all aspects of production and distribution of television, radio, film, video, and much of the publishing industries of their respective countries. Televisa and TV Globo have sizable exports and foreign media holdings, which include, in the case of Televisa, the largest Hispanic television network in the United States and part ownership of PanAmSat, a private satellite company. They are king makers in their countries, wielding enormous political power in the selection and legitimization of national leaders. Venezuela follows the Mexican and Brazilian model of strong domestic media industries, wielding enormous independent political power. In Venezuela two large family-owned companies dominate the market rather than the single monopolies of Mexico and Brazil, probably because Venezuelan broadcasting developed under elected governments in a two-party system rather than under oneparty or authoritarian rule, as was the case in Mexico and Brazil. Peru, Colombia, and Argentina have more fragmented broadcasting industries that are in transition toward increased private control, greater monopolization, and growing political influence. Peru's media fragmentation was the result of broadcasting's initial failure to reach an accommodation with the state under the military, and later was due to weaknesses within the Peruvian state and political system. Colombia's fast disappearing historical fragmentation of its television industry was the result of a balance of power between the two ruling parties; both parties agreed to keep broadcasting under state control as a guarantor of equality of access to broadcasting's assets and power by the two parties. In Argentina, broadcasting's fragmentation was the result of Juan Peron's and later the military's control of television and the reluctance (and often inability) of broadcasters to identify closely with domestic political forces in a highly unstable environment.

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Uruguay and Chile, emerging from authoritarian control of the media, are redefining state-media relations in the direction of privatization and deregulation under elected governments. Broadcasting in the two countries is in transition and will probably remain fragmented as a result of new foreign actors and domestic competition in local markets, although in both countries cross ownership of media is increasing. Each country has its own history of media policies and debates, marked by confrontations between economic and political forces over the organization of the media and the distribution of their benefits in society. Yet all Latin American countries share certain commonalities and influences. Two such commonalities are the strong presence of the U.S. government and media industries during the early years of broadcasting in Latin America and at strategic moments for the U.S. government (for example, World War II) and the networks (for example, limitations on the national market). Having achieved a certain size, autonomy, and internationalization, the ability of Latin American domestic broadcasting industries to adapt to changing contexts and reach accommodations with domestic political players seems to account for other similarities of outcome within the different national contexts. The relationship between the state and the media in Latin American has evolved since the beginnings of radio in the 1920s up to the late twentieth-century preponderance of television. The general direction of this evolution is toward increased autonomy and political power of the private broadcasting industries in relation to the state and civil society. The role of the Latin American media during the transitions to democracy in the 1980s was part of this general pattern^ The general patterns and in some cases turning points in the relationship between the state and the media in Latin America appear to be the following: 1. The initial formative impact of U.S. capital, technology, and creative talent on the nascent Latin American domestic radio industries; 2. The growth of populism and the need for the Latin American state to control the information and entertainment sources of emerging mass movements; 3. The failed efforts of the populist/redistributive state, in the face of domestic and foreign opposition, to bring broadcasting industries under national policy directives; 4. The liberalization and transnationalization of the media facilitated by Latin American military dictatorships and the economic reforms of the 1970s and 1980s; and

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5. T h e e m e r g e n c e of monopolistic m e d i a industries as a u t o n o m o u s domestic political forces, facilitated by weak political parties a n d elected g o v e r n m e n t s . An e m e r g i n g sixth p a t t e r n , which may f o r e s h a d o w the decline of t h e Latin A m e r i c a n d o m e s t i c m e d i a m o n o p o l i e s b u t n o t t h e increase of state oversight or social participation, could result f r o m i n c r e a s e d c o m p e t i t i o n in d o m e s t i c m a r k e t s f r o m new f o r e i g n investors, i n c l u d i n g o t h e r Latin A m e r i c a n countries. T h e direct delivery of foreign satellite c h a n n e l s a n d the increased regionalization of broadcasting could p o r t e n d a decline in t h e e c o n o m i c a n d political power of t h e Latin A m e r i c a n domestic m e d i a m o n o p o l i e s . At t h e same time, this process of regionalization c o u l d result in t h e e m e r g e n c e of a few super players. T h e c h a n g e s in the r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n t h e state a n d t h e m e d i a o c c u r r e d within t h e c o n t e x t of o t h e r t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s in Latin A m e r i c a n societies: u r b a n i z a t i o n , industrialization, t h e decline of traditional political forces, a n d the growth of new political movements. T h e e m e r g e n c e of an interventionist state, with an increasing role in social welfare a n d d e v e l o p m e n t a n d the evolution of a m o d e r n industrial sector of t h e economy, m a r k e d the m i d d l e years of m e d i a growth in Latin America. T h e failed e f f o r t s of Latin American g o v e r n m e n t s d u r i n g t h e late 1960s a n d 1970s to institutionalize a redistributive or social welfare role f o r the domestic m e d i a a n d to increase a n d diversify t h e role of civil society in m e d i a ownership facilitated the growing c o m m e r c i a l a u t o n o m y of t h e m e d i a industries. This a u t o n o m y was o f t e n achieved in e x c h a n g e f o r t h e m e d i a ' s political docility a n d , in s o m e cases, active s u p p o r t f o r a u t h o r i t a r i a n , n o n d e m o c r a t i c regimes. A u t o n o m y a n d the lack of state oversight o r regulation allowed the private m e d i a industries to grow stronger, eventually bec o m i n g i n d e p e n d e n t f r o m state s u p p o r t , a n d in s o m e instances taking an active role in selecting a n d d e p o s i n g political leaders. As Skidmore observed in his review of the m e d i a ' s role in democratizing Latin America, television is t r a n s f o r m i n g the way political candidates are c o n s t r u c t e d , m a r k e t e d , a n d consolidated. It is also t r a n s f o r m i n g the way in which politicians govern o n c e they r e a c h office. T h e evolving relationship between t h e Latin American state a n d t h e m e d i a over the course of t h e twentieth c e n t u r y has e n a b l e d Latin A m e r i c a n b r o a d c a s t i n g i n d u s t r i e s to achieve this position of political strength a n d autonomy. 1 Latin A m e r i c a n b r o a d c a s t i n g is n o t a n atavistic p r o d u c t of poverty, u n d e r d e v e l o p m e n t , o r tyranny, n o r is it t h e p r o d u c t of

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U.S. imperialism. Although foreign influence was exerted strategically, randomly, and pervasively over many decades—more than the product of their foreign relations—Latin American broadcasting industries are the product of a complex interplay of strong and weak domestic governments and markets, authoritarian and populist policies, and largely excluded social forces. Owing to the weaknesses of the Latin American state and the often undemocratic nature of national governments, in most countries political elites were usually more concerned with political censorship of the media than with establishing a social or public role for broadcasting or giving a voice to broader social movements in the media's organization. With few exceptions, institutions such as the church and universities left radio and television technologies to develop in the commercial orbit, failing to provide another vision of how the new broadcasting technologies might be organized to fit the social demands of education, community building, and cultural expression. The prime concerns of the elites were economic growth and political stability; a docile commercial broadcasting system satisfied both. Brazil provides an example of the tendency of the state and broadcasters to seek accommodations—a tendency that survived the Brazilian transition into democracy. The principal factor in the development of national broadcasting in Brazil was the relationship that developed from the late 1930s between the industry and the country's political rulers. The mutual benefits of this relationship to its participants and the enormous size of domestic markets explain why Mexico and Brazil now have the two largest and most monopolistic and politically powerful broadcasting industries in the Western hemisphere. Brazil's authoritarian rulers worked closely first with private radio stations, which they censored and in part directly controlled, and later with commercial television, notably TV Globo, which they helped create and had no need to control. The Brazilian state's coming to terms with television occurred later than it did in Mexico. In Mexico, this accommodation was the natural outgrowth of the radio broadcasters' ongoing relationship with Mexico's political leaders, dating from the 1940s. In Brazil, however, a mutually beneficial working arrangement between television broadcasters and the government was reached after 1964 under a military dictatorship, well into the development of commercial broadcasting. The Mexican state early on formed a close relationship with private commercial broadcasters. Mexican broadcasters freely developed the commercial operations of radio and television and

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did not challenge the state politically. This relationship made authoritarian measures to control domestic (or foreign) broadcasting in Mexico largely unnecessary. From the initial days of radio to the present monopoly of Televisa, the accommodations between the Mexican state and the domestic broadcasting industry evolved within a framework of mutual benefit. This basic "partnership" between the state and broadcasters was and continues to be the dominant characteristic of Mexican broadcasting. It was made possible by the Mexican state's control by a single party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) during the entire period of commercial broadcasting's growth. Televisa, the Mexican media monopoly, is the product of the long, successful relationship between the Mexican media and the country's political leaders. Today, Televisa covers 96 percent of the national territory, produces over 35,000 hours of television yearly, exports programs to 50 countries, and transmits via satellite 24 hours a day to the United States. Sporadic conflicts and a need to reaccommodate the relationship between the Mexican state and the broadcasting industry arose in response to the changing social and political demands of the Mexican people. These popular demands were ultimately largely ignored or excluded from broadcasting policies, partly as a result of the increasing dependence of the ruling party on the private commercial broadcasting industry to run its public relations and political advertising. Likewise, the evolution of the Brazilian broadcasting industry was first and foremost the result of domestic, political accommodations between broadcasters and Brazil's authoritarian rulers. The Brazilian media eventually proved itself to be the stronger partner in this relationship, outlasting the military and successfully transferring their loyalty to a popular civilian regime that was in part their creation. As the Brazilian media became increasingly independent from the government for advertising and other subsidies, the media's vast power contributed to the election and, later, the impeachment of the first freely elected Brazilian president in over 30 years. The early Brazilian media, however, were not always so autonomous from the state. The Estado IMovo The Estado Novo of President Getulio Vargas (1937-1945) ruled Brazil during most of the initial commercial growth of radio

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broadcasting. Vargas had come to power in a coup d'etat in 1937. He ruled the country with dictatorial powers, using radio to facilitate his political objectives. In 1939, Vargas established the Department of Information and Press (DIP) under the presidency in charge of government information and the media. Until the end of World War II, the DIP kept u n d e r tight political control the Brazilian newspapers and radio stations as well as theater, books, films, and other cultural events. The activities of the DIP, especially in relation to radio broadcasting, had the dual purposes of controlling information, news, and public opinion and promoting Brazilian culture, morals, and values. The National Radio of Brazil, Radio Nacional, already the leading radio in Rio de Janeiro, was taken over by the Vargas government in 1940 and in 1942 began nationwide shortwave broadcasts. Under Vargas, Radio Nacional received state financing to purchase the latest equipment and provide professional training for its staff. Using music and humorous programs combined with government propaganda and information programs such as "Hora do Brasil," the powerful shortwave facilities of Radio Nacional integrated the enormous, culturally diverse nation and helped imbue it with a national identity. In addition to broadcasting their own direct transmissions, all Brazilian radio stations were required to schedule daily broadcasts of "Hora do Brasil" between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. Despite Vargas's authoritarian control of radio through direct ownership and political censorship, there was little regulation of the commercial operations of the new broadcasting technologies. 2 For many years, the only law governing commercial radio was Decree 20,047, which became law in 1931, almost 10 years after the appearance of the first Brazilian radio stations. The decree gave the state the right to regulate broadcasting services in the national interest. In 1932, Decree 21,111 established a broadcasting licensing procedure that defined the rights and responsibilities of license holders. 3 Many new commercial radio stations began during the 1940s, often in association with national newspaper chains. By 1938, the radio network of Assis Chateaubriand, Diarios e Emmissoras Associadas, already owned 5 radio stations, 12 newspapers, and a magazine. In the early 1940s, the Carvalho group established the Radio Bandeirantes network, and the owner of the Globo newspaper, Roberto Marinho, founded Radio Globo. In 1944, 110 radio stations were reported in operation throughout the national territory. 4 '

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The Introduction of Television In the 1950s, owners of the Brazilian commercial radio stations and newspapers turned their attention to television. Assis Chateaubriand set up the first television stations, TV-Tupi, in Sao Paulo in 1950, and TV-Tupi/Rio in 1951. Soon after, TV-Paulista and TV-Continental began broadcasting in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1955, Raul Machado de Carvalho inaugurated TV Record and the network Rede de Emmissoras Independentes (REI). A year later, REI added TV Excelsior and TV Rio, two stations that pioneered modern television programming and marketing techniques. Brazilian television was not limited to the wealthy, densely populated coastal cities. Before long, Brasilia, the new federal capital, had two television channels, and in 1956, TVItalcolomi went on the air in Belo Horizonte, also in the country's interior. 5 At the time of the first transmission in 1950, there were only 200 television sets in Brazil. Fifteen years later, Brazil had a television audience of three million households and a highly competitive national television market. The government distributed the first Brazilian television licenses without any preconceived technical plan and often in return for political favors. This was especially true of many of the licenses distributed between 1956 and 1961 during the administration of President Juscelino Kubitschek. State-Subsidized Commercial Broadcasting The authoritarian regime of Vargas and the strict governmental control of information and the press after 1946 left a strong negative sentiment in the country against state intervention in radio and the press. With the return of democratically elected regimes during the mid-1950s, the private sector and the country as a whole became reluctant for the Brazilian state to take a major role in administrating television. A free-market philosophy of private ownership and free competition prevailed. The government, however, controlled broadcast licensing and had considerable, although indirect, influence on the media through the distribution of the government advertising budget and the allocation of credits and loans for the private communication industries. The Brazilian private broadcasters pushed for legislation that would guarantee the stability and growth of their commercial enterprises in the often unstable Brazilian political and economic

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climate. In 1953, Senator Marcondes Filho presented a bill for a national broadcasting code, which was based on the industrial code that had been adopted that same year. The code would eliminate all government control over the national radio and television system.6 In 1962, a Brazilian telecommunications code that gave the private broadcasters the licensing guarantees they wanted was finally ratified in Law 4117. The telecommunication code barred any contractual arrangements between the Brazilian private media and foreign capital, and it centralized the administration of the country's telecommunication services under the federal government.

TV Globo In response to the growing domestic unrest and backed in part by right-wing political parties, the military seized control of the government in 1964. TV Globo, the Brazilian television network that had attained the greatest success of all national media enterprises, was established relatively late in the history of Brazilian television, after the arrival of the military. When TV Globo's Channel 4 went on the air in Rio de Janeiro in 1965, the other networks had already consolidated their position in the national market and 15 years had elapsed since the first Brazilian television transmission. TV Globo's Channel 4 was part of Roberto Marinho's growing newspaper and radio conglomerate. In 1962, before putting the new channel on the air, Marinho had signed a contract with TimeLife for the operation of TV Globo. The influx of foreign capital, technology, administrative experience, and programming allowed Marinho in 1965 to begin transmission with a new style and image of television. Instead of using the often obsolete equipment and informal administration of some of the early Brazilian channels, TV Globo began as a modern television industry with all the latest creative, administrative, and technical advances. The foreign capital allowed TV Globo greater freedom of action in its choices of programming and management. Other channels such as TV-Tupi soon found themselves losing audiences and advertisers to the modern TV Globo network. The military saw TV Globo as a natural support to their regime. Globo's advanced technology, imported expertise, and quality mass productions gave the dictatorship an ideal communications system. In return, TV Globo's privileged financial position allowed it to fully benefit from the new regime's massive investments in national telecommunications infrastructure. The military's development policies of foreign investment and monopolistic concentration of

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the economy with state support to domestic industry fit well with the philosophy of Globo enterprises. TV Globo was born with the 1964 military dictatorship. The next 20 years of Brazilian television was the history of TV Globo as part of the military's project of conservative modernization of the country. The military's goals of national security, economic concentration, foreign investment, and the unification of a national market needed a nationwide, easily controlled medium for advertising and cultural integration, similar to what Vargas had found with Radio Nacional. TV Globo fulfilled these goals, becoming both instrument and product of the military regime. TV Globo became one of the military's main allies for implementing its politically, economically, and ideologically authoritarian model. At the same time, Brazilian television constituted one of the most notable products of the military's massive investments in modern communication technologies and the construction of a telecommunications infrastructure for the nationwide transmission of television signals. Under the military, Brazil's national product almost quadrupled, and the country grew to become the world's 10th largest industrial power. Economic growth, however, was not equally distributed. In 1960, the poorest half of the Brazilian population received 17.4 percent of the national product, but by the end of the military's rule, its share had dropped to 12.2 percent. Between 1964 and 1984, the gross national product per capita almost doubled, although the purchasing power of the minimum wage fell by 51 percent. 7 Brazilian commercial television was both the image and the voice of the military regime, controlling the country under these potentially explosive economic and political conditions. The sophisticated centralized industry provided a multifaceted society, torn by violence and social injustice, with a homogeneous, nonconflictive and stable image of the world and of itself. President Medici once made the following confession: I feel happy every night when I turn the television on to watch the news. While the news reports strikes, agitations, attempted assassinations and conflicts in other parts of the world, Brazil marches on in peace in the direction of development. It is like taking a tranquilizer after a hard day's work. 8

TV Globo's programming strategy of low-cost popular programs and its political favor with the dictatorship made it the main beneficiary of the growth of Brazilian television. The military's

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1968 investment in a national microwave relay system and satellite reception and transmission facilities facilitated the rapid national expansion of the TV Globo network. Its five-year agreement with Time-Life brought TV Globo the capital, technology, and administrative expertise necessary to gain ascendancy over the existing television stations; TV Globo became the fourth largest television network in the world. Its enterprises covered a complete range of production, distribution, and sales of radio, television, newspapers, magazines, records, films, and video. Between 1970 and 1980, the three original TV Globo channels grew to a national network of 46 affiliates. By 1982, TV Globo reached 99 percent of the Brazilian households with televisions—approximately 15 million in a country of slightly over 112 million people. TV Globo's audience share at peak hours between 8:00 and 10:00 P.M. often reached 75 percent of the population. 9 By 1980, in addition to television, the TV Globo enterprises (Radio Globo, Radio Eldorado, Radio Mundial, and CBN) comprised the original newspaper 0 Globo, founded in 1925, the Globo radio network, established in 1944, a publishing house, a recording company, a video tape production company, an electronics industry, an art gallery, a theater production company, and its own cultural foundation named after Globo president Roberto Marinho. Today, Globo owns two subscription television networks in Rio and Sao Paulo and is associated with groups elsewhere. Globo has grown into a financial conglomerate with branches in insurance (Seguradora Roma), banking (Banco ABC Roma, Corretora ABC Roma, Distribuidora ABC), agriculture, the food industry, real estate, mining (Compasa, Cobem, and Manati), medical care associations, and the electronic and the telecommunications industry (NEC do Brasil, Nectom, and Victori Comunicagoes). Brazilian television and especially TV Globo grew with all the advantages offered the private sector by the Brazilian military regime. The expansion of the Globo national network and the objectives of national integration and security of the Brazilian military were one and the same. Globo stretched over the entire territory, bringing Brazilians sophisticated pictures in brilliant colors and complex imagery. Globo blended sports, patriotism, national news, and soap operas with dexterity, the latest technology, and seemingly limitless funds. During a decade in which the Brazilian people had no organized representative political institutions and little right to free expression, TV Globo brought them an identity and gave them a dream.

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The Role of Brazilian Television in the Transition to Democracy Between 1979 and 1985 u n d e r the Figueiredo administration, the Brazilian economy began to show signs of exhaustion. By the end of Figueiredo's term, inflation had reached 200 percent, and recessive measures had increased unemployment. Brazil's foreign debt was close to $100 billion. Sectors of business a n d industry began to disassociate themselves f r o m the military regime, and previously docile politicians became rebellious. In the 1982 legislative elections, the opposition won control of the state governments of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Paraná, along with many seats in the House of Deputies. In the face of these defeats, the military announced that it would not allow direct presidential elections to be held in the country until 1990. T h e moderate left-wing and center political parties, however, supported a campaign for immediate and direct presidential elections. 1 0 T h e campaign for direct presidential elections was a widespread movem e n t to pressure Parliament—where the military supporters held a majority—to approve a constitutional a m e n d m e n t allowing the president to be elected by direct popular vote. T h e catalytic role played by the Brazilian mass media in the campaign contributed an unexpected element in the movement. Although all the domestic media eventually supported the campaign for direct presidential elections, TV Globo, although highly indebted to the military regime for its success, helped establish the national dimension of the antigovernment movement by broadcasting the e n o r m o u s demonstrations of over 1 million people that took place in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. In the final months of the military's power, the radical and unexpected changes in the Brazilian mass media and especially television were most striking in the TV Globo system. T h e campaign for direct presidential elections consisted of rallies and demonstrations held in the first half of 1984 in all the state capitals and large cities all over Brazil. Broadcasters at first ignored the protests and, until May, provided uneven coverage of the events. By J u n e , however, they were unanimous in their enthusiastic and astute coverage of the campaign. T h e TV Globo network, for example, covered the rallies f r o m noon on, in this way encouraging people who were still at h o m e to come out and join the crowds. T h e military never dreamed it would lose the support of the network that had been its semiofficial mouthpiece and one of the

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principal beneficiaries of the Brazilian economic miracle. Public opinion, however, sensed that TV Globo was changing sides and that the dictatorship was coming to an end. TV Globo was born with and had grown strong with the regime, but it would not go down with the regime. Although the move for direct elections was ultimately not successful, the military's candidate was defeated later that year in the indirect presidential elections held within the electoral college. The mass media and especially TV Globo played a decisive role in this defeat. In the campaign for direct presidential elections, TV Globo had at first been caught off guard by the unexpected strength of public opinion against the military. In the campaign of opposition candidate Tancredo Neves in the electoral college, TV Globo took the initiative, helping to form public opinion and influencing the political process as the mouthpiece of the coalition movement of the Democratic Alliance. On 15 January 1985, all the Brazilian radio and TV stations transmitted live broadcasts of Neves's election by voice vote in the electoral college. After his election and during the transition, TV Globo kept its distance from the military regime with a neutral and seemingly objective coverage of the national news that had begun with the coverage of the campaign for direct elections. When Neves became ill and died before he could take office, TV Globo played a key role in legitimizing his legal successor. Concerning this role, Brazilian analysts Guimaraes and Amaral observed: The mass media and especially TV Globo had given legitimacy to the new regime. At the same time, TV Globo has assured its own legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. A new TV Globo was born with the New Republic. Its role under the dictatorship was forgotten. . . . The new leaders of Brazil had the media to thank for many things. However, they would now have to deal with the powerful new independent political force. 11

The power of this independent political (and economic 1 2 ) force was demonstrated in the 1989 presidential elections in which TV Globo's preferred candidate, Fernando Collor de Melo, was the easy winner. A recent study of the 1989 Brazilian presidential elections argued that the reasons for Fernando Collor's success in the 1989 elections can be found in the "political scenario of representation" that was constructed in and by the media, especially television, and specifically by TV Globo's support for his candidacy.13 TV Globo's news and ubiquitous soap operas called on the

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country to unite in support of Collor, who was represented as a modern, optimistic outsider. In addition, Globo's coverage of Collor's opponent in the presidential debate—calling him Ignacio "Lula" Silva, for example—made him look like a dangerous fool. The power exercised by TV Globo in the 1989 elections had clarified the need to "democratize" the Brazilian media. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 had provided some instruments for these changes, including the prohibition of monopolies or oligopolies in the media, the balance of public, private, and state broadcasting systems, and the regionalization of cultural, artistic, and journalistic productions. Few of these measures, however, were ever enforced, and the Collor administration largely dismantled any state aid in the area of culture, especially to the Brazilian film industry and other cultural productions, and reduced popular access to culture throughout the country. 14 The Constitution also confirmed the prolongation of the license period for television broadcasters for 15 years and made if very difficult to revoke an existing broadcast license. The same TV Globo power that had worked in favor of Collor, however, also worked against him. The Washington Post pointed out that Brazilians knew their president was in serious trouble when the TV Globo network started giving generous coverage to the street rallies calling for his impeachment on charges of corruption. And, when word got out that Roberto Marinho had held a meeting with Vice President Itamar Franco, next in the line of succession, Brazilians knew Collor was finished; he resigned as a result of the corruption charges on 29 September 1992. 15 By relying on the private commercial media for support, the authoritarian Brazilian regime created a potent force in the Brazilian media. Although this force played a key role in Brazil's faltering return to democracy, it remained largely outside the orbit of the newly representative institutions of Brazilian society. Furthermore, it appeared unlikely that the broadcasting monopoly would change with the introduction in Brazil of new telecommunications technologies. The evolution of broadcasting policies in Brazil demonstrates several similarities with other countries in the region. At different periods in each country, the state needed more access to and control over the media to accomplish political objectives and was able to exert control over commercial media ownership and content. At others times, governments initiated state-directed national policies within broader political and economic reforms, ostensibly focusing on broadcasting's foreign "dependency" and lack of a role

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in social and economic development, but ultimately concerning themselves with domestic political control. These economic and social redistributive policies largely disappeared after the late 1970s, first under authoritarian dictatorships and later under the new political climate that limited the role of the public sector, tightened fiscal and monetary politics, and expanded free-market economics. During the discussions over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States and Mexico, for example, the "undemocratic" relationship between the Mexican government and the media came under examination and criticism. The Christian Science Monitor observed that Televisa favored any nominee of the governing PRI to the extent that opposition candidates were rarely seen and never heard on any Televisa station: "The government allows Televisa to enjoy monopoly control of the Mexican media market, for which it pays no taxes. In exchange for what would be owed, the government is given TV and radio time for messages, which at times are indistinguishable from political commercials." 16 In a U.S. congressional hearing, it was reported that the Mexican government still had de facto control of the nation's media in the form of the influence of regulatory bodies, licensing, and government funding of advertising revenue and operating costs, as well as outright intimidation. 17 Perhaps because of this indirect control, the Mexican government felt it no longer needed to maintain its own broadcasting resources. In 1991, after almost 20 years of operation, the Mexican government announced the sale of 170 government television stations that formed the Imevision network (Channel 7). The Channel 13 government-owned network was put up for sale in March 1992. When domestic political forces were able to reach an accommodation with national broadcasting industries, as was the case in Brazil and Mexico, strong media monopolies developed. The broadcasting media in these countries acquired their own political power and autonomy from the state as well as an ability to operate largely outside any national policy guideline. When accommodations between the state and the industry were not forthcoming, the broadcasting industry remained politically weaker and generally more fragmented, as was historically the case in Colombia, Argentina, and Peru. In these countries this fragmentation is now beginning to dissipate, and monopolies are forming with stronger political roles for the media. Likewise, Chile and Uruguay failed to forge a bond between a strong state and a domestic broadcasting

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power under either democratic or authoritarian regimes. Today their national broadcasting institutions are in transition, with renegotiations under way among the principal actors. Conclusion For Latin American societies today, the challenge in organizing their domestic communication systems is to reach a more democratic relationship or accommodation among the different domestic actors. This accommodation implies a new conception of the rights and obligations of civil society, the state—through its institutions of political representation—and the increasingly autonomous, powerful, and transnational domestic media industries. These wider considerations of rights and obligations, political representation and accountability, have been largely absent from broadcasting throughout the region. The demands of social movements and grassroots organizations for greater political participation and cultural representation have generally proved to be short-lived. When the Mexican government was temporarily shaken by popular protests and demands for wider political participation, it felt the need to reaccommodate its relationship with the private media. The state-driven reforms, however, ultimately led to the development of government media channels rather than increased "democratization" of the media. Similar pressures for increased popular representation contributed to the Chilean government's initial decision to establish a national television network, but this ultimately resulted in increased government control. Peru's top-down media reform led to an enormous government media bureaucracy with little real popular input. Possibilities for achieving goals of media democratization differ in each country. Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, with the strongest private monopolies, probably face the toughest challenges. As the previously fragmented media race to form larger multimedia conglomerates in Colombia and Argentina, it is unclear which outcome will prevail: the autonomy of the media or the strength of fragile democratic organs of representation. The situation in Uruguay and Chile is more open-ended, although the commitment to popular representation and political participation in the media requires these newly consolidating democracies to face new obstacles of increased control of the media by the larger Latin American media monopolies. Today, few Latin American leaders would advocate policies of state control or cultural nationalism to protect domestic broadcasting

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industries: There is no need. Domestic media are competing strongly and successfully in international export markets, and Latin American broadcasters have become significant exporters of entertainment as well as news. Latin American soap operas—telenovelas—garner huge audiences in Poland, China, Russia, Spain, and scores of other countries. Mexico's ECO news service and Galavision are viewed in European and North American countries. On a smaller scale, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, and Colombia have become cultural exporters, their radio and television industries filling time on satellite services, cable systems, and radio networks in Latin America and targeting the large Hispanic audiences in the United States. In addition to domestic broadcasters, a host of Latin American, North American, and European satellite-delivered news and entertainment channels serve the region, distributed domestically on both cable and pay television. The 1990s saw an explosion of satellite growth, as aging domestic systems of the mid-1980s gave way to new satellites with digital compression, direct-to-home capabilities, and longer expected life spans. Most countries now provide some form of constitutional protection for the free press and media regulation. Forms of protection include licensing, content stipulations, and in some cases, such as the new television law in Colombia, restrictions on crossownership and concentration. Generally, government oversight and regulatory bodies are weak in enforcing public service obligations or guaranteeing access and participation to the media. They tend to be stronger in enforcing laws on libel and slander. Almost all countries have some form of content regulation of sex and violence and limits on advertising. Although censorship has decreased with the return of democratic regimes, self-censorship and violence against media and journalists continue. In Argentina, for example, incidents of media intimidation have become more frequent since 1989, including 50 cases of physical attacks by security forces and groups apparently linked to the ruling Peronist party. Journalists and publications investigating official corruption are the principal targets of violence. Drug-related violence seriously affects the media in other countries. Dozens of journalists have been murdered in Colombia during the last 10 years, five of these in 1993 alone. Numerous others were kidnapped, and nearly every newspaper, radio station, and broadcast news program investigating drugs is under constant threat. 18 In some countries, despite threats, the media play important roles in exposing corruption and challenging politicians. Brazil

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provides an example of the media's key role in exposing President Collor's corruption and generating a public outcry for his ouster. This was possible in part because the Brazilian media increasingly separated themselves from the power that traditionally maintained them. Likewise, in Venezuela and Argentina, the discrediting of politics has led to growth in power and prestige for the media. T h e massive corruption in the Venezuelan government since the late 1970s, culminating in President Carlos Andres Perez's resignation, led to a discrediting of politicians and political parties. The large family-owned media groups in Venezuela—the P h e l p s / G r a n i e r family Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), the Cisneros family's Venevision, and the publishing empires of the Armas and Capriles families—are so large that they can no longer be manipulated by politicians to advance a particular agenda. In fact, they often influence politics to advance their own agenda. Yet, the 1994 collapse of many banks that were extensively invested in media led to the temporary takeover of many media holdings by the government, thus increasing the power of the government over the media. This process of accommodation between the media and the state surely will continue, as technology, markets, and political movements shape the Latin American media into the twenty-first century.

Notes 1. T h o m a s E. Skidmore, Television, Politics, and the Transition to Democracy in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: T h e Wilson Center and J o h n Hopkins, 1992). 2. Sonia Virginia Moreira, "Radio, DIP e Estado Novo: A Pratica Radiofonica n o Governo Vargas," paper presented at the XV Congress of INTERCOM, Sao Paulo, October 1992. 3. Maria Elivira Bonavita Federico, Historia da Comunicacao Radio e Televisao no Brasil (Petropolis: Voces, 1982). 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Sergio Mattos, "Domestic and Foreign Advertising in Television and Mass Media Growth: A Case Study of Brazil" (Ph.D. diss., University o f Texas at Austin, 1982). 7. Ignacy Sachs, "Les Quatre Dettes du Brasil," Problemes d'Amerique Latine 78, no. 4 (1985): 9 8 - 1 1 4 . 8. Q u o t e d in Mattos, Domestic and Foreign Advertising, 12. 9. Cesar Ricardo Siqueira Bolano, Mercado Brasileiro de Televisao: Uma Abordagem Dinamica (master's thesis, Universidade Campinas, 1986).

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10. Under the dictatorship, the president was chosen by an electoral college composed of members of parliament and representatives of the state legislative assemblies. For 20 years they had always chosen a general. 11. Cesar Guimaraes and Roberto Amarai, "Brazilian Television: A Rapid Conversion to the New Order," in Elizabeth Fox, ed. Media and Politics in Latin America: The Struggle for Democracy (London: Sage, 1988), 137. 12. The Brazilian economy invests about $2 billion per year in advertising, 55 percent of this to television, 30 percent to newspapers, and only 4 percent to radio. TV Globo captures 70 percent of television advertising. At prime time, 73 percent of those watching television choose TV Globo over the six other networks. 13. Collor had strong links with TV Globo since 1978, when he became president of his father's regional media empire, the Arnon de Mello Organization, which is the biggest multimedia group in Alagoas; it controls the major state newspaper, A Gazeta de Alagoas, 13 radio stations, and TV Gazeta, an affiliate of the TV Globo network. For several years, Collor's brother was regional director of TV Globo in Recife and Säo Paulo. Marinho (president of TV Globo) himself was a partner with Collor's father, with whom he bought the property on which the first TV Globo building was built in Rio de Janeiro. 14. Regina Festa, "Brazilian Cinema Loses its Way," Media Development 1 (1993): 7. 15. Julia Preston, "Brazil's Power of the Press," The Washington Post, 12 December 1992, p. CI. 16. Richard Seid, "Mexico: Much Press, Little Real Freedom," The Christian Science Monitor, 8 March 1993, 18. 17. U.S. Congress, House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, Update on Recent Developments in Mexico: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, 102nd Cong., 16 October 1991. 18. Freedom House, Freedom in the World: 1993-1994. The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties (New York: Freedom House, 1994).

The Unfinished Project of Media Democratization in Argentina SILVIO R . W A I S B O R D

The prospects for democratization of the mass media have historically confronted the rock of state intervention and the hard place of the market. Classic and contemporary debates about democracy and the media have addressed the limits that states and markets impose on the media's autonomy to serve the information needs of citizens, offer a plurality of views, and nurture citizenship. The utilitarian position has stated that the arrogance and centralizing tendencies of governments prevent the free circulation of information. For the early defenders of freedom of the press, government intrusion was the greatest threat to democracies. Critics, however, indicate that the market is no panacea to the shortcomings of state management of information. Markets treat citizens as consumers, rather than as members of a political community. When markets rule, the highly vaunted free flow of information is subject to economic concentration, barriers to entry, and advertising pressures. Commercial rule, then, is not necessarily better than intrusive and secretive governments. Both are antithetical to the idea that communication media should promote an informed citizenry, public debate, and critical reasoning. In broad strokes, the historical growth of the media in Western societies has been depicted as following a path from shaking off state intrusion to being progressively engulfed by the market. In a process that lasted over two centuries, however, the public sphere lost autonomy at the expense of commercial interests. The commercialization of the printed press during the rise of mass democratic societies shifted the allegiances from government to market powers. The consolidation of private ownership in the United States and the'recent private assault on the public broadcasting 41

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systems in Europe have limited the democratization of the mass media, attesting to the affirmation of commercial interests. 1 This grand narrative offers an adequate conceptual and historical framework to understand the trajectory of the mass media and political change in Latin America during the "wave of democratization" that has replaced military with civilian administrations in the 1980s. It directs our attention to the means by which states and markets harm the possibilities for the mass media to promote and strengthen citizenship in contemporary democracies. There are important differences that set Latin American countries apart from the evolutionary pattern observed in European democracies and in the United States. Nowhere in Latin America can we find a process comparable to the commercial revolution that profoundly altered the structure of the public sphere in developed societies and allowed media organizations to keep the state at arm's length. In addition, the region's long history of authoritarian governments, who relied on a variety of methods to secure a submissive media, has made it difficult, if not impossible, for the media to keep the state at bay. Finally, state control of economic resources (for example, advertising, tax imports, newsprint, broadcasting licenses) has inhibited the media from taking distance from governments, fostering, instead, a close alliance between them. 2 This tradition of intertwined state and market interests is critical to understanding the role of the mass media during the downfall of authoritarian regimes and the emergence of democracies. In this article, my interest is to explore these dynamics in Argentina to discuss the limits and possibilities for democratic communication in a new political context.

Media Ownership The 1990s have been a watershed in Argentine history. After decades of uninterrupted rounds of civilian and authoritarian regimes, there are now signs of political stabilization. Showing unusual strength, Argentine democracy has been able to resist runaway hyperinflation and three military insurrections since 1983. In the context of austere plans for economic reform, democratic politics have managed to survive. To put it bluntly, there seem to be no alternatives to liberal democracy. 3 Simultaneously with the affirmation of democracy, a distinctive trend in media industries has been gradually emerging: privatization

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and conglomerization. This is a new feature, since private firms and governments have constantly battled over media ownership but neither has prevailed. T h e r e was a persistent and uneasy coexistence between the state and the market. T h e result was market-based and fragmented media industries closely linked to governments. Yet all solutions were temporary, as the rotation of civilian and military governments tilted the balance in different directions and forced a reaccommodation of all parts. T h e tug-of-war between business and governments is inseparable f r o m the political path the country has taken since the 1930s. Starting with the military coup of September 1930, the cycle of authoritarian and democratic systems began, and with it, the fate of newspapers and broadcasting became inevitably tied to persistent political instability. Almost without exception, governments persisted in approaching the media simply as political megaphones. Market interest pursued a line of accommodation with officials to gain economic benefit but at the same time tried to keep minimal margins of independence. 4 When ideological differences were u n s u r m o u n table, agreements became impossible and conflicts ensued. T h e result was the expropriation of media companies, for example, when different Peronist administrations took over the world-renowned conservative daily La Prensa in 1951 and the three main private television channels in 1974, or when the last military government took away the prestigious liberal daily La Opinión f r o m publisher Jacobo Timerman in 1979. T h e r u n n i n g wrestling match between markets and states occurred in both broadcasting and print media. Once potential alternatives quickly died out during the early 1920s, private broadcasting became the d o m i n a n t model. Much along the lines established in the United States, advertising became the only source of sponsorship. Several radio stations controlled by local or provincial governments survived, but their operations were mostly financed by advertising. Although radio was privately owned and commercially operated, the state did n o t gently retreat to the background: It tried to keep radio operations on a short leash. Interested in securing mouthpieces, governments have systematically cultivated alliances with owners, offered economic support a n d other benefits to loyal broadcasters, and tried to influence j o b appointments. 5 Unlike radio, television ownership switched between state and private models; despite changing hands, however, television continued to function as a commercial medium. Following the

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sponsorship of the first Peronist administration, television broadcasting began in 1951 when the state-owned Channel 7 was inaugurated. For General Juan Perón, television essentially became another weapon in the propaganda arsenal built with his arrival at power in 1946. Privately owned television was started at the end of the decade, after Perón was ousted in 1955. 6 The project for expanding the number of television stations was captained by local media entrepreneurs and Cuban television mogul Goar Mestre, who also vigorously pushed the introduction of television in other South American countries. They counted on the economic and technological assistance of the U.S. networks. The percentage of television homes and total viewing hours rapidly grew, and local broadcasters achieved remarkable economic success during the boom of the 1960s. In addition to broadcasting U.S. programs, the four Buenos Aires stations produced shows that were nationally distributed. Unlike the Brazilian and Mexican cases, in which quasi-monopolic networks developed, television ownership was much more fragmented in Argentina. Expressing the fears of the military that networks would become difficult to control, broadcasting legislation (including the still upheld 1980 law) banned the formation of national networks. Companies were transformed into media behemoths in Brazil and Mexico through government-sponsored technological development to guarantee national media coverage and a solid partnership between media firms and an authoritarian regime. 7 No system comparable to Brazil's Globo or Mexico's Televisa developed in Argentina, where a large territory would have been conducive to the formation of a nationwide network. Shortly after General Perón was sworn into office for a third term after winning by an electoral landslide in September 1973, the first stage of private television suffered an important reverse. As its leader triumphantly returned from exile, Peronism overtook control of a country immersed in political chaos and violence. Equipped with a nationalistic platform that reflected popular critiques of commercial and foreign-dominated broadcasting, the government decided to take over the three private stations based in Buenos Aires. Although rhetorically, this move was justified as a way to champion local television and bridle the influence of commercial interests, the expropriation of private stations was a response to the belief that media control was crucial for political success. 8 Stations were allocated to political cronies without any welldefined, common directives to inform operations. Government

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appointees were constantly subject to political pressures and favoritism: They had to please their backers and make stations profitable. Commercial and political expectations were inseparable. Programming did not suffer substantial changes, except for newscasts, which were now commanded by Peronist anchors and producers, and a few shows that featured directors, writers, and performers identified with the government. None of the original goals were achieved. An incoherent television policy was part of Peronism's larger ideological disarray and infighting, which became more acute and violent once the old general died in July 1974 and his wife Isabel was sworn in.

The Media During Authoritarian Rule The dynamics observed during the Peronist years persisted after a military junta overthrew Isabel Peron in March 1976. The stateowned stations were part of the government booty captured by the military. These stations were equally distributed among the three branches of the Armed Forces and were run independently from each other as electronic fiefdoms. 9 As a result of the ideological purge instrumented by the regime to decimate the once-vibrant culture industries, censorship became rampant, and personnel identified with the ousted Peronist administration or who were suspected to have linkages to leftist movements lost their jobs and were banned and persecuted. Like their civilian predecessors, military appointees were expected to be good economic and political managers. Stations were expected to have high ratings and draw large advertising monies as well as serve the political ambitions of higher powers. These goals in turn legitimized competition among channels that legally belonged to the same owner. No coordination ever existed, and differences and rivalries within the Armed Forces rapidly surfaced. 10 Reflecting its pro-market orientation, the regime made a commitment to privatize stations. The 1980 broadcasting law established the transferral of state-owned broadcasting stations to private hands, with the exception of the national radio and television network and a few local stations. A sore point between the government and the most powerful news companies was the ruling against cross-ownership that excluded print firms from future bids. Waving the flag of freedom of expression, these companies condemned the decision and fervently lobbied to eliminate the legal caveat that halted their expansion into the television markets.

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Notwithstanding the prohibition of cross-ownership, print companies acquired radio stations during the 1980s via the use of legal loopholes. The privatization process was delayed, however. Neither the Army, the Air Force, nor the Navy was willing to relinquish control of the stations. Only when the regime's defeat in the Malvinas/ Falklands War made downfall seem imminent was the process of privatization accelerated. A handful of radio stations was awarded to bidders generally seen as having close ties to high-ranking military officers. 11 Except for one Buenos Aires station that was transferred back to its previous owner, the three remaining state-owned television stations were not privatized but were inherited by the democratically elected Alfonsin administration in December 1983. The state of broadcasting policies partially conditioned the relation between print media and the military. None of the most influential newspapers became overt propagandists for the regime but instead maintained p r u d e n t distance. Some dailies such as Clarín pounded aspects of the government's economic policies, whereas others such as La Prensa and the English-language Buenos Aires Herald confronted the military over human rights abuses. Most dailies, however, did not criticize the government and remained silent on many sensitive issues (human rights violations, for example). In fact, all dailies explicitly or tacitly endorsed the military for ousting the Perón government, crediting the military for its commitment to restoring order. In the early 1970s, the two main Buenos Aires newspapers— Clarín and La Nación—-joined forces with the military in developing a national newsprint company. Papel Prensa, as the company was named, represented the attempt by the largest newspapers to secure a cheap source of newsprint. Since it produced newsprint at a subsidized price, Papel Prensa clearly benefited its participants: In contrast, all other dailies had to buy newsprint from a domestic, privately owned corporation and foreign providers at a cost sometimes 50 or 60 percent higher than that of Papel Prensad The close relations between media companies and the military explain why the media acted cautiously during the transition to democracy. Controlled by government appointees, the major television stations gave minimal coverage to pro-democracy movements and continued to be silent on human rights abuses committed by the regime. Similarly, the most influential dailies only cautiously took distance from the government and followed, rather than led, the process of political opening. 1 3 Even though

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the regime emerged extremely weak out of the Malvinas/Falklands fiasco, the press refrained f r o m actively supporting and accelerating the move to democracy. 14 The Alfonsin Years: Democratization and Impasse After a turbulent election campaign, the Radical candidate Raul Alfonsin was elected president in October 1983. It was the first time that the Radical party had defeated Peronism in free elections. Amid u n b o u n d e d optimism, the incoming administration faced a packed agenda. T h e Radical government set clear priorities: to find solutions to the severe and persistent economic crisis, the painful legacy of human rights abuses, and the military actions conducted during the war. According to f o r m e r government officials, the urgency of these issues led the administration to postpone policies to reorganize broadcasting and instead consider it a minor issue. 13 Plans for a major overhaul were formulated during the election campaign b u t were vaguely articulated and received little attention during Alfonsin's presidential tenure. T h e electoral platform included the creation of a public broadcasting institution with parliamentary representation and the reexamination of the Law of Broadcasting passed by the military in 1980. T h e democratization of the media, however, was deemed less relevant than other topics: Four years into its term, the Alfonsin administration submitted its first proposal for media reform to Congress, but it failed to gain support from the Peronist majority. By the time Alfonsin stepped down in May 1989,'the structure of broadcasting had been basically unchanged. Important changes were undoubtedly introduced, especially during the "honeymoon" period. New station managers were appointed, censorship was lifted, and topics, actors, and institutions formerly considered taboo appeared. The existing organization of broadcasting persisted, however. State-owned television stations were still sources of political patronage r u n by radical loyalists. Successful producers during the military years were given prime-time slots, with the hope that their cachet and track record would bring higher revenues for the stations. Advertising continued to be the only source of funding, and time regulations for commercials were systematically violated. T h e expectations were that stations had to be profitable and also accommodate the aspirations of influential politicians. State

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television added to the bloated public debt that had been inherited from the military, but paradoxically, it was highly lucrative for the major producers and deal-makers. The balance sheet of the statist experience shows that the insolvent stations were moneymaking ventures for private entrepreneurs. 16 Politically, stations were vulnerable to the constant pressure of prominent officials and the changing equilibrium inside the Alfonsin administration. As television was becoming a dominant force in Argentine politics, newscasts, talk-shows, and entertainment programs were subject to the influence of media-hungry politicians.17 The Radical government encountered a situation similar to the one the military had faced: The distribution of radio and television stations among party factions made it difficult to reach a consensus about media policy, since it gave substantial power to different groups. Each faction was unwilling to forgo control over its broadcasting turf. Although some of its members initially pushed to resist the pressure from private firms and to design a system with the participation of public and private sectors, the administration finally succumbed to commercial interests. Toward the end of Alfonsin's tenure, government officials announced the immediate privatization of radio and television stations. Their announcements did not promise a major overhaul of the broadcasting law but simply a need to return the state-owned media to private hands.18 By the time the Alfonsin administration had decidedly adopted a privatization policy, the momentum was lost for a decentralized and mixed model that could have opened spaces to civic organizations and limited the influence of both state and market interests. Political groups, unions, and social movements that were critical of both private and state control of the mass media failed to reach minimal agreements to propose an alternative model. 19 The absence of nonmarket, nonstate initiatives coupled with the lethargy (and disinterest) of the main political parties to restructure the media order facilitated the success of private interests. The unyielding efforts of the biggest media companies for privatization finally bore fruit shortly after Peronist Carlos Menem won the elections in May 1989. Media Privatization A few months after taking power, the Menem administration decided to sell Channels 11 and 13 of Buenos Aires: It issued a

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decree that circumvented the ruling of the 1980 law that banned print media from owning broadcasting licenses. This decree launched the deregulatory process that removed limitations on cross-ownership and the participation of foreign capital in domestic media industries. Without proposing or waiting for a new and encompassing legal reform, the government resorted to an executive decree to expedite the process. 20 As later events showed, this act was not exceptional; rather, it inaugurated a practice the Menem administration regularly used to implement major decisions. On the broadcasting issue, it feared that a lengthy process and compromise with congressional forces would have stalled the process. Although the return of the state media to private owners was not questioned, dissidence inside the Peronist bloc (coupled with the likely opposition from other parties) did not guarantee a fast result tailored to the government's expectations. Rapid privatization satisfied the expectations of powerful media companies. The latter relentlessly demanded privatization and justified it by resorting to the classic argument of market competition and private ownership as the pillars of freedom of communication. In retrospect, the decision to auction the state-owned stations could be interpreted as part of the wide-ranging free-market philosophy embraced by the Menem administration. Reversing traditional Peronist economic and social policies, President Menem unraveled a process of transformation that has since profoundly refashioned the Argentine economy. The privatization of state companies has been a key component of Menem's neoconservative policies aimed at achieving fiscal stabilization. As mentioned earlier, the major reforms were instrumented through a series of presidential decrees to jump-start the process of state reform. Ironically, these measures were implemented by the same party that was responsible for expanding state intervention during the 1940s and 1950s. Although it was started by the same law that spurred the process of state reform, media privatization was not part of an economic logic that approached the debt-ridden, state-owned stations as a financial burden on the public treasury. The decision was taken at the beginning of Menem's first term, when the government did not take the neoconservative route it later fully adopted. When the stations were allocated to private bidders in December 1989, the administration's economic policy was still identified with the old Peronist canon of state intervention and nationalism. The auctioning of television stations responded to a political logic:

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namely, the government's expectation to secure favorable treatment by the most powerful media groups. Perhaps the staunch opposition of private interests to the Alfonsin administration, reflected in critical coverage and protests for delaying privatization, showed what might have lain ahead for a Peronist administration had it resisted the d e m a n d s of media groups. In a high-profile meeting with media owners during the 1989 election campaign, Menem—then a candidate—expressed his commitment to privatization. He was not alone in promising to sell the state-owned media: The presidential candidates of the other major parties also pledged to expedite the privatization of television stations. 21 His decision reflected the consensus around the idea of using market principles to rule media operations and the lack of attention by political parties and other groups to an alternative conception of organizing media systems. Such political logic explains why the Menem administration has been only partially committed to privatization in media matters. T h e administration has n o t expressed interest in auctioning Channel 7 and radio frequencies that still remain u n d e r direct control of the executive. Although a comprehensive debate on media ownership and public interest was absent, the mission of government-operated stations continued u n d e f i n e d . With no alternatives in sight, c o m m o n practices prevailed: As President Menem reiterated, it was understood that those stations functioned as government property. As with previous civilian and military administrations, these stations served as government patronage and official loudspeakers and were subject to continuous infighting within the Menem administration. 2 2 The Consolidation of Market Dynamics Privatization and liberalization paved the way for media groups to become economic powerhouses. Channel IB was assigned to Grupo Clarín, the owner of the largest daily in the Spanish-speaking world and undoubtedly the strongest media corporation in Argentina. With Grupo La Nación, it has been the major holder of the national newsprint production and a news agency since the 1970s. Recently, Grupo Clarín has expanded into radio, publishing, cellular telephony, and cable television in a joint venture with Citicorp and Spain's Telefónica (which has successfully bid in the 1990 privatization of the telephone system). Channel 11 was awarded to a conglomerate f o r m e d by a dozen media companies and private

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investors. T h e main stockholder is Editorial Atlántida, one of the leading publishers of magazines and books with investments in the radio industry. Although they did n o t benefit from the privatization of television stations, other corporations are also major players in the media, industry. Grupo La Nación owns the traditional newspaper La Nación and has interests in cable television, newsprint production, news agencies, and domestic satellites. Grupo Romay controls Channel 9 in Buenos Aires, cable and radio stations, and television stations in major cities. From its origins in the textile industry, Grupo Eurnekián aggressively ventured into the media business during the 1980s. It currently controls a daily newspaper and several television and radio stations. It recently sold 51 percent of its stocks to Tele-Communication Inc. (TCI) for $750 million to consolidate its position in a competitive cable market, taking advantage of TCI's ambitious plans for technological and programming development in Latin America. Grupo Fortabat, one of the most powerful economic groups in the country, with holdings in cement, agricultural, and financial industries, has entered the media industry by heading a revamping of the traditional daily La Prensa a n d participating in a j o i n t venture that operates domestic satellites. Grupo Liberman has affirmed its stronghold in the cable industry and satellite television after selling 50 percent of its stocks to Continental for $150 million. Editorial Sarmiento owns the popular tabloid Crónica, magazines, and cable services. 23 T h e privatization of broadcasting stations per se did n o t fuel the process of conglomerization: T h e introduction of cable and satellite technologies since the mid-1980s, the southward expansion of U.S. and European communication firms, and the privatization and partial modernization of telecommunication systems in the 1990s have also contributed to a competitive rush and the horizontal and vertical integration of media industries. T h e government's decision to privatize, however, eliminated the last legal obstacle that delayed full-blown concentration. This unleashed fierce competition among media groups to capture advertisers and audiences and to conquer both old and new industries. The process of technological convergence is likely to stimulate media concentration in Argentina. This process is doubtlessly contingent on a rapid modernization of the obsolete telecommunication networks and a significant rise in telephone penetration. A decisive issue, however, is whether a f u t u r e communications law would allow telephone companies to provide broadcasting services. This is a sore point in the ongoing congressional debates

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over replacement of the outdated 1980 law. The legislation that regulated privatization of the state telephone company in 1990 excludes the European telecom consortia (Telefonica and Telecom) from the broadcasting market. Those consortia are strongly pushing for complete liberalization, whereas broadcasting and print companies, fearful of the financial and technological power of the telecom giants, support the use of restrictions. 24 The preceding discussion reveals the consolidation of market dynamics in the organization of media industries in Argentina. This is the coda to a long debate between state and private models: the unchallenged triumph of private companies with far-flung interests. As it stands now, it excludes those alternatives that might offer room for a variety of institutions and cultural expressions ignored by market-based and government-controlled stations.

Professionalism and Investigative Journalism Privatization has fueled two contradictory yet not mutually exclusive developments that are crucial for the future of Argentine democracy. One development has been the concentration of media property in a handful of media corporations. This process has evolved along with the affirmation of a political order that ideally stands for the fostering and recognition of pluralism. Ironically, while the military juntas have feared the formation of a few all-powerful companies and have preferred to deal with fragmented and docile media, a democratic administration has set in motion a process of media "Darwinism" and unbridled concentration. As a consequence, a few companies with tremendous political clout and financial power have been consolidated. The other development is the gradual decoupling of the state and the market in media ownership, which opens the possibility for a journalism that can be more independent from state powers and can thus contribute to political accountability. The shift toward market economy has many shortcomings, as many studies have noted. 2 5 Among others, shortcomings such as the prevalence of the commercial logic in the production and transmission of ideas, the entrenchment of higher barriers to entry, and the conservative ideologies of media owners are responsible for creating bottlenecks that impede wide access and foster democratic communication. In the Argentine context, however, in which government and private interests have often been entangled, the transition to a

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more market-oriented media ushers in a novel relation with potentially beneficial consequences. This does not imply poetic musings about market freedom but rather an acknowledgment that autonomy from government, to which the experiences in developed countries can attest, has only been possible when media economics have shifted to market dynamics. Despite all the new obstacles it creates, this movement is likely to generate moderate independence even as the newsmedia become integrated within big corporations. Media scholar James Curran writes, "The need for audience credibility and political legitimacy, the self-image and professional commitment of journalists, and normative public support for journalistic independence are all important influences militating against the subordination of commercial media to the business and political interests of parent companies." 26 Attention to these factors has prompted Argentine media organizations and journalists to redefine their legitimacy in a new political context. The search for "professional" legitimacy and "political independence" is visible in the relaxation of the traditional editorial lines of the major dailies. Clarín and La Nación now feature articles by columnists and reporters clearly identified with critical journalism, ideologies, or parties who write on police violence or official wrongdoing—issues that until recently were virtually absent from these newspapers. They intensely compete in the hiring of successful investigative reporters who, regardless of their political sympathies, offer a cachet as "prestigious professionals." A veteran editor noted that "dailies are now hunting for journalists. That was impossible before. They looked for them in the family. What matters now is that you are a good professional."27 This new interest in "professional journalism" needs to be understood as a strategy to legitimize reporters' work in a new environment. 28 As students of the U.S. press have argued, the process of commercialization and the scientization of journalism are part of the same trend away from the partisan press. 29 Similarly, changes in the Argentine press stem from the fading out of "journalism as political advocacy" and the shift toward a commercial concept of the press. Part of a wider de-ideologization of Argentina's political culture, this movement also responds to specific conditions of the media market, namely, the staggering loss of readers in the early 1990s (approximately 1 million in over "a decade) and increasing competition among a handful of media companies. 30 Market success, rather than political crusading, seems to define the raison d'etre of Argentine journalism in the 1990s. Not

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that economics were u n i m p o r t a n t before, but they were often subo r d i n a t e d to partisan calculations. Both were inevitably j o i n e d , given the limited resources media firms could tap outside governm e n t s as well as their own financial fragility. This situation has changed somewhat in contemporary Argentina as powerful media conglomerates have consolidated their m a r k e t position a n d the state has become less central for their economic survival. T h e drive f o r journalistic authority and m a r k e t success partially explains the r e c e n t b o o m of investigative j o u r n a l i s m . Elsewhere I have discussed other processes that have contributed to its remarkable growth in recent years. 31 A central factor was the 1987 c o m i n g of the daily Página 12, which has b e e n a catalyst for the rise of a m o r e aggressive j o u r n a l i s m . Its hard-hitting reporting, sarcastic headlines, irreverent t r e a t m e n t of information, tabloidlike layout, outspoken defense of leftist issues, and straightforward adversarialism have set it apart f r o m o t h e r newspapers. Its rising sales in the initial years m a d e established dailies pay close attention to Página 12's innovative style. Although it has recently lost m u c h of its luster and its readers, the paper's success was remarkable in a consolidated press m a r k e t in which newspapers with a progressive orientation h a d inevitably failed to survive a n d were derided by policy makers and opinion leaders. T h e inquisitive reporting that characterizes Página 12 has imp r e g n a t e d the typically quiet Argentine press a n d has p r o d d e d o t h e r media outlets to a d o p t a m o r e incisive style. Consider the cases of Clarín and La Nación, two newspapers that have traditionally d e f e n d e d status-quo interests or rarely dared to be confrontational, but that have lately covered touchy political subjects. After having uncovered several cases of wrongdoing that involved f o r m e r officials of the M e n e m administration, Clarín's greatest journalistic c o u p was the investigation of the sale of Arg e n t i n e weapons to Ecuador d u r i n g the Ecuador-Peru war in 1995. T h e investigation unraveled an elaborate international network of weapons dealers, aircraft companies, shadow companies, a n d intelligence service officials. At the h e a r t of the debate was the fact that the sale of weapons challenged Argentina's neutrality, its status as the guarantor of the existing peace treaty, and its decision to declare an e m b a r g o to sell military e q u i p m e n t to b o t h countries. T h e exposé kicked off a political scandal that, so far, has b r o u g h t down the minister of defense a n d military officers who headed Fabricaciones Militares (the weapons manufacturer that d e p e n d s on the Ministry of Defense) during the conflict. A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t investigation c o n d u c t e d by Clarín was the

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publication of documents of the Operación Claridad on the 20th anniversary of the 1976 military coup. Those documents detailed the organization of the plan of cultural repression instrumented by the juntas. It contained the names and biographies of blacklisted intellectuals and artists, the titles of banned books, and instructions to infiltrate students' organizations and carry out "psychological warfare." The investigation contradicted the military's denial that there was an "organized" persecution of political dissenters or that there were records with orders to execute actions against "communist infiltration." 32 La Nación's most influential investigation was the Carrasco case. T h e daily almost single-handedly uncovered, first, the m u r d e r of an Army private that implicated military officers and, then, its cover-up. T h e story reverberated t h r o u g h o u t the Armed Forces and brought down high-ranking officers. This course of action is unusual in a country in which the military institution has historically been sacrosanct and the press has consistently avoided critical positions. T h e negligence to report on the systematic violation of h u m a n rights abuses during thè past authoritarian regime as well as the complicity with government p r o p a g a n d a during the Malvinas/Falklands war are perhaps the most dramatic examples of news media that opted to keep cozy relations with the military. This vigor of investigative journalism should n o t lead one to conclude that all areas have equally been reported. A journalist notes: media enterprises that support Menem's economic policies forbid their journalists to write or speak about a specific issue . . . poverty, for example . . . Much of [censorship] comes from the media, not from the government. The media could speak about almost everything. In many cases, however, journalists obtain information that could be detrimental to powerful individuals, business, or groups. Such information often is not published. . . . Many media owners support Menem's economic policies and will not report how these changes affect the poor. 33

T h e r e are also persistent r u m o r s and accusations about governm e n t officials and businesses who bribe media companies and journalists to suppress critical stories or to play up their interests and profiles. Indeed, although comfortable in p o u n d i n g c o r r u p t officials, investigative journalism has paid almost n o attention to charges of unethical practices, the limits of critical news reporting within media conglomerates, or self-censorship in the Argentine press.

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Government-Media Relations T h e emergence of an investigative journalism has certainly contradicted the early expectations of the Menem administration. If the politics of privatization and liberalization were seen as the best solution to guarantee a lapdog media, the results were mixed. During the 1989-1995 term, the Menem administration has been racked by scandals. By the end of 1992, over 30 government officials and an entire provincial administration had resigned in the aftermath of press exposés. 34 As of mid-1995, it was reported that "71 Menem government officials, including ministers, governors, and cabinet secretaries have been accused in the courts of acts of corruption"—all after a series of journalistic exposés. 3 5 Charges included a true smorgasbord of political corruption: influence peddling, drug-money laundering, bribe taking, murder, and cover-up. 36 Taken at face value, the expectation seems naive that the press would eventually be subservient once the barriers for cross-media ownership were lifted. It omitted the fact that media groups had coalesced only circumstantially with political powers and were instead interested in preserving some margin of independence from governments throughout Argentine history. Furthermore, it miscalculated the effects of the privatization that propelled the economic consolidation even f u r t h e r and strengthened the political muscle of media companies. Adversarial journalism has fueled an intense rhetorical and legal battle between the Menem administration and the press. President Menem's rants have continually targeted the media for criticizing his policies. He has often alluded to a press dictatorship and a media campaign against his government and warned about "freedom b e c o m i n g ] a b o o m e r a n g when used against freedom." 3 7 Scoundrels, hoodlums, and liars are some of the sobriquets Menem has slapped on journalists. Press organizations have energetically criticized him for offhandedly reacting to several episodes of violence against journalists. President Menem dismissed as "occupational hazards" the repeated attacks on a reporter of Pagina 12 who was investigating the ties between the Peronist brass of the province of Buenos Aires and mafia-like organizations. 38 To its critics, the negligence of the administration to fully investigate violence against reporters is best illustrated in the fact that of the 140 instances of physical attacks, n o n e have been cleared up during Menem's presidential tenure. It came as no surprise, then, that having made a personal crusade against the

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press during his first term, a beaming President Menem confidently stated "to have defeated the opposition and the media" in a postelection speech celebrating his landslide reelection in May 1995.39 It would be wrong, however, to infer that the Menem administration has faced a entirely oppositional media. The media have not acted as a unified bloc in reporting and commenting on government actions. Their positions have ranged from extremely critical to actively supportive. Making no pretense of neutrality and often adopting the role of government propagandists, some dailies and well-known television and radio personalities have earnestly championed and defended official policies. Some have been charged of benefiting from their close connections to the government. The former director of the state-owned Channel 7 was accused of selling advertising on that station at a low price to his own media firm. Critics note that the sale of the public radio station of Buenos Aires was politically tinted, since it favored a business group integrated by a pro-Menem talk-show host and a former federal judge close to the administration. 40 The government and press organizations have clashed in instances in which officials were suspected to have sponsored censorship. One case was the order given by a federal judge to remove segments of an episode of a popular television show. The program mocked the judge who investigated the involvement of President Menem's relatives in laundering drug money despite her reported friendship with one of the main suspects. 41 The government-media battle reached a climax when the administration submitted two proposals to Congress that intended to curb adversarial journalism. The Gag law or Barra law (as it was known after Rodolfo Barra, the former secretary ofjustice) consisted of two proposals to modify the criminal code. One bill proposed to punish libel and defamation with sentences up to 10 years, a penalty harsher than for torture committed by a public official and on par with murder. Another bill required media firms to purchase hefty insurance policies to pay for civil lawsuits. Political parties, media companies, owners' organizations, and the journalists' union unanimously resisted the proposals. 42 A New York Times editorial strongly condemned the initiatives and urged the government to "withdraw these dangerous and offensive bills."43 To many, that editorial was timely and decisive: The following day, the Menem administration backtracked and withdrew the proposals. The complete opposition to these press laws submitted by the Menem administration to Congress is a clear symptom of a new

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sensibility in Argentine journalism. From the traditionally conservative associations of media owners to left-wing journalists, all have rushed to the defense of common "professional" interests. Journalists with dissimilar political trajectories and sympathies have formed a nongovernmental organization to defend freedom of the press and denounce attacks on journalists. Reporters have joined in demands for legislation to protect and facilitate access to official reports and sources. These cooperative efforts and agreements are remarkable, considering that when military governments blatantly manipulated the news and persecuted dissident journalists, media organizations did little to break out of official controls and to defend and protect publishers and reporters who were tortured or murdered. This convergence reflects a journalistic culture that strongly values the rights of "cultural reproduction," that is, the "freedoms of thoughts, press, speech, communication." 4 4 The vigilance of minimal rights that have been systematically violated for decades is essential for journalistic work. It reveals a widespread sensitivity to government-sponsored laws that smack of authoritarianism: The attempts to restrict critical reporting and the several cases of censorship sponsored or convalidated by the government run counter to a postauthoritarian political culture that prizes the respect for basic democratic rights. A cynical view of these vindications as mere window dressing for the economic gain of powerful media companies and reporters' self-justification would miss the fact that such demands attest to the persistent debate over journalistic identity and the novelty and the persistent weakness of fundamental democratic rights in Argentina.

Conclusion The first decade of democratically elected governments in Argentina has virtually closed the perennial debate about state versus private ownership of broadcasting stations. After gaining steam for two decades, commercial interests have prevailed, largely because they have faced almost no vigorous opposition and only a few legal hurdles. State ownership, which has had military and civilian supporters at different times, is now no longer an alternative. During the last authoritarian experience, it was associated with tight control and blatant censorship. Civic associations (political parties, unions, grass-roots movements, nongovernment organizations) have failed to instrument proposals to counter the private model or, more modestly, to reach a consensus to pass

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legislation that contemplates a mixed system. This is not novel: Democratic forces have historically been unable to devise a legal framework to organize broadcasting. All communication laws, included the present one, were sanctioned by different military administrations in 1957, 1972, and 1980. The clashes between the Menem administration and press organizations attest to the competition between two alternate visions of media organization. The government follows a formula that mixes cronyism, arbitrariness, and interventionism to secure favorable media. It has appointed political allies to manage staterun stations and has supported others to rescue moribund newspapers and transform them into loyal propaganda weapons. It has suspended the allocation of official advertising to critical newspapers. It has endorsed legislation to suppress investigative journalism. Media enterprises have vehemently rebutted official censorship and proposals for libel laws from a perspective that celebrates the market as the solid foundation of democratic communication. An evaluation of whether the return of political democracy has meant the gradual democratization of the Argentine mass media requires the consideration of developments in varied directions. Important strides toward the expansion and affirmation of basic freedoms are noticeable as part of a deep "cultural renovation." 45 The revalorization of fundamental democratic rights of expression is auspicious considering the weak tradition of political liberties in Argentina. The rise of a more inquisitive press should be applauded, especially considering the lack of legal mechanisms to demand the publicity of official documents. These are not insignificant gains in a country in which democratic rights have been continually obliterated and the press has adopted extremely cautious positions vis-à-vis state authorities. Optimism should be moderated, however. The affirmation of journalistic freedoms coexists with a government that has sought to manage the media and assemble a string of cheerleading media while brushing off episodes of violence against reporters. The daring investigations of state secrecy are the flip side of press silence on wealth concentration, growing poverty, and other issues that seem redlined. The press's self-congratulation of its antagonistic role often results in the scrutiny of the government rather than all forms of power. While they meritoriously pry into government wrongdoing, journalistic investigations can easily turn into channels for mudslinging battles among official sources. The separation of state and market interests is necessary for the consolidation of democratic media, but its initial manifestations in Argentina are not free of problems and, at best, present

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paradoxical results. In a country lacking either an antitrust tradition that can harness runaway concentration or a vibrant civic m o v e m e n t to sustain a media system that can effectively redress power imbalances, the move toward full privatization is likely to exclude alternatives and lead to further conglomerization.

Notes 1. This summary broadly follows Habermas's reconstruction of the fate of the bourgeois public sphere in Western Europe in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1989). His analysis presents several deficiencies, as many authors have noted, yet it still offers a rich analytical framework to understand the media and democracy in a historical perspective. See the superb collection of articles in Craig Calhoun, ed. Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992) and the critical review in John B. Thompson, The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1995), 69-75. 2. I analyze these issues in more depth in "Leviathan Dreams: State and Broadcasting in South America," The Communication Review 1, no. 2 (1995): 201-226. 3. The idea of democracy as "the only game in town" is at the center of current debates on democratic consolidation. A complete discussion of this literature is presented by Guillermo O'Donnell in his "Illusions about Consolidation," Journal of Democracy 7, no. 2 (April 1996): 34-51. 4. See Waisbord, "Leviathan Dreams." 5. An important analysis of these issues is presented by José Noguer, Radiodifusión en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Bien Común, 1986). 6. The best analysis of the period can be found in Pablo Sirvén, Perón y los Medios de Comunicación, 1943-1955 (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1984). 7. See John Sinclair, "Mexico, Brazil and the Latin World," in John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka, and Stuart Cunningham, eds. New Patterns of Global Television (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996). 8. See Pablo Sirvén, Quien te ha Visto y Quien TV (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Fior, 1988), 27-36. 9. For an analysis of this dynamic, see Patricia Terrero, "Comunicación e Información por los Gobiernos Autoritarios: El Caso de Argentina" [Communication and Information during Authoritarian Governments: The Argentine Case], In Elizabeth Fox, ed. Comunicación y Democracia (Lima: Desco, 1982). 10. See Heriberto Muraro, "Dictatorship and Transition to Democracy: Argentina 1973-86." In Elizabeth Fox, ed. Media and Politics in Latin America: The Struggle for Democracy (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1988). 11. See Muraro, "Dictatorship and Democracy." 12. See Terrero, "Comunicación e Información," and the interventions by José Maria Pasquini Durán in Nicolás Casullo, Comunicación: La Democracia Difícil (Buenos Aires: ILET, 1985), 76-77.

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13. See Waisbord, El Gran Desfile: Campañas Electorales y Medios de Comunicación en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1995), 102-106. 14. In addition to Muraro, "Dictatorship and Democracy," see also Oscar Landi, "Media, Cultural Processes and Political Systems," in Elizabeth Fox, ed. Media and Politics in Latin America. 15. Waisbord, El Gran Desfile, 128-135. 16. See Landi, "Media." 17. I discuss these developments in "Television and Election Campaigns in Contemporary Argentina "Journal of Communication 44, no. 2 (spring 1994): 125-135. 18. See Waisbord, El Gran Desfile, 128-135. 19. This issue is discussed in Washington Uranga and José Maria Pasquini Durán, Precisiones Sobre la Radio (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Paulinas, 1988), 105-106. 20. See Oscar Landi, Devórame Otra Vez. (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1992), 170-171. 21. This point is discussed further in Waisbord, El Gran Desfile, 135-138. 22. See Liliana Cheren, "La Privatización de ATC en la Interna Menemista" [The Privatization of ATC Within Menemism's Fights], La Maga, 17 September 1995, 24; and Jorge Grecco, "ATC: Del Estado o del Gobierno?" [ATC: State or Government Property?], Somos, 11 April 1992, 8-9. 23. For a complete description, see Patricia Terrero, "Tecnopolítica, Cultura y Mercado en la Sociedad Mediática" [Technopolitics, Culture, and Market in the Mediated Society], Contribuciones 2 (1996): 89-103. 24. For a discussion of these issues, see Damián Loreti, El Derecho a la Información (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1995), 139-157. 25. Within the extensive literature, see Nicholas Garnham, Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and the Economics of Information (London: Sage, 1990); Graham Murdock, "Large Corporations and the Control of the Communication Industries," in Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curran, and Janet Woollacott, eds. Culture, Society and the Media (London: Routledge, 1982); and J o h n O'Neill, "Journalism in the Market Place," in Andrew Belsey and Ruth Chadwick, eds. Ethical Issues in Journalism and the Media (London: Routledge, 1992). 26. James Curran, "Mass Media and Democracy: A Reappraisal," in James Curran and Michael Gurevitch, eds. Mass Media and Society (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), 88. On this point, see also Daniel C. Hallin, We Keep America on Top of the World (London: Routledge, 1994). 27. Isidoro Gilbert, interview with the author (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1996). 28. Here I follow Gaye Tuchman's pathbreaking article "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity," American Journal of Sociology 77 (1972): 660-679. 29. See Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic Books, 1978); and Daniel Hallin, "The American News Media: A Critical Theory Perspective," in J o h n Forester, ed. Critical Theory and Public Life (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1985). 30. See the chapter on Argentina in Jon Vanden Heuvel and Everette E. Dennis, Changing Patterns: Latin America's Vital Media (New York: Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, 1995).

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31. See Waisbord, "Knocking on Newsroom Doors: T h e Press a n d Political Scandals in Argentina," Political Communication 11 (1994): 19-33. 32. See Sergio Ciancaglini, Oscar Raúl Cardoso, a n d Maria Seoane, "Los Archivos de la Represión Cultural" [The Archives of the Cultural Repression], Clarín, 24 March 1996, 2-10. 33. Ornar Lavieri, "The Media in Argentina," in Richard R. Cole, ed. Communication in Latin America (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1996), 187. 34. Luis Majul, "El Negocio de la Verdad" [Truth as Business], Somos, 4 December 1992, 20-26. 35. J o n a t h a n Friedland, "Did IBM Unit Bribe Officials in Argentina to Land a Contract?" Wall Street Journal, 11 December 1995, pp. A l , 5. 36. See Waisbord, "Investigative J o u r n a l i s m a n d Political Accountability in South American Democracies," presented at the c o n f e r e n c e of the American Political Science Association (Chicago, August 1995). 37. Clarín, "Rechazo Periodístico a Acusaciones de M e n e m " [Press Organizations Reject Menem's Accusations], 24 April 1993, 7. 38. P e p e Eliaschev, "Argentina's War on Journalists," The New York Times, 22 September 1993, A27. 39. Edi Zunino, "Su E n e m i g o Favorito" [His Favorite Enemy], Noticias, 21 May 1995, 36-41. 40. See J o r g e Belaunzarán, "La Justicia Decide el F u t u r o de Radio Municipal" [The Justice Decides the F u t u r e of Radio Municipal], La Maga, 22 November 1995, 31; a n d E d u a r d o Blanco and Mariana Roveta, "La Curiosa Adjudicación de Radio Municipal" [The Curious Decision on Radio Municipal], 30 August 1995, 4. 41. Clarín, "Censura previa" [Censorship], 12-18 May 1992, International Edition, 2. 42. See J u a n Carlos C a m a ñ o , "Periodistas en el Globo" [Journalists a r o u n d the Globe], Página 12, 16 S e p t e m b e r 1993, 7; Clarín, "Contra la Prensa Libre" [Against Free Press], 8 S e p t e m b e r 1993, 18; a n d "Dura C o n d e n a de ADEPA a u n a 'Ley Mordaza' C o n t r a la Prensa" [ADEPA Harshly Repudiates a "Gag Law" Against the Press], 29 D e c e m b e r 1993, 11. 43. New York Times, "Argentina's Pressured Press," 22 February 1995, Al 8. 44. J e a n C o h e n a n d Andrew Arato, "Politics a n d the Reconstruction of the C o n c e p t of Civil Society," in Axel H o n n e t h , T h o m a s McCarthy, Claus Offe, and Albretch Wellmer, eds. Cultural-Political Interventions in the Unfinished Project of Enlightment (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992), 138. 45. Enrique Peruzzotti, "Civil Society a n d Constitutionalism in Latin America: T h e Argentine Experience" (Ph.D. diss., New School for Social Research, New York, 1996).

4 Notes on Freedom of Expression in Africa ROBERT MARTIN

Freedom of expression has not had a happy history in Africa, and there is little evidence to suggest its immediate future will be any brighter. This chapter elaborates on these two assertions, focusing on those African states that are members of the Commonwealth. 1 T h e analysis is organized around three periods: colonialism, independence and after, and the 1990s.

Colonialism Little free expression existed u n d e r British colonial rule, for free expression is the essential precondition to democratic politics, which in turn d e p e n d s on the existence of an i n f o r m e d , aware, and active citizenry. To be full and active citizens, then, individuals must be free to publish and receive information and opinions. But colonialism, by its nature, is the antithesis of democracy. Colonialism, at least in its political sense, is defined as the imposition of foreign rule, usually by military force. T h e history of colonialism suggests that any people subject to foreign rule will wish to see it ended. If the colonial power were to concede a degree of democracy, however, the first result would be the dissolution of colonialism. Colonial rulers, then, could not tolerate manifestations of democratic impulses among the colonized: To have done so would have been to guarantee their own demise. These considerations of the nature of colonialism must apply with great force to the f r e e d o m of expression. If the colonizers were to allow freedom of expression among the colonized, the latter would use that freedom to be critical of colonialism—both in the abstract and in its concrete presence in their own country— 63

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and logically to call for its end. By its very nature, therefore, colonialism precludes any freedom of expression of the colonized and demands the active suppression of attempts at its exercise. This stifling of expression is precisely what developed u n d e r colonialism in Africa. A vast array of legal measures were created to inhibit the development of autonomous and free mass media. It became customary to require that newspapers be registered or licensed as a precondition to their lawful publication. I n d e p e n d e n t broadcasting media did not exist, since the state invariably held a monopoly on the provision of broadcasting. T h e colonial governor would ordinarily have the power to prohibit the importation of unacceptable foreign publications and to ban domestic publications. T h e colonial government of Tanganyika, for example, prohibited the importation of Marxist-Leninist and Jehovah's Witness publications and any information related to George Padmore. In 1951, colonial Kenya p u r p o r t e d to prohibit the importation of "any publication dealing with sex or the psychological or medical aspects of sex or birth control." Indeed, during the emergency of the 1950s, the Kenyan government b a n n e d several African newspapers. Many of these were mimeographed and.consisted of little more than vernacular translations of articles that had originally appeared in English in the Standard, the leading settler newspaper. 2 Criminal law was regularly used as a means of controlling expression, the offence of sedition being a common weapon of choice. T h e leading example of such a prosecution is the Gold Coast (now Ghana) case of Wallace-Johnson v. The King$ which merits a full discussion. Isaac Theophilus Akkuna Wallace-Johnson was born in Sierra Leone in 1895. After serving in Africa during World War I, he held a variety of clerical positions. By the 1930s he was active in the labor movement. He eventually became a substantial presence in African nationalist circles as an associate of such figures as Azikiwe, Kenyatta, Nkrumah, and Padmore. 4 Along with Azikiwe, Wallace-Johnson published, u n d e r a pseudonym, an editorial in the African Morning Post in J u n e 1936. The piece was titled "Has the African a God?" and read, in part: Personally, I believe the European has a God in whom he believes and whom he is representing in his Churches all over Africa. He believes in the god whose name is spelt Deceit. He believes in the god whose law is "Ye strong, you must weaken the weak. Ye 'civilised' Europeans, you must 'civilise' the 'barbarous' Africans with machine guns. Ye 'Christian' Europeans, you must 'Christianise' the 'pagan' Africans with bombs, poison gases, etc."

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In the Colonies the Europeans believe in the God that commands "Ye administrators make sedition Bill to keep the African gagged. Make Forced Labour Bill to work the Africans as slaves. Make Deportation Ordinance to send the Africans to exile whenever they dare to question your authority. Make an Ordinance to grab his money so that he cannot stand economically. Make Levy Bill to force him to pay taxes for the importation of unemployed Europeans to serve as Stool Treasurers. Send detectives to stay around the house of any African who is nationally conscious and who is agitating for national independence and if possible to round him up in a 'criminal frame-up' so that he could be kept behind bars."

Wallace-Johnson was convicted at trial and appealed unsuccessfully to the West African Court of Appeal and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. None of the judges presiding over the case apparently grasped that in finding Wallace-Johnson guilty, he was affirming the truth of what Wallace-Johnson had asserted in the editorial. The precise offence of sedition with which Wallace-Johnson was charged was found in a section of the Criminal Code of the Gold Coast; the legal issue before the judicial committee concerned the meaning of that section. Now in English law as applied in England, the Crown must prove two things in a prosecution for sedition: (1) that the words uttered by the accused were seditious—calculated to provoke disaffection toward the government or to bring the government into hatred and contempt—in and of themselves and (2) that when the accused uttered the seditious words he did so with the intention of provoking riot, tumult or disorder—violence. The second element is crucial: It prevents sedition from being used as a weapon against words as words, with nothing more. It cannot be used to proscribe unacceptable political expression. Its purpose, rather, is to sanction and, presumably, to deter real threats to public order. Even though the Criminal Code of the Gold Coast was unmistakably based on English law, however, the judicial committee held that principles of English law should not be resorted to in interpreting the code. There was thus no necessity of proving that WallaceJohnson had intended to incite violence, and he could be convicted solely on the basis of the words he had used. This was a convenient ruling for colonial governments determined to exercise close control over the political discourse of their subjects. The decision in Wallace-Johnson was followed by courts in other African colonies. 5 The position in those colonies that had substantial settler populations was slightly different. Newspapers were created to give the

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settlers the news they wanted a n d to provide a m e d i u m t h r o u g h which they could express themselves. Although it ought to be selfevident that the African majority's point of view was unlikely to find expression in this press, it should n o t be assumed that the settler newspapers always sided with the colonial government. In Kenya, for example, settlers were regularly at odds with the government, particularly after the British g o v e r n m e n t issued a 1923 White Paper, which stated that African interests in Kenya were to be p a r a m o u n t . T h e Standard was highly critical of b o t h the British and Kenyan governments. 6 Although, strictly speaking, it ceased to be a colony in 1910, some mention should be m a d e of South Africa. From the imposition of apartheid in 1948, an elaborate and complex web of laws was created to bar the expression of hostile points of view by newspapers. Similarly, thousands of books were b a n n e d , and the state broadcasting service, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, was little more than a p r o p a g a n d a arm of the National Party. 7

Independence and After T h e striking characteristic of the coming of i n d e p e n d e n c e a n d the two decades that followed is n o t the extent to which they represented a break with the colonial past b u t r a t h e r their remarkable continuity With that past. This should n o t be surprising, however: At i n d e p e n d e n c e , the leaders of the nationalist movements took over the operation of the colonial state. "African self-governm e n t was, in short, colonial administration by Africans." 8 T h e fact that the laws a n d administrative devices created by the British to inhibit f r e e expression were m a i n t a i n e d and in many instances were e n h a n c e d is contradictory in at least one respect. In many parts of Africa, African-edited newspapers, o f t e n published in vernacular languages, played a significant role in the m o v e m e n t for i n d e p e n d e n c e . This did n o t g u a r a n t e e that such newspapers would be p e r m i t t e d to flourish after i n d e p e n d e n c e , however. In Ghana, u n d e r Kwame N k r u m a h , the criminal offences of sedition and treason were r e d e f i n e d and e x p a n d e d . A new crime of publishing d e f a m a t o r y or insulting material a b o u t the presid e n t of the republic was created. T h e president was given enhanced authority to prohibit or shut down offending publications. T h e broadcasting service was owned by the state, and the state and the ruling party owned all the newspapers in the country. 9

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A similar pattern was seen in Tanzania under Julius Nyerere. The president was given the authority, through amendments to the colonial Newspapers Ordinance, to cease a newspaper's publication whenever he was of the opinion that it was "in the public interest or in the interest of peace and good order to do so." Furthermore, Nyerere's government nationalized the Standard, the major English-language daily newspaper in the country. The result was a country with two English daily newspapers: one owned by the only lawful political party and the other by the state. The two newspapers were eventually merged, and broadcasting remained a state monopoly. 10 Nevertheless, there were innovations. Many states adopted legislation that authorized placing individuals in preventive detention, or detention without trial, at the discretion of the head of state. This power was used against journalists, perhaps the most striking illustration being the arrest and detention of the prominent Kenyan journalist Gitobu Imanyara in 1991.11 There were also instances of journalists being murdered. According to the Final Report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seminar on promoting an independent and pluralistic African press held in Windhoek in 1991, forty-eight journalists had been killed in Africa since 1969. This figure is speculative, but it makes clear that in Africa journalism can be a dangerous line of work. 12 Indirect measures were also used to control the press, since governments possess many control mechanisms. In highly centralized economies, foreign exchange reserves are essential. If newsprint must be imported, as is the case in many African countries, a simple way to suppress an uncooperative newspaper is to deny it the foreign exchange allocation necessary to purchase newsprint. Similarly the importation of spare parts for printing presses or other machinery can be blocked. The award or withdrawal of government advertising was also a useful control mechanism. The clearest example of the continuity between the colonial and postcolonial state is found in the Nigerian case of Director of Public Prosecutions v. Obi.13 Chike Obi distributed a pamphlet in Lagos in August 1960 titled "The People: Facts That You Must Know." Among its observations on Nigerian society were the following: Down with the enemies of the people, the exploiters of the weak and oppressors of the poor! . . . The days of those who have enriched themselves at the expense of the poor are numbered. The common man in Nigeria can today no longer be fooled by sweet

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talk at election time only to be exploited and treated like dirt after the booty of office has been shared among the politicians. Obi was charged with sedition under the Nigerian Criminal Code. The similarities between Obi and Wallace-Johnson are remarkable. There were two substantial differences in the surrounding circumstances, however—differences that one might have thought would lead to a different outcome in Obi. First, by the time the case was heard by the Federal Supreme Court, Nigeria had gained independence. 1 4 Second, the Nigerian Constitution contained, and had since 1959, a bill of rights that among other things guaranteed the "freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference." But, in fact, nothing had changed. The judges expressly followed Wallace-Johnson in interpreting the sedition provision in the Criminal Code. Further, the existing law of sedition, even as interpreted in this fashion, was held to be "reasonably justifiable in a democracy" and not, therefore, an unconstitutional limit on free expression. Despite these factors, it is nevertheless strange that postindependence governments were not inclined to permit, if not free expression, then at least freer expression than was allowed under colonialism. The leaders in power at independence headed mass, ostensibly democratic, movements. The explanation for the contradiction is to be found largely in the three key ideological currents that moved all the new governments in Africa: unity, development, and nationalism. All three overlapped and tended to reinforce each other. It is not fortuitous that the word unity appears in the national motto of many African states. An essential element in the strategy of anticolonial movements was the uniting of all the people behind the demand for independence. This emphasis on unity continued after independence and was seen as an essential precondition to social and economic progress. The government and the ruling party regarded themselves as the concrete embodiment of the people's unity. Under such circumstances, it became easy to portray anyone who might dare to criticize the government or the party as an enemy of the unity of the people. To go against the grain was to threaten the nation's unity; thus free expression, almost by definition, was subversive of unity. Development became a religion in postindependence Africa, despite the fact that nobody was able to clearly define it. Everyone

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was in favor of development: Governments and ruling parties committed themselves to achieving it, and the legitimacy of every activity was to be d e t e r m i n e d by reference to development. If something contributed to development, it was good and desirable, and vice versa. Freedom of expression was viewed as neither necessary nor significant in the development process. In the substantial literature on development, few, if any, arguments have suggested that free expression might contribute in any way to development. 1 5 T h e primary role of the mass media was to serve the government—the embodiment of the people's unity and the engine for their development. T h e result was, in the words of the late Paul Ansah, that "to use the mass media for the promotion of national integration and the achievement of national development objectives, it is essential that the media be guided and directed by the government." 1 6 Inevitably, the obsession with development spawned a movem e n t termed development journalism or development support communication, as it was variously described. T h e tenet of development journalism was that reporting was subordinate to the imperatives of development. Implicit during this period was the assumption that the state should play the central role in planning and directing the national development effort. As a result, development journalism became little more than another argument in favor of the primacy of the state. Critical reporting about the activities of government and party leaders was not considered a part of develo p m e n t journalism; rather, to engage in such reporting came to be viewed as opposition to development. Nationalism underlies and explains much of what occurred in Africa in the p o s t i n d e p e n d e n c e period. In relation to the mass media, nationalism had two important manifestations. First, it provided a solid ideological foundation for questioning the desirability of free expression itself. Free expression could be painted as a "Western" thing, a foreign importation that was at variance with authentic African values. Thus, free expression was not simply unnecessary or at odds with the demands of development; it was, in and of itself, bad. T h e most complete and influential expression of this point of view can be f o u n d in the 1980 r e p o r t of a UNESCO commission h e a d e d by Sean MacBride. 1 7 T h e report is a compendium of arguments against free expression. It also appears to support the second element of the nationalist position. This skepticism is f o u n d in the a r g u m e n t that the media are Western—or foreign-owned—and that any talk of free expression

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is simply a smokescreen designed to conceal these facts. Although at independence many newspapers and other publications in African countries were owned by interests in foreign countries or by non-Africans, the conclusion suggested by the nationalist argument that free expression should be suppressed simply does not follow. The result of nationalist impulses can be seen in events in Zimbabwe after independence. The major newspapers were oriented to the tastes and priorities of the settler minority and were also owned by South African interests. Rather than nationalizing these newspapers, the government established an autonomous body—the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust—to which it transferred ownership of the press. This was intended to allow the newspapers to be owned locally but to avoid the pitfalls of state control. In practice, this did not happen and the newspapers, with occasional exceptions such as the breaking of the "Willowgate" scandal, became bland organs of government information. 18 The only concrete alternative to free and independent mass media, in Africa or anywhere else, is mass media that deal in halftruths and outright lies, whether these are retailed in the service of commercial interests or political interests. Orwell summarized the matter with his accustomed directness and eloquence: The controversy over freedom of speech and of the press is at the bottom a controversy over the desirability, or otherwise, of telling lies. What is really at issue is the right to report contemporary events truthfully, or as truthfully as is consistent with the ignorance, bias and self-deception from which every observer necessarily suffers. 19

The state of Africa's mass media by the end of this period was not entirely the fault of governments or ruling parties, however. Journalists themselves bear some responsibility; Francis Kasoma, for example, has written of the "pathetic performance of the African mass media."20 The sycophantic approach to reporting known as "the Minister said" has become so trite as to spawn its own parodies. According to the late Zimbabwean journalist Willie Musururwa, such stories followed a rigid structure. The honourable minister was warmly welcomed to X. The minister said. . . . The minister added. . . . To warm applause, the minister concluded. . . . 21

Conversely, there are far too few examples of the sort of determination shown by a Nigerian journalist in 1983:

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Viewers of a government-owned television station watched as a newscaster threw down his script in the middle of the news bulletin and quit, saying he was "fed up with this false information." "I hereby tender my resignation," Chuma Edozie said on the air in the eastern Nigerian city of Enugu, newspapers reported yesterday. "I can't continue with this stuff."22

To reinforce a previous point, the original Commonwealth African states, with the exception of Ghana and Tanzania, became independent with constitutions that had entrenched bills of rights. All these bills of rights contained a guarantee of freedom of expression—prolix, much-hedged about with exceptions, but a constitutional guarantee nonetheless. These guarantees had little if any practical effect. Obi, in fact, became the leading case in setting a pattern whereby judges preferred the exceptions over the rights. In retrospect, the clear historical precedent in Africa is that constitutional guarantees have not proven to be an effective means of protecting expression.

The 1990s Many have argued that a second wind of change has swept or is sweeping through Africa. By the end of the 1980s, it was evident that the period since independence had not been a positive one for Africa. In 1991 the then United Nations Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, described the African situation as "an unrelenting economic crisis of tragic proportions." 23 Some of the dimensions of that crisis were staggering. Throughout the 1980s, Africa was the only continent to experience annual increases in the rate of population growth, and during the same period, food production per capita dropped so low that one third of the continent's people had to depend on imported food. The average daily caloric intakes were lower than in 1965, and during the 1980s, Africa's total debt had doubled. Africa had the world's lowest average annual expenditure per person on healthcare—U.S. $3.50— and the world's highest infant mortality rate. By 1990, the continent's share of world trade was 3.1 percent. 2 4 Why did this happen? Several reasons relate to the status and character of the mass media. Many commentators, for example, identified the African states' authoritarian style of government as a contributing factor. Indeed, the need to change the approach to government is implicit in any talk of reform. Africa's first transformation saw the end of colonialism; the second, so it was hoped, would extinguish authoritarianism.

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More concretely, it appeared to some—and was contested by others—that Africa's closed and undemocratic politics had contributed to its decline since independence. It is likely impossible, however, to establish empirically that political democracy conduces toward economic and social well-being or, conversely, that a country cannot achieve economic and social well-being without democracy. If the premise that democracy is good and desirable is accepted, however, democracy and freedom of expression become inextricably linked. As has been noted, since free expression is an essential precondition to democracy, it became fashionable to urge that democracy was the proper road for Africa to follow, and the case for freedom of expression inevitably began to be argued. The arguments in support of freedom of expression were not always entirely clear. In 1991 UN Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar stated: "the media have an important role to play, both in education and in increasing popular participation in development."25 This assertion could be taken as little more than another argument for development journalism. But something had definitely changed. By 1991 UNESCO, which only a decade earlier had commissioned the MacBride report and its thoroughgoing assault on free expression, was prepared to join the United Nations in sponsoring an African seminar on developing an independent and pluralistic press. The formal and final act of that seminar—the Declaration of Windhoek—was an unequivocal affirmation of the virtues of free expression and free mass media. The Declaration begins: 1.

2.

3.

Consistent with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the establishment and maintenance and fostering of an independent, pluralistic and free press is essential to the development and maintenance of democracy in a nation, and for economic development. We mean by an independent press, a press independent from governmental, political or economic control or from control of materials and infrastructure essential for the production and dissemination of newspapers, magazines and periodicals. By pluralism, we mean the end of monopolies of any kind and the existence of the greatest possible number of newspapers, magazines and periodicals reflecting the widest possible range of opinion with the community.

Criticism of the actual situation in Africa was not avoided:

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In Africa today, despite the positive developments in some countries, in many other countries journalists, editors and publishers are victims of repression—they are murdered, arrested, detained and censored, and are restricted by economic and political pressures such as restrictions on newsprint, licensing systems which restrict the opportunity to publish, visa restrictions which prevent the free movement of journalists, restrictions on the exchange of news and information, and limitations on the circulation of newspapers within countries and across national borders. In some countries, one-party States control the totality of information.

There was a call to African governments for practical action: 14. As a sign of good faith, African governments which have jailed journalists for their professional activities should free them immediately. Where journalists have had to leave their countries, they should be free to return to resume their professional activities. Finally, although the Declaration is, strictly speaking, only about the "press," the broadcasting media were n o t forgotten: 17. In view of the importance of radio and television in the field of news and information, the UN and UNESCO are invited to recommend to the General Assembly and the General Conference the convening of a similar seminar of journalists and managers of radio and television services in Africa, to explore the possibility of applying similar concepts of independence and pluralism to these media. A year earlier, in 1990, the Economic Commission for Africa, in its African Charter for Popular Participation in D e v e l o p m e n t , had also accepted the importance of free expression: The national and regional media should make every effort to fight for and defend their freedom at all cost, and make special effort to champion the cause of popular participation and publicize activities and programmes thereof and generally provide access for the dissemination of information and education programmes on popular participation. 26 By 1996, there was clear and unequivocal r e c o g n i t i o n of the importance of free expression. In a report to the General Assembly on Implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the

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Development of Africa in the 1990s, then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called on African governments as part of the "democratization process" to take steps to "allow free and independent media and encourage the scrutiny of government and or public agencies and bodies by the free press." 27 Any hint of development journalism was gone. Free expression in Africa had, at last, become unquestionably good. At the level of theory, at least, much of the earlier confusion seems to have dissipated. In practical terms, however, what had changed? Would free expression have a place in Africa? There have been some encouraging developments. In several countries, governments have relinquished their own monopolies over broadcasting. Even where there is private broadcasting, it is carried on within a system of state regulation. In the opinion of the International Centre Against Censorship, Article XIX, only Namibia and South Africa have regulatory agencies that are legally and actually independent of the government. 2 8 The move to a multiparty democracy and more open political systems was followed by an explosion of media freedom in the early 1990s. In Malawi, for example, the number of newspapers grew from 1 in 1993 to 30 in 1994. That explosion led, inevitably, to a reaction, however. In 1991, for example, Zambia held its first multiparty election since independence. Frederick Chiluba, leader of the Movement for MultiParty Democracy, won the election by promising, among other things, openness in government and respect for free expression. But an effort to privatize government and party-owned newspapers never materialized, and in 1995 the offices of an independent newspaper were raided and some of its editors jailed. Likewise, a commitment to recognise the independence of the state broadcasting authority was abandoned. Chiluba justified these acts by stating that it was "un-African" to engage in public criticism of leaders. 29 The government of Kenya has also actively suppressed expression; private broadcasting is forbidden. Independent publications have been banned and their offices raided by police and unidentified thugs. 30 Military governments in Nigeria and The Gambia refuse to tolerate criticism and dissent and have been neither restrained nor delicate in stamping out such efforts. Ironically, the brightest spot on the continent regarding free expression is South Africa. This country is home to an Independent Broadcasting Authority—required under Article 192 of the constitution—and a multiplicity of newspapers and other publications. Its new constitution also states in Article 16 that "everyone

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has the right to freedom of expression, which includes . . . freedom of the press and other media." The obvious question is how long this will last. Will the constitutional guarantee of free expression prove to be as hollow as those in other African cpuntries? One must be hopeful, but the remarks of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki about the need to control the excesses of the "white" media are not encouraging.

Conclusion Clearly, there has been a change in both the theory and rhetoric about freedom of expression. But the underlying economic and social realities have not changed. The unfortunate truth is that conditions in Africa have worsened throughout the 1990s. Population growth remains the highest in the world, consistently outstripping the growth in the GDP, and food production continues to lag behind population growth. The continent's share of world trade declined from 3.1 percent in 1990 to 2.1 percent in 1995. External debt rose from $289 billion in 1991 to $314 billion in 1995. Foreign direct investment is shrinking, as is Official Development Assistance. Illiteracy among adults is increasing. 31 Amid this economic and social decline, states are beginning to collapse into anarchy and warlordism. 32 This does not seem to be a soil in which free expression will flower.

IMotes I want to thank my colleague Rande Kostal for his helpful comments on an earlier draft. 1. Those states are, grouped by region: Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. 2. See Robert Martin, Personal Freedom and the Law in Tanzania (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1974), 94-96; J. S. Read, "Censored: Notes on Banned Books in Africa," Transition (Kampala) 32 (1967): 37; and J. F. Scotton, 'Judicial Independence and Political Expression in East Africa—Two Colonial Legacies," East African Law Journal 6, no. 1 (1970): 13. Gunilla L. Faringer, Press Freedom in Africa (New York: Praeger, 1991) purports to address many of these issues but should be approached with considerable caution. 3. Wallace-Johnson v. The King, A.C. 231 (PC.) (1940). 4. See James R. Hooker, Black Revolutionary: George Padmore's Path from Communism to Pan-Africanism (New York: Praeger, 1967), 50-52.

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5. See, for example, Masembe v. Regina 6 Uganda Law Reports 195 (1948); Regina v. Luima 16 Law Reports of the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa 128 (1949); and Regina v. Chona Rhodesia and Nyasaland Law Reports 344 (1962). 6. The best discussion of these issues remains Marjorie Dilley's classic British Policy in Kenya Colony, 2nd ed. (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966). 7. For a brief overview, see International Commission of Jurists, South Africa: Human Rights and the Rule of Law (London: Pinter, 1988). Gordon S. Jackson, Breaking Story: The South African Press (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993) is a detailed account of the situation up to the end of apartheid. 8. Jitendra Mohan, "Nkrumah and Nkrumahism," The Socialist Register, 1967 (London: Merlin, 1967), 191. 9. William Burnett Harvey, Law and Social Change in Ghana (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1966), 310-321. 10. Martin, Personal Freedom and the Law. 11. Imanyara was the editor of the Nairobi Law Monthly. Improbable as it might seem from its title, this publication was the leading media vehicle for criticism of the Kenyan government during much of the 1980s. 12. See also the examples cited in Hugh Lewin, Mohamed Ben Salah, James K. Namakajo, and Tim Nyahunzvi, "The Need for Know-How: Human Resources Development," CAEfAC Journal 3 (1990-1991). 13. Director of Public Prosecutions v. Obi, N.L.R. 186 (F.S.C.) (1961). 14. When Obi distributed his pamphlet, Nigeria was, strictly speaking, still a colony; full independence did not come until 1 October 1960. Even by August 1960, however, Nigeria had reached "internal self-government" and had, for all practical purposes, a Nigerian government. 15. As one example, Robert B. Seidman, The State, Law and Development (New York: St. Martin's, 1978) is a kind of development manual. Freedom of expression is barely mentioned in its 473 pages of text. 16. "The Struggle for Rights and Values," in Michael Traber, ed. The Myth of the Information Revolution (London-: Sage, 1986), 74. 17. UNESCO, Many Voices, One World: Report by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (New York: Unipub, 1980). 18. See Lewin et al., "The Need for Know-How," 13-14. 19. 'The Prevention of Literature," in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 4, second edition (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970), 83. 20. "Technical Co-operation for Communication Development in Africa," paper for the UN/UNESCO Seminar on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press (Windhoek, 1991), 9. 21. Quoted in Derek Ingram, "Press Freedom in Commonwealth Countries," unpublished paper prepared for the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre conference, "Press Freedom and Press Responsibility in Asia" (Kuala Lumpur, 1996). A useful general overview is William Hachten, "African Censorship and American Correspondents," in Beverly G. Hawk, ed. Africa's Media Image (New York: Praeger, 1992), 38. This collection is uneven in the extreme; indeed, most of the essays are of poor quality. 22. Quoted in Andrew MacFarlane, "Many Worlds, One Voice: The MacBride Commission, A Study in Irony," CAEJACJournal 2 (1987-1988): 36.

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23. Economic Crisis in Africa. Report of the UN Secretary-General Prepared for the Session of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the UN General Assembly, 3-13 September 1991 (New York: United Nations, 1991). 24. Detailed information can be found in a press kit prepared by the Africa Recovery Unit, UN Department of Public Information: Africa: New Compact for Co-Operation (New York: United Nations, 1991). 25. Economic Crisis in Africa, 11. 26. Addis Ababa, United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), 1990, p. 28. 27. New York: United Nations, 1996, p. 5. 28. Much of what follows comes from reports prepared by Article XIX and Reporters sans Frontières. Both are excellent sources for current information on the mass media in Africa and worldwide. Article XIX can be reached at: Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N19LH, United Kingdom. Fax: 44-171-713-1356; e-mail: articlel9@gn. apc.org. Reporters sans Frontières can be reached at: 5 rue Geoffroy-Marie, 75009 Paris, France. Fax: 33-1-45-23-11-51; e-mail: [email protected]. 29. Reporters sans Frontières, Rapport 1996: La Liberte de la Presse dans le Monde (Paris: 1996), 134-136. 30. Ibid., 73-77. 31. United Nations Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the General Assembly for the Mid-term Review of the Implementation of the United Nations' New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, General Assembly Official Records, 51st Session Supplement no. 48 (A/51/48), 1996 < g o p h e r : / / g o p h e r . u n . o r g / 0 0 / g a / d o c s / 5 1 / p l e n a r y / A51—48.EN>. 32. See Granfa 48 (1994) on Africa; also Robert D. Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century (New York: Random House, 1996).

5 Nigeria: The Politics of Confusion LOUISE M . BOURGAULT

The end of the Cold War, symbolized most dramatically by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, is considered a watershed in the world movement toward democracy. In Africa, news of popular uprisings in Eastern Europe, combined with the independence of Namibia and the freeing of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, galvanized into civic action populations long inured to oppression. These populations clamored for a greater say in their countries' affairs; they organized into civic groups and pushed for a chance to vote. In Africa since the early 1990s, there have been more than 30 competitive national elections, with many new governments taking office. 1 Although the project of democracy is far more complex than the occasional organization of free and fair electoral contests, the very fact of their staging seems indicative of nascent civic structures and civil ideology. In the words of several analysts, these changes signify the "opening up of political spaces." Yet given Africa's intractable problems, many scholars concern themselves with the extent to which these changes signify a movement toward democracy. Others question why some regimes have failed in the process of democratic transformation. 2 In answering both questions, it is useful to examine the components of transition thought to be key factors in the democratic process. These include, for example, the nature of the political economy, the degree of ethnic integration, the quality of civic society, and the development of the mass media. It is well known that the state in Africa has been imposed from above—created by political fiat at the Berlin conference in 1885, together with a host of administrative shifts suited to the needs of the European colonial powers. In establishing political rule, the 79

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colonizers also created a new economic order for Africa, one tied from the new colonial capitals to the international economic order outside the continent. The new financial system swamped and disrupted older indigenous economic patterns. Today, after more than 35 years of independence in Africa, the state remains the dominant means of capital accumulation. Any democratic project must therefore examine trends toward diversification in the political economy of any given country. The state imposed in Africa by the colonialists also overlay collections of primordial groups, rearranging and recombining them under new authority. At independence, the new nations of Africa inherited the task of unifying these groups under a single governmental structure. The obligation to balance ethnic interests in Africa's multiethnic states has continually challenged Africa's governments. Newer sources of social cleavage are equally important. The allegiance of people through professional, civic, educational, and religious interests is critical to a consociational model of democracy 3 and should thus be examined in the context of political change. Finally, the relationships of the media to the nation's political economy, to its ethnic politics, and to the formation and support of civil society are significant. The role of the media in promoting pressure for political change, or alternately in reinforcing the status quo, is examined in this chapter. It is implicit in any discussion of Africa's Third Wave, 4 or indeed any event in the postmodern world, that the mass media are major players. They are, however, no longer viewed, in modernist grand theory parlance, as the "mobility mobilizers" of the now discarded—perhaps discredited—development model. 5 Rather, media are seen as weaving in and through events, uniquely patterning fragments of human history separated by time or space. 6

Nigeria: Toward Autocracy The West African country of Nigeria has been selected for this chapter. It is not an arbitrary choice. Nigeria is a major world producer of oil, a population giant of 114 million people. It is the country that has long been considered Africa's bellwether, and its downward political spiraling has set off alarm bells not only across the continent but across the world. Since obtaining independence from Great Britain in 1960, Nigeria has enjoyed only 10 years of civilian rule. Its last foray with

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civilian rule, the Second Republic, e n d e d on New Year's Eve of 1983. T h e M u h u m m a d u Buhari Military Coup ushered in m o r e than 12 years of military rule. Civil rights and the rule of law have eroded enormously u n d e r the military. In 1986, General Ibrahim Babangida replaced General Buhari in a "palace coup." He promised a rapid transition to civilian rule but thereafter u n d e r t o o k several political actions that underm i n e d the credibility of his words. T h e electoral reforms Babangida imposed on Nigeria made him a legend in political manipulation. And the arbitrary and extralegal m a n n e r of their enforcement made him, it may be said, a master of "the politics of confusion." In 1987, Babangida b a n n e d political parties. Shortly thereafter, he b a n n e d the "old breed" politicians of the First (19601966) a n d Second (1979-1983) Republics. T h e n in March 1989, Babangida lifted the ban on political parties and politicians and a n n o u n c e d that Nigerians should prepare for civilian rule. In October 1989, he proscribed an array of i n d e p e n d e n t political associations and disqualified political parties h e had previously encouraged in the political transition process. President Babangida decreed that, in the interest of decreasing factionalism and ethnic cleavage, only two parties would be allowed to form. 7 Again, he b a n n e d the old breed politicians and compelled new ones to come to the fore. In 1992, however, he reversed his ban and allowed the old breed to contest in the presidential primaries. He then nullified the primary results and personally selected the two presidential candidates. In J u n e 1993, the nation of Nigeria at last held presidential elections. Despite understandable wariness, millions of Nigerians participated in the process they h o p e d would at least restore civilian rule after nearly 10 years of military rule. T h e election drew only 35 percent of voters but was nevertheless j u d g e d by surprised external and internal monitors to have been peaceful, free, and fair. 8 Apparently displeased with the outcome, however, the military first postponed the release of election results and then nullified them completely. By then the Nigerian Election Commission had already leaked the tabulations to the public, the press, and the international community. T h e Social Democratic Party's Mashood Abiola was a clear winner with 58 percent of the vote. 9 T h e public responded to the cancellation with a series of crippling strikes that were initiated within the oil industry and then j o i n e d by o t h e r groups. Faced with m o u n t i n g pressure to step down, Babangida appointed in August 1993 a caretaker government

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headed by the civilian Ernest Shonekan. 1 0 By November of that same year, General Sani Abacha, who had been Babangida's army Chief of Staff and Shonekan's Minister of Defense, a n n o u n c e d that he had seized power on behalf of the Nigerian armed forces. It is widely believed by insiders that Abacha and Babangida colluded in this plan. Since taking power, Abacha has disorganized and largely dismantled the democratic transition mechanisms established during the Babangida era, at a cost of over 50 billion naira (N 50 billion). 1 1 This outlay has included the preparation of a new constitution written painstakingly for a Third Republic during the Babangida era. What Abacha has n o t a b a n d o n e d is the politics of confusion. He promises to start the democratization process anew—to write another new constitution and to again turn Nigeria over to civilian rule, this time in 1998. T h e first phase of this transition began with local council elections in March 1996. 12 But followers of Nigerian politics have grown even more leery of the military's intentions than they were in the days of Babangida, and Abacha's political modus operandi gives their cynicism ample cause. Candidates for the 1996 local elections appeared to be handpicked: No political parties were allowed to participate in the process, and winners were subject to removal by the head of state if they were j u d g e d to be "partisan." 1 3 Abacha has also carefully monitored delegate selection for the National Constitutional Conference, which is working on the latest new constitution. 1 4 Meanwhile, Mashood Abiola has been incarcerated since 1994 when he publicly declared himself Nigeria's President; he faces four counts of treason. 1 5 Abiola is said to be in ill health, suffering from a heart condition and hypertension, conditions exacerbated by abhorrent prison surroundings. Nigeria's civic life took another downturn when Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the imprisoned presidential victor, was shot and killed in a car attack in J u n e 1996. Her murder is widely believed to have been politically motivated. 16 Police issued a public warning to journalists on 19 J u n e 1996 not to engage in speculation about Ms. Abiola's murder. 1 7

Nigeria's Political Economy By African standards—even by world standards—Nigeria is a wealthy country. But Nigeria's vast wealth seems only to mock the country's great masses of people. Oil was discovered in the Niger

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Delta in the 1950s, and during the 1970s Nigeria experienced an u n p r e c e d e n t e d period of growth known as the oil boom. Nigeria's income soared as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) twice dramatically increased the world price of oil. But overspending, r a m p a n t corruption, and poor management, combined with the collapse of OPEC control, left Nigeria with a massive national debt by the mid-1980s, a debt that doubled between 1986 and 1991.18 Nigeria is the world's ninth largest oil producer and has the world's fourth largest reserves of natural gas. Nigeria's non-oil sectors rank low in productivity in relation to comparable developing countries. Nigeria's heavy dependence on oil revenues (97 percent of its export earnings in 1990 and 1991) 19 have also put the nation at the mercy of the international marketplace wherein petroleum prices have been unstable for three decades. 2 0 Peter Lewis nicely summarizes Nigeria's economic position: "Nigeria has one of the most skewed and unstable oil-exporting economies in the world." 21 Indeed, 1 percent of Nigeria's population controls 75 percent of the nation's wealth. 22 Nigeria is the home of more millionaires than any other country. Always d e p e n d e n t on oil prices, Nigeria's economy began a downturn in the early 1980s, and successive governments have tried, with little success, to p u t the Nigerian economy back on course. In the mid-1980s, Babangida embarked on a homegrown structural adjustment program (SAP) containing all of the standard components of other adjustment packages on the continent. Major elements of the SAP have included the devaluation of national currency, the removal or reduction of government subsidies, the privatization of parastatals, and the liberalization of the trading climate. 23 Theoretically, these reforms should have helped to replace the "prebendal economic practices" of the elites with solid revenue-generating schemes. 2 4 But the military has been unable or unwilling to impose financial discipline and behavior change on the political elites. Nigeria's monied groups have thus, in accordance with political mandates of reform, merely shifted their parasitic business activity away, for example, f r o m import-exp o r t "rent collecting" into finance and currency speculation and other nonaccumulative ventures. 2 5 Meanwhile, state enterprises continue to be sold off a n d the r e t r e n c h m e n t of civil servants is the order of the day, a policy resulting in the proletarianization of the middle classes. In essence, SAP conditionalities have shifted emphasis f r o m state-led development and ownership to privatization at the expense

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of an increasingly poor majority. The anticipated benefit of structural adjustment and a sounder economy, based on a wider platform of independent enterprises, has not been generated. A new class composed of small and medium-sized businesses has not taken hold. In economic parlance, supply response from the private sector has not been forthcoming. Nigeria has had a slower growth rate in both manufacturing and agriculture than have several other oil producers of similar output or population as indexed by the World Bank. 26 The burden of Nigeria's SAP has fallen disproportionately on the middle class and the poor and has led to massive reductions in the common people's standard of living. By 1989, the per capita gross national product had fallen to $250 per annum from a high in the early 1980s of $830. By 1991, the World Bank listed Nigeria as the 13th poorest nation in the world. 27 Political economist Peter Lewis concluded in 1994 that the Nigerian structural adjustment program was "a missed opportunity of unique proportions." 28 Perhaps it is true that Nigeria could have found its way out of this economic morass. But many economists, in particular the new breed known as Afro-Pessimists, now seem less certain that any economic recovery scheme in Africa can work in less than 20 to 50 years. 29 Meanwhile, the regime has bought favors through generous salary enhancement schemes to officers and specific civilians, and senior officials and their key "clients" have appropriated enormous shares of government contracts and have sidetracked oil proceeds. The World Bank estimated that in 1990 and 1991, $2.1 billion in petroleum receipts were diverted to extrabudgetary accounts, apparently for the benefit of Babangida sycophants and important constituents who might otherwise have objected to continual diversions in the march toward elections. 30 "Corruption," notes Peter Lewis, "has long been endemic to Nigerian politics, but the levels of malfeasance in the waning years of the Babangida regime eclipsed those of preceding governments." 31

Nigeria's Ethnic Politics Nigeria's ethnic cocktail is potentially as lethal as any bequeathed by the colonizers. Nigeria, which is about the size of Arizona, New Mexico, and California combined, has approximately 250 ethnic groups, three of which account for about two thirds of the population. Keeping these various groups both reasonably united and

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sufficiently satisfied has been a central preoccupation of the Nigerian government. The British colonial administration bequeathed a weak central state to Nigeria's postcolonial rulers. Nigeria's First Republic (1960-1966) was a federation that lacked a strong financial basis. The union was composed of three strong but unequally balanced regions delimited by broad ethnic categories: the Yoruba in the west-southwest, the Igbo in the east-southeast, and the HausaFulani in the north. The Hausa-Fulani North was clearly the largest and most populated region. 32 Each region differed markedly in culture, religion, and levels of westernization. The Hausa-Fulani North—the least developed—was solidly Islamic and possessed a clear hierarchical social structure. The Igbo East—the most westernized— was highly Christianized and socially egalitarian. The Yoruba West— the most urbanized—contained followers of both Islam and Christianity, all liberally dosed with pantheistic Yoruba tradition, a divine hierarchy that tends to find its reflection in the social structure. Each region became a distinct neopatrimonial system r u n through webs of patronage. 33 Eventually, the weakness of the Federated First Republic led to the Biafran Civil War of the late 1960s. Subsequent regimes in Nigeria bolstered central political and economic power by nationalizing or indigenizing multinational and Levantine business interests, but more especially and more successfully by maintaining virtually complete control over petroleum windfalls. 34 The national state of Nigeria has since engaged in a seemingly endless round of administrative reorganizations, which represent attempts to both shore up the power of the federal government and to assuage sectional demands and defuse communal competition. 35 Thus, the original three-region federation (to which a fourth region was added in 1962) was divided into 12 states in 1976; into 19 states in 1979; into 21 states in 1987; and into 30 states in 1991. A mutually reinforcing pattern of patron-client relationships between the federal government and the state governments has kept these governments afloat with monies (petroleum earnings) from federal coffers. The never-ending calls for the creation of ethnically based new states represent efforts by emerging smaller groups to establish more direct links to the sources of patronage. And Abacha has promised thé creation of even more states. 36 Meanwhile, state and local ethnic officials with their own clientist interests have surrounded themselves with supporters and have distributed to the latter the spoils of this so-called rentier system.

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Responses to the need for ethnic balancing create continued administrative chaos and counteract Nigeria's efforts to create institutional structures and economic inducements for productive accumulation. 37 As a result, Nigeria's elites shy away from production and concern themselves instead with distribution. This is, again, the essence of Nigeria's rentier economy. Ethnic accommodation thus reinforces the Nigerian government's position as the main avenue for amassing capital. Nigerian journalist Omo Omoruyi described the relationship of ethnic politics to the neopatrimonial political system in Nigeria: The government [military] reintroduced the role of tribalism through the system of divide and conquer. The military is recycling them [elite politicians] in political offices, giving them money contracts, and so on. . . . Some politicians are promised that states will be carved out for them, little governments will be created for them. 3 8

Indeed, scholars of late have begun to highlight the role of the modern African state in creating the so-called problem of tribalism. Such scholars have argued that precapitaj relations between ethnic groups are far less problematic than has long been believed. The modern state, they have maintained, has in fact carved out its political niche by acting as a broker between the groups it has brought into confrontation. 39 Abacha's efforts at state reorganization, of course, are explained as attempts to bring government closer to the people. 4 0 But a wealthy government that controls the lion's share of funds in an impoverished country is by definition insulated from popular discontent. Such a government decides when, if, and to whom funds will be dispensed. In Nigeria, this government has become one that arrests, intimidates, or kills those who criticize the social arrangements; such a government cannot be close to the people. Expressed alternatively, political reform without economic reform is meaningless. This degree of meaninglessness has been evident in the Nigerian government's treatment of the Ogoni and other groups on the oil-rich Niger Delta in whose homelands 90 percent of Nigeria's oil is pumped. The Ogoni, with a population of under half a million people, represent the most organized of the 200-plus small ethnic groups dotted around Nigeria. The Ogoni have attempted to force the government to give them a greater share of the oil wealth being taken from their homeland. They have also tried to receive adequate compensation for the appalling environmental destruction of their homelands. 41

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The government, for its part, appears to have declared an allout war against the Ogoni organization, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Abacha's men are engaged in a chilling campaign of terror in Ogoniland under the command of the hated Paul Okutimo, Chairman of the Rivers State Security Task Force. Okutimo, who once bragged that the army taught him 204 ways to kill, uses a range of methods to intimidate the Ogonis, including nighttime bombing raids on villages, arbitrary shooting and rape of civilians, looting of Ogoni property, arbitrary detentions, floggings, and so forth. 4 2 Human Rights Watch/Africa reported in 1994 that the Okutimo's Security Task Force had raided at least 60 towns and villages in Ogoniland. Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka, who fled Nigeria in November 1994 after his passport was seized, has likened the Nigerian military's treatment of the Ogoni to "ethnic cleansing." 43 Soyinka observed that the difficulties in Ogoniland, like those elsewhere, are "hidden and ill-reported" and made to look like infighting among a troublesome ethnic group and its seditious ethnic organization. 4 4 Indeed, journalists hesitate to investigate the situation in Ogoniland because others have been met with fearsome intimidation. Two Nigerian civil rights lawyers and a British environmentalist, for example, were detained in 1994 and then brutally beaten when they were found speaking to an Ogoni movement leader. 45 Even a delegation from the U.S. embassy that visited Ogoniland that year was held at. gunpoint when it requested to meet with the military government of Rivers State. 46 As a result of several investigations, human rights groups have become convinced that the government of Nigeria is embarked on numerous campaigns to incite ethnic and religious tension. 47 Tiny ethnic groups such as the Ogonis are reported to feel particularly disaffected by the outcome of the June 1993 elections. The Nigerian-based Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) believes the annulment proves that even a major group such as the Yoruba (the largest after the Hausa-Fulani) is powerless in the face of northern hegemony and that a pluralist and democratic multiethnic society is impossible. 48 Whether or not this is true, such a pronouncement by a voluntary, nonpartisan, nongovernmental human rights organization such as the CLO does not portend well for the survival of the multiethnic state. One longtime expatriate resident explained the resurgence of ethnic sensibilities in this way: "Economic drift is making Nigerians more and more insecure, more and more unsure of themselves. And when they're feeling this way, they revert back to the time-tested comforts of their ethnic groups." 49

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Nigeria's Civil Society Consociational models of democracy emphasize the value of trade unions, professional societies, civic groups, and voluntary organizations in the creation of a pluralist society j o i n e d together for the c o m m o n good. Such organizations are t h o u g h t to replace, or at least compete with, the m o r e organic or primitive ties of kinship. But h e r e again, there is evidence in Nigeria of a g o v e r n m e n t actively engaged in the destruction of n o r m a l social linkages. Organized labor in Nigeria, for example, is in disarray as a result of continued harassment. In 1993, after the Abiola victory was canceled, the National Union of Petroleum and Gas Workers went on strike with the support of the powerful Nigerian Labor Congress. They were j o i n e d by the white-collar sister union, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria. The strike caused serious disruption in the domestic distribution of gasoline in the summer of 1993 and may have led to the Babangida resignation. T h e government harassed u n i o n leaders and had them beaten; it also closed the headquarters of the unions and arrested their leaders. Eventually, the strike was broken and the workers ordered back to work. Nevertheless, the government was unsatisfied with its victory and planned f u r t h e r measures. Labor Minister Sam Ogbemudia announced Operation FFF—Find, Fix, and Finish—against the oil unions and the NLC and any other group protesting the annulment of the elections. Describing Operation FFF on national television, O g b e m u d i a predicted that the voices of opposition would be "exterminated even if they go u n d e r g r o u n d in such a way that history will n o t r e m e m b e r they ever existed." 50 As of mid-1995, several trade union leaders remained in custody without charge in connection with strikes following the annulled elections. 51 Professional organizations that have supported the gas and oil strike or have otherwise criticized the government are also in disarray. They include a wide r a n g e of associations: the National Union of Teachers, the National Union of Local Government Employees, the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigerian Medical Association, the National Association of Women's Societies, and the Nigerian Union of Journalists. Political harassment has combined with conditions of scarcity to make it difficult for these and similar organizations to flourish. Amnesty International reports that the government actively foments divisions a m o n g these groups to rid them of government critics. 52 It should be recalled, moreover, that civic groups typically flourish best in middle-class contexts. Structural adjustment has decimated public institutions and downsizing has swelled the ranks of the unemployed.

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Despite these difficulties, observers have long been impressed with the social vibrancy of the country. 53 As recently as 1994, political scientist Peter Lewis noted, for example, that a decade of authoritarian rule had served to spawn a growing human rights movement and increased legal activism. These newer groups, including the CLO, the Campaign for Democracy, and the National Democratic Coalition, 54 have helped to diversify and invigorate a distinctly vibrant civil society composed of professional associations, the labor movement, the independent press, university academics, and students. Lewis warned in 1994, however, that civil society was beleaguered on all sides. In his view, three factors continued to threaten the viability of Nigerian civil society: First, civil organizations are continually harassed; second, civil society, like the Nigerian society at large, is fraught with ethnic and factional division; and third, civic leaders are repeatedly tempted into co-optation by the Abacha government. Indeed, most of Abacha's cabinet are members of the civilian political elite. 55 The demoralization of civil society continues unabated. The annals of the human rights monitoring organizations—Amnesty International, Africa Watch, Article 19, and the Nigeria-based CLO—are filled with instances of severe harassment of Nigerian civil liberties groups. Intimidation takes the form of attacks on civilians, their families, or their property. It often involves illegal detention (arrest for offenses declared illegal after the fact, retention after acquittal), long periods of incarceration without trial, and harsh sentencing in terrible conditions of confinement. The few cases detailed subsequently indicate the degree of serendipity (confused randomness) characteristic of the Nigerian legal system under Abacha. In 1994, for example, the law office and library of prominent civil rights lawyer Gani Fawehinmi was attacked by armed men and two of the office guards were critically wounded. Police stationed nearby were unresponsive to the attack, leading insiders to suspect the collusion of the Supreme Military Command. 5 6 In early July 1995, Fawehinmi was arrested and detained after declaring his formation of the National Conscience Party. This occurred despite the fact that the ban on political activity had been lifted (once again) in June. Fawehinmi was released after two weeks and arrested again in September after speaking at a political rally.57 Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, general secretary for the Campaign for Democracy, has been detained without charge since January 1995 despite a ruling by the Lagos High Court in May 1995 that he should be released. Ayo Opadokun, general secretary for the

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National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), has been detained since August 1994. The NADECO is a group of human rights activists, former politicians, and military officers who support the installation of Chief Mashood Abiola. Chief Michael Ajasin, the group's 87-year-old leader, was detained with 50 other people in June 1995 after he held a meeting with the organization in his home. 5 8 Beko Ransome-Kuti and Shehu Sani, chairman and vice chairman of the Campaign for Democracy, were both convicted of treason in October 1995 by a special military tribunal. Along with 41 other prisoners, they were sentenced, most to 15 years in prison (commuted from death), for their supposed participation in the alleged coup plot of March 1995.59 Scores of other activists remain incarcerated in mortal danger to their lives. The response to the annulment of the Abiola victory appears to have followed well-worn ethnic paths among civil rights groups. On the subject of ethnic division, Nigerian political analyst Julius Ihonvbere has echoed Lewis's view. Ihonvbere has noted, for example, that many of the prodemocracy groups listed earlier, especially the Campaign for Democracy and the National Democratic Coalition, are based largely in the cities of the southwest, Lagos especially, and Ibadan to a lesser extent. This gives rise to the not unfounded belief that the prodemocracy movement is largely a Yoruba affair. The particular support of these groups for the stillborn presidency of Mashood Abiola, a Yoruba, further fuels this belief. The elite Igbo establishment from eastern Nigeria has remained somewhat neutral about the annulment of the Abiola victory, apparently hoping to serve eventually as power brokers between the acquiescent northern region and the protesting western region. 60 The Hausa-Fulani North, no doubt conscious of its regional advantage under the northern-led military coalition, 61 remains quiescent about the suspension of civilian rule, suggesting something less than dissatisfaction with the status quo. 6 2 Among the most vocal northern groups supporting the Abacha regime is the powerful Northern Nigeria Elders Forum whose membership includes that of former civilian President Alhaji Shehu Shagari. 63 Indeed, all northerners today are at times variously dubbed members of the Kaduna Mafia, the Sokoto Caliphate, the Sardauna Legacy, the Dan Fodio Jihadists, and so forth, because of their regional association with the so-called Northern Elite. The latter are said to represent a clique of northern-based military officers who have run the country since the end of the First Republic (1960-

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1966), together intermittently with civilian collaborators mostly from the (now discredited) Second Republic (1979-1983). 6 4 Co-optation of prodemocracy leaders by Abacha's Supreme Military Council seems to follow the classic patronage pattern— confuse and conquer—with frequent shifts in assignment and quick demotions. Several prominent individuals have been "bought out" by the regime. Chief Olu Onagoruwa, for example, once a civil rights lawyer and a member of the Movement for National Reformation, accepted a position as Abacha's Minister of Justice. Alex Ibru, the publisher of the Guardian, once Nigeria's most independent and respected newspaper, was named Abacha's Minister of Internal Affairs. 65 Ibru was later removed and in 1996 was shot in his vehicle at point-blank range, although nothing was taken from his car. Not to be outdone in the game of sellout was Babagana Kingibe, Abiola's running mate and Nigeria's would-be vice president: Kingibe has taken the position of Minister of Internal Affairs vacated by Ibru. In 1995, Lewis's optimism on the future of Nigeria and the viability of its civil society had become considerably more somber. Testifying before the U.S. Congress's Subcommittee on African Affairs, he noted among other problems that ethnic and regional divisions had heightened and that the "internal democratic movement [was] currently in abeyance." 6 6

Nigeria's M a s s Media The electronic media in Nigeria have effectively been publicly owned prior to the 1990s. With the exception of South Africa, Nigeria's public media infrastructure, with over 100 radio and television stations, is the largest and most complex in Africa. Nigeria's electronic media infrastructure reflects historical attempts by the nation to balance the need of the central state for hegemony with the competing needs of the states for limited autonomy. The federal government has thus supported its own broadcasting but has allowed individual state governments to use funds disbursed from the federal government to operate state-based systems. The proliferation of broadcasting outlets (like the proliferation of states) has been a way for federal patrons to shore up the support of regional elites and to envelop the latter in a web of political obligations. Nigeria's public media system is said to possess a three-tiered broadcasting structure. At the top tier are the national networks:

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the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). The second tier consists of regional divisions of the federal broadcasting services. The third tier incorporates radio and television stations operated by the individual states. In theory, each of the 30 states is to be served by at least two radio and two television broadcasting entities, each pair operated by federal and individual state governments. In practice, however, the difficult financial climate of the 1980s and 1990s has considerably dampened the pace of expansion—despite the creation of new states—and rendered this structural organization unworkable. 67 The proliferation of media outlets has contributed to a sense of national cacophony in Nigeria. New stations have been created, their personnel pilfered from older stations or recruited haphazardly for reasons of patronage, often long before national or state information policy for their use has been adequately formulated or the media system as a whole has been able to accommodate such losses or changes. The lure of lucrative kickbacks to key politicians or decision makers from external suppliers of electronics equipment has clearly played a role in the creation of media outlets. Kickbacks have also contributed to the confusion, since sister stations have sometimes been equipped with mutually incompatible systems or parts. And the chaos obtained on the level of personnel and of hardware has often been mirrored in production and programming output. Production values are generally low, and Nigerians and expatriates alike readily allow that Nigerian radio and television suffer from the Nigerian plague of "indiscipline." 68 Indeed, media analyst Francoise Balogun has criticized Nigerian broadcasting for its poor organization, its lack of political and cultural will, and its frequent recourse to "lazy solutions." 69 In the context of news, such wasteful duplication of services has been viewed by Graham Mytton as serving a function of providing a kind of safety valve for building sectional pressures in this multiethnic state. As Mytton noted (albeit during the freer atmosphere of the Second Republic), "what one station in one state would refuse to broadcast, another might be happy to transmit." 70 Mytton was drawing from William Hachten, whose earlier work had argued that the Nigerian media taken as a whole could be considered quite free because the media in each of the three major regions of the federation of the First Republic were easily able to criticize leaders in the other two regions. 71 Today, with Nigeria's early days of independence and oil boom long past, there is little optimism and less funding to keep even this "fractured pluralism" alive. Meanwhile, authoritarian

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politics have subdued Nigerian broadcasting and made it less querulous. The characteristic indiscipline continues unabated, unleashing the inevitable snowy screens, the minutes of dead air, and the mask of muffled sound. The drone of protocol news, now detailing the ritual pretensions .to governance of Abacha and his men, have replaced coverage of scandal, corruption, and trading of insults among rival ethnic civilian politicians. Clearly "mediated" political divisions, already apparent in the First Republic, have reified Nigeria's fundamental problems in their own ways: a rentier economy, a system of ethnic patronage, and perhaps an unworkable ethnic combination. Through their very proliferation and indiscipline, the broadcast media have contributed to the politics of confusion. Even while the number of public broadcast services expands, state support for their budgets contracts. Economic austerity packages of the 1980s and 1990s have demanded reductions in outlays to the public sector. Thus, both the NTA and the FRCN headquarters have drastically reduced federal subventions to their affiliate stations, urging these stations to generate ever-higher proportions of their operating budgets from advertising and other quasi-commercial activities. 72 As a result, both the NTA and the FRCN now often charge fees for news coverage not produced by the government. This ominous trend, combined with drastically reduced numbers of service personnel, 73 has tended to reduce the news time devoted to civic issues, nongovernmental organizations, and their spokespersons. Financial disincentives, combined with the climate of harassment, have had a chilling effect on the electronic media. 74 Although a few broadcasters have come to take principled stands in the defense of freedom of information, the electronic media generally have been far more tame than the print media. Broadcasters have long displayed a tendency toward self-censorship, with a view toward promotion within a system in which rewards rarely come from professional excellence or critical reporting. 7 5 Indeed, the Nigerian media, like the media elsewhere on the continent, suffer from a lack of institutionalization in society. The public seems to have relatively low expectations of journalists, particularly broadcasters, whom they regard as part of the apparatus of government. Broadcasters largely consider themselves operatives of the governments who pay their salaries, and the media operatives behave accordingly. A climate of stringent military surveillance over the airwaves, combined with ongoing draconian cuts in personnel, has further tamed the electronic media in Nigeria.

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The era of media globalization has come to Nigeria. In 1992, then President Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993) promulgated Military Decree No. 75, which addressed aspects of public media privatization, the development of new technology, and the issuance of commercial broadcast licenses. Charged with vetting applications of private media in May 1993, the National Broadcasting Commission announced that 14 licenses had been awarded for conventional broadcasting and satellite redistribution services. 76 There has been considerable speculation from insiders that these licenses were issued on the basis of patrimonial interests and cronyism rather than on the basis of fiscal soundness and commercial viability—let alone public interest. 77 Moreover, the regulatory apparatus for these new industries is at best patchy and incomplete. 78 As of 1996, there were rumored to be approximately 38 new license permits. Little information was available about these license holders, few of whom had begun to broadcast. Article 19 reported in 1997 that newly operating private radio and television stations were "largely silent on political matters." 79 There is considerable interest among rank-and-file Nigerians in cheap imported electronic media. Broadcast license holders, like their colleagues in other enterprises, no doubt seek quick profits and eschew risky, long-range ventures such as indigenous entertainment and hard-hitting news production. In this way, they reflect both the internal dynamics of Nigeria's political economy and the external dynamics of the global information economy, each accommodating the "dumbing down" of the media. It is unlikely that new licensees will provide much in the way of news services to threaten the "status quo." Rather, "divide and conquer" political strategies appear poised to distance private media owners and their audiences from the nation state just as private satellite television dish ownership has done. 8 0 Those Nigerians still looking for news and information critical of the current regime need look no farther than the print media. As with the electronic media, the nation has been blessed with numerous outlets; and unlike the broadcast media, Nigeria's newspapers are largely in private hands. They reflect a feistier, if somewhat argumentative, tabloid tradition. 81 According to an Index on Censorship report of late 1994, there were 21 nationally distributed daily newspapers, 22 weeklies, and 19 news magazines. 82 These numbers have increased and decreased, of course, throughout the harsh political and economic period of the 1990s. The print media suffer from a dense thicket of media restrictions, promulgated at the whim of Nigeria's military

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rulers. These capricious legal decrees are used to bolster juridically the numerous abuses heaped particularly on the print media in Nigeria. 83 Indeed, Nigeria's press has suffered such indignities as the temporary seizure, banning, and closure of newspapers; harassment of vendors, distributors, and even readers; the hijacking, impounding, and arson of newspaper delivery vans; a shortage of newsprint; and even the firebombing of presses. Bogus editions of the feistier publications—the News and the Sunday Magazine—have even been circulated. Meanwhile, the country's journalists and publishers have suffered harassment, intimidation (of themselves, their spouses, and their children), detention, arrest without trial, death sentences, and even death by parcel bomb. 84 Nsikak Essien, editor of the National Concord (part of the Concord Group of newspapers owned by incarcerated presidential victor Abiola), claims that the current period "is the darkest hour for journalism [in Nigeria] since independence," and that "even in colonial times no newspapers were shut down by the authorities." 85 According to the Observer (London), life is so precarious for journalists in Nigeria that a new style of reportage has developed. Conducted by editors and reporters with no fixed abode, "guerrilla journalism" keeps newsmen moving from house to house or office to office, one step ahead of security forces. 86 One such guerrilla, for a time, was Odapo Olorunyomi of the News, a Lagos weekly magazine. Named 1995 International Editor of the Year by the World Press Review, Olorunyomi went into hiding after the News published an article raising doubts about the coup plot of March 1995 alleged by the Abacha regime to have occurred. The story triggered a hunt for its authors and the magazine's editor. When security forces failed to find Olorunyomi, they arrested one of his staff members, Kunle Ajibade. Olorunyomi continued to write for the News in hiding, traveling incognito around Lagos on a bicycle and with public transportation. On 31 December 1995, the offices of the News were firebombed. Olorunyomi slipped out of Nigeria to Benin and eventually made his way to the United States via London. The Committee to Protect Journalists assisted him in this escape. 87 Olorunyomi is only one of several courageous journalists to have been recognized internationally. In 1994, the Commonwealth Press Union gave Bayo Onanuga, the founding editor of Tempo Magazine and PM News, the As tor Award for his contribution to press freedom. 8 8 In 1995, Olatunji Dare, editorial board chairman of the then banned Guardian, was the winner of the Nieman Eoundation's Louis M. Lyons Award.89 That same year Reporters

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sans Frontières awarded its grand prize to Chris Anyanwu, editor in chief of the Sunday Magazine90 Amnesty International reported at the end of 1995 that Kunle Ajibade together with three other journalists (not to mention attorneys, civil rights activists, civil servants, relatives of suspects, and military personnel) were in prison in connection with the alleged coup plot of March of that year. Besides Ajibade of the News, these individuals were Chris Anyanwu, the female editor previously cited; George Mbah, assistant editor of Tell magazine; and Ben Charles Obi, editor of Weekend Classique magazine. All four journalists had received sentences of life imprisonment commuted to 15 years. All four were convicted of being accessories after the fact of treason. 91 Most of the outspoken private press is produced in the southern half of the country, the majority of it along the Lagos-Ibadan corridor. 92 This is the country's Yoruba stronghold. Once again, a sectional pattern emerges, with eastern Nigeria occupying an intermediary position in terms of critical press vibrancy. The eastern part of the country has a few private newspapers and northern Nigeria has none. The federal government opened and subsidized the Kaduna-based New Nigerian newspaper in the 1970s in an effort to alleviate the dearth of northern-based papers. 93 Media analyst Adewale Maja-Pearce has claimed that the root cause of the Hausa-Fulani North's failure to create a vibrant private press lies in the hierarchical feudal culture of northern Nigeria, a culture too deferent to authority to generate feisty reporting. An alternative explanation might rest in the fact that the northern region, with its larger population and better funded institutions, has enjoyed more of the nation's spoils and is far less critical of the status quo. Conclusion A nation's media are prisoners of the country's economic and political structures and its place in world history. As noted throughout this essay, Nigeria's economy is dependent on its oil revenues, which are jealously guarded by military elites whose power base lies in the northern half of the country, in the area of Hausa-Fulani ethnic hegemony. Nigeria's state-supported domestic broadcasting is allied with and subservient to the domestic political economic order. Nigerian private broadcasting, although still nascent, will be licensed and allowed to operate only so long as it leaves the

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present power establishment intact. Private electronic media will no doubt carve out their place, providing mindless mass entertainment at the periphery of global capitalist order. Only the Nigerian print media, u n d e r continued duress, can find the political space to operate with an independent voice. Yet those who decry the present regime the loudest have yet to generate strong multiethnic support outside the community of the Yoruba diaspora. Nigerians used to observe those dictators ruling neighboring countries and swear that such men would never be tolerated in their nation—so special were the Nigerian people, so strong and vibrant their civil society. Since the annulment of the 1993 election result, Nigerians now question the future of the Nigerian state. Civil society is in disarray and ethnic strife is clearly on the rise. The prognosis for Nigeria does not seem good. As Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka so elegantly wrote, "we may be witnessing, alas, the end of Nigerian history." 94 Still, the course of world events often has a way of reversing itself. It is heartening that criticism of Nigeria is growing in the international community: Nigeria has now become one of the world's pariah states. T h e Commonwealth of Nations suspended Nigeria's membership in late 1995 after the government hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental rights activists from Ogoniland who were convicted of m u r d e r u n d e r dubious legal procedures. 9 5 And the powerful African American lobby group TransAfrica, so successful in its campaigns for South Africa a n d Haiti, has made the restoration of democracy in Nigeria its most urgent crusade. 9 6 Perhaps the drama of Nigeria's failed democracy will continue to be played out on the world's stage through the international media. And perhaps national and international environmental, civic, and h u m a n rights groups can force democratic change in Nigeria. This is the country's best hope. If Nigeria, the giant of Africa, descends into civil war, the ensuing carnage will no doubt be much worse than that seen in Rwanda.

Notes 1. Michael Chege, "Differences in Transition to Democracy in Africa," Africa Demos 3 (May 1996): 1. 2. See, for example, Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, "Popular Protest and Political Reform in Africa," Comparative Politics 24 no. 4 (1992): 419-443; Claude Ake, "The New World Order: A View from Africa," in Hans-Henrik Holm and Georg Sorensen, ed., Whose World Order? (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1995), 19-42.

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3. The consociational model of democracy draws inspiration from the pluralist models and is "sensitive to the role of intermediary organizations and associations in civil society." See Jan A.G.M. Van Dijk, "Models of Democracy—Behind the Design and Use of New Media in Politics," Javnost— The Public 3 no. 1 (1996): 50. 4. Huntington's term. See Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 5. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1963). 6. Tim O'Sullivan, J o h n Hartley, Danny Saunders, Martin Montgomery, and John Fisk, Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1994), 234-235. Those searching for grand theory, of course, may find it useful to assemble case-specific studies. Such an assemblage is, in fact, a goal of this volume. 7. Peter Lewis, "Endgame in Nigeria? The Politics of a Failed Democratic Transition," African Affairs 93 (1994): 324-325; Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnicity and Development in Nigeria (Aldershot, England: Avebury Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1995), 211. 8. Nnoli, Ethnicity and Development, 214. 9. Lewis, "Endgame," 327. 10. For details on the Shonekan transition, see Julius Ihonvbere, "Dead End to Nigerian Democracy? Explaining the 1993 General Abacha Coup," in Marcia Jones, ed., Txuelfth Annual Meeting: Association of Third World Studies (Statesboro: Georgia Southern University Press, 1995): 137-139. 11. Ibid., 133. 12. Adewale Maja-Pearce, "Once More to the Polls," Index on Censorship 25 no. 6 (May-June 1996): 190-192. 13. Maja-Pearce, "Once More," 191. 14. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, The Situation in Nigeria, 104th Cong., 20 July 1995, 26. 15. Index on Censorship, "Index Index," Index on Censorship 23 no. 6 (November-December 1994): 211. 16. David Pallister, "Nigeria's Chief's Wife Killed in Car Attack," Manchester Guardian Weekly, 16 June 1996, p. 1. 17. Index on Censorship, "Index Index," Index on Censorship 25 no. 4 (July-August 1996): 107. 18. Julius Ihonvbere, Nigeria: The Politics of Adjustment and Democracy (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Press, 1994), 142. 19. Ibid., 22. 20. See "Nigeria," International Financial Statistics Yearbook (Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1995), 588-589. 21. Peter Lewis, "Economic Statism, Private Capital, and the Dilemmas of Accumulation in Nigeria," World Development 22 no. 3 (1994): 437. 22. Paul Adams, "Nigeria: Africa's Next Pariah?" Africa Report May-June 1995, 45. 23. Abiodun Adegboye, "State Under Siege: The Political Consequences of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria," in Marcia Jones, ed., Twelfth Annual Meeting: Association of Third World Studies (Statesboro: Georgia Southern University 1995), 5.

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24. For a discussion of structural adjustment as it relates to Africa, see Thomas Callaghy and J o h n Ravenhill, "How Hemmed In? Lessons and Prospects of Africa's response to Decline," in Thomas Callaghy and J o h n Ravenhill, eds., Hemmed In (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 520-563. 25. Lewis, "Economic Statism," 444. 26. Ibid., 437, 448. 27. Ihonvbere, Nigeria: The Politics of Adjustment, 73. 28. Lewis, "Economic Statism," 439. 29. Callaghy and Ravenhill, Hemmed In, 522. 30. Lewis, "Endgame," 330-331. 31. Ibid., 330. 32. Lewis, "Economic Statism," 421. 33. Ibid., 421. 34. Ibid., 421. 35. Ibid., 443. 36. Baro Klan, "Nigeria: Will Abacha Quit?" AFRICANEWS, Peacelink, J u n e 1996. 37. Lewis, "Economic Statism," 438. 38. Nieman Reports, "Nigeria: Democracy and a Free Press," Nieman Reports, 50 no. 1 (spring 1996): 56. 39. See Ihonvbere, "Dead End," 140; also Julius Ihonvbere, "Elections and Conflicts in Nigeria's Nontransition to Democracy," Africa Demos 3 (May 1996): 8-9, 11; Nnoli, Ethnicity and Development, 215-245. 40. Klan, "Nigeria." 41. Nnoli, Ethnicity and Development, 198; see also Human Rights Watch/Africa, Nigeria: The Ogoni Crisis (New York: Human Rights Watch/Africa, 7 July 1995). 42. Ogaga Ifowodo, A CLO Report on the State of Human Rights in Nigeria (Lagos, Nigeria: Civil Liberties Organization, 1994), 205. 43. Wole Soyinka, "The Last Despot and the End of Nigerian History?" Index on Censorship, 23 no. 6 (November-December 1994): 69. 44. Ibid., 68. 45. Human Rights Watch/Africa, Nigeria: Ogoni, 21; see also Article 19, Nigeria: Fundamental Rights Denied (London: Article 19, June 1995). 46. Human Rights Watch/Africa, Nigeria: The Ogoni, 44, 47. Ibid., 12. See also Human Rights Watch/Africa, Nigeria: Threats to a New Democracy, 5 no. 9 (June 1993), 10-11. 48. Ifowodo, A CLO Report, 205. 49. Telephone communication with Jasmer S. Narag, General Manager, Media Development Consultants, Ltd., Kano & Lagos, Nigeria, July 1996. 50. Human Rights Watch/Africa, Nigeria: The Dawn of a New Dark Age (New York: Human Rights Watch/Africa, 6 October 1994), 6. 51. U.S. Congress, The Situation in Nigeria, 26. 52. Amnesty International, Nigeria: A Travesty of Justice (London: Amnesty International, 26 October 1995), 4. 53. Lewis, "Endgame," 333. 54. Ihonvbere, "Dead End," 137. 55. Ibid., 140. 56. Ifowodo, A CLO Report, 149-150.

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57. Amnesty International, "Nigeria," in Amnesty International Report 1996 (London: Amnesty International, 1996), 238-239. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. See also Amnesty International, Nigeria: A Travesty. 60. Ihonvbere, "Elections and Conflicts," 9. 61. Abacha is an indigene of Kano, northern Nigeria's major city. 62. British Broadcasting Corporation, various news bulletins, World Service, June-July 1996. 63. African Profiles International, "A Land of Interest Groups—The Nigeria Elders Forum, African Profiles International, March-April 1996, 34-35. 64. Soyinka, "The Last Despot," 70. 65. Lewis, "Endgame," 329. 66. U.S. Congress, The Situation in Nigeria, 26. 67. For a description of the Nigerian electronic media, see Louise Bourgault, "Nigeria," in Lynne Gross, ed., The International World of Electronic Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 233-252. 68. Louise Bourgualt, Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 138. 69. Françoise Balogun, "Nigeria," in Les Televisions du Monde [The Television Systems of the World], Telerama no. 48, Special Edition (Paris: Telerama-Cerf-Corlet) : 43. 70. Graham Mytton, Mass Communication in Africa (London: Edward Arnold, 1983), 119. 71. William Hachten, Muffled Drums (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1971), 151. 72. Bourgault, "Nigeria," 240. 73. Forced by economic circumstances, Nigeria reduced its television staff from 9,719 in 1985 to 5,200. See Andre-Jean Tudesq, LAfrique Noire et ses televisions [Black Africa and Its Television Systems] (Paris: Anthropos/Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, 1992), 93. 74. See Bourgault, Mass Media, 99. 75. Ibid., 51-55, 78-81, 109-116. 76. Nosa Owens Ibie, "The Commercialisation of Mass Media in Nigeria: The Challenge of Social Responsibility," fournal of Development Communication 4 no. 1 (June 1993): 61; P. C. Onianwa, "Nigerian Telecommunications in the Information Age," Africa Communications, July-August 1994, 9-14. 77. Interview with Nigerian TV journalist (anonymity protected), Kano, Nigeria, August 1992. 78. Interviews with Nigerian electronics entrepreneur (anonymity protected), Kano, Nigeria, August 1992. 79. Unshackling the Nigerian Media: An Agenda for Reform. Article 19, July 1997, London, p. 2. 80. Louise Bourgault, "Satellite Television Viewing in Nigeria: Will Nigerians Ever Be the Same?" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Orlando, Florida, 4 November 1995. 81. Louise Bourgault, "The Oral Tradition and the Nigerian Press," World Communication 16 no. 2 (fall 1987): 213-217. 82. Adewale Maja-Pearce, "The Press in Nigeria," Index on Censorship 23 no. 6 (November-December 1994): 219.

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83. See Unshackling the Nigerian Media, Article 19, pp. 4-16. 84. The most infamous case of press harassment in Nigeria is that of News editor Dele Giwa, who was killed by a parcel bomb in 1986. The Babangida regime is thought to have planned the murder. 85. Quoted in David Orr, "Nigeria's Junta Keeps the Press on the Run," Observer (London), 30 September 1995, sec. 3, p. 13. 86. Ibid. 87. Barry Shelby, "Two Africans Fight the Tyrants," World Press Review (April 1996): 20-21; Odapo Olorunyomi, "Famished Road to Freedom," Guardian (Manchester, England), 22 January 1996, pp. 10-11. 88. Bayo Onanuga, "Slipping in the Dark Ages of Tyranny," IPI Report 44 nos. 1 - 2 (January-February 1995): 16-17. 89. Nieman Reports, "Nigeria: Democracy and a Free Press," Nieman Reports 50 no. 1 (spring 1996): 54. 90. Bernard Debord, "Quinze Ans de Prison" [Fifteen Years of Prison], La Chronique d'Amnesty (Paris) (January 1996): 12. 91. Amnesty International Report 1996, 239. 92. Maja-Pearce, "The Press in Nigeria," 219. See also Olatunji Dare, "Nigeria: The Polarized Press," Nieman Reports 5 no. 1 (spring 1996): 50-53. 93. Dare, "Nigeria," 50. 94. Soyinka, "The Last Despot," 75. 95. Michael Birnbaum, Q.C., A Travesty of Law and Justice (London: Article 19, December 1995). 96. U.S. Congress, The Situation in Nigeria, 31-35.

6 The Media and Democracy in Eastern Europe OWEN V. JOHNSON

"The last great American export is our journalistic freedom and freedom of speech," David Halberstam wrote, as he observed the collapse of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. He recalled a moment in the unfolding of the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, when a Romanian was caught by the television camera crying about the joys of freedom of speech. 1 Halberstam, despite experience as a reporter covering Eastern Europe, forgot that the idea of freedom of the press did not only appear in eighteenth century America: The East Europeans have long known about it. They have far more experience than does the U.S. public with living under governments that vigorously restrict freedom of the press. Is it not significant that so many journalists and writers, such as Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier, and Polish prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, were early leaders of the post-Communist governments? Whether the East European rulers were Habsburgs, Czars, Nazis, or Communists, the right to speak freely was often limited or simply not permitted. Under these conditions and sharing a European culture as a whole, East European journalists of modern times have been heirs to a politicized notion of the press—one similar to the type of press that characterized the United States from its founding until the early twentieth century. As George Krimsky pointed out, when the press was not politicized, it was opinionated: 'Journalists in these changing societies see themselves more as interpreters, and sometimes oracles, rather than information gatherers and communicators."2 Krimsky was one of the few American journalists who acknowledged in those early post-Communist days that Eastern Europe had a functioning journalistic culture. His views were a distinct contrast to those of people such as former Washington Post 103

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editor Ben Bradlee, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and Halberstam. At a celebrated Prague conference of journalists from east and west in July 1990, President Havel spoke of the need for journalists to exercise responsibility in their work. Michael Zantovsky, Havel's then press secretary and later ambassador and later a Czech party leader, said the Czechoslovak government did not want the publication of a list of alleged secret police collaborators. The U.S. journalists were on their feet, lecturing the East Europeans about freedom of speech and government openness. Bradlee boasted of being on Nixon's list of enemies because he had been a soldier of the truth. The Americans wanted to talk about watchdogs and Watergate and Iran-Contra. They could not imagine what it was like to live in a totalitarian or authoritarian state in which people were forced to make compromises for themselves and their families to survive.3 Almost every East European journalist attending that conference—many of them leading journalists in their countries—was dismayed by what was said, not by Havel and Zantovsky, but by the U.S. journalists (at least that is what has been reported to this author). They might have said something else to the U.S. journalists, so as not to bite the hand that was feeding them. Certainly East Europeans who chafed under Communist rule had viewed the United States as a powerful symbol that was the opposite of the wrongs of their system. They believed that a model civic society and a free press would arise on the ruins of communism, failing to understand the realities of the complex American media market model. They did not necessarily think in terms of pluralism and negotiation and of providing information to both the public and political actors, but rather of putting forth their own point of view, or what Watson Sims called "a more missionary attitude toward journalism than we have."4 The relationship of the media and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe today is extremely complex. It involves a transition from a society in which words—and in some cases the journalists who wrote them—had enormous power to one in which politics is played much more openly, with the independent power of the journalists considerably curtailed. Such a transition carries with it the reestablishment of privately owned mass media businesses instead of the state- or party-owned operations of the Communist past, when budgets had an artificial quality about them. The democratization of media systems in Latin America and Africa has less often required the conversion from state-owned to privately owned media institutions. The theories and models of regime transition developed for Latin America and southern Europe

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do not apply easily to Eastern Europe. 5 Finally, the relationship of media and democracy is now influenced by a third party—the public—which, in theory, is composed of individuals who should be able to discuss and form opinions on most societal issues.6 Even in stable societies, however, the public often fails to live up to this ideal. 7 This chapter first provides a historical review of mass media roles in Central and Eastern Europe. It reviews the main media structures u n d e r Communist rule, paying attention to the considerable differences among the media systems of different countries. It examines the various roles of the mass media in the process of overturning Communist rule and establishing a postCommunist system. The chapter concludes with a summary of the main challenges facing the contemporary media. Focus will be given h e r e to what was geopolitically r e f e r r e d to during Soviet hegemony as Eastern Europe. A major distinction will be made between the East Central European or Visegrad countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia) and Southeast European countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the territories of the former Yugoslavia). T h e former were until 1918 mostly within the boundaries of the Habsburg Empire and therefore very much a part of Europe. The latter, built on complex national, linguistic, and imperial fault lines, was characterized by backward developm e n t of the media where access to media did not become in any sense universal until Communist rule after World War II. Despite the enormous diversity of the region, three major functions of the mass media can be identified: national, political, and economic. When national identity has been relatively unformed, as was the case in most of these countries in the nineteenth century, the media have articulated national ideas and have provided the institutions a r o u n d which identities could be imagined; without this cultural-psychological base, national political life could n o t succeed. When political life has been limited, the media have helped provide substitutes for political parties and parliaments. When the media have come to serve mass audiences, they have been important economic vehicles, either generating the income to support political life or helping to support, through the advertising on their pages, economic growth and development.

The Pre-Communist Development of Media Culture The local-language press of East Central Europe was developed by nations that were part of multinational empires, usually in subordinate

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positions. Newspapers t h e r e f o r e h e l p e d c r e a t e m o d e r n n a t i o n s a n d also reflected their growth. They developed as national political institutions devoted to fostering national goals in politics, economics, a n d culture. T h e s e formative forays into the public s p h e r e d e f i n e d in some respects what place journalism would have in m o r e recent times. 8 T h e m u l t i n a t i o n a l H a b s b u r g E m p i r e d e v e l o p e d an extensive system of n e w s p a p e r c e n s o r s h i p a n d c o n t r o l . As a result, t h e r e were only 79 n e w s p a p e r s — t h e majority of t h e m G e r m a n — i n t h e e n t i r e H a b s b u r g e m p i r e b e f o r e 1848, only 19 of which were perm i t t e d to discuss politics. A l t h o u g h subject to c h a n g i n g H a b s b u r g press policies b e g i n n i n g in t h e m i d 1840s, newspapers b e c a m e increasingly politicized. T h e r e was little of the objective, fact-based, middle-class f o r m of the press that is associated with E u r o p e today. T h e first c o m m i t m e n t of almost every n e w s p a p e r was to the political party that s p o n s o r e d it. Typical was Narodni listy, the "Young Czech" paper: This paper aims to advance the political and public education of our nation in order that we may grow stronger in association with the other peoples of Austria and someday realize that constitutional independence which alone can guarantee the preservation of our nationality and the spiritual heritage of our past.9

In t h e early twentieth century, some of the Czech parties b e g a n to s u p p o r t u r b a n , sensationalist, nonpolitical dailies. T h e s e newspapers n o t only a t t r a c t e d many r e a d e r s to newspapers b u t they also h e l p e d finance t h e m o r e limited-circulation political papers. H u n g a r y o f f e r s t h e best e v i d e n c e in p r e - W o r l d War I East C e n t r a l E u r o p e of t h e way in which j o u r n a l i s m o v e r l a p p e d with politics a n d literature. Many y o u n g H u n g a r i a n writers of this per i o d m a d e t h e i r living as n e w s p a p e r j o u r n a l i s t s u n t i l they c o u l d m a k e t h e i r m a r k as writers o r politicians. H u n g a r i a n r u l e in Slovakia until 1918 m a d e life difficult f o r t h e Slovak n a t i o n a l press, which lacked an a d e q u a t e e c o n o m i c base t h a t would facilitate b r o a d circulation. T h e only Slovak daily p a p e r was b a s e d in Bud a p e s t . T h e p a r t i t i o n s of P o l a n d in the s e c o n d half of t h e eight e e n t h c e n t u r y r e s u l t e d in its t e r r i t o r i e s b e i n g n o t only in the H a b s b u r g E m p i r e b u t also in Prussia a n d Russia. Since n o n e of t h e p a r t i t i o n e d p a r t s h a d h a d a m e a n i n g f u l level of self-governm e n t or local a u t o n o m y f o r any significant time, the press b e c a m e the m a j o r n a t i o n a l institution a n d political f o r u m in each p a r t of Poland. Dispersed t h r o u g h o u t 120 cities, the press b e c a m e a syno n y m f o r P o l a n d , o f t e n t h e only o r g a n i z e r of Polish intellectual,

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social, cultural, and even sometimes political life. The Polish press was also an institution providing partial employment for national elites. Until Poland was reconstituted in 1918, the press served as a "parliament" by publishing the speeches of Polish members of the various imperial parliaments. 1 0 According to Jane Leftwich Curry, this experience of the partitions established many Polish journalism traditions, including the perception that journalists should be members of the intelligentsia and that strong ties should exist between journalism and politics. 11 Political, social, and economic backwardness delayed the development of the press in southeastern Europe. The appearance of the first newspapers and magazines was significant not just from an international standpoint but also because their mere existence served as evidence of a developing national consciousness and helped further develop that consciousness, even if those papers were published in languages other than the nation's language. Even where the newspapers did exist, their reach was limited because of the primarily rural agrarian society. Gazeta de Transilvania, a Romanian paper based in Blaj, Transylvania, had only 250 subscribers and was the only Romanian language newspaper serving the two million Romanian speakers in the province. Its readers constituted the Romanian elite in the Habsburg monarchy. 12 With the establishment of independent states in Eastern Europe following the collapse of the Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires at the end of World War I, the mass media's associations with national identity changed. Newspapers nearly everywhere became heavily engaged in domestic politics. In some countries, large-circulation commercial newspapers made their presences felt. Political parties remained the chief financing agents for newspapers, and they kept prices low, which scared off commercial competitors. Political allegiance prevailed as a journalistic value over social responsibility. The unifying national function of journalism was taken over by the press of state minorities. Entertaining and mostly nonpolitical tabloid evening city newspapers garnered the largest circulations in East Central Europe. Only Czechoslovakia remained a democracy throughout the interwar period, but even there, press laws grew more restrictive. In the other countries, the governing regimes used threats, rewards, and financial backing to bring recalcitrant publications into. line. In some cases, outright violence was employed. 13 In Hungary, press freedom was very limited in the interwar period—a reaction, in part, to the brief period of Communist rule at the end of World War I. Every paper needed a license to publish.

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There were broad and arbitrary definitions of sedition. In southeastern Europe, most newspapers remained political vehicles. In Romania, some independent, nonpolitical publications achieved circulations of more than one hundred thousand. In Yugoslavia, newspaper growth was limited by a population that was 70 percent illiterate and 85 percent agricultural. In Albania, the press was even less developed. There were only three papers in Tirana, the Albanian capital, with the most important having a circulation of only 2,800.

Communist Rule Despite outward similarities, there was an enormous difference in the roles and functions of the mass media in the various countries of east central and southeastern Europe under Communism. Where they were more liberal, as in Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, there was a national subtext as well as a significant element of entertainment. The mass media were generally the most visible part of the liberalizing forces in Poland in 1956 and from 1980 to 1981, in Hungary in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. That role does not imply that journalism was necessarily a liberalizing force; rather, reformers used the media to convey their own liberal goals. The Communist parties of the area were the dominant force in journalism, but the party presence in the media was not monolithic. Different publications served different parts of the population and represented their goals in a modest way. The main party organs were newspapers of record, providing official political roadmaps for party officials and other readers who needed to be informed. These newspapers, such as Trybuna Ludu in Poland, Rude pravo in Czechoslovakia, Nepszabadsag in Hungary, Rabotnichesko Delo in Bulgaria, Neues Deutschland in Germany, Scinteia in Romania, and Zeri i Popullit in Albania, generally had the largest circulations in their respective countries. Newspapers aimed at young people, on the other hand, tended to be more open and to promote the aims of their readers as well as the party aims for young people. Furthermore, problems of particular concern to one audience were given considerable attention in the appropriate paper and less attention elsewhere. The real intended recipients of the discussion were the people inside the party who helped determine policy. The Communist regimes created a mass reading and viewing public, something that had not existed before. Nearly everyone

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read newspapers, and as television spread across the region in the 1950s and 1960s, its reach was nearly universal. A first television channel was generally followed a decade or two later by more specialized fare on a second channel. Regimes viewed television as extremely important because it was the medium through which they could reach their entire populations. The messages they sent, however, were not always the messages the population received. A significant part of the population did not care to concern itself with the finer points of political rhetoric or found these points irrelevant. In parts of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, citizens could and did watch western television programs. But what interested them in foreign television fare was the entertainment, not the news. By not watching domestic fare, however, they were taking themselves out of the regime's circle of communication. Added to the broadcast mix were foreign broadcasting services that prided themselves on providing uncensored information about domestic affairs in the individual countries. Their impact is hard to measure. The most devoted listeners were people who had already lost faith in their Communist regimes. In Poland, listening to foreign broadcasts was a symbol of opposition and also became de rigeur for those who wished to stay au courant with fellow opposition members. Listenership was also apparently extensive in Romania because of the information poverty of the official media. In some of the east central and southeast European countries, the mass media provided a significant source of income for the ruling parties. The costs of printed media running their business of course greatly exceeded the actual costs. News agency services, newsprint, printing, and distribution were available to newspapers very cheaply. In this fashion, government money subsidized the ruling party. Throughout Communist Eastern Europe, there was almost always some latitude for journalists to expand the boundaries of public discussion, and until the system began to fall apart in the 1980s, they took advantage of this space. 14 One of the most consistently open media systems under Communist rule was found in Poland. Although the press and broadcasting were subject to various controls, many topics that were taboo elsewhere were vigorously reported and discussed in the Polish media. Beginning as early as 1956, Polish journalism was highly professional. Reporters and editors were committed to stretching accepted limits in ongoing battles with censors. They used each of the crises of Communist rule (1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980-1981) to argue that a more open media could help

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alleviate tensions before they led to societal explosions. Many journalists became political leaders. The martial law declaration in December 1981 split Poland's journalists. The more militant refused to work for most state and party publications. Others committed themselves to the regime. What was particularly striking about the Polish media in the 1980s was the effort by the regime, having cracked down on the population on so many different occasions, to employ the media in an idealistic but doomed effort to win back the support of the populace. Regime spokesman Jerzy Urban held regular press conferences with the domestic and foreign media, during which almost all topics could be discussed, with the proceedings published and televised. To distract the audience from political matters, television stations broadcast Third World soap operas and U.S. police and detective dramas. Polish radio presented a weekly program of highlights from Radio Free Europe broadcasts. The primary function of Communist media—that of propagandist and motivator— had demonstrated its failure over the course of several decades in Poland. "The press lies," a popular slogan in the heady days of 1980-1981, provides the best evidence of this failure. The party's second approach was to co-opt the media—and through the media, the public—by treating them as allies in working together for the better future of Poland (a distinctly national as opposed to Communist theme). This plan demonstrably failed with the crackdown of 13 December 1981. But the audience could no longer be seduced or threatened to support the Communist system. A second circle of underground press circulated millions of copies each week throughout the 1980s. There was nothing the Communist Party could do but yield its monopoly on politics. The Hungarian press and the intellectuals who wrote for it have traditionally been considered a major factor in the failed 1956 revolution. But after the Soviet invasion that spelled the end to that revolution, the regime's handling of the media provided a distinct contrast to the Czechoslovak experience. Within a few years, Hungarian journalists were welcome to write about a wide range of topics, with only a few subjects off-limits, including the 1956 revolution. The difference was leadership. Janos Kadar, installed by the Soviet invaders as head of the Communist Party in Hungary, argued to his masters that to win back the support of the populace, "Goulash Communism" was necessary, based on the slogan He who is not against us, is with us. The traditional leadership position of Hungarian intellectuals, exercised through journalism, could be maintained under this arrangement. An indication of

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the openness of the Hungarian media was the virtual absence of an underground press in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s. The media in southeastern Europe had widely varying functions under Communist rule. The media in Yugoslavia were among the freest in the Communist bloc, and the Yugoslav News Agency Tanjug was a highly respected independent agency serving an international audience. Yugoslav media had the same degree of autonomy as did U.S. journalists. But the regional republic base of the media contained the roots of later destruction. 1 5 After the death of Josip Broz Tito, the Yugoslav media increasingly were called into the service of national interests. In Romania, the media role varied according to the changing style and politics of the party leaderships. By the 1980s, Romania was a "media black hole" with a press whose main task was to worship party and state leader Nicolae Ceau§escu. It meant secret police involvement, the closure of overseas news bureaus, and extreme limits on travel. Severe restrictions on energy consumption drastically reduced television broadcast time to only a couple of hours each evening. 16 The Albanian Communist rulers may have controlled the press more tightly than Ceau§escu, but the media reach was limited until late in the Communist period. The only continually published daily printed only 1 copy for every 20 Albanians. As late as 1980, there were only ten thousand television sets in the country. 17 From Communism to Post-Communism Przeworski argued that the political transition from authoritarian or totalitarian rule requires two steps. The first involves efforts by civil society to liberate the system from its authoritarian rulers. The second phase, a constitutional one, is completed when a consolidated, self-sustaining democracy is functioning. 18 In the case of Eastern Europe, the roots of the first phase extend back to 1956 and began to gather momentum in the late Brezhnev period. Journalists and many communications scholars routinely argue that the media played a major role in the overthrow of Communism throughout Eastern Europe, most often citing the television pictures of East Germans fleeing to the West through Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and other international services, and new media technologies, especially videotapes. Although certainly important, the role of the media is much more complicated; its impact varied widely from

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country to country, as did the emphasis on international versus domestic communication. Returning to the Polish case, for example, journalists had helped produce the discontent that led to the rebellion of 1956 and helped overthrow the leadership sponsored by Moscow. The new party leadership of Wladyslaw Gomulka knew that it needed the support of the print journalists to maintain its own position and to prevent a Soviet invasion. This informal bargain and the knowledge that they also had the support of the populace gave the Polish journalists, already equipped with an established professional ethic, some power in the defense of their work. The journalists repeatedly tested the boundaries of the permissible, an arrangement that was fostered by the censorship process. The result was a system that allowed for more open reporting and discussion of issues, which over time inevitably raised questions about the authority and knowledge of the party. The press was therefore part of the system and yet apart from it: The party needed the press. Unlike neighboring Czechoslovakia, after 1968 it did not have the means to purge thousands of journalists and subsequendy replace them. When those journalists divided in December 1981, serving the official or underground presses, both groups provided evidence of a bankrupt system for which Communism was no longer a way out. It was fitting that the last leader of the Communist Party was a journalist. 19 This is quite different from the case of Romania, as is discussed in Chapter 7.

Post-Communist Restructuring Basic freedom of speech and the press constitutes one of several key characteristics of procedural or formal democracy. In the postCommunist period, these have been instituted in some form in every East European country. 20 When visiting western leaders, representatives of all these regimes praise the value of free media. At home, however, some East European leaders, particularly in Slovakia and southeastern Europe, have created mechanisms to hinder that freedom by imposing special taxes, buying majority ownership, questioning licenses, and so forth. The popular assumption of people in Eastern Europe after 1989 was that democracy meant "a return to Europe." But that involved not only eliminating nondemocratic practices established under Communism but also catching up to the development of democracy in Western Europe during the previous 45 years. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn reminds us, however, "Glasnost—

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freedom of the press—is only an instrument of democracy, not democracy itself." 21 Kaldor and Vejvoda have compiled a list of eight criteria of democracy, one of which is "freedom of expression and alternative sources of information," which they define as follows: "Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters, broadly defined, and a right to seek alternative sources of information; moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by law."22 In their examination of 10 countries, they found formal procedures to be in place in every country; only in Romania was implementation not complete. They pointed out, however, that for a democracy to be substantive, the media must be able to represent a broad political debate: "Part of the reason for a system of free speech is not only to protect the individual speaker, but to allow processes of public deliberation and discussions that serve public goals, by, for example, constraining governmental power and making just and effective outcomes more likely."23 Evaluation of the interaction of the media and democracy would be relatively easy if political and policy issues were the only considerations. But in capitalist societies, media play multiple roles. They serve readers, society, and consumers. They spread information and commerce and they provide the opportunity for public discussion that addresses political, social, and economic problems. Both contemporary East European media and wellmeaning Western efforts to aid them have confused these roles. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to an examination of developments in some of the countries, with special attention devoted to the role of television. 24 Every East European country has had to wrestle with the question of ownership of the post-Communist press. There was general agreement that most, if not all, of the newspapers should be taken over by private owners; however, there was disagreement over the process of privatization. Few of the newspapers had actually belonged to the government, but instead had belonged to political parties or their subsidiary organizations. A complicating factor was defining what a newspaper was. Unlike newspapers in the West, the editorial operations, the printer, and the distributor belonged to different organizations; sorting this out took time. Nearly a decade later, a major result in East Central Europe is that a majority of daily newspapers and an increasing number of magazines are owned by international organizations, almost none of them based in the United States. 25

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In East Central Europe, Hungary moved most quickly, giving over rights to newspapers to a variety of domestic and foreign investors. With some of the later papers, there was considerable controversy because the right-of-center government favored owners with similar outlooks. Poland, in contrast, set up an independent commission to first determine the viability of different publications and then select new owners, making sure that journalists on some of the publications had the opportunity to assume ownership. 26 In theory, the Polish system provided a fairer outcome, but it also slowed the process of privatization in a rapidly privatizing economy. In Czechoslovakia, individual initiative was much more important, both financially and legally. The new editor of Rude pravo, for instance, quietly seized legal control of the paper's name, and when this action—which had not been publicized—was not challenged after six months, he and the senior staff assumed effective control of the paper. They also quietly obtained financial resources. Today, Prazvo, as it is now called, may be the most professional paper in Prague. 27 Although it was legally possible to establish new newspapers, the crowded press market made it difficult for these to succeed. Ultimately, the only new newspapers to succeed were tabloids, two once underground newspapers, and one or two others. The sensationalist tabloids Super Express and Express, for example, are now the second and third most widely read papers in Poland. 2 8 But even for these publications, readers remain elusive. The new Slovak tabloid Novy cas initially had great success, becoming the most widely read newspaper in Slovakia; but whereas at the end of 1994 it was read by nearly half of the population, 14 months later, its readership had declined to 41.7 percent. 29 Lidove noviny, Czechoslovakia's most important interwar newspaper, reappeared in samizdat form in 1987. When it reappeared aboveground as a daily, its circulation reached a half million. But inept management and squandering of resources as well as a change of ownership had dropped its sales to less than fifty thousand by the end of 1996. In contrast, Poland's most successful newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which evolved out of the underground Tygodnik Mazowsze, used smart management techniques—including the development of regional editions—to become a newspaper that was widely respected both for its opinion pieces and its news. The most widely read paper in the Czech Republic today, Mlada fronta Dries, was once the Communist youth paper. With good management, and a large dose of foreign investment, it now easily presents a greater range and depth of information than any other Czech newspaper. Like Gazeta Wyborcza, it also publishes regional editions.

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In Romania, the n u m b e r of individual newspaper tides tripled in the first two years after Ceau§escu's ouster and execution and also expanded rapidly at the local and regional level—a response n o t only to new opportunities b u t also to the severe underdevelo p m e n t of the media in Ceau§escu's later years. This expansion of local newspapers has occurred in other East European countries, too, but they do n o t always focus on local news and politics. 30 Economic challenges to publication and an insufficient advertising base rapidly drove circulation down, however. 31 In Bulgaria, m u c h of the old Communist press has survived the transition as publications somewhat more m o d e r a t e in their ideological tenor. T h e opposition Union of Democratic Forces supported the creation of new publications to challenge the old Communist dominance, which in turn led to ever more virulent political commentary that eventually drove many readers away. As in many East European countries, the leading circulation daily in mid-1995 was a tabloid: 24 Chasa.32 T h e transition to post-Communist media in the f o r m e r Yugoslavia began with the death of Tito in 1980. During the decade that followed, journalists were allowed decreasing access to information and provided less and less news about controversial events. When Slobodan Milosevic assumed party leadership in Serbia in 1987, he replaced editors of major publications. The result was an increasingly nationalist media. 3 3 A similar process followed Franjo Tudjman's rise to power in Croatia. In Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, the stresses of war or the threat of war helped maintain government control of the printed media. In Croatia, for example, four of the five daily newspapers currently remain u n d e r government control—Novi List is the exception—even if they are privately owned. 3 4 Opposition newspapers have n o t only been targeted for legal challenges, but the government calls them "antiCroatian." 3 5 In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the old media, u n d e r the pressures of war and violence, have been forced to choose sides. Even Oslobodjenje, the country's most i n d e p e n d e n t paper, fell victim to this process. 36 In Albania, several new newspapers were f o u n d e d after the end of Albania's Communist dictatorship in 1990. However, most of these newspapers are as vitriolic as the government-supported press and are subject to government threats and legal actions, but their biggest hurdle is finding an i n d e p e n d e n t financial base. Most newspaper circulations in Eastern Europe expanded for the first two or three years after the end of Communist rule, but as the economic reforms began to bite and incomes dropped, newspapers

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became more of a luxury and their total readership steadily declined. Part of the decline can also be attributed to some newspapers significantly developing their content. Once only eight pages long, they developed special sections devoted to sports, business, real estate, science, entertainment, and so forth, and expanded to 20 or more pages daily. Instead of the cheap segmented newspapers of the past that led consumers to buy several different titles daily, a single paper met the needs of the reader. Some right-wing politicians and media observers believe that because so many newspaper titles are continuations of old Communist titles, the media are a major professional power supporting the left. In Poland, Radek Sikorski believes that the poor quality of the right-of-center media and the adroitness of media on the left contributed to the ousting of anti-Communist government: Poland's largest news magazine, Wprost, glorified nomenklatura capitalism. Gazeta Wyborcza went out of its way to launder former communists into respectability. Meanwhile, publications sympathetic to the reformist right were poorly financed, unprofessionally edited, and often shrill. None has attained national stature and a mainstream readership. In sum, for the five years of reformist government the Polish voters were bombarded with political and economic information that was unreliable, biased, libelous, and confusing. 3 7

During his term as Hungarian prime minister, Jozsef Antall complained bitterly about the alleged leftist bias of most central Hungarian newspapers, but when the public was questioned about who it blamed for the political deadlock that existed under Antall, less than one percent blamed the media. Instead, they pointed the finger at Antall.38 Now with a "socialist-liberal" coalition in power, newspapers are more cautious in their criticism. 39 Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar has long been in a feud with some of the Slovak media because, in his view, they do not adequately support him and his programs. He helped launch a separate organization of journalists, locked some journalists out of government news briefings, and allegedly helped plan some of the attacks on reporters.40

Television Almost without exception, broadcasting was a state enterprise prior to the collapse of Communism.41 Radio was developed in the 1920s and 1930s, often in response to a perceived state need to

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respond to propaganda broadcasts from other countries. Television emerged in the late 1950s, confined to a single channel that broadcast on evenings and weekends. Color television and a second channel generally became available in the early and mid1970s. The head of the radio and television service joined the editor of the main Communist Party organ as the most important media representatives. News was socialist realism on video. The politicians believed in powerful media effects. But in contrast to the newsreels that were shown in cinemas where audience response could be monitored, people watched television in the privacy of their homes and had the choice of either watching news selectively or simply ignoring it. The development in Home Box Office, Cable News Network, and the sports network ESPN began to expand the U.S. television audience during the 1970s. Since the fall of Communism, a similar process has transpired in east central Europe, despite almost every government tossing numerous roadblocks at the process. This process has not only concerned the politicians, however. It has also disgusted elite reformers who started to express hopes during the late Communist period that television could become a kind of public sphere, providing intelligent information from and for all groups in society. The reformers, however, misled by the heady Gorbachevian days of expansive governmental budgets, left economics out of the equation. Television has never been kind to political parties, because it focuses on personalities, not ideas. In addition, these reformers forgot that in the world of cable and satellite, broadcasting does not stop at state borders. Business and economic development and the accompanying advertising provided the engine for commercial television. In most East European countries, there was an initial effort after the fall of Communism to broaden the range of political views on television. This was most noticeable in election campaigns, in which efforts were made to give rival candidates time for free speeches or debates on television. After the formalistic elections of Communism, this was a breath of fresh air. And the elite, particularly those who fancied themselves as representative of civil society, thought this was a wonderful idea. The population at large was not so sure, and exhibited a healthy skepticism that was soon validated. The culmination of the process was perhaps reached in Romania during a 1992 campaign: During the local campaigns, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of candidates were each allotted their three minutes late at night on national TV. The candidates had no identifying labels, so

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viewers had to be attentive. This may sound fair enough, but voters of Giurgiu in the south were forced to listen to the hopeful mayors of Satu Mare in the north, and every other locality; the television succeeded not in informing the voters but in boring them to death. 42

Once it became clear that just as too much candy was not a good thing, too much electronic democracy was dysfunctional, the next roadblock was the stated belief by governments that television needed to serve the interest of the state—that is, themselves—by serving as a means for the government to communicate to the public the benefits of its policy. When opposition politicians objected, governments usually answered that because the public had voted them into office, they had earned the right to use state communications to advance their policies. This was largely a battle fought between elites, however. Members of the public, even if they increasingly said television was their primary provider of news and information, did not always express high levels of trust and confidence in state television.43 Their consumption of cable and satellite services that provided entertainment and sports continued to climb. 44 In the free market atmosphere of Europe in the 1990s, governments found themselves increasingly hard-pressed to justify television limited only to the state. 45 Domestically, however, few entrepreneurs had the capital and the skill to develop private television. 46 International investment provided the solution. Czechoslovakia was the first country to pass legislation providing for commercial television. Soon after the division of the country, the Czech Republic licensed the first commercial station—the hugely successful Nova—which now commands more than 60 percent of the viewing audience. It offers entertainment-oriented fare, including considerable U.S.-produced programming, sports, and soft porn, along with the "flash and trash" news of the type seen in the United States on Fox Network stations. Even the citizens of Slovakia close enough to the Czech border to receive the Nova signal watched the station more often than their own state network. Within the next several years, Central European Media Enterprises, the international company behind Nova, had developed similar stations in Slovakia (Markiza), Romania (ProTV), Slovenia, and Ukraine and were bidding on commercial stations in still other countries. 47 Governments could not afford to alienate the viewer-voters watching commercial stations by restricting their programming. In Poland, a right-of-center government has managed to push

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through legislation requiring broadcasting to adhere to "Christian values," but since there has been no agreement on what those values entail, Polish viewers can watch virtually the same fare available on the Czech Nova. The majority of Poles continue to watch Polish television (Telewizja Polska, or TVP), converted at the end of 1993 into a shareholder company with the Polish treasury as the only stockholder. The first private nationwide channel, PolSat, lacked transmission facilities to cover all of Poland. 48 New private regional channels are being developed. Although Slovenia and later Romania followed the east central European pattern in the commercialization of television, broadcasting, like the print media, has remained largely a matter of state and political parties in the rest of southeastern Europe. The causes are both economic and political. The Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and the blockade around Serbia left most of the region's economies in a shambles. Misgovernment in Bulgaria destroyed its economy, while Albania remained poverty stricken from the beginning. The leaders of Croatia, Serbia, and Albania—Franjo Tudjman, Slobodan Milosevic, and Sali Berisha, respectively—exerted tight control over the media in their countries. Opposition media were subject to police searches, the loss of licenses, the restriction of access to distribution and supplies, and court challenges to their ownership. Under such conditions, almost no foreign investor dared become involved. In Bulgaria, power bounced back and forth between former Communists and the Union of Democratic Forces, each exerting influence on the media while in office. The fact that neither side was able to stay in power suggests that control of the media was sought more as a symbol of passing political strength than as a means of influencing the public. Poor economic and political conditions have discouraged the development of cable and satellite services in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Serbia, thereby hindering the growth of competition that would challenge the government monopoly. 49 These conditions have also reduced newspaper consumption, further strengthening the monopoly of state television.

Conclusion Democratic politics requires mass support for its legitimation. 50 Much of the public participates in this process through the media, either in the consumption of information for the making

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of independent decisions that are conveyed to their representatives through elections or other communications; or through the consumption of media whose political views are shared by voters. In authoritarian regimes such as Croatia, Serbia, and Albania, journalists committed to an independent, nonpartisan ethic do not wield the power to change their political systems. Journalism, journalists, and their readers can only interact with their governments and political parties in a substantive democracy. In any society, privately owned commercial media have as their main goal maximizing profits and minimizing competition. Contributing to the process of politics and policy does not normally serve those goals, however. In the United States, two factors contributed to the commitment during the twentieth century of commercial mass media to the service of politics and policy. One was the dynamics of commercialism: Advertising in big-city newspapers tended to continue to flow to the publication with the largest circulation and away from the smaller papers. Owners could draw public attention away from this process by the second factor: promising that they would serve the public by providing information it needed to know. In the process, the vigorous public debate that had characterized the politically based nineteenth-century American press was lost. As Jim Carey reminded us, however, "While independent journalism legitimized democratic politics of publicity and experts, it also confirmed the psychological incompetence of most people to participate in it."51 In the continuing process of transition in Eastern Europe, there has been little opportunity for the elite to consult with the public. When confronted with media choice, the public has voted overwhelmingly to watch entertainment on television. Since the development of the printing press in the fifteenth century, there has always existed a substantial element that has used the media primarily for entertainment. There are more newspapers than commerce can support in East European countries, so these papers will fight to the finish, using any means that will help develop the largest and richest audience. East European reporters who might be otherwise inclined toward investigative reporting find that neither the public nor the politicians pay much attention. 52 The amount of space in newspapers devoted to politics and policy is likely to diminish for some time to come. The journalists of Eastern Europe have been accustomed to viewing themselves as politically influential. Some of them will move on to other occupations to be replaced by journalists who will be socialized to the idea of serving the public in both policy and commercial forms.

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This journalistic elite will continue to complain that the corrosive power of the marketplace is harming democracy, when it is their power and influence that is in fact being corroded. Even those governments and political leaders and parties in the most democratic East European states continue to believe that their most effective media policy is to consider newspapers and television as attack dogs, n o t watchdogs. They believe that the loudest and most vitriolic voice in the marketplace is the most effective. A few choose to ignore the media, except at election time, believing that consulting with the public is a waste of time. Very few politicians have developed a smooth inclusive media relations program that uses m o d e r n marketing techniques to advance their cause—although western politicians f r o m Bill Clinton to Tony Blair have shown how effective these democracy-as-theater programs can be. T h e public is exerting its power through its decisions about which newspapers and magazines to buy and television channels to watch. As the transition wanes and a more measured pace of political life and change develops, the question is whether members of the public will have at hand mechanisms to express their views and ideas in the marketplace of public and policy discussion. Journalists and the public in the West face the same problems.

Notes 1. David Halberstam, The Next Century (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1991), 103. 2. Editor and Publisher (18 May 1991): 60. 3. Owen V.Johnson, "Czech Presidential Press Secretary Apologizes," Editor and Publisher 123, no. 38 (22 September 1990): 26. 4. Presstime 13, no. 3 (March 1991): 32. 5. See Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 6. J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1943); Jurgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996). 7. Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 8. Stanley Z. Pech, for instance, concluded that "[T]he attitudes of the Czech, Slovak, Slovene and Croatian newspapers of the 1848-1849 era appear to foreshadow, to a considerable extent, the dominant political attitudes of these four peoples as they evolved and crystallized in the ensuing decades." In "The Press of the Habsburg Slavs in 1848: A

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Contribution to a Political Profile," Canadian Journal of History 10, no. 1 (April 1975): 48. 9. F. L. Rieger, as quoted in Bruce M. Garver, The Young Czech Party 1874-1901 and Emergence of a Multi-Party System (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1978), 102. 10. Sylwester Dziki, "Czy prasa dopomogla Polakom wybic sie na niepodleglosc," Zeszyty Prasownawcze 29, no. 4 (1988): 5-20. 11. Jane Leftwich Curry, "The Partitions and the Polish Press," Conference on the Mass Media in Eastern Europe, Indiana University, October 1983. 12. Keith Hitchins, "The Sacred Cult of Nationality: Rumanian Intellectuals and the Church in Transylvania 1834-1869," in Stanley B. Winters and Joseph Held, eds., Intellectual and Social Developments in the Habsburg Empire from Maria Theresa to World War I (Boulder, Colorado: East European Quarterly, 1975), 155-156. 13. Tadeusz Butkiewicz, "Three Ages of the Polish Press," Kwartalnik Prasoznaxuczy, foreign language edition, 1959 no. 1, pp. 27-31; Czeslaw Brzoza, "Kamienie i prasa: Z dziejow kultury politycznej Medzijwojennego Krakowa," Zeszyty Prasoznawcze 39, nos. 1 - 2 (1996): 105-116; Andrzej Notkowski, Prasa w systemie propagandy rzadowej w Polsce 1926-1939: Studium techniki wladzy (Lodz: Panstwowe Wydawn. Nauk. 1987). 14. J o h n D. H. Downing, Internationalizing Media Theory: Transition, Power, Culture (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1996), 69-73. 15. Gertrude Joch Robinson, Tito's Maverick Media: The Politics of Mass Communication in Yugoslavia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977). 16. The phrase is from Dan Ionescu, "Tele-Revolution to Tele-Evolution in Romania," Transition, 2, no. 8 (19 April 1996): 42. See also Peter Gross, Mass Media in Revolution and National Development: The Romanian Laboratory (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996). 17. Screen Digest (March 1993): 62. 18. Adam Przeworski, Democracy and Markets: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 19. Jane Leftwich Curry, Poland's Journalists: Professionalism and Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989) provides a superb discussion of the Polish case. 20. Ellen Comisso, "Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?: Reflections on Five Years of Competitive Politics in Eastern Europe," Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30, no. 1 (March 1997): 3-4. 21. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "What Kind of 'Democracy' Is This?" New York Times (4 January 1997): 21. 22. Mary Kaldor and Ivan Vejvoda, "Democratization in Central and East European Countries," International Affairs 73, no. 1 (January 1997): 63-65. 23. Kaldor and Vejvoda, "Democratization," 68-69. 24. Some useful, if slightly dated, comparisons can be found in Anthony Smith, Newspapers and Democracy: International Essays on a Changing Medium (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1980). 25. Owen V. Johnson, "East Central and Southeastern Europe and Russia," in J o h n C. Merrill, ed., Global Journalism, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman, 1995), 162.

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26. W. L. Webb, "Media, Market and Democracy," Index on Censorship 23, no. 6 (November-December 1994): 81; and Liana Giorgi, The Post-Socialist Media: What Power the West? (Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1995), 75-80. 27. See Steve Kettle, "The Development of the Czech Media Since the Fall of Communism," in Patrick H. O'Neil, ed., Post-Communism, and the Media in Eastern Europe (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 45-46, 55. 28. Jakub Karpinski, "Polish Ruling Parties Assert Control Over Television," Transition 2, no. 21 (18 October 1996): 53. 29. Zora Butorova, Ol'ga Gyarfasova, and Miroslav Kuska, Current Problems of Slovakia on the Verge of 1995-1996 (Bratislava: Focus, 1996), 106. 30. Kaldor and Vejvoda, "Democratization," 75. 31. Gross, Mass Media, 53-61. 32. Stefan Krause, "Purges and Progress in Bulgaria," Transition 1, no. 18 (6 October 1995): 46-48; see also Ivan Nikolchev, "Polarization and Diversification in the Bulgarian Press," in O'Neil, Post-Communism, 131-133. 33. Sabrina Ramet, Balkan Babel (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996); and Stiepan Gradjeli, "Media in Yugoslavia: From a Helpless Tool Towards an Ail-Powerful Favourite," Balkan Media 2, no. 3 (1993): 44-47. 34. Marvin Stone, "No 'Peace Dividend' for the Balkan Press," Nieman Reports 50, no. 2 (summer 1996): 75. 35. Biljana Tatomir, "Croatian Government Calls Certain Media 'Enemies of the State,'" Transition 2, no. 21 (18 October 1996): 24-26. 36. Tom Gjelten, Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995). 37. Radek Sikorski, "How We Lost Poland: Heroes Do Not Make Good Politicians,"ForeignAffairs75, no. 5 (September-October 1996): 21. 38. Judith Pataki, "Hungarians Dissatisfied with Political Changes," EFE/RL Research Report 1, no. 44 (6 November 1992): 67. 39. See Andras Lanczi and Patrick H. O'Neil, "Pluralization and the Politics of Media Change in Hungary," in O'Neil, Post-Communism, 97-98. 40. For a review of some of the controversies, see Owen V. Johnson, "Whose Voice?: Freedom of Speech and the Media in Central Europe," in Al Hester and Kristina White, eds., Creating a Free Press in Eastern Europe (Athens: University of Georgia, 1993), 23-28; and Sharon Fisher, "Slovak Media Under Pressure," Transition 1, no. 18 (6 October 1995): 7-9. 41. Private bodies, including political parties, were among the earliest operators of radio in interwar Czechoslovakia. Anna J. Patzakova, Prvnich deset let ceskoslovenskeho rozhlasu (Prague: Ceskoslovensky rozhlas, 1935). 42. William McPherson, "In Romania, the Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Democracy Struggles to Overcome the Past," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 March-5 April 1992, p. 24. 43. Matthew Claeson and Elaine El Assal, eds., Global Information Sources: Where Audiences Around the World Turn for News and Information (Washington, D.C.: United States Information Agency [USIA], 1996). 44. "Beavis Comes to Budapest," The Economist (6 July 1996): 57; Normandy Madden, "Satellite and Cable Systems Help Fill the Gaps," Transition 2, no. 8 (19 April 1996): 16-17 and 64; Kaldor and Vejvoda, "Democratization," 72. 45. Radio is not discussed in this article. In most East European countries, dozens of local, private stations, presenting the usual mix of modern

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radio music and talk, sprang u p in the immediate aftermath of the downfall of communism. 46. Normandy Madden, in "TV Advertising Leads a Marketing Revolution Throughout East-Central Europe," Transition 2, no. 8 (19 April 1996): 6, estimates the cost of starting an East European television station at $50 million. 47. Meredith Amdur and Debra Johnson, "CME Brings Commercial Sawy to Central Europe," Broadcasting and Cable (22 January 1996): 92, 94, and 96. For a survey of foreign versus domestic programming on the cable and satellite channels, see Peter Rutland, "What Are They Watching?" Transition 2, no. 8 (19 April 1996): 26-27. 48. Jakub Karpinski, "Information and Entertainment in Poland," Transition 1, no. 18 (6 October 1995): 13-14. 49. See data presented in "How Does Your Market Grow?" Cable and Satellite Europe (January 1996): 40-42, 44-46. 50. Romain Laufer and Catherine Paradeise, Marketing Democracy: Public Opinion and Media Formation in Democratic Societies (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1989). 51. James W. Carey, "The Mass Media and Democracy: Between the Modern and the Postmodern," Journal of International Affairs 47, no. 1 (summer 1993): 15; see also Robert Entman, Democracy Without Citizens (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 52. Michael Jordan, "Apathy in Eastern Europe," IPI Report (August/ September 1996): 29.

7 Institutions, Transitions, and the Media: A Comparison of Hungary and Romania RICHARD A . HALL AND PATRICK H . O'NEIL

For half a century, H u n g a r y and R o m a n i a e x p e r i e n c e d a f o r m of authoritarianism a n d f o r e i g n d o m i n a t i o n that a p p e a r e d largely m o n o l i t h i c — a Soviet m o d e l of state socialism replicated througho u t Eastern E u r o p e . T h u s , with the downfall of the Soviet e m p i r e many observers o f the region have c o n c e r n e d themselves with the "legacies o f L e n i n i s m , " or those u n i f o r m aspects of post-Communism e n d e m i c to the r e g i o n as a w h o l e . T h e role of the m e d i a is o n e clear e x a m p l e : In H u n g a r y a n d R o m a n i a , p o s t - C o m m u n i s t g o v e r n m e n t s (of the right in H u n g a r y and of the left in Romania) have a t t e m p t e d to b u i l d a state-supported a n d c o n t r o l l e d m e d i a favorable to the g o v e r n m e n t , stifling g e n u i n e m e d i a i n d e p e n d e n c e . T h e m e d i a in b o t h countries have also b e e n b u r d e n e d by financial obstacles and journalistic legacies of opinion over fact and invective over critical analysis. 1 S i g n i f i c a n t d i f f e r e n c e s nevertheless divide the two. In the H u n g a r i a n case, it can b e a r g u e d that b e c a u s e o f its liberalized f u n c t i o n u n d e r C o m m u n i s m a n d its s u b s e q u e n t transition, the m e d i a were able to institutionalize themselves as an i n d e p e n d e n t political actor and to cultivate a d e g r e e of legitimacy a m o n g their mass a u d i e n c e . In contrast, o w i n g to the e x t r e m e l y repressive character of C o m m u n i s m in R o m a n i a and the resulting elitist and statist qualities o f the media there, mass c o m m u n i c a t i o n continues to be p e r m e a t e d by an i n t e r c o n n e c t e d legacy of d i s i n f o r m a t i o n , self-censorship, a n d esoteric c o m m u n i c a t i o n . In b o t h cases the c o n c e p t of media independence has yet to substantially r e d u c e overt political partisanship, a l t h o u g h steps in this direction have b e e n m u c h clearer in H u n g a r y than in Romania. In this c h a p t e r we a r g u e that to u n d e r s t a n d a n d e x p l a i n the d i v e r g e n t o u t c o m e s o f the H u n g a r i a n a n d R o m a n i a n m e d i a , we

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must examine how the informal institutionalization of Communism shaped the media in each context, as well as their respective "points of departure" after 1989. We therefore suggest that the post-Communist media in these two countries are n o t governed solely by any general principles of how the media function in a democratic environment or how they functioned u n d e r Communism. Instead, the post-Communist Hungarian and Romanian media continue to reflect the divergent circumstances u n d e r which these regimes gradually became institutionalized in their respective environments.

Hungary and Romania: Institutional Variation and M a s s Communication To understand the function of the media within a political transition, it is important to first highlight the role of broader social conditions around it. In all societies, the process of organization creates an environment of institutions—patterns "infused with value" that provide meaning and legitimacy for actors socialized within that context. 2 At its essence this is a cultural argument that finds resonance in sociology, political science, and anthropology, among other disciplines. The term institution itself emphasizes the persistence of these social relations as embedded or layered within a society, and thus more resistant to dynamic change than previously thought. New organizations can and do eventually link to this institutional environment through various appeals, however, and the interaction between organization and environment can serve to alter both. Of particular interest to us is the observation that although organizations often seek to reshape the environment a r o u n d them, the organization itself is ultimately transformed— institutionalized, whereby legitimacy and stability may come to take priority over the organization's ostensible goals. T h e media in Communist Hungary and Romania, for example, were both reconstructed to be agents of regime control, whereas their actual patterns of behavior grew dissimilar as a function of this institutionalization process. Beyond their experiences as Communist states, however, Hungary and Romania are environmentally quite similar, as a result of developing f r o m a historically peripheral relationship with Western Europe; both were agrarian, weakly urbanized, and autocratic in their political structures. Indeed, in most of Eastern Europe, a

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vibrant middle class was absent, replaced by an intelligentsia (itself a Slavic word), a class of educated but nonlanded intellectuals who lacked economic alternatives in this economically underdeveloped region. The intelligentsia emerged as the driving force behind early forms of mass communication (literature and journalism in particular), a relationship that would continue under Communism. 3 Despite these similarities, however, the constitutions of Hungarian and Romanian society were quite different. The institutions of East Central Europe (which included Hungary) developed as a weaker variant of the West—not only in terms of trade but also in areas such as religion (Catholicism, Protestantism), urbanization, and legal codes—in contrast to the relative isolation, Byzantine, and sultanistic legacies of the Balkans. Although far from dominant and not without its own contradictions—remaining profoundly undemocratic and exhibiting strong populist tendencies—Hungary developed a much stronger segment of civil society than did Romania. The two countries can be further differentiated. In Hungary, the intelligentsia were largely co-opted by a state still dominated by the landed gentry, whereas in Romania, the political weakness of the gentry allowed an "intelligentsia-bureaucratic" middle class to gain control of the interwar Romanian state and politics. 4 In both cases, the dual role of political and mass communication by the intelligentsia led to the development of "venal, defamatory, and extravagant" media. However, whereas in Hungary the intelligentsia acted as a tenuous link between industrializing society and the state, in Romania the intelligentsia's domination of the state created a wide gap between themselves and the population, symbolized by their preference for communicating among themselves in French. As Joseph Rothschild noted, "in no other European country of the interwar era was the moral and psychological chasm between the oligarchic, bureaucratic elite and the lower classes as wide and deep; even its cultural infatuation with France and its fetishistic fascination with foreign affairs and foreign politico-legal models was a kind of flight from its own people on the part of that elite." 5 This schism would persist into the Communist era and beyond. The initial actions of Communist regimes in Hungary and Romania were to replicate the Stalinist model and transform the domestic environment through unbridled coercion: to create the new Communist man. In these actions, the media served in its expected role, an organ of party propaganda. With the death of

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Stalin and de-Stalinization, however, confusion and turmoil soon emerged in Eastern Europe; in H u n g a r y this spiraled into outright revolt in 1956, p u t down only through Soviet force. T h e volatility of the Soviet leadership and policies following Stalin's death as well as the events of 1956 had a p r o f o u n d impact on all East European elites, but especially those in Hungary and Romania. Communist elites in Hungary and Romania learned that they must search for an "elite survival mechanism"—something that would insulate them from the fickle winds coming f r o m Moscow. Hungary Given the clear environmental differences between Hungary and Romania, the subsequent forms of post-Stalinist institutionalization were thus radically different. In Hungary, the ruling party offered a compromise of social and economic liberalization in return for acquiescence to Soviet control. This led to the developm e n t of what Hungarian sociologists termed a second society on the fringes of the party-state, where the population engaged in individual economic and social interaction whose legal status was unclear but was nevertheless tolerated by the state. As part of this liberalization process, mass communications became increasingly diverse and open, accepted by the party-state as a means to pacify the populace. Specifically overt mechanisms of censorship gave way to more informal means of control. Most notable was the idea of a tiered censorship, in what came to be known as the "three t's": tamogatott, turt, tiltott (supported, tolerated, and forbidden). This system relied less on direct party oversight than on self-censorship; journalists and editors were expected to anticipate which kinds of reporting were acceptable in the media and which were not. What was supported, tolerated, or forbidden was never entirely clear, often depending on context—for example, television versus radio, printed versus electronic communication, regional versus national, or party- versus state-owned media. This system created a confused situation of control and openness. T h e party sought to allow free speech to pacify the population yet at the same time did not want this openness to undermine the legitimacy of the party-state itself. Journalists, dominated by young intelligentsia who remained attracted to the profession because of its more open nature, "prob[ed] the boundaries of the system in a continual effort to extend them." 6 Lively debates within the media were punctuated by occasional crackdowns against individuals and media outlets. This obscure system of con-

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trol was thus described by Elemer Hankiss as a kind of "nationwide connivance, the members of the ruling elite included . . . [who] swooped down only when allusions became too abusive or touched u p o n spots that were too sensitive." 7 This dynamic, if amorphous, situation would prove critical in the Hungarian transition to democracy—and the source of one of the most central conflicts after 1989. Romania If Hungary possessed Eastern Europe's most open media, Romania surely possessed its most restricted. Frightened by the Hungarian events of 1956 and resentful of Soviet efforts to dictate Romania's development, the Romanian Communist leadership headed by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej attempted to pursue a more autonomous course within the Eastern bloc. 8 Unlike the Hungarian regime, which compromised with its society, the Romanian leadership appealed to nationalism and traditional anti-Russian sentiments to initiate a so-called independent course in foreign policy, while retaining its neo-Stalinist domestic policies. Thus, what passed for liberalization during the 1960s was in fact a guided liberalization: Dissent was channeled against Romania's neighbors and against f o r m e r Communist elites who had fallen into disfavor. 9 Within the press and literature, Romania's intellectuals were "free to criticize" the immediate past, but such criticism was far f r o m being evidence of courageous dissent and was in fact evidence of consent. 1 0 Further complicating matters, the secret police (or Securitate) became increasingly influential in regime politics during the rule of Nicolae Ceau§escu (1965-1989) and were able to establish a huge network of collaborators, including individuals within the media. If the use of a foreign language—French—symbolized the elitism of the Romanian intelligentsia in the pre-Communist era, the esoteric use of Romanian came to characterize the intelligentsia u n d e r Ceau§escu, with similar elitist implications. Although many observers emphasize esoteric communication as a strategy of protest and subversion against the regime, some Romanian intellectuals have been willing to admit that its use was neither so simple nor so uniformly beneficial. 11 Romanian intellectuals chose allusive and allegorical forms even when engaging in criticism that served the interests of the regime. 1 2 The writer Stefan Borbely has discussed the impact of the use of esoteric communication in the press as follows:

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This centralized control turned the press into a sort of syntax, into a social communication with a hidden message: if you were clever enough to read between the lines, you could understand a lot the Power wasn't reasonable enough to tell you openly. Those codes created two kinds of solidarity: a professional solidarity of the journalists who kept in touch by using this syntax, and—even more important—a solidarity between the Power and the press, a sort of—let's name it now—guilty complicity.13 Thus, what these media elites viewed as the only route for dissent and autonomy—esoteric communication—had the paradoxical effect of reinforcing their elitist tendencies. This furthered their traditional isolation from the general population and in fact drew them closer to the Securitate and the state.

M a s s M e d i a a n d the C o l l a p s e of C o m m u n i s m At one level, the duration and form of transition processes shaped the role of the media in both Hungary and Romania. Moreover, these characteristics influenced which type of media (broadcast or print) would play the more critical role in the transition events. T h e slow, deliberate, peaceful implosion of Communist rule and the diversification of the media in Hungary contrasted sharply with the lightning-quick, violent overthrow of Ceaujescu's personalist dictatorship—creating what many commentators at the time termed "the first televised revolution in history" occurring both at and through television. Yet fundamentally, both cases reflected the institutional variations in each state, informing the manner of public protest and state response.

Hungary The Hungarian transition lacks a single specific, formative event that is c o m m o n elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Rather, its political erosion began as early as 1987, when Hungary began to slide into e c o n o m i c crisis and party delegitimization. This incremental nature of the transition—important to the formation of political events and the media within them—was not accidental or arbitrary but was tied to the specific nature of Hungarian socialism itself. Predicated on a social compact of economic and social liberalization and greater individual f r e e d o m and tolerance in return for social compliance, the rise of Gorbachev, perestroika, and glasnost effectively undercut this linkage. N o longer could the party argue

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that "goulash Communism" was a unique relationship made possible by the party; rather, the party now appeared to be lagging behind changes in the Soviet Union. Even with the rise of a younger and m o r e technocratic party leadership in early 1988, elements within the party and state f e u d e d over reform: Could the sacrosanct elements of the party be cast off to carry out dramatic change? How could those whose very identity lay within the ruling order bring an end to that system? The blurring of means-ends relationships within this highly institutionalized system made such a break virtually impossible. These struggles increasingly began to be reflected in the press. While the central party paper, Nepszabadsag, continued to toe the party line, dailies linked to the state began to exhibit more reformist views, attempting to position themselves in anticipation of a transfer of power. The media as a reflection of party-state battles reached its apex in early 1989, when Politburo m e m b e r and n o t e d r e f o r m e r Imre Pozsgay took advantage of a weekly radio show to reject the party's version of 1956 as a "counterrevolution," calling it instead a "popular uprising" that was justified against a repressive Stalinist regime. Pozsgay's actions served to f u r t h e r paralyze the party and legitimize critical discourse among society, giving added impetus to a process of liberalization already well u n d e r way. Although the Hungarian media played an important role as a measure of internal party-state battles, their impact was more important as a conduit of civil society and increasingly as an actor in its own right. As the party-state grew confused, the media began to diversify and proliferate spontaneously, without any design. T h e existing press quickly shook off its self-imposed system of self-censorship, involving itself in critical investigations and the reporting of social problems, opposition forces, and sensitive historical issues—all things unofficially restricted by the regime. This independence eventually began to stretch even into the realm of property relations. Fearing eventual retribution by central authorities (either now for their impertinence or later by a post-Communist leadership for prior loyalty to the party), by mid-1989, many regional and national publications began to distance themselves f r o m the party-state, some even stripping the usual exhortation "proletariat of the world, unite!" f r o m their mastheads. Soon thereafter, central and regional party and state dailies began to privatize their assets in attempts to "jump ship." In the most spectacular case, just prior to the first set of open elections in March 1990, seven regional party dailies transformed themselves

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into new, private enterprises, transferring ownership of the new papers to the German press conglomerate Axel Springer without any payment either to the ruling Communist party or the state. Among others, Robert Maxwell's Mirror Holding Company bought 40 percent of the f o r m e r government newspaper Magyar Hirlap, and the German conglomerate Bertelsmann gained 40 percent of the central party daily Nepszabadsag. Ironically, then, while still u n d e r Communist rule and before free elections had brought a new nonsocialist government to power, the Hungarian press became the most highly privatized press in Eastern Europe, with the greatest share of foreign investment. 1 4 This privatization would have direct ramifications on the first post-Communist government in 1990 and its relationship with the media. Beyond the existing print media, numerous independent publications also began to sprout up, responding to the increased liberalization (by mid-1989 it was no longer necessary to seek permission for new publications, although this had been the de facto situation for some time already). T h e new publications varied widely, f r o m formerly u n d e r g r o u n d papers to new regional or specialty journals, magazines, and dailies concerned with everything from politics to pornography. Rapidly, yet almost imperceptibly, the arena of communication thus widened into an overload of communication on every subject. Opposition to the party-state grew more powerful as it overcame the old barriers to the national media. Political parties and interest groups expanded in numbers and in power, f u r t h e r undercutting the legitimacy of the ruling order. T h e party, which had d e p e n d e d on semiopen communication as a source of public pacification and legitimacy, saw this form of public discourse vanish before its very eyes, and with it, its ability to rule. By late 1989, the party had acceded to open elections a n d had transformed itself into a Western-style socialist party; and by spring 1990, it had been defeated at the ballot box in the first free elections in some 50 years. Romania In analyzing the role of the media in the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, we must discuss both the role of the Romanian media and, briefly, the diffusionary effects of foreign media reports. Because of the extraordinarily closed nature of the Ceau?escu regime and the absence of even a brief period of liberalization prior to December 1989, it was virtually inevitable that foreign broadcast media would play a catalytic role during the initial stages

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of anti-Ceau§escu protest. The role of catalyst next shifted to Romanian television on 20-21 December 1989—almost serendipitously, thanks in large part to Nicolae Ceau§escu's fantastic lack of good j u d g m e n t in the final days of his reign and the uncontrollable character of accidental, live television images. The Romanian Revolution began in the southwestern city of Timisoara on 15 December 1989, when citizens attempted to prevent the eviction of an influential ethnic Hungarian pastor, Laszlo Tokes, a persistent critic of the Ceau§escu regime. In the preceding months, while Tokes was appealing the order to vacate his parish, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle had begun to follow his case closely, broadcasting reports back into Romania. Moreover, the ongoing political liberalization inside Hungary also led the Hungarian state radio to regularly report on the pastor's fate, which could be heard in parts of Romania. Foreign broadcasters thus played a pivotal role by giving Tokes's case international publicity, informing the Romanian populace, and emboldening Tokes to endure the regime's strategy of intimidation. When the protest to prevent Tokes's eviction evolved into large-scale, antiregime demonstrations that led to the regime's use of brutal force, foreign media were vital in keeping an otherwise blacked-out population informed and aware that they were not alone. 15 The Romanian media's own contribution to Ceau§escu's overthrow came into play only on 20 December 1989, and then only accidentally. That evening, frightened by the fact that regime forces had been unable to restore order in Timisoara, Ceau§escu in a typically impulsive move took to television to denounce the "terrorist actions" taking place in Timisoara. For many, Ceau§escu's rambling, scarcely coherent tirade may have been the first indication that something unusual had—and was—taking place, signaling the regime's growing anxiety. Television played an even more crucial role the following day, when Ceau§escu convoked a proregime mass rally in the center of Bucharest and ordered it to be broadcast live. The folly of this decision was realized several minutes into his address when antiCeau§escu chants erupted from the crowds. Before the live transmission could be interrupted, a stunned and bewildered Ceau§escu was seen futilely gesturing to the crowd for quiet. This image transformed the course of events. Although antiregime demonstrations had already begun earlier that day in Bucharest and other large cities, the size and boldness of the crowds increased dramatically after the broadcast. Not even an attempt to

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rebroadcast a tape of the rally later that evening—with proCeaujescu chants dubbed in over the interruption—could halt the flow of events. 16 At midday on 22 December 1989, huge crowds of protesters forced Ceau§escu to flee Bucharest by helicopter. These circumstances led most of the Securitate to conclude that Ceaujescu's was a lost cause, and they abandoned the dictator. However, a small band of Securitate loyalists—referred to as "the terrorists"—unleashed a futile but destructive and terrifying counteroffensive in support of Ceau§escu. Fully cognizant of their limited numbers— they probably numbered no more than 1,000-2,000 nationwide— and caught off-guard by the suddenness with which the regime had lost control of events on the morning of 22 December, they relied on psychological warfare as much as actual gunfire. Television, which had rapidly rallied to the Revolution after Ceau§escu's flight, was inevitably a primary target of this campaign of psychological warfare. Beginning on the evening of 22 December, in a pattern that was repeated at strategic objectives throughout the country, the main television building came under sustained sniper fire from the surrounding buildings. Television commentator Teodor Brates explained, however, that the sniper fire was accompanied by a sophisticated disinformation campaign that had gathered momentum in the hours following Ceaujescu's flight: The content of the messages being received changed radically. . . . Most of them spoke of fighting, attacks, and terrorist actions. Meanwhile, the number of places where such news was being received multiplied (in geometric progression) considerably. In addition to the team in studio 4 . . . telephone calls were being received in the director general's office, his deputy's office, at the editorial office of the news division, at the office of the service officer on the first floor, in many of the studios, and even in . . . the infirmary. Thus, from tens of sources. We were truly stunned at how many telephone numbers in the Television building were "known" by the population. The central telephone directory at Dorobanti communicated to us that the equipment could not withstand so many phone calls for much longer. Today it is crystal clear to me that these telephone numbers were well "known" by those who wanted to disinform, to introduce "viruses," to disorient. Thus, they were used to the fullest.

original] 17

[Emphases in the

Similar disinformation arrived at media outlets, command posts, and military bases throughout Romania, designed to give the impression that the "terrorists" were more numerous and threaten-

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ing than they in fact were. Hopes were that by making it appear that the tide was turning, officials of the old regime who had defected to the Revolution might think twice and cross back to the Ceausist camp. Although television personnel initially fell victim to this disinformation campaign, efforts made to filter reports arriving at the studio and television building ended up playing a pivotal role in relaying military orders and sustaining popular confidence that the Revolution would triumph. Ultimately, the party apparatchiks and Army officers who had seized power in the wake of Ceau§escu's flight concluded that the only way to make the Securitate loyalists cease their campaign of terror was to eliminate the object of their struggle. Ceau§escu and his wife were thus summarily tried and executed on 25 December 1989. Television played a crucial role the next day by broadcasting a videotape of the trial and, in the following days, by broadcasting images of the execution a n d bullet-riddled bodies of the Ceau§escu couple. T h e result was that "most of the terrorists surrendered to army units, and street fighting ebbed considerably"; 18 the Revolution could be for the first time declared victorious. The extent to which the December events were a period of unp r e c e d e n t e d institutional turbulence and the Romanian media were temporarily able to break free of institutional constraints on its behavior is attested to by the byzantine and indirect strategy of disinformation to which the Securitate was forced to resort. Unfortunately, these same forces have since been able to partially reestablish their traditional means of influence in the post-transition era.

Political Consolidation and the Battle Over the Media T h e interaction between the institutional legacies of the old o r d e r in H u n g a r y a n d Romania shaped n o t only the course of Communism's collapse but also the subsequent construction of a new political order. As might be expected, in both countries since 1989 the media have quickly become a source of struggle between various political actors whose concern with the consolidation of political power often conflicted with the concept of a free press. Moreover, the legacies of the prior institutional order—the forms a n d limits of the media, their subsequent place in transition events—would directly influence their role in the post-Communist period.

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Hungary The Hungarian elections of spring 1990 were the death knell for Communist rule. For the first time in over four decades, Hungary enjoyed a democratically elected government composed of a coalition of conservative and populist parties—central among them, the Hungarian Democratic Forum. Yet the transition to free elections was by no means painless; even as Communism's collapse allowed opposition forces to press for elections, old social rifts within the intelligentsia reappeared. The Democratic Forum drew on populist rhetoric and rural support, linking itself to the tradition of the landed gentry with latent anticapitalist and antisemitic views. These values were clearly juxtaposed with their political opposition; in the capital and other cities a liberal intelligentsia or "urban" political segment had also coalesced—seen most clearly in the political party known as the Alliance of Free Democrats. This divide between center and periphery, liberalism and populism, "alien" and "true Hungarian" quickly emerged as a major source of conflict and campaign ideology, generating deadlock and frustration in the new democratic parliament within months of its inception. The print media had an important initial effect in these conflicts. As the new Democratic Forum-led government attempted to carry out the process of economic and political transformation, it came under fire from the new press, which excoriated the coalition as rightist dilettantes unable to create effective policy. Although many of these criticisms were no doubt accurate—the coalition seemed unable to tackle the daunting tasks of fundamental reform—the government saw this as the product of a biased and "crypto-Communist" press that had escaped fundamental reform and now sided with its liberal allies in parliament. Indeed, the print media were still dominated by an intelligentsia staff from the Communist era, whose journalistic tendencies were to publish opinion as news and who mistrusted the populist values of the new government. The government thus sought to counter the print media through various tactics. Some papers that had not yet been privatized were sold to domestic and international investors who were considered more conservative. This move was in part facilitated by the fact that after the initial wave of foreign investment in 1990, several papers reverted to state hands after they were divested by their owners (Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell among them)—usually for failing to turn a profit. In other cases, the

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remaining state-owned papers were purged and re-created as progovernment organs. A third strategy was to create entirely new progovernment publications owned by industries that were themselves still under state ownership. Although these tactics garnered great criticism from domestic and international observers as undemocratic, in the long run the government's strategy was only minimally successful. In 1993, for example, the two daily newspapers considered closest to the government, Uj Magyarorszag and Pesti Hirlap, had a combined readership of about 160,000, compared with over one million for Nepszabadsag, the former central organ of the Communist Party.19 The government could not easily overcome the legacies of "goulash Communism," which had provided the print media with residual legitimacy and time to privatize, thus allowing a strong ideological continuity from the Communist era. Confronted with this failed policy and evaporating public support, the government turned toward the one mass communication tool it still dominated—the electronic media. As early as 1991, the Democratic Forum had concluded in an internal report that, given the independent power of the print media, the government would have to use radio and television to counter newspaper bias. Moreover, radio and television enjoyed a much larger audience than the print media. There was a catch, however. As part of a 1990 deal with the opposition Free Democrats in 1990, the government had agreed to appoint two wellknown sociologists to head Hungarian Television and Radio (Elemer Hankiss and Csaba Gombar, respectively) until a new media law could be hammered out by government and parliamentary opposition. Hankiss and Gombar were expected to fill these posts for no more than a year. Until that time, a moratorium on broadcast licenses was instated, inadvertently freezing the dominance of state-run radio and television. Unfortunately, negotiations over new media legislation became acrimonious. While the government called for sweeping changes and staff purges in the electronic media, opposition forces also sought legislation that would insulate television and radio from government influence. The Democratic Forum became irritated with Hankiss and Gombar, who did not undertake the radical reorganization of television and broadcasting that the government desired. By early 1992, with still no new media law, the government appointed its own allies to positions under Hankiss and Gombar, hoping to reshape media content from within. Radio and television programs grew increasingly partisan, diverging

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widely according to their relationship to the government, and the political bias shifted radically across radio and television, depending on the day, channel, or program. 20 Hankiss and Gombar resisted these changes, and the government finally sought their ouster. Arguing that the broadcast media had fallen into "alien hands" that did not truly represent Hungarian national values, 21 by early summer 1992 the government violated its earlier agreement and dismissed Hankiss and Gombar. Matters became more confused when Hungarian President Arpad Goncz, in an office heretofore seen as largely ceremonial, refused to countersign the dismissals, citing them as threats to democracy. The government appealed to the constitutional court, whose ambiguous rulings only further complicated the situation, allowing both president and government to claim victory. Hankiss and Gombar refused to step down, even as the government broadened its accusations against the two. Opposition forces in parliament now rallied around the president as a means of checking the government, and a final compromise bill on the media failed in parliament, garnering not a single vote. In early 1993, Hankiss and Gombar finally relinquished their positions, allowing government appointees to take their place. A purge of radio and television ensued in 1993 and 1994, eliminating several "biased" journalists and entire news programs in favor of neutral entertainment and progovernment broadcasts. Particularly disturbing was the fact that government control had solidified just on the advent of new parliamentary elections set for spring 1994. As feared, radio and television were now turned into a campaign machine for the ruling parties. Research conducted at the time indicated that opposition parties and figures remained underrepresented in news coverage—even as their popularity increased—in favor of government coverage. 22 Even worse, as the elections drew near, the media's lack of coverage of the opposition was augmented by the use of slander and scare tactics as the government became fearful of the rising public support for the Hungarian Socialist Party (the successor to the old Communist Party). Media broadcasts began to warn of a "liberalbolshevik alliance" should the Socialists and Free Democrats come to power: They suggested in a television documentary on the eve of elections that the current head of the Socialist Party had tortured captured revolutionaries during the 1956 uprising, and elsewhere that an election victory by the Free Democrats and Socialists would lead to the destruction of the Hungarian people themselves. 23

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Ironically, the government's attempt to reshape public opinion through the mass media was in the end successful, although not in the manner intended. The government was able to gain control over the electronic media, but this was a costly battle won late in the government's term and visible to the public. Moreover, a vibrant, if biased, print media remained able to cover the struggle over radio and television and counter the progovernment propaganda with its own critical analyses. Influenced by the print media's critical coverage of events, the public came to view the government's actions as desperate attempts to seek electoral victory at the expense of an independent media, only reenforcing their mistrust. Elections in spring 1994 thus produced a stunning defeat for the Democratic Forum and its allies, while the Socialist Party and Free Democrats emerged with nearly three quarters of the seats in parliament. In short, the relative autonomy of the media, which had begun long before and contributed to the collapse of Communism, effectively stymied the centralization of media power after 1989. Conflict over the media did not end with these elections, however. Although a media law was finally passed in late 1995 to give greater oversight power to all parties in parliament, many feel that this has merely achieved an institutionalized politicization of the public-service media while privatization lags. Murkier questions also remain about the private media's diversity of ownership and ideology.24 Romania Post-Ceau§escu Romania has been far more democratic in form than in substance. Such a description applies not only to the political arena but also to the post-Ceau§escu media. Some of the features that temporarily receded because of the turbulence, novelty, and institutional disarray of the Revolution—such as elitist forms of communication and disinformation—have reemerged as their institutional sources turn out to have been more resilient and enduring than originally assumed. Although of lesser magnitude and prevalence than before December 1989, the continued presence of these features has nevertheless undermined the democratic content and aspirations of the post-Ceau§escu media. Following the events of December 1989, Romania witnessed a boom in the print media. In the early months of 1990, there were

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reportedly as many as 900 publications in Bucharest alone. Inevitably, the novelty of a "free press" wore off and Romania's mostly impoverished population could not sustain such an overabundance of publications: The number of publications leveled off and then started to decline. The former Ceaujescu regime officials who had taken power in December 1989—calling themselves the National Salvation Front—quickly showed themselves to be intolerant and suspicious of criticism and opposition and felt no compunction about using the levers of state to stifle the development of independent media. The Front used the state's continuing monopoly over the production and distribution of newsprint and press delivery to ensure that many of the publications that failed or experienced financial difficulties also happened to be critical of the Front. Government officials also appear to have facilitated the creation of Romania Mare [Greater Romania] and other xenophobic, neo-Ceausist publications. 25 Finally, the Front realized the importance of television in the wake of the December events and moved to ensure that Romanian television was strictly subordinated to its political interests. By 1990, the Front's support for vigilante violence (instigated by elements of the former Securitate against antiregime demonstrators) combined with burgeoning political opposition contributed to the rapid growth of a press that was bitterly critical of President Ion Iliescu's regime. Romania Libera, a daily that according to one commentator had "competed for first place in the promotion of Ceau§escu's personality cult," now proclaimed itself the standard bearer of the anti-Communist struggle and led the chorus of opposition against the Front and its media apparatus. 26 Romania Libera was joined by influential weeklies such as Exprès, ZigZag, 22, Romania Literara, Nu, and Tinerama and later by dailies such as Evenimentul Zilei and Ziua. Yet the establishment of a segment of the press genuinely independent of the regime has not prevented that regime from continually attempting to undermine that independence, nor has it ensured truly "independent" or truthful reporting. Particularly because two sets of national presidential and parliamentary elections have failed to remove Ion Iliescu and his cohorts from power, the "independent press" has almost inevitably become deeply and openly identified with the political opposition to the Iliescu regime. It is indeed more accurately referred to as the "opposition press." As in previous periods in Romanian history, journalists are often active members of the opposition political parties, and some in fact hold positions of authority within those parties. These journalists

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are deeply and openly partisan in their reporting. Financially ind e p e n d e n t f r o m the Iliescu regime, the i n d e p e n d e n t press is hardly i n d e p e n d e n t in its political views. F u r t h e r m o r e , reporting on the events of December 1989— probably the most significant story in recent Romanian history— suggests that autonomy from the Iliescu regime does not guarantee autonomy f r o m all elements of the f o r m e r Securitate and that even the i n d e p e n d e n t press remains vulnerable to influence attempts by the f o r m e r Securitate.'2'7 Beyond the sharp and genuine ideological rhetoric that divides different accounts of the December events, there exists a remarkable revisionist consensus among both openly pro-Securitate accounts and those of the i n d e p e n d e n t press regarding the existence and identity of the "terrorists" who claimed almost 900 lives during the counterrevolutionary violence after 22 December. Those individuals considered at the time to have been the "terrorists"—members of the Securitate's elite antiterrorist unit (the USLA) and Fifth Directorate—and about whom sufficient' information now exists to conclude their culpability have routinely been cleared not only in the openly pro-Securitate press but also in the i n d e p e n d e n t press. T h e fact that these same journalists of the i n d e p e n d e n t press are also frequently a m o n g the sharpest and most persistent critics of President Ion Iliescu, the Romanian Information Service (SRI), and even the director of the SRI, Virgil Magureanu, makes it unlikely that the source influencing their coverage of the December events lies within the Iliescu leadership. Such an unexpected and unusual outcome is facilitated by two factors. First, because of the highly compartmentalized and internally competitive character of the Securitate prior to December 1989; the fact that some members of the Securitate lost their rank, privileges, jobs, and in a few cases even liberty as a result of the December events; and the tremendous fragmentation and repeated purges among the f o r m e r Securitate reemployed by the Iliescu regime after December 1989, there are groups of f o r m e r Securitate officers outside the structures and effective control of the Iliescu regime—many of whom also bear a grudge against it. Second, despite the entrance of many young, new journalists into the i n d e p e n d e n t press, most of the editors and senior political writers at i n d e p e n d e n t publications continue to be people who held similar positions in the Ceausist media apparatus. Personnel continuity is n o t merely an issue in the regime-supportive media. It is precisely because of the dispersal of the former Securitate both inside and outside the post-Ceau§escu regime's ambit and

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the continued effort of former Securitate officers to protect personal and institutional interests and reputations that this second factor continues to be relevant. At a minimum, employment in the Ceau§escu media apparatus ipso facto required tremendous daily compromise and informal complicity with the Securitate. Given the great importance of the press to the Ceau§escu regime and the overall immense size of the Securitate1 s network of collaborators, the press may have frequently required direct collaboration with the Securitate. According to Silviu Brucan, a prominent Romanian political figure, the consensus of Securitate-inspired disinformation that existed in coverage of the December 1989 events is the legacy of the extraordinary penetration of the press by the Securitate's disinformation branch during the Ceau^escu era and constitutes that organ's "greatest performance" (albeit posthumous). 2 8 If the use of esoteric communication has d r o p p e d precipitously since December 1989, the end of the Ceaugescu regime has not eradicated its use completely and in fact has not reduced the elitist tendencies of the Romanian press. For example, a journalist from Craiova, Nicolae Andrei, was arrested briefly in February 1994 and prosecuted for having published two allegedly allegorical stories that were considered insulting to President Ion Iliescu—something that also highlighted the undemocratic-provisions of the post-Ceau§escu penal code. 29 Stefan Borbely identified the long-term impact of the "allusive literary style, full of symbols, intellectualism and even codified approaches" refined in the Ceau§escu era: It reduced the popular understanding of the press, creating an elitism which explains a lot of the mistakes made by the Romanian intellectuals after December '89. It opened a gap between the reader and the writer: after December '89, the new power had nothing to do but widen it. 30

Although Borbely clearly had in mind the Iliescu regime when he wrote of "the new power," the context of the Securitate's dispersal after 1989 suggests that we should view the term more broadly. Despite the formal institutionalization of media independence—an undeniably necessary and important step in the country's democratic development—the elitist character of the Romanian intelligentsia, the alienation and isolation of Romanian intellectuals from the general population, and the susceptibility of the media to attempts to influence their political behavior still endure. These factors are likely to resist rapid change, despite IIliescu's defeat in the 1996 presidential elections as well as the sue-

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cess o f m o r e clearly democratic parties in parliamentary elections that same year.

Conclusion E f f o r t s to r e f o r m the m e d i a in the p o s t - C o m m u n i s t w o r l d have b e e n heavily i n f o r m e d and shaped by academic paradigms of the r o l e of the m e d i a in democracy a n d the role o f the m e d i a u n d e r Communism. M e d i a specialists have f r e q u e n t l y a r g u e d that if the m e d i a are r e m o v e d f r o m state c o n t r o l a n d d e v e l o p a u t o n o m o u s m e a n s o f f i n a n c i a l s u p p o r t a n d if professionalism is i n c u l c a t e d a m o n g j o u r n a l i s t s a n d reporters, m e d i a e m p l o y e e s will rapidly b r e a k the b o n d s of political partisanship a n d a d o p t idiosyncratic views that r e f l e c t the goals of their p r o f e s s i o n — r a t h e r than the o p i n i o n s of political e l i t e s — t h u s serving as a g u a r a n t o r of stable democracy. Specialists o f Eastern E u r o p e have o f t e n b r i d l e d at such assumptions, however, arguing that such a view ignores the potential r o l e played by the specific " C o m m u n i s t legacy." U n d e r C o m m u nism, they have a r g u e d , the m e d i a l a c k e d any real p e r s o n a l or m a r k e t autonomy, such that even in the i n d e p e n d e n t m e d i a they are still likely to shy away f r o m the kind of critical reportage necessary. Moreover, b e c a u s e of the legacy of the "Leninist political c u l t u r e " a m o n g political elites, post-Communist g o v e r n m e n t s will attempt to subordinate the m e d i a to their wishes; they are n o t acc u s t o m e d to the tolerance and f r e e w h e e l i n g debate characteristic of a democracy. T h i s c h a p t e r has suggested that b o t h o f these views of the m e d i a divert a n d deceive as m u c h as they i n f o r m a n d e x p l a i n . T h e y i g n o r e the i m p o r t a n t variation in i n f o r m a l institutionalization that d e v e l o p e d a m o n g C o m m u n i s t r e g i m e s d u r i n g the last d e c a d e s of C o m m u n i s t r u l e , even while o n the surface such regimes c o n t i n u e d to share broadly similar f o r m a l features. T h e s e variations had significant c o n s e q u e n c e s f o r the role of the m e d i a in these countries d u r i n g the late C o m m u n i s t era. Clearly, j u d g m e n t s o f the d e m o c r a t i c substance of post-Communist m e d i a and prescriptions f o r r e m e d y i n g their shortcomings must move b e y o n d the o f t e n m e t a p h o r i c characterizations of how the media f u n c t i o n e d u n d e r C o m m u n i s m and is supposed to function in an established democracy. T h e concept of media independence is p r e m i s e d o n b o t h the p e r c e i v e d centrality of m e d i a as the w a t c h d o g of g o v e r n m e n t in d e m o c r a c i e s a n d the perceived neces-

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sity of separating the media from the state control that characterized Communist rule. The cases presented here suggest, however, that common explanations both misdiagnose the source of media independence—as in Hungary, where there were already elements at work during the Communist era—and provide an insufficient indicator of democratic progress in the media, as in Romania, where it does n o t capture the more subtle (but nevertheless critical and m o r e intractable) impediments to the public's access to information. T h e failure to tailor theory to account for the "real existing institutionalization" of Communism and post-Communism ultimately u n d e r m i n e s efforts to understand the post-Communist world and changes in it. Media i n d e p e n d e n c e in the post-Communist world has n o t been the panacea it was expected to be. It has n o t prevented governments of various and even opposing political views from attempting to impose state control on the media or to manipulate the media. Nor has media i n d e p e n d e n c e brought with it the neutrality, absence of partisanship, and equanimity many had h o p e d would develop. An understanding of the specific institutional legacies of Communist rule is critical to any hopes of addressing the underlying distortions of the postCommunist era.

Notes 1. For more details, see Patrick H. O'Neil, ed., Post-Communism and the Media in Eastern Europe (London: Frank Cass, 1997). 2. Philip Selznick, Leadership in Administration (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson, 1957), 17. 3. See Alexander Gella, ed., The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals (London: Sage, 1976). 4. Gale Stokes, "The Social Origins of East European Politics," East European Politics and Societies 1, no. 1 (winter 1987): 51-60; see also Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974). 5. Rothschild, "East Central Europe," 321. 6. Elemer Hankiss, East European Alternatives (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 103. 7. Ibid., 95. 8. Gheorghiu-Dej is alleged to have told one close associate following a visit to the Hungarian capital after 1956 that "we've got to turn our policy toward the Soviets around by 180 degrees, or we are lost." Quoted in Silviu Brucan, The Wasted Generation (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), 53. 9. Michael Shafir, "Political Culture, Intellectual Dissent, and Intellectual Consent: The Case of Romania," Orbis (summer 1983): esp. 410-413.

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10. Ibid., 413. 11. For an example of discussions of esoteric communication as a strategy of opposition, see Norman Manea, On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992), 18, 30, 73. 12. Shafir, "Political Culture," 413-414; 418-419. Shafir identifies the works of Eugen Barbu, Alexandru Ivasiuc Titus Popovici, and Marin Preda as indicative of this trend. 13. Stefan Borbely, "Press Mentalities in Romania," unpublished paper presented at the Russian and East European Institute Forum, Indiana University, Bloomington, 18 November 1992, p. 6. 14. For details, see Slavko Splichal, Media Beyond Socialism (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 37-39; Gabor Juhasz, "Sajtopiaci Valtozasok," in Sandor Kurtan, Peter Sandor, and Laszlo Vass, eds., Magyarorszag Politikai Evkonyve 1994 (Budapest: Demokracia Kutatasok Magyar Kozpontja Alapitvany, 1994), 255-263. 15. See Martyn Rady, Romania in Turmoil (New York: IB Tauris & Co., 1992), 87-88; and Nestor Ratesh, Romania: The Entangled Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1991), 35-36. 16. Rady, Romania, 97-101. 17. Teodor Brates, Explozia Und Clipe: 22 Decembrie 1989, 0 Zi in Studioul 4 (Bucharest: Editura Scripta, 1992), 110. 18. Silviu Brucan, The Wasted Generation (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993), 182. 19. Lajos Biro, "A media, a kozonseg, es a politika," in Kurtan, Sandor, and Vass, eds., Magyarorszag politikai evkonyve 1994 (Budapest: Demokracia Kutatasok Magyar Kozpontja Alapitvany, 1994), 699. 20. Nick Thorpe, "TV's Rival Men of Influence," IPIReport (February 1992): 18. 21. Edith Oltay, "Hungarian Radio and Television under Fire," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report (24 September 1993): 41. 22. See the report by the Nyilvanossag Klub, "Jelentes az MR es az MTV Hirmusorairol," in Kurtan, Sandor, and Vass, Magyarorszag, 596-607. 23. Ian Traynor, "Latest Twist in Media War as Radio and TV Heads Are Removed," IPI Report (July-August 1994): 24. 24. Zsofia Szilagyi, "Shady Dealings and Slow Privatization Plague Hungarian Media," Transition (18 October 1996): 44-45. 25. Michael Shafir, "Anti-Semitism in the Postcommunist Era," in Randolph L. Braham, ed., The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 343. 26. See Brucan, The Wasted Generation, 187. 27. The discussion that follows is based on Richard Andrew Hall, "The Dynamics of Media Independence in Post-Ceau§escu Romania," Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 12, no. 4 (December 1996), and idem, "Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceau§escu Romania" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1997). 28. Brucan, The Wasted Generation, 194-195. 29. Rob Levy, "Romania: Restrictions on Freedom of the Press in Romania," Human Rights Watch Helsinki 6, no. 10 (June 1994): 5. 30. Borbely, "Press Mentalities," 7.

8 The Mass Media in Asia JOHN A . LENT

One of the buzzwords of the 1990s is democratization, a term taking its place alongside other fashionable academic words such as globalization and postmodernism and a phenomenon that has resulted in part from the end of the Cold War in Europe and the inspiration derived from the people's movements and the growth of the economic "little tigers" in Asia. It is a concept that carries many implications, some strictly related to capitalist economics, others of a frivolous nature, and still others more relevant to the needs of humanity. Most democratization efforts in Asia and elsewhere boil down to economics. Various leaders, journalists, and scholars have theorized that authoritarianism—not democracy—has fueled the engines of economic development; they point to successes such as those of South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore. Former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew reiterated this maxim many times, on one occasion stating that "I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy." 1 Lee, as well as Malaysia's Mahathir and Indonesia's Suharto, have prescribed national stability as a prerequisite for national development while in the process minimizing the need for and delaying the implementation of democratic principles. Various writers have questioned these lines of logic. Writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review, for example, Mark Thompson granted that some countries have been economic successes while still delaying or limiting democracy but that others have been disasters. He attributed much of the economic advancement of Southeast Asian developmental dictatorships to Japanese investment, outside development assistance, and the political support of the 147

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Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).2 Philippine editor Amando Doronila, reacting to criticisms that economic growth and development and democracy do not work, concluded that "the thesis that authoritarianism is a precondition for growth proved invalid in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship." 3 The economic factor became important as the United States and other major outside powers attempted to establish democratization in Asia through the threat or actual imposition of economic sanctions. What apparently was not considered was the effectiveness of such sanctions and their costs in hardships on the common people. As one Asian journalist noted, not one of the Asian nations that made the greatest gains in freedom during the past decade (Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand) was hit with sanctions. Yet countries such as China, Myanmar, North Korea, and Vietnam that are "thrashed or threatened with embargo . . . remain autocracies tolerating little dissent." 4 Certain countries are targeted for democratization for odd reasons, such as Myanmar, which became a "chic cause" partly because of the 1995 movie Beyond Rangoon and the Free Burma Coalition on the Internet. One of the most discussed components of democratization has been mass communication. In this area and in education, some of the wider and more humanistic implications can be found. Relying primarily on works by Freire, policymakers, government officials, and communicators have pointed out that democratization must include the right to communicate. This right must in turn entail the equality of all partners in the communication process; multicultural, multiway flows of information; and the highest possible degree of feedback, participation, access, and variety of messages. 5 As a body set up under the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the 1970s to study communication issues, the MacBride Commission spent considerable time examining the democratization of communication and concluded that there was a need for broader popular access to the media, the participation of nonprofessionals in media production, the development of alternative channels, and growth in the self-management of local media. As is widely understood and of which the MacBride Commission was well aware, however, such goals are elusive in an imperfect world. Rather, because of undemocratic governments, delaying and entangling bureaucracies, and state- and conglomerate-owned technologies, the present systems are neither just, egalitarian, participatory, effective, nor pluralistic. As a result, democratization

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often means the shifting and misuse of media from one power to another, not necessarily better, power. Asian Democratization

The single event of the 1980s that inspired democratization in Asia was the People's Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship of the Philippines in February 1986. Within a short time, Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan to campaign for election (1986); protests in South Korea forced President Roh Tae Woo to call elections (1987); and rallies for democracy erupted in Myanmar (1988), China (1989), Bangladesh (1990), and Nepal (1990). The Myanmar and China campaigns were short-lived and violently terminated, but those in Bangladesh and Nepal led to the institution of parliamentary rule. Similar tendencies were perceptible elsewhere: In Taiwan, nearly four decades of martial law were lifted in 1987 and were followed a few years later by the first direct parliamentary elections; in Cambodia, the first legislative elections in two decades were administered by the United Nations in 1993 (although its democratic future is now in question); and in Thailand, the people bought democracy with their blood as they resisted an authoritarian regime in 1992. Today, Asians are generally more politically vigilant and less apt to tolerate strongman rule than before. Veteran Indian journalist B. G. Verghese noted that The idea of government, however, is everywhere yielding to a broader sense of governance as people, non-government agencies, corporate and transnational bodies, and civil society generally come into their own. Deregulation has given individuals and communities far greater freedom of action. This perhaps places freedom of expression and of information in a new context as the State, from being the master-controller and regulator is more nearly becoming a player, although still perhaps more equal than others in a cybernetic environment. 6

Unanswerable questions surface regularly about the effectiveness of Asian democracy, however, taking into account the societal blights that often accompany increased freedom and openness as well as the infrastructural factors that hinder the working of democracy. In the Philippines, critics claim that personal freedom has been obtained at the expense of law and order and that democracy

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has not brought a sense of community responsibility. Similarly, there has been considerable debate on whether f r e e d o m of the press is unhealthy or dangerous for democracy, especially during transition periods. Doronila was not among the doubters, pointing out that the Philippine democratic transition was highlighted by a series of military coups and that even in those dangerous times, press freedom was exercised to the utmost: It can hardly be argued, based on the experience of the transition, that the exercise of press freedom, in which responsibility was defined by the journalists' own judgments on citizenship and patriotism, posed a danger to the fragile democratic restoration. If democracy is endangered, the danger clearly does not come from a free press but from something else that is associated with governance.' In nearly every country, very close associations a m o n g the wealthy elites, politicians, and government personnel have had serious repercussions on the democratic process. In 1996 alone, a number of top Indian officials were involved in bribery exposés, and two former presidents of South Korea were given severe sentences for creating a chaebol (conglomerate) slush f u n d of $650 million. Tesoro summed up the duplicitous nature of democracy in Asia's transitional stage: From Pakistan to South Korea, Nepal to Thailand, citizens have gained more rights and freedoms, a greater say in government and varying degrees of economic liberalization and advancement. But openness and diversity have also fed centrifugal forces, from Manila kidnappers sheltering behind due process to Dhaka strikers holding the economy hostage. And longstanding ills in many nations—corruption in Korea and India, social inequity in Pakistan, poverty and strife in Cambodia—seem just as deeply entrenched under a democracy and may even feed on it. . . . Few seasoned democracy watchers, however, would claim that People Power has cut Asia's moneyed, well-connected elites down to size. Their continued dominance and machinations all over the region are but one of the major challenges democracy still faces. . . . Plainly, multi-party electoral politics and representative government everywhere cloak an entrenched system of contending interests, which often function by age-old rules of reward and patronage. 8 In a case study of Korea, Lee argued that the institutional framework of the country has not allowed democracy to function because Korean political culture is incongruous with these infrastructural

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hindrances. He focused on specific stumbling blocks attributable to Confucian influences: the centralization of political power, the denial of participation, and the rule of the individual rather than the law.9 Lee further argued that the present crisis of the Korean media is a "direct outcome of the emergence of various civic organizations which have played a central role in toppling the authoritarian regime." These groups have challenged the exercise of editorial rights by editors and management who, they claim, unjustly frame the news in favor of the authoritarian government. 10 Democratization in Asia has made significant strides in recent years; however, because of deep-seated authoritarian concepts, money politics, and personal freedom and social responsibility dilemmas, the philosophy is still fragile and in some countries is only hanging by a thread. The Authoritarian Media Tradition Centuries-old authoritarian philosophical and religious beliefs, combined with long periods of colonial and military occupation, left their imprints on Asian forms of expression, many of which remained after much of the continent had become independent following World War II. Even today, many media laws that were established during colonial times remain in effect in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and parts of South Asia. During the throes of postindependence, repressive actions against the media were common and blatant. Two out of every three days in the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, a South Vietnamese daily could be suspended. Similarly, entire presses were disbanded in one fell swoop in Indonesia in 1965, Singapore in 1971, and the Philippines in 1972. Similar degrees of oppression struck other countries that had not been under colonial rule: The Chinese press was rigorously ruled by Cultural Revolution strictures, and the Thai press was wiped out briefly in 1976. However, since the late 1970s, less noisy forms of control were preferred in many countries, which resorted to suspensions, arrests, or direct censorship when subtle means did not work. One of these control mechanisms was ownership by the government, the ruling political party, or business-industrial combines that were closely allied with the establishment. Even before democratization swept across the continent, the elements of big business journalism already existed. Shaw Brothers and Cathay controlled large theater circuits in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Thailand; Japanese

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newspapers concentrated into the large corporations Asahi, Mainichi, or Yomiuri that held other business interests; some foreign entrepreneurs (Roy Thomson, Rupert Murdoch, Rediffusion, Dow Jones) owned Asian media; Aw Boon Haw of Hong Kong had newspapers in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand; and corporations involved in other businesses, such as Lopez, Soriano, Elizalde, and others in the Philippines and Birla and Tata in India, formed media combines. Other quieter methods that were practiced during the 1970s and are still used include the misuse of the so-called developmental communication ideology to uncritically promote governmental policies, national leaderships, and the guidance of the media by authorities. Since that time, mass media throughout Asia have repeatedly been instructed on their proper roles. They are now implored to support and cooperate with the authorities by stressing positive news, ignoring negative and oppositionist information, and supporting governmental plans and ideologies. In 1988, for example, a deputy minister reminded the Malaysian mass media not to imitate counterparts in the West; their main objectives were to educate the public, instill positive attitudes, and establish cordial relationships with the government. Around the same time, China's Communist Party leader issued an order that all news had to promote official policies and was not to cover social unrest. In other cases, countries have had formal national ideologies for the past generation that guide the mass media. Indonesia's "Pancasila" makes editors think twice before critically writing about the role of Islam, communism, upper-level corruption, or the Chinese minority. In Malaysia, the "Rukunegara" has promoted five vaguely stated principles and beliefs that journalists are told to incorporate in their work. Such admonishments have changed the practicing of journalism in many areas, as have cozy relationships between government personnel and reporters, envelope journalism (journalists accepting envelopes that contained bribes), and wavering government policies that kept journalists off-balance and more prone to self-censorship. Overt press controls also remain as backups. New press laws or radical changes in old ones, ratified in many countries in the 1970s and 1980s, included regulations that formally licensed the print media (in Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan); gave authorities the right to censor or close media indiscriminately (in Thailand, Nepal, South and North Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh); denied access to information by declaring it officially secret (in Nepal,

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Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan); and allowed governmental manipulation of libel and sedition laws (in Singapore and Pakistan). Singapore similarly promulgated a law that could limit a foreign periodical's circulation in that state if the publication offended authorities. Arrests, suspensions, and harassments also continue to exist. The Media in the Age of Democratization Mass media in Asia have changed drastically since the late 1980s, owing in part to already cited tendencies toward more openness on the part of governments but also because of the universal push toward globalization and its attendant side effects of privatization and deregulation. Following on the heels of the deregulation and privatization of various sectors—including broadcasting in the United States and England—numerous Asian governments dismantled their monopolies over media, resulting in the creation of many more oudets, especially in broadcasting, as well as a so-called diversity of ownership. The development of independent outlets has been uneven throughout Asia. In Thailand, for example, only one truly independent channel, ITV, operates; five have been privatized (they are operated on a concession basis by independent companies) but remain the properties of government bodies. 11 Conversely, in 1995 alone, the Korean government granted licenses to 40 cable television and five satellite television operators, bringing the total to 50 channels. This ownership diversity is a mirage of great proportions: Although more entities now own Asian media, they are not markedly different in their alliances, viewpoints, and goals. In country after country, new media barons have allied with business, industrial, political, and military powers; instead of expressing different perspectives and acting as a watchdog of the government, they lend continued support to power brokers and the status quo by promoting and protecting their vested interests. The profitability of some of these media and the vast advertising audience that Asia represents have also attracted multinational corporations such as Dow Jones, Time Warner, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Dow Jones is a major investor in Asian media: It owns the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Dow Jones Telerate, Dow Jones Asian Equities Report, and owns 44 percent of Asia Business News. Murdoch has similarly had a number of Asian ventures, including the South China Morning Post, the Far Eastern

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Economic Review, Zee TV, and his far-reaching satellite broadcasting company, Star TV. Concern exists in parts of Asia about the impact of foreign ownership of media on democratization efforts. The country in which the aversion to this type of ownership is most pronounced is India, which has resisted outside media investors since 1955, when the Nehru government banned them. In recent years, India has had to fend off attempted incursions by Time, Financial Times, Dow Jones, and others while dozens of satellite television channels have entered the country. This is only one of several anomalies. Foreign television companies are barred from broadcasting in India, yet equity investment in local companies that produce television programs is allowed. For example, News Corporation owns 50 percent of the popular Hindi satellite channel Zee TV; Britain's Pearson and Carlton Communications, Hong Kong's Television Broadcasts, and an Indian company have their own channel; Sony has a joint-venture channel; and four international banks own part of the production company New Delhi Television.12 Increasingly, Asian mass media are found in national conglomerates that connect to multinational corporations. Samsung Group, owners of the daily Joong-Ang Ilbo, part of US DreamWorks, and various other media, also controls a portion of Corning Corporation. In the Philippines, where media ownership by law is limited to Filipinos, foreign influences are very much evident in parent organizations: In 1988, there were 354 foreign or foreignaffiliated corporations of 313 transnationals, the oldest of which was San Miguel Corporation, traditionally a huge media owner. 13 National conglomerates, however, do control much of Asian mass communication. In Korea, these chaebols and powerful families own six of the nine privately owned dailies, and two others are properties of churches. In addition to the already mentioned Joong-Ang Ilbo, these dailies are the following: Chosun Ilbo, owned by Bang Woo Young and including hotel and publishing interests Kyunghyang Shinmun, part of the Hanhwa Explosives and Hanhwa Chemical Co. group Munwha Ilbo, the property of a son of the Hyundai Motor Co. patriarch Dong-A Ilbo, owned by Kim Byung Kwan family and foundation Hankook Ilbo, controlled by Chang Jae Kook and family, also owners of a travel agency and a construction company.

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Many chaebol newspapers lose money but are retained for their political influence. They have the power to shape public opinion toward their own interests, access valuable information gathered by reporters covering various ministries, and to use this information in bidding for government contracts. 14 Indonesia's fastest growing giant corporation, Bimantara, has huge investments in telecommunications and mass media, including Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia, Cakra Nusa, Elektrindo Nusantara, and Settel Technologies. With assets approaching $2 billion, making it the 11th largest company on the Jakarta Stock Exchange, Bimantara has equity in about 100 companies that provide palm oil, insurance, animal vaccine, leasing, holding, investment, transportation, petroleum, plastics, and food entities. The firm is controlled by Bambang Trihatmodjo, the son of President Suharto, who inherited the property through patronage. 13 A Malaysian firm, Realmild Sdn. Bhd., has also grown to astronomical proportions, encompassing six English, Malay, and Chinese newspapers, TV-3, many magazines and book publishing firms, and more than 150 companies in areas such as hotels, investment, realty, telecommunications, trading, cinemas, shipping, electronics, banking, and insurance. The company is fully owned by the publicly listed Malaysian Resources Corp. Bhd., which in effect is controlled by four close associates of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. When the Singapore press was restructured from 1982 to 1983, a huge company, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), emerged, becoming the largest publicly quoted Singaporean industrial company. With capital approaching $750 million, even before its restructure, SPH had ownership connections with many companies in England, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the United States and was involved in cross-media ownership with interests in newspapers, magazines, book publishing, and music. It also had joint operations and firms involved in noncommunications fields such as real estate and property development. Cross-media and nonmedia ownerships have prevailed among other Asian newspapers. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, previously a Murdoch property, owns several magazines, while Sing Tao has Chinese and English dailies, magazines, many of the Jademan Holdings (itself a parent of at least 14 companies), and a travel agency. Similar groups also operate in Taiwan. In the Philippines, mass communications has also been characterized by bigbusiness associations for generations. Oligarchies such as those of Soriano, Lopez, and Elizalde tucked newspapers, magazines, and

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radio and television stations among holdings in beer, sugar, utilities, and pharmaceuticals. Since the 1986 revolution, the old entrepreneurial groups—notably Roces, Lopez, Soriano, and Yap— have been j o i n e d by new ones, such as those of Gokongwei, Cojuangco, and Ramos. It is no secret that many of the approximately two dozen Manila dailies are kept solely as weapons for their business houses. South Asia has had press and big-business affiliations for decades. A press commission in India expressed fears as early as 1950 about monopoly and bias stemming f r o m the ownership of important groups and chains by industrial houses that "had purchased newspapers for collateral reasons." T h e commission suggested delinking the press from the business houses, and in ensuing years parliamentarians tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill to do just that. 16 Until government interference in the 1970s, 95 percent of Sri Lanka's daily press was controlled by three organizations. Concentration and monopolization similarly characterize the Japanese media: T h e five largest national or quasinational dailies account for 60 percent of Japan's total circulation, own printing plants scattered about the country, publish h u n d r e d s of regional editions daily, and have other minor media and business holdings. Asahi, for example, publishes Japanese- and English-language dailies, 3 each of weeklies and monthlies, and 10 yearbooks, and maintains interests in 60 other enterprises, including radio-television stations, travel agencies, and real estate firms.

Media Ownership and the Implications for Democratization Obviously, there are many possible impacts of such concentrations of media ownership in Asia and t h r o u g h o u t the world. T h e two main effects of these impacts are discussed below. 7. Serious threat to the democratic pertaining to the open marketplace which all opinions can contend.

principles of ideas

in

As national media conglomerates expand, squeezing out smaller firms and becoming more attractive to multinational ones, and as they increase their links through ownership and directorships with banks, other large businesses, industrial complexes, the government, and the military, important stories affecting their vested

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interests are either slighted or totally ignored. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Philippines, where for generations Manila dailies have served in a public relations capacity, creating favorable images for sister companies. Entrepreneurs realized that it was less expensive to operate a daily than to employ public relations and advertising agencies. When media are used predominately for building images, most journalistic traits such as fairness, realism, and public service are lost and are replaced by hucksterism, rationalization, and financial expediency. In the Philippines, a content analysis of 12 Manila dailies from January 1988 to April 1991 showed that the papers attempted objectivity as long as their parent companies' other businesses were not involved. Thus, the mere possession of a newspaper in the Philippines provides its owner with an instrument of influence, social standing, and destruction, if necessary. 17 The Philippine situation is instructive in understanding what happens elsewhere in Asia. Readers often are kept in the dark about significant social issues, deceived by a bogus type of adversarial journalism designed not to nurture the public welfare but instead to line the pockets of large corporations. The Indonesian press, for example, has been criticized as being too docile because it is a big business and avoids risky moves. Susanto said the Indonesian press has lost its idealism and its commitment for "supporting the common people and promoting human dignity." 18 Similarly, according to Datta-Ray, the Indian press suffers because of publishers that have vested interests to protect and political ambitions to nurse. 19 In the Philippines, the political liaisons of most newspaper and business combines are legendary. Presidential candidates, thinking that they need press support, buy or significantly finance newspapers, and conglomerate owners similarly exercise their immense political power from time to time. In May 1990, six businessmen (including two who owned media) secretly met with President Corazon Aquino to say that if drastic reforms were not forthcoming, they would distance themselves from the administration. 20 Finally, the Miltonian open marketplace of ideas is further mitigated against, since only lucrative corporations can afford to own a newspaper or broadcasting station. In some cases, efforts are made to entice foreign investment in Asian mass media, leading critics to balk. As one observer of the Indian media contended, "If we permit the foreign media to operate as owners in our country, we will end up having our democracy controlled by outsiders." This rationale for keeping out foreign ownership included the following:

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1. Newspapers influence the thinking of the entire nation, thus the implications of the entry of foreign ownership are ominous. 2. If the foreign media get a foothold in India, any kind of mobilization against it—even if those media harm national interests—would be interpreted as an infringement of press freedom. 3. India's social and religious environment, which erupts into violence occasionally, needs self-restraint reporting that might not be possible with foreign owners who go by "cheque-book journalism." 4. Foreign owned newspapers would take care of foreign interests, not local. 21 2. Homogenization, commercialization, and trivialization of media products that impinge on their democratization capabilities.

Worldwide, journalism and media entertainment have followed the U.S. model, in which the major considerations are ratings, sales, and possible other uses of media products within a corporation. Calling the result of this trend the development of an "idiot culture," Carl Bernstein of Watergate investigative journalism fame wrote: For more than fifteen years we have been moving away from real journalism toward the creation of a sleazoid info-tainment culture in which the lines between Oprah and Phil and Geraldo and Diane and even Ted, between the New York Post and Newsday are too often indistinguishable. In this new culture of journalistic titillations we teach our readers and our viewers that the trivial is significant, that the lurid and loopy are more important than the real news. We do not serve our readers and viewers, we pander to them. . . . We are in the process of creating, in sum, what deserves to be called the idiot culture. . . . For the first time in our history, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal. . . . And the great information conglomerates of this country are now in the trash business. 22

In the United States and much of the West, the concept of news has changed considerably during the past two decades—and not necessarily for the better. Especially worrisome is the blending of journalism and entertainment; as Peter R. Kann, chairman of Dow Jones and Company, noted, journalism that "puts too high a

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priority on entertaining is almost bound to distort and to mislead, and entertainment that masquerades as journalism is insidious because it taints and tarnishes the real thing." 23 Tied closely to that failing is the blurring of lines between news and opinion. Asian media have picked up these traits in recent years. In Hong Kong, Apple Daily attracted much attention with its debut in the mid-1990s, providing readers an abundance of smut and sensationalism. Korea's Joong-Ang Ilbo did something similar at about the same time, playing up soft news and adding more pages for sports and lifestyle sections. Other Korean dailies have felt compelled to follow Joong-Ang Ilbo's lead. 24 In the Philippines, dailies employ a corporate-protection type of adversarial journalism built on sensationalism, rumor, gossips innuendo, and often inaccuracy. Verghese reported that much of India's television reportage is vulnerable to superficiality and inaccuracy, that the information of in-depth reports has been replaced by oversimplifications and glitz. He stated that new information technology is a double-edged sword, valuable for its immediacy and reach but susceptible to spreading misinformation and disinformation. Governments, corporations, and interest groups stoop to that level of use, Verghese said: "News is planted and gains such velocity of circulation that truth does not easily catch up with the first salvo which may have been doctored." 2 5 Directing his attention to the press, Verghese argued that the growth of competitive, mass circulated dailies— often popular tabloids "catering to less sophisticated first generation readers"—has led to "sensationalism, editorializing in the news columns that renders it difficult to separate fact from opinion, lack of objectivity in tracking and citing sources, failure to follow up on stories, selectivity, and the arrogance of power that curtails the right of reply." 26 _ When media are dominated by the sensational, the democratic process is poorly served in another realm, since many representative groups in society are slighted. For years, the coverage of rural areas of Asia, where most of the people live, has been "haphazard, dull, sketchy and negative." 27 Part of this shortcoming is attributed to untrained rural journalists and to the phenomenon of pack journalism, in which scores (even hundreds) of reporters chase after the same, usually sensational story, leaving other places and events not covered at all. Equally ignored are the various minorities of this pluralistic continent, and women. Although some Asian media have increased their coverage of women and issues related to them, they continue to be accused of not granting women equity on news pages and television screens.

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A 1996 Malaysian study showed that only 17 percent of surveyed stories in the media were about women, that almost all stories on politics and government were about men, and that only 11 percent of the news stories presented women's issues. 28 Other studies, some concentrating on women's portrayals in advertising, have revealed the same types of findings in India, Singapore, and elsewhere. 2 9 A generation ago, however, gender equality in mass media was barely considered an issue of Asian democratization, but today it has become an agenda item in periodicals, conferences, and some governmental policymaking. Some Asian cultures have imitated the West in another respect, by changing the nature of political campaigns through media exposure. In some instances, candidates for office are being pulled f r o m entertainment, mainly because they already have a persona. South Korea's first general election under a civilian government in 1996 saw at least 12 television actors, talk-show personalities, comedians, and singers vying for political office. Similar developments have occurred elsewhere in the region; in fact, India and the Philippines were world pioneers in grooming actors to be politicians. In Korea, however, that g a r n e r e d m u c h criticism, largely that image would become central over the discussion of substantial problems and that the celebrities would be distracting the process of purging the nation's dark past. New media, particularly cable television, have given new directions to election coverage. This was evident in Taiwan's elections in the 1990s, when opposition candidates, who were given short shrift by the three over-the-air television stations (owned by the ruling party, a r m e d forces, and the provincial government), therefore depended on legalized and u n d e r g r o u n d cable stations. Those supporting the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, in fact, were called democracy stations. It was later found that many of the cable channels were owned by local politicians, leading to questions about their fairness and objectivity. O n e of the ironies of Asian mass communications has been that while authorities effectively curbed the domestic and foreign media's roles in and impact on their countries, they did not always shut out the more pernicious outside channels and messages. Thus, their television screens were saturated with U.S. and other Western shows, their radio stations with the top foreign p o p music, and their movie houses with non-Asian films. Asians eagerly sought these foreign media products, which set u p ironic situations. Recently in Sri Lanka, for example, a private television station broadcast 24-hour programming from the H o n g Kong-based

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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Star TV—much to the annoyance of the latter, which expected royalty payments. Sinha Ratnatunga noted of this situation: The argument is not on moral grounds, but because Western nations now link foreign aid and loans to adherence to trademark and copyright laws which benefit their own artists and performers. The irony is that while we Sri Lankans want to be invaded by Western culture, Westerners are saying they won't do it unless we pay for it. 30

By the 1970s, the amount of foreign content in some Asian media was already alarming. In Thailand, in 1976, for example, all foreign news arrived via international news services. Seventy-eight percent of cinema and 50 percent of television fare was foreign; 70 percent of advertised products on television were imports; and one half of the advertising revenue was divided among 10 mostly foreign advertising agencies. The same was the case throughout most of Asia, barring perhaps China, India, and Japan. A 1983 study of television flows revealed that 36 percent of all television used in Asia and the Pacific were imported. 3 1 By the mid-1990s, threats of media and cultural imperialism continued to hover over much of Asia, despite some encouraging changes. Critics still warned about the negative impacts of high levels of imported media products, pointing out they bring in alien images and values that are frivolous, violent, and permissive; contribute to the buildup of consumer-oriented societies even where they cannot be sustained; and tend to homogenize aspects of otherwise unique cultures, all of which have implications for effective democratization. 32 Changes were occurring at an even keel throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as governments established quotas and protectionist policies to keep out some of the foreign materials; as more broadcast programs were locally produced—often through government encouragement and favor—and found favorite spots in prime-time schedules; as the authorities acted to change foreign advertising images on television; and as Asian regional organizations (various ASEAN media agencies and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union) created programming and news exchanges. 33 Into the 1990s, progress was temporarily derailed as the advent of satellite and cable television stymied government and broadcasting officials. When governments did react, they usually did so with unsuccessful restrictions rather than with regulatory, facilatory, or participatory ways. The result, according to P. S.

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Deodhar, has been that direct satellite television reception of foreign channels has "remained unrestricted by default, not because of any decision to liberalize the media." 34 Throughout Asia almost overnight, people were exposed to television programs designed "to lure the viewers and turn the non-essentials into essentials"; 35 to concentrate on specific genres that were "non-contentious, easily marketable, and certainly [did] not question or challenge the status quo"; 36 and to ensure that commercialization and commodification were the end results. By the mid-1990s, Music Television (MTV) had arrived in Asia, as had the Cable News Network (CNN), television shopping networks from Australia, Canada, and Singapore, and other predominantly Western fare. The implication of these developments was that satellite broadcasting would change Asian values and the television industry itself. But Asian governments and broadcasters did not totally succumb to Western television; in fact, by 1996, Asia was actually changing the way some international television operators functioned. Although the foreign programming they brought in was considered important, it increasingly took second billing to the growing local production. Local production houses were established: In Malaysia, the government stated that for each year, $204 million would go into domestic television production, which still would fall short of demand. In some cases, Asian telecasters, especially in Malaysia, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore, developed their own satellite services and exported programs throughout the region. Recognizing the competition as well as the Asian penchant for local programming in local languages, international operators were forced to create regional language services and to link up with Asian networks. 37 Some scholars and writers have questioned these trends. Zaharom Nain noted that in Malaysia, local news and current affairs shows constitute the bulk (44.6 percent) of local productions and that the figure is inflated as the shows are repeated for different languages. Nain added that local programming, "dramas, situation comedies, musicals, sports programs, and even current affairs magazines . . . are essentially pale copies of Western genres." 38 In 1995, Malaysia adopted another concept from the West, setting up its first subscription television service. Nain believed that this development, as well as others given full approval by policymakers, would invariably retard the growth of local television, turning local television productions even more into the poorer cousin, without

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much chance to improve due to the lack of facilities and incentives provided by a government that fails to see the need for a progressive production policy. Secondly, and more importantly for democracy, these developments will more than likely widen the already big gap that exists between the information rich and the information poor, whereby those who can pay will increasingly have greater access to the broadcast medium. Thirdly, and equally important for democracy, such developments, including the increasing drift into the international marketplace, will all too likely marginalize further alternative explanations, alternative forms of television content, and alternative forms of expression which are not deemed to be commercially viable. In other words, as can be seen with the pale local imitations of Western genres that are currently available on Malaysian television, future developments of this nature will invariably pressure local programme makers to further conform to the dictates and logic of the market, leading to cultural conformity rather than cultural diversity. Such developments will reduce further the space for struggle and resistance. 39

The Usual Forms of Repression Remain These impacts on democratization are deleterious enough, but when added to some of the traditional forms of media suppression that persist, they create a dismal picture. Blatant persecution in the form of journalist killings, arrests, firings, and other harassments; the passing of new legislation; the banning and censoring of media; and the more subtle control mechanisms of government guidance and editorial self-censorship have been prevalent throughout the mid-1990s. Since the United Nations-sponsored elections of 1993 ushered in democratization, some of the most severe infringements on press freedom have occurred in Cambodia. Four journalists were killed for taking antigovernment stands or for exposing gove r n m e n t or military corruption; one paper (Damneung Pelpreuk [Morning News]) was the victim of a grenade attack; another paper (Odom K'tek Khmer [Khmer Ideal]) was closed; and other newspapers and journalists were charged with various offenses from satirizing and defaming leaders to disinformation. 4 0 A new law enacted in July 1995 now allows criminal prosecution for material negatively affecting "national security or political stability."41 Thailand, another country relatively new to democratization, has experienced recent government and media difficulties. In early 1996, popular current affairs shows moderated by Chirmsak Pinthong were removed from state-controlled television and radio

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stations while the government counterattacked the barrage of press and broadcast criticism leveled at it. 42 In other instances, a newspaper delivery truck was fired on; parcel bombs were sent to Thai Rath [The Thai Nation] after it published articles critical of the annual reshuffle of police posts; and all Australian journalists were temporarily denied work visas because of an unflattering cartoon of Thailand's king that appeared in the Australian daily The Age. Hong Kong, which feared for its democratization as it reverted to China, in 1995 and 1996 listened carefully to Chinese ministers' plans for press freedom. The Chinese foreign minister announced a no censorship policy after 1997 so long as the Hong Kong media were "patriotic" and concentrated on "upholding the one-China policy."43 The director of the Chinese State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office similarly argued that press freedom would exist but that on certain issues (independence of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the one China policy, etc.), China would not permit the press to perform its regular duties. 44 Of course, overt forms of control were common in countries only slightly tinged with democratization, or that escaped it altogether. Singapore now has a legal infrastructure that supports the state against foreign and domestic critics. Local journalists are already under control, having previously faced legal threats and presently being part of an ownership structure that is closely tied to government. More often, the government uses libel and circulation denial methods to curb foreign critics. In late 1995, the International Herald Tribune settled a $211,000 libel suit filed by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who did not like an article that referred to "intolerant regimes in the region" that relied on a "compliant judiciary to bankrupt opposition politicians." In Vietnam, newspapers have been censored, recalled, or shut down for criticizing the government. In other one-party regimes such as in China, Myanmar, and North Korea, the press is carefully coached on what should be reported. In 1995, Chinese officials tightened restrictions on press freedom, notifying media that they had to put a favorable spin on sensitive issues such as double-digit inflation, failing enterprises, and demonstrations by the unemployed. The party propaganda chief banned the 20 largest national newspapers from covering issues that were "not resolved" or "impossible to resolve" and to use reports by Xinhua, the government news agency, for all breaking stories. 45 Recent democratization efforts in Indonesia have been spurned by the government, although breakthroughs seemed to

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be in the offing for a time. One such breakthrough concerned the popular Tempo magazine, banned by the information minister in June 1994, who gave "editorial reasons" for his action. In 1995, the state administrative court ruled the minister's action arbitrary and illegal, 46 and—unbelievably, in the eyes of Indonesians—the state appellate court upheld the decision. The euphoria was short-lived, for in June 1996 the Supreme Court decided in favor of the government. After that, editor Gunawan Mohammed moved the magazine to the Internet. Other Indonesian journalists have been arrested and periodicals suspended for "spreading hatred against the government" or insulting the president. Shutdowns have been accommodated by legislation, similarly to Malaysia and Singapore. All Indonesian publications must—with difficulty—obtain publishing permits from the Ministry of Information, which can be forfeited for "administrative violations" such as a failure to get the ministry's approval to change a general manager or chief editor. The Ministry of Information also limits the number of pages (maximum 24) and amount of advertising (35 percent of total content) in printed materials. 47 Concerned with the impact of proliferating television stations, the government has banned private television channels from producing their own news. A 1996 draft broadcasting bill stipulated that news to be aired by privately owned television and radio stations was subject to governmental censorship because news has a "great and direct impact on the public." 48 With economic prosperity to protect and more international pressure to go easy on dissent, Asian governments have increasingly resorted to more indirect means to stifle the opposition. Authorities in several countries (Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia chief among them) have been using these means for about 25 years; the differences now are in the extensiveness and degree of the practice. In at least Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, the government or ruling party has hired hooligans as counterprotestors to disrupt the opposition, allowing the authorities to distance themselves and deny accountability. 49 One way governments control the mass media is by sending unclear signals regarding the degree of freedom allowed, thus keeping editors and broadcasters off balance and producing dangerously high levels of self-censorship. Ferdinand Marcos did this in the Philippines throughout his regime, as did Lee Kuan Yew. Interviews with journalists and cartoonists throughout Asia in the 1990s have indicated that self-censorship was strong in most countries. This has certainly been the case in Indonesia, especially

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after the Supreme Court decision on Tempo. Susanto reported that "this uncertainty has created anxiety in the press because it has to continuously gauge the sensitivity of the authorities. It has to rely on instinct only." 50 As Hong Kong prepared to rejoin China, media executives did not question what China's officialdom desired or abhorred; they were hesitant in expressing contrary viewpoints but not in dropping newspaper features or broadcasts that might be offensive. In December 1994, Asia Television (ATV) suspended the popular talk show "News Tease" because its controversial host was accused of being anti-China; the next month, Hong Kong's two land-based television channels refused to air a BBC documentary on the sale of body organs from China's executed prisoners; and in May 1995, the South China Morning Post abruptly canceled the popular "The World of Lily Wong" comic strips that had also dealt with the issue of selling organs as well as other topics critical of China. In 1994-1995, two media outlets closed, citing difficulties in recruiting journalists willing to brave reporting restrictions on the mainland. 51 These actions do not bode well for press freedom in a Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty.

Some Positive Consequences Many journalists use discretion, self-censor, or play up titillating or frivolous stories of a nonpolitical nature, but others continue to push Asian governments to open up. One writer perceived Asia's tolerance of dissent to be actually rising, although slowly, as its educated and well-off middle class has called for more open and accountable governments: "The tone of the discussion shifts with the terrain, but in most places those willing to speak out are more bold, and some more aggressive, than their predecessors were just five years ago." 52 Again, economic growth in Asia is credited with a role in this development. As the middle class of professionals has proliferated, some with experiences in the West, 53 it has been vocal in demanding more civil liberties and holding government responsible to a higher standard of behavior. Nowhere is this vocality more audible than in broadcasting: Talk shows have mushroomed all over Asia, providing people with airtime and previously unavailable chances to participate. One writer even suggested that "the prevalence or otherwise of talk radio serves as a crude barometer of the degree of political freedom countries enjoy."54 These shows are particularly appealing to audiences that grew up on dull government broadcasting.

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In most countries, the growth of talk radio is traceable to increased democratization and economic stability. Thailand's talk radio sprang directly f r o m the bloody May 1992 demonstrations, when people called in to radio and television stations to sound off about the debacle. O n e observer noted that after those events, Thai radio stations, despite being owned by the government or military and subject to tough legislation, r e p o r t e d on politics m o r e openly, as ordinary citizens boldly expressed opinions on the air. 55 Lively debate, including that over politics, also marked Indonesian call-in programs, but after the 27 July 1996 Jakarta riots, politics were not considered a safe topic, especially given the fact that intelligence personnel were monitoring broadcasts. Still, Radio Mara broadcast reports that were called in by listeners regarding arbitrary arrest and corrupt highway patrols, for example, and Radio Trijaya aired call-ins regarding controversial political topics. Most other countries sport chatty talk shows but n o t typically on politics. In Malaysia and Singapore, stringent regulations and the multiethnic, multireligious natures of these societies keep talk radio's most popular topics (sex, religion, race, and politics) off the air. Talk shows on East Radio Shanghai at first dealt with consumerism b u t more recently have moved to the emotional problems of listeners. Taiwan and H o n g Kong listeners, apparently tired of politics after the Taiwanese elections in the early 1990s, tuned in to call-in shows concentrating on chatty, sex-oriented subjects. As already indicated, since 1994 authorities in some countries (Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Thailand) have canceled talk shows for touching on governmental and political matters. Another m e d i u m with high potential for democratization is the Internet. T h e Indonesian magazine Tempo's move f r o m print to the I n t e r n e t after being b a n n e d by the government is one example of the opportunities provided by this new technology. Much information can also be pulled f r o m Web sites that focus on h u m a n rights issues in China, Myanmar, and elsewhere. In response, many governments are looking at ways to control the Internet. In Vietnam, the Telecommunications Ministry retains monopoly control over the Internet. The Chinese also intend to control all access to the system and to require registration with the authorities for e-mail, while Thai officials have tried to ensure that the cornerstone of the Internet is maintained by government universities and nonprofit groups. Singapore has established a special unit to patrol the Internet for pornography, and in Myanmar, a recent decree made it illegal for the public to use the two Internet servers, to own unregistered computers with networking capabilities,

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or to belong to unauthorized computer clubs. Linking to the rest of the world via the Internet can lead to 7 to 15 years in prison. For now, Asian authorities do not have much to fear from Internet democracy. As of 1996, fewer than 4 million households were linked to the Internet in Asia. However, this is expected to grow to ten million by the year 2000, an indication of the Internet's explosive growth. 56

Conclusion As with several of its nation-states, Asia's mass media have been experiencing a transitional period. As these media leave the government and ruling party cocoons, they have been metamorphosed into appendages of domestic conglomerates, some with transnational connections that do not have democratization as their goal. Even though most Asian nations have worked to stem the inflow of foreign media products, they have usually done so with domestic clones. As is the case in the United States and elsewhere, Asian democracy is threatened with a number of invisible crises, many brought on by mass communication formulas that trivialize or commercialize important issues, corrupt the electoral process, and generally dehumanize society as a whole. Concurrent changes in forms of communication and public access to them raise the possibility for new avenues of participation and information. These are important issues that Asia will face as it confronts new challenges at the regional and global level. Notes 1. Mark R. Thompson, "Democracy Is No Enemy of Growth," Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 October 1996, 32. 2. Ibid. 3. Amando Doronila, "Roundtable," Media Asia 23, no. 3 (1996): 150. 4. Ricardo Saludo, "As Advertised on TV," Asiaweek, 12 July 1996, 48. 5. Mughees-uddin, "Democratising Communication: Barriers and Possibilities," Communicator (April-June 1995): 38. 6. B. G. Verghese, "Freedom of Expression," Media Asia 23, no. 3 (1996): 139. 7. Doronila, "Roundtable," 152. 8. Jose M. Tesoro and Ricardo Saludo, "The Legacy of People Power," Asiaweek, 1 March 1996, 22-23. 9. Jae-Kyoung Lee, "A Crisis of the South Korean Media: The Rise of Civil Society and Democratic Transition," Media Asia 23, no. 2 (1996): 88.

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10. Ibid., 86. 11. Michael Vatikiotis, "Freeing the Waves," Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 July 1996, 20. 12. Jonathan Karp, "All the News That Fits," Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 August 1996, 56. 13. IBON Databank Philippines, Inc., Directory ofTNCs in the Philippines (Manila: n. p., 1988), 13. 14. Shim Jae Hoon, "Paper Tigers," Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 September 1996, 26. 15. Henny Sender, "Bambang's Challenge," Far Eastern Economic Review, 5 September 1996, 57. 16. Verghese, "Freedom," 140. 17. John McBeth, "Columns of C a l u m n y F a r Eastern Economic Review, 28 February 1991, 24. 18. Susanto Pudjomartono, "Roundtable," Media Asia 23, no. 3 (1996): 151-153. 19. Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, "Press Freedom and Professional Standards in Asia," Media Asia 23, no. 3 (1996): 133. 20. John A. Lent, "Who Owns the Philippine Mass Media? An Historical and Contemporary Analysis," Pilipinas (fall 1991): 27. 21. K. M. Mathew, "Foreign Investment in Asian Media—Boon or Bane?" Media Asia 22, no. 4 (1995): 214-215. 22. Carl Bernstein, "The Idiot Culture: Reflections on Post-Watergate Journalism," The New Republic, 8 June 1992, 24-25. 23. Peter R. Kann, "Press Freedom and Failings," Asian Mass Communication Bulletin (March/April 1996): 12. 24. Faith Keenan, "Fit to Sprint," Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 February 1996, 50. 25. Verghese, "Freedom," 142. 26. Ibid., 141. 27. Owais Aslam Ali, "Roundtable: Asian Values in Journalism," Media Asia 23, no. 1 (1996): 32. 28. Susan Siew and Wang Lay Kim, "Do New Communication Technologies Improve the Status of Women?" Media Asia 23, no. 2 (1996): 76. 29. Tan Li-Anne, "Using New Technologies to Improve the Status of Women in Singapore," Media Asia 23, no. 2 (1996): 112. 30. Sinha Ratnatunga, "Asian Values: An Idle Concept or a Realistic Goal?" Media Asia 23, no. 1 (1996): 48. 31. J o h n A. Lent, "Mass Communication in the Pacific: Recent Trends and Developments," Media Asia 16, no. 1 (1989): 16-24; see also my series of articles on Asian press freedom: "The Perpetual See-Saw: Press Freedom in the ASEAN Countries," Human Rights Quarterly (1981): 62-77; "To and From the Grave: Press Freedom in South Asia," Gazette 33 (1984): 17-36; and "Freedom of Press in East Asia," Human Rights Quarterly (1981): 137-49. 32. One writer gave less grandiose effects, such as Asians going to bed one hour later because of cable television; youngsters being more likely to be at home watching television than out playing; Western programs exposing viewers to much kissing and disrobing and increasingly glossy commercials raising lifestyle expectations, especially in the area of fashion. Susan Berfield, "Asia's No Pushover," Asiaweek, 8 November 1996, 45.

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33. John A. Lent, "ASEAN Mass Communication and Cultural Submission," Media, Culture and Society 4 (1982): 171-189. 34. P. S. Deodhar, "Taming the TV," Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 November 1995, 30. 35. Ibid. 36. Zaharom Nain, "Rhetoric and Realities: Malaysia Television Policy in an Era of Globalization," Asian Journal of Communication 6, no. 1 (1996): 54. . 37. Berfield, "Asia's No Pushover," 38. 38. Nain, "Rhetoric and Realities," 58. 39. Ibid., 61. 40. Human Rights in the APEC Region: 1995 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995), 11-12. 41. J o h n Marston, "Cambodian Mass Media in the UNTAC Period and After," in S. Heder and J . Ledgerwood, eds. Propaganda, Politics and Violence in Cambodia (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 209-243. 42. Gordon Fairclough, "Shut Up or Shut Down," Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 February 1996, 20. 43. Bruce Gilley, "Red Scare for the Press," Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 December 1995, 78. 44. Frank Ching, "Freedom of the Press at Risk," Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 June 1996, 38. 45. Human Rights in the APEC Region, 19. 46. John McBeth, "Surprise Reprieve," Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 December 1995, 26. 47. Pudjomartono, "Roundtable," 151. 48. Ibid., 152. 49. Suresh Unny, "Devious and Deliberate," Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 November 1996, 16. 50. Pudjomartono, "Roundtable," 153. 51. Gilley, "Red Scare," 78. 52. Susan Berfield, "Testing Limits," Asiaweek, 17 May 1996, 36. 53. With the tremendous growth of new information technology and other industries in Asia and the recession in the United States, there has been a reverse brain drain to Asia. Educated people accustomed to life in democratic countries abroad are expected to help further push democratization as they return to Asia. 54. Simon Elegant, "Voice of the P e o p l F a r Eastern Economic Review, 16 September 1996, 23. 55. Ibid. 56. "Jupiter Study: Total Online Households Worldwide Will Rise to 66.6 Million by Year 2000," Jupiter Communications Press Release, 18 November 1996, .

9 Democratization and the Press: The Case of South Korea KYU HO YOUM

South Korea is a "quickly maturing" democracy, 1 the latest proof of which was the recent conviction and sentencing of two former Army generals-turned-presidents, Chun Doo Hwan (1980-1987) and Roh Tae Woo (1988-1992). 2 The emergence of Korea as a free and open democracy during the 1990s markedly contrasts with events prior to 1988. From the 1960s through the mid-1980s, Korea was an authoritarian body politic that illustrated "development dictatorship." The Korean government deemed its country's economic development a paramount goal during the early 1960s, when General Park Chung Hee overthrew a civilian government in a military coup. Park's modus operandi as a political leader proceeded from the assumption that Koreans "will accept a large dose of authoritarian rule—even military suppression, in times of crisis—as long as it brings them prosperity." 3 Professor Jae-Kyoung Lee of Ewha Woman's University noted that "the introduction of an authoritarian regime [in South Korea] was a necessity at that time for the military leaders for at least two complementary reasons: the mobilization of the nation for economic development and the need to suppress democratic dissent." 4 Since June 1987, however, South Korea has made giant strides in embracing democracy as a political reality rather than as an empty rhetoric. In fact, Korea has often been touted as a showcase of successful change from development dictatorship to civilian democracy.5 In many ways, Korea is now undergoing the second phase of democratization by moving toward a "consolidated democracy" after repudiating authoritarianism in 1987.6 The 10-year process of institutionalizing democracy in Korea has not been a short-term political liberalization—"an easing of repression and extension of civil liberties 171

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within an authoritarian regime"—but a fundamental "movement toward democracy" through "a change o/regimes." 7 A free press, along with the emergence of a lively civil society and a Rechtsstaat based on the rule of law, is a most telling story about the dramatic democratic transition in South Korea. At the annual convention of the International Press Institute (IPI) in Seoul in May 1995, IPI President David Laventhal described Korea as "one of the most advanced democracies in Asia," further stating that During the last decade, Korea has . . . seen the rise of a free press, as we all know, a vital cornerstone to any democracy. The Korean press has played an important and courageous role throughout this century in moving first toward restoring self-rule and then toward achieving democracy. . . . The press is livelier and more open than it has ever been before. 8

In a similar vein, Jon Vanden Heuvel and Everette E. Dennis, authors of the Freedom Forum's 1993 report on East Asia's media, noted that in Korea, considered one of the world's newest fullfledged democracies, "newspapers have been free to criticize the government and to write probing stories about topics that were previously off-limits" since 1987. 9 In a recent study of the Korean press, however, Professor Lee has argued that Korean journalists are regularly subject to "enormous" political pressure in their work, that "they constantly consider, when they cover stories, if the stories would be liked by the authorities, or what angle would be most felicitous for [the] ruling political elites." 10 During the August 1996 antigovernment student demonstrations in Seoul, the Korean press was criticized for misrepresenting activist students and spreading resentment toward them. 11 Given that "the press always takes on the form and coloration of the social and political structures within which it operates," 12 this chapter analyzes the role of the Korean press before, during, and after the 1987 process of democratization by considering various sociopolitical, legal, cultural, and economic aspects of Korean society.

Media Structures: Print and Broadcasting As in many countries, print and broadcasting media in Korea have developed separately, rather than in tandem. The Korean government

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has regulated radio and television broadcasting to a greater extent than it has newspapers and magazines. Further, during the Park and Chun years, government controlled television more thoroughly than it did radio. 13 More often than not, numerous structural changes in the print and electronic media system in Korea were politically dictated by those in power. The revolutionary reorganization of the Korean media by Presidents Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan in 1961 and 1980, respectively, is an excellent example of such changes.

Print Media During the Second Republic under Prime Minister Chang Myon (1960-1961), which political scientist Hak-Kyu Sohn called the "only experiment with democratic life in Korean history," 14 there was an explosive growth in the number of periodicals. At the end of 1960, Korean registered news media and periodicals numbered 1,609, including 389 dailies, 476 weeklies, 470 monthlies, and 274 news agencies. 15 By April 1961, the number of newspapers and magazines had increased more than twofold from 600 to nearly 1,600. 16 The phenomenal expansion of the print media resulted from the new newspaper registration law, which replaced the old licensing system of the First Republic under President Syngman Rhee (1948-1960). "Under the new law," one media law commentator stated, "a newspaper could be published upon being registered with the government—a process that required no more than essential information about the applicant such as the name of the newspaper, the location of the publication, and the frequency of publication." 17 The military coup led by General Park in 1961 enforced various decrees to "purify" the Korean press. The restrictive facility standards for media organizations were used "to establish a fresh order in journalism and develop a truly democratic press." 18 A total of 1,200 newspapers, news organizations, and periodicals were closed because of their allegedly substandard facilities. Only 44 dailies, 65 weeklies, 270 monthlies, 34 quarterlies, and 72 miscellaneous publications survived.19 During the second half of Park's 18-year period of rule, the total circulation of Korean newspapers increased and the number of the newspapers decreased. Professor Jae-won Lee of Cleveland State University wrote in 1982 that "the aggregate total circulation in 1970 was about 2.94 million copies a day; there were 44 dailies at that time. The number of dailies declined from that to 37 in

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1975 and to 25 in 1980. But at the same time, the size of the aggregate circulation doubled to 5.87 million copies in 1975 and rose to an estimated 6.22 million in 1980."20 When General Chun Doo Hwan took control of the Korean government in 1980 in the aftermath of the October 1979 assassination of President Park, he forced a more sweeping "purification campaign" on the Korean press than Park did in 1961. Chun's unprecedented restructuring of the Korean media led to a substantial decrease in the number of periodicals: As of 31 December 1981, Korea had 1,213 periodicals, including 29 daily newspapers, 97 weeklies, and 659 monthlies. 21 The dailies, weeklies, and monthlies were down by 7, 24, and 109, respectively, from one year before, and the news agencies were reduced from 7 to 2. In June 1985, the Chun administration approved the registration of the Daily Sports Seoul as a "special daily newspaper" to concentrate on sports, leisure, and culture in preparation for the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Throughout its seven-year rule, however, the Chun regime did not register a new "general daily newspaper" and instead maintained its basic press policy of structurally minimizing critical media coverage of the government under the Basic Press Act of 1980. 22 The Basic Press Act distinguished a general from a special daily newspaper: The former would deal primarily with news of sociopolitical interest and the latter would be limited to apolitical topics such as sports, religion, and science. In the face of rising antigovernment demonstrations, President Roh Tae Woo, then chairman of the ruling Democratic Justice Party, announced a "declaration of democratic reforms" in June 1987. The much criticized Basic Press Act was repealed, and the Act on Registration of Periodicals (Periodicals Act) 23 and Broadcast Act were enacted. 24 The new press statutes were far less restrictive than the Basic Press Act. According to the Korean Press Institute's 1990 survey on the Korean press, periodicals registered with the Ministry of Information at the end of 1989 totaled 4,400, including 68 dailies, 2 wire services, 819 weeklies, and 2,137 monthlies. The periodicals had increased since 1987 by 2,162, including 38 dailies and 618 weeklies.25 By the end of 1995, there were 148 dailies, 2,865 weeklies, and 3,701 monthlies—recording a 123 percent increase during 1989.26

Electronic Media During the Chang era from 1960 to 1961, Koreans preferred private radio stations over the state-run Korean Broadcasting System

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(KBS) stations because the former was perceived to be more fair and balanced in news reporting. From 1961 to 1963, three broadcasting stations started operations in Seoul. The military j u n t a under General Park considered broadcasting the "most useful means to give national publicity to the revolutionary cause and to appeal to the people for their cooperation." 27 The "golden age" of radio broadcasting from 1965 to 1970 witnessed an explosive growth in the number of radio stations and in the ownership of radio sets. By 1970, 46 radio stations were in operation and more than 3 million radio sets owned by Korean households. 28 In the 1970s and 1980s, radio gave way to television as a medium of entertainment, largely because "radio stations, both public and commercial, were not predominantly entertainment-oriented, but instead carried a heavy dose of news, cultural enlightenment, and public service information." 29 Television broadcasting started in May 1956, when HLKZ-TV was established as a television station in Seoul. Financial difficulties eventually forced HLKZ-TV to merge with KBS-TV, the stater u n television station, which was founded in 1961. 30 Tongyang Broadcasting Company-Television (TBC-TV) started as part of the Tongyang Media Company in Seoul in 1964. The Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) founded its television network in 1969 as the second commercial television system. Television broadcasting in the 1960s was heavy with entertainment and resulted in fierce ratings competitions among KBS-TV, MBC-TV, and TBC-TV. This entertainment-oriented television was one of the major concerns for the Korean government under President Park in revising the broadcasting law in 1973. The revised law required that at least 30 percent of broadcasting time be devoted to cultural and educational programming. TBC-TV was merged into the government-owned KBS-TV in 1980 during Chun's restructuring of the Korean press. MBC-TV was in effect taken over by KBS-TV in 1980, when MBC-TV was forced to sell 65 percent of its shares to KBS-TV.31 The programming of KBS and MBC was an egregious example of "protocol journalism" focusing on President Chun Doo Hwan. It was "essentially pro-Chun propaganda, with virtually every newscast beginning with five to 10 minutes' coverage of the activities of Chun that day."32 Television broadcasting in Korea lost such credibility with the public that Koreans launched a nationwide campaign against television reception fees in 1986 as a protest to the KBS-TV for "habitually broadcasting news in a distorted way while ignoring truth." 3 3 The campaign carried implications far beyond the conflict between the press and the public. Professor Yung-ho Im of

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Pusan University stated that "the campaign helped undermine the legitimacy of the government itself, thereby expanding to a political movement." 3 4 On the other hand, the television media industry e x p a n d e d exponentially during the 1980s. T h e booming Korean economy made television sets more affordable to more Koreans than ever before. The n u m b e r of television stations and weekly programming hours was increased. KBS and MBC benefited enormously from the growing advertising market. Since 1987, a series of democratic measures have been taken by the Korean government to liberalize the mainly public broadcasting industry. In 1990, the broadcasting media was restructured to allow public and commercial broadcasting systems to operate together. The National Assembly revised statutes relating to broadcasting, including the Broadcasting Act. In reorganizing the broadcasting system, the Korean government explained that "the present system of public broadcasting is the outcome of the 1980 arbitrary closure and merger of broadcasting firms. Therefore it is necessary to reorganize the broadcasting system in such a way as to meet the demands of the Korean society in the 1990s." 35 Cable television was introduced into Korea on 1 March 1995, after almost four years of experimental cable service. 36 Notwithstanding the initial misgivings about its feasibility in Korea, cable television broadcasting has already posited itself as an important medium. By mid-December 1995, about 500,000 households had subscribed to cable television, and during the first 9-month period, the cable television system expanded from 11 channels to 21. Among the cable channels are h o m e shopping, culture and the arts, religion, and cartoons. 3 7 Cable television subscribers numbered 1.5 million in late 1996 and are expected to reach 2.5 million by the beginning of 1998. 38 Digital direct broadcasting service is about to start in Korea. Koreasat I was scheduled to send signals across the country f r o m its geostationary orbit. Satellite broadcasting addresses viewing problems for those living in mountainous and remote areas of Korea. KBS, the trial operator, has two satellite channels, KBS Satellites 1 and 2. KBS Satellite 1 will focus on transmitting programs related to Korea's globalization efforts, and KBS Satellite 2 will carry arts and cultural programs. 3 9 News

Agencies

Since Chun in 1980 merged six private major news agencies into one—Yonhap News Agency—Yonhap has served the Korean news

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media as a sole domestic news agency to distribute foreign news to its Korean subscribers. The forced merger was intended to "censor and control the flow of foreign news" in Korea. 40 One study of the Yonhap News Agency has concluded that the gatekeeping function of Yonhap is considered to be strong enough to change the international news flow from the world news agencies to Korea. . . . Yonhap's own news selection and production in its own working system exert a significant gatekeeping function which produces news that is characteristically different from that of the world agencies, thus proving it diminishes the agenda-setting function of world news agencies by the method of independent news selection. 41

The M e d i a a n d t h e S t a t e d The Authoritarian Era From the very beginning, the military j u n t a under Park Chung Hee proclaimed its suppressive policy toward the Korean press. In its first decree, the j u n t a ordered prior censorship of all newspapers and magazine features, comics, cartoons, editorials, photographs, and foreign news. The decree further prohibited fabrication and dissemination of groundless rumors. 4 3 The junta also made mass arrests of bogus reporters. Between 25 May and 4 June 1960, 283 allegedly fake or corrupt reporters were arrested. Nevertheless, those arrested included several innocent genuine reporters whom the military junta considered undesirable or unacceptable regardless of the criteria used. 44 These arrests turned out to be a grave threat to press freedom and resulted in an enormous curtailment of normal press activities.45 To prevent freedom of the press from becoming irresponsible liberty, as had been permitted during the Chang era, the Third Republic under Park (1961-1972) emphasized responsibility on the part of the press while making some exceptions to the enjoyment of press freedom. The social responsibility of the Korean press as advocated by Park and his followers was distinguished from social responsibility as understood in advanced democracies. Whereas the social responsibility of a democratic press is to inform the public without outside interference, Park's notion of a responsible press in Korea was that the press should be uncritical of the government. 46 Park, who ruled South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979, was obsessed with modernizing the country and would

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not tolerate a critical press challenging his economic plans for Korean self-reliance. The coup was in part a result of Park's concern with the social chaos of the Chang regime, for which he believed the free and "chaotic" press was at least partially to blame. "Development journalism" was Park's vision of the Korean press. Professor Yunshik Chang of the University of British Columbia noted that [Park's] idea of the press . . . was that it should not be a critic, but a participant in the government program of rebuilding the nation. . . . He had little tolerance for opposition party media, and was determined either to have the entire media on his side or to silence those not favorably inclined to the government. 4 7

During the early 1970s, the Korean press fared worse than during most of the 1960s. While declaring a state of national emergency in December 1971, Park warned the press against discussing national security issues "in an irresponsible manner." 4 8 Just before Park initiated the October Revitalizing Reforms in 1972, the government issued Martial Law Decree No. 1, banning "all indoor and outdoor assemblies and demonstrations for the purpose of political activities"; he similarly made "speeches, publications, press and broadcasts" subject to censorship. 49 Further, in 1974 and 1975, Park issued several presidential emergency measures to muzzle the press in reporting the growing criticism of the Revitalizing Reforms Constitution. Professor Sunwoo Nam of the University of Maryland said that "the shifts in the fortunes of the press were directly related to the whims of the ruling elite and the changing cross currents of the political situation." 30 As a result of the Korean government's restrictive policy toward a critical press during the Park years, Korean media focused on their rapid expansion in both financial and industrial terms: The establishment newspapers that survived the crackdowns of the [Park] regime and others with political favor had been showered with many benefits. These benefits included monopolisticoligopolistic profits, long-term low interest loans for capital goods, current financing plus tax breaks, and even postponement of interest payment on loans. These and other subsidies or privileges, along with favorable market conditions, helped catapult a rapid growth of the press into a sort of monopolistic-oligopolistic commercial capital. However, media barons and managers were gradually and inevitably reduced into positions of political subordination. 51

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During the Fourth Republic under Park (1972-1979), "a trend of sensationalism and an emphasis on soft-news items were evident in media's handling of contents." 52 Moreover, Korean newspapers were manipulated by the government into serving as its mouthpiece. The broadcasting media were systematically mobilized by Park in rationalizing his dictatorship. 53 Not all the media people, of course, were willing to accept the subservient attitude of their press toward its government. Occasionally, reporters and editors tried to challenge the strong-arm tactics of the authorities against the media. The October 1974 Free Press Movement staged by about 200 reporters at Dong-A Ilbo newspaper was one of the open confrontations between the press and the government. Declaring their determination to "practice" a free press, the reporters resolved.to "unite with strength and resolution to oppose all external interference with newspapers, broadcasting, and magazines" and "to reject. . . the inspection of Korean central intelligence agents." 54 The Park government responded to this movement by forcing business firms to cancel advertisements. By January 1975, the newspaper had lost 98 percent of its advertisers. Eventually, DongA Ilbo dismissed or suspended 133 reporters for their active participation in the free-press movement before the normal flow of advertising returned to the paper. 55 The Chun Doo Hwan government (1980-1987) handled some intractable journalists by indirect means rather than by arrest and trial in open court. It engaged the services of the Korean National Security Planning Agency (KNSPA) (formerly known as the Korean Central Intelligence Agency) and other law-enforcement agencies. The case of Chosun Ilbo in May 1983 illustrates how far the KNSPA could go in controlling the press during Chun's rule. Chosun Ilbo ventured to break a forced silence on the ongoing hunger strike of prominent opposition leader (and now president) Kim Young Sam. When a KNSPA liaison officer involved with the paper learned about it, he battered the political reporter who wrote the news story on the hunger strike. This led the paper's news staff to refuse to work on the issue that would carry the story. 56 As in the Park period, the suppression of the press under Chun was a crucial element of political power, and Chun established systematic control of the news media through "press guidelines." He used daily "press guidelines" to regulate the media coverage of news events. Some of the guidelines were so specific as to direct the press to label antigovernment protesters as "procommunist."

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The government-dictated reporting guidelines were revealed by Mai magazine in 1986. Mai [Words], an unregistered bimonthly published by a group of banned Korean journalists, described the press guidelines in its special issue on 6 September 1986 as instructions to the press, which are sent every day to each newspaper publisher by the Department of Public Information Control (DPIC) of the Ministry of Culture and Information. Using such terms as "possible," "impossible," and "absolutely impossible," the DPIC decides and regulates all details including the form, content, and admissibility of reports about particular incidents, situations and circumstances.57 Mai ran in its September 1986 issue the texts of almost 600 press guidelines issued by the Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI) between 9 October 1985 and 8 August 1986.58 The news media complied with the press guidelines almost 80 percent of the time. 5 9 Mai magazine typified a number of critical "minjung onron," or grassroots press organizations, during Chun's rule. The grassroots press provided an outlet for Koreans who felt that they were left out of the "establishment press" that was serving as a "voluntary servant" for the ruling elite in Korea. Mai's defiant publication of the government's press guidelines epitomized the contrast between the critical grassroots press and the conformist establishment media in Korea under Chun. When the opposition parties, civic organizations, students and media critics loudly cried for restoration of press freedom, the [establishment] press as a whole acted like disinterested onlookers. Furthermore, curiously enough, the press did not complain of the government short- and long-term guidelines for press reporting, the existence of which had long been an open secret. Thus, when an anti-establishment watchdog journal, Mai, exposed such guidelines, the publication in effect was accusing the press of faithfully following the government's directives for news management. 60 The Transition to

Democracy

President Roh Tae Woo ( 1 9 8 8 - 1 9 9 2 ) initiated political reforms aimed at breaking Korea's "cycle of authoritarian rule." 6 1 He promised a free press to Koreans in J u n e 1987: "The government cannot control the media, nor should it attempt to do so." Since late 1987, several positive changes have occurred in press-government

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relations in Korea. As the IPI reported in 1988, "visible and invisible restrictions imposed on the [Korean] press have been abolished in favor of a greater freedom of information and the right of the people to know has been guaranteed." 62 Since mid-1987, when the Korean government entered a heady period of Korean-style glasnost, the press has stretched the limits of freedom. As a result, news coverage of previously taboo subjects has now become routine—let alone open criticism of President Roh and his party. Most illustrative of the exercise of press freedom was the live television coverage in 1988 of the National Assembly hearings on the irregularities of the Fifth Republic under Chun, inquiring into the corruption and wrongdoing of the Chun administration. The liberalization under Roh led the Korean news media to transform itself from a docile mouthpiece to an increasingly aggressive entity in keeping with the changing sociopolitics of South Korea. The bolder, more enterprising news coverage, however, was not a complete picture of the changed status of the Korean media: The explosive expansion of the media industry was another sweeping departure from the past. Previously, few applicants had tried to register publications because they expected to be rejected, but now that the new press law required the MOCI to approve registrations if applicants satisfied the basic statutory requirements, most of the procedural as well as political obstacles had been lifted. One of the new daily newspapers, Han-kyoreh Shinmun [One Nation], was a test case of Roh's willingness to accept freedom of the press as indispensable to the new democratic politics of South Korea. The paper, which amassed its original capital of $7 million from donations during a nationwide campaign, was founded in December 1987 by a group of dissident journalists to challenge the notion that the Korean press "has become [the] private possession of a few people or institutional journalism under the control of political power." 63 From its inception the "editorial democracy" of the paper has required that its managing editor be democratically elected by the staff rather than appointed by the publisher. Indeed, the publication is not owned by a wealthy conglomerate, as is often the case in Korea, but by about 70,000 small shareholders. 6 4 Touted as the "most critical above-ground" newspaper in Korea, the Han-kyoreh had a circulation of 440,000 in June 1989 and has emerged rapidly as a progressive alternative to the largely conservative newspapers that have refrained from criticizing authority.

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The restructuring of the print media was the most visible outcome of Roh's press policy; equally important, however, was the so-called internal democratization of the Korean press itself. An increasing number of Korean newspapers recognize that press freedom carries little meaningful value unless it is supported by an independence of editorial decision making from both internal and external pressures. To ensure separation between the editorial department and the management, reporters of the Han-kyoreh as well as other newspapers are directly involved in determining the overall editorial policy of their newspapers; managing editors are elected by reporters or selected from those recommended by them. This stronger voice of the editorial departments in an increasing number of Korean newspapers has resulted from reactivated labor unions of journalists, which Heuvel and Dennis have termed a "unique and important feature of the Korean media landscape." 65 The Roh regime, however, is not immune from criticism on its press policy. Professor Hyo-Seong Lee of Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul acknowledged that its administration was seemingly "far more 'democratic' in appearance and in some substance" than those of Park and Chun. Nevertheless, Lee argued that Roh's Sixth Republic engaged in media manipulations far more extensively than any previous republic. 66 One approach taken by Roh to manipulating the Korean press was his control of the media "by proxy." Lee elaborated: "Through contacts with press owners and managers and with news executives, the Roh regime allegedly controlled the general direction of straight news reporting and editorial tones whenever it was faced with major unfavorable stories." 67 The October 1988 exposé of the Reports on Individual Contacts with Journalists was a vivid testimony to how serious the MOCI was in exerting pressure on the Korean press in setting the news agenda. The classified documents of MOCI officials' meetings with media people, which were revealed by an inspection team of the National Assembly, detailed numerous cases in which MOCI officials asked news media organizations to cover sensitive stories in a particular way and in which editors and reporters provided the MOCI officials information about their organizations from 3 November 1987 through 29 April 1988.es As David Halvorsen, an observer of the Korean press, stated in 1992, "All the news is not good" so far as the adaption of the Korean Press to a changing Korean society is concerned. 6 9 He argued that "the press is rudely learning that the exercise of freedom is complex.

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It calls for decisions that editors and reporters never had to make before." 70 As Korea steadily moves toward a liberal democracy, the press will experience several changes. The eventual evolution of a free Korean press may lead to an emergence of an "equal-contender" or "antagonist/adversary" relationship between the press and government, depending on the sociopolitical circumstances. 71 Currently, the Korean press is subject to few direct extralegal pressures from the government. The Korean government no longer issues censorial instructions to the press on the content and means of reporting certain news. This is a significant departure from the government's actions during the authoritarian era of Park and Chun. 7 2 Although the government has now stopped employing a blatant form of press censorship, the government continues to exercise indirect influence on the Korean news media. In their 1991 report on the Korean press, Hans Verploeg, general secretary of the Netherlands Union of Journalists, and Tony Wilton, general secretary of the New Zealand Journalists and Graphic Process Union, claimed that they had met many Koreans "who felt there was still a large measure of self-censorship among journalists in the established press, which may be stimulated by corruption or fear of prosecution." 73 Unlike his heavy-handed autocratic predecessors such as Park and Chun, Kim Young Sam (1993-), the first civilian to be elected president in Korea in the past 30 years, is not likely to resort to extralegal mechanisms such as brute force, intimidation, or direct interference with news reporting. Instead, the Korean government will most likely use legal means to balance press freedom with other societal interests, including national security and individual reputation. Authorities will invoke various statutes to ensure that "the news media [will] practice prudence against violating human rights or defamation." 74 A crucial issue is when the statutes can be properly employed to rectify wrongs or to protect the asserted governmental interests. When can one know whether the government has a genuine interest in using statutory mechanisms against the press? The Korean government's arrest of a news reporter on a libel charge in J u n e 1993 indicates how the criminal code could be used to restrict the freedom of the press. Chong Chae-hon, a reporter of the Joongang Ilbo in Seoul, wrote an allegedly defamatory story about Defense Minister Kwon Young-hae. The story claimed that Kwon was prohibited from leaving the country because he was suspected of taking bribes in connection with a military buildup program of the Korean government. 75 Kwon sued Chong and the

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four executives of the Joongang Ilbo.76 T h e Seoul prosecution arrested Chong for an alleged violation of the criminal code on libel. T h e Joongang Ilbo retracted the story in its second edition and issued a correction on the front page the next day. The paper acknowledged being "irresponsible" for publishing the story and issued an apology to Kwon. 77 Kwon withdrew his libel complaint against Chong and against the Joongang Ilbo management. T h e libel case of J a n u a r y 1996 involving Kim Hyon-chol, the son of President Kim Young Sam, is especially noteworthy. Kim sued Han-kyoreh Shinmun in connection with a defamatory story that contained an allegation that he received political f u n d s for his father f r o m a lobbying group during the 1992 elections. He claimed 2 billion won ($250 million) in damages for injury to his reputation. T h e president's son also filed a criminal complaint against Han-kyoreh with the Seoul District Prosecutor's Office for defamation. 7 8 T h e Seoul District Court (West Branch) o r d e r e d Han-kyoreh to pay 400 million won ($500 thousand) to Kim Hyonchol for the damage to his reputation and emotional distress he had suffered from publication of the false defamatory story. 79 The court reasoned that there was n o proof of Kim's receiving political donations f r o m a source quoted in the Han-kyoreh article. Rejecting Han-kyoreh's a r g u m e n t that the paper had a "substantial reason" for believing the story to be true, the court ruled that the article was based entirely on the interview with a source who had an axe to grind against Kim. According to the court, the paper had no "objective" information in support of the article and had also failed to contact people—including Kim—for verification of the charge against Kim prior to publication. 8 0 T h e Han-kyoreh decision is now on appeal to the Seoul Court of Appeals. In the context of a free press that is an increasingly permanent fixture of a democratic Korea, the Joongang Ilbo incident and the Han-kyoreh case are n o t ordinary libel complaints. They contain every element of a political harassment for seditious libel, which is fundamentally incompatible with a democratic governm e n t such as President Kim's. If the Korean government looks to the incidents as a press-taming precedent and j u m p s at any similar situation in the future, the libertarian notion of press f r e e d o m in Korea will be called into serious question. In late 1995, Abid Hussain, the special r a p p o r t e u r of the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Commission on H u m a n Rights, took note of the possible chilling impact of libel litigation on the Korean press. Aware of cases in which libel suits resulted in the arrest of journalists who were critical in reporting

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on the Korean government as well as the imposition of fines as a punishment for unfavorable news stories, he stated the following: These fines are reportedly of an amount that could threaten the survival of the press and media institutions concerned. In a democratic society, government institutions should be open and responsive to all criticism, even when at times it is critical of personalities. The function of the press as a public watchdog and the right of the public to be informed are of great importance. They should not suffer from a climate in which the press and media fear the consequences of their statements delivered in good faith and in the interest of the public. 81

Democratization and Media Transition "Any country with a genuinely free press . . . will have a hard time holding a large number of political prisoners without having to explain itself to the public," SanfordJ. Ungar, dean of American University's School of Communication stated. "A free press may, in fact, be more effective than an opposition party in achieving change in an oppressive system." 82 If so, what was the role of the Korean press in Korea's rapid transition from authoritarianism to libertarianism? The Korean press was a participant—whether willing or grudging—in the democratizing process of Korea. Han Sang-jin, professor of sociology at Seoul National University, said that newspapers covered the growing middle-class support of student demonstrations during the Chun years. 83 He maintained that newspapers conveyed some of the students' demands for political reforms to a broader segment of Korean society. Political scientist Ahn Byung-joon of Yonsei University agreed that the Korean press played a constructive role in Korea's democratization: "If anything, the press really dramatized the student movement in Korea by reporting very accurately on the activities." But the media's role in liberalization, which he defined as "the due process of law and protection of civil rights," was not positive at all, for example, in the press's irresponsibility and lack of fairness in reporting on the allegedly corrupt activities of former Korean government officials. The press, Ahn claimed, did not provide the officials an opportunity to respond to the accusations. 84 Nevertheless, Ahn praised the role of the press in the "institutionalization" of democracy in Korea. He said that the press covered many important activities of various civic organizations, including

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the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice, which contributed to a process through which institutions developed stability and values. 85 The foreign media in Korea were also important to Korea's sociopolitical transformation. Susan Chira, a New York Times correspondent in Seoul from 1986 to 1989, said that the "very presence" of foreign media made it harder for the government to stifle the democratic movements by opposition groups in Korea. "Just reporting the story made us a kind of a player because it meant it was much harder to suppress opposition." 86 Chong Ha Yoo, Korean ambassador to the United Nations, observed on the impact of the foreign press on his government that "foreign press' criticism of Korean political and human rights situation was a constant whip and mirror, in which Korea could reflect on its national image. We f o u n d that the articles in [ Washington Post and New York Times] and other papers were the most effective means of bringing the question of democracy to the highest level in the Korean government." 8 7 In the course of Korea's transition to democracy during the 1990s, the print and broadcasting media have expanded considerably. O n e notable exception is the status of the Yonhap News Agency. Yonhap, still the only news agency in Korea, "enjoys its monopolistic power" as the sole distributor of all the information from foreign news media. Korea Herald columnist Se-hyon Cho argued that the operation of Yonhap as the exclusive news agency in Korea contradicts President Kim Young Sam's avowed policy on Korea's globalization. He claimed that Yonhap hinders, not promotes, the free flow of information because "the agency alone decides more or less what foreign news and photos the local newspapers and television stations can publish for their readers and viewers."88 The structural transition of the media in Korea was a positive development: The media have b e c o m e more diverse and thus offer a wider diversity for Koreans. Nevertheless, the most frequently asked question among those interested in a quality press in Korea is whether the Korean media have improved in news reporting, professionalism, and ethics. A noted Korean journalist, Won-sang Park, said: [The] increased freedom has not brought the expected increase in quality. The decline in the quality of reporting caused by the media's rapid growth is a major concern: As the number of newspapers and their pages have soared, overextended staffs are unable to pay close attention to accuracy. Sensationalism and biases often creep into their news reporting."89

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Publisher Sang H o o n Bang of Chosun Ilbo agrees that steep competition among Korean newspapers is forcing them to r u n "a quantity race" that ignores journalistic quality. 90 An explosion since mid-1987 in the n u m b e r of claims for libel and privacy as well as press arbitration is attributed to a declining sense of professional ethics among Korean journalists. Because of their anxiety over a shrinking audience resulting f r o m the expanded media industry, Yi Hye-bok, president of the Korean Journalists Club in Seoul, argued that the Korean media tend to deviate from the "right path of journalism." 9 1 On the other hand, the growing press-related lawsuits have led Korean journalists to more carefully handle their potentially defamatory stories. Another issue facing the freer Korean press is envelope journalism, in which a journalist accepts cash gifts (chonji in Korean) in u n m a r k e d white envelopes f r o m a news source. According to a 1989 Korean Press Institute survey of 700 journalists on the question of their professional ethics, 93 percent said that they had received money f r o m their news sources. 92 It takes time and determination for more than a handful of conscientious journalists to eliminate the deep-rooted cultural and social norm of accepting cash gifts as a way of journalistic life in Korea. Professionalism does mandate that Korean journalists place their principled adherence to their code of ethics as impartial and objective conveyers of information above the often irresistible pressure of their social custom. 93

T h e "press club" system in Korea, according to columnist Sehyon Cho, is a m o n g the problematic journalistic practices that have not yet changed following the end of the authoritarian era. T h e exclusive press clubs, commonly known as kijadan, exist in government ministries, city halls, and police headquarters. They are composed of groups of journalists assigned to cover the same "beat." Cho stated: "In collusion with officials they are covering, the reporters belonging to the club control and even manipulate the news in exchange for favors and bribes . . . ' d o n a t e d ' by the news sources. Simply put, the press club acts as a launder and conduit of illegal money for its members." 9 4 T h e kijadan system should be eliminated once and for all simply because it corrupts the news gathering process of the Korean press and u n d e r m i n e s the "open marketplace of ideas" concept of press f r e e d o m in a democratic Korea. T h u s far, few journalists in the establishment media are serious about abolishing the press clubs to improve the professional quality of the Korean press.

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The Korean press is not as forceful as it should be in policing its own professional misconduct. Plagiarism is often cavalierly overlooked among journalists. Indeed, many Korean media organizations avoid confronting plagiarism as an urgent issue. Cho's statement should come as n o surprise: [T]here are still many vernacular dailies and weekly and monthly magazines that plagiarize or copy articles from top to bottom from other publications and print them as though they are by their own reporters and writers. Even now, you often run into stories in Korean newspapers and television reports that were obviously translated or rehashed from features or news reports of foreign publications but carry bylines of their own staff. 95

Conclusion By definition, one of the requirements of a democratic society is the guarantee of basic civil liberties such as freedom of the press. According to this criterion, South Korea was not a functioning democracy from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s. A free press was the e x c e p t i o n — n o t the rule—in Korea under the authoritarian regimes of Generals-turned-Presidents Park Chung H e e and Chun D o o Hwan. Park and Chun were passionate about the development journalism model in rejecting a critical press as a luxury affordable only to economically advanced countries in the West. Korea's spectacular economic development, however, led Koreans to look beyond their economic freedom and toward more political freedom. The people's power revolution, in which the middle-class Koreans played a significant role in mid-1987, resulted in a series of concrete democratic reforms to bring Korea closer to recognizing a free press as being essential to its political openness. The Korean press was more than a passive observer of this process. The alternative press in particular were critical in challenging the government-dictated news reporting of the establishment media. N o less important was the pressure exerted by the Korean public on the mainstream media to refrain from acting as a mouthpiece of the government. T h e "citizens' press movement" of many Korean civic organizations during the 1980s epitomized the growing assertiveness of ordinary Koreans in forcing the often complacent Korean press to be aware of its supposed watchdog role. Despite these changes, the Korean press now confronts more legal and ethical issues than ever before. Koreans file lawsuits

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against the news media in explosive frequency on the grounds that their reputations or rights to privacy have been violated by news reports. The most significant change is that public figures—including government officials—have turned to libel law and other related statutes to claim damages for their various media-related injuries. Some o f these claims appear to be politically motivated and thus a new weapon against critical news coverage. Finally, the ethical lapses of the press, once overlooked by the public, are no longer so easily accepted. Many Koreans wonder about the responsibility of the press to the public, dismayed that Korean journalists still behave as they did during the authoritarian period. Envelope journalism, plagiarism, and press clubs have changed little and now exist as embarrassing legacies from the preliberalization era. In short, the exercise of press freedom has become more complex in a democratic Korea, precisely because it requires that journalists, government, and society pay much closer attention to the structure and practice of the media, many aspects of which were largely ignored in the authoritarian past.

Notes 1. Editorial, "South Korea's Trial," Christian Science Monitor, 4 September 1996. 2. See Russell Watson and Jeffrey Bartholet, "South Korea: Getting Back at Dictators," Newsweek, 9 September 1996, 51. 3. Ibid., 51. 4. Jae-Kyoung Lee, "Anti-Americanism in South Korea: The Media and the Politics of Signification" (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1993), 40. 5. See Hee Chae Chung, "From Development Dictatorship to Civilian Democracy," in Eui Hang Shin and Yun Kim, eds. Korea and the World: Strategies for Globalization (Columbia: Center for Asian Studies, University of South Carolina, 1995). 6. Political scientists Juan J . Linz and Alfred Stepan, in "Toward Consolidated Democracies," Journal of Democracy 7 (April 1996): 16, offer the following "working definition" of a consolidated democracy: Behaviorally, a democratic regime in a territory is consolidated when no significant national, social, economic, political, or institutional actors spend significant resources attempting to achieve their objectives by creating a nondemocratic regime or by seceding from the state. Attitudinally, a democratic regime is consolidated when a strong majority of public opinion, even in the midst of major economic problems and deep dissatisfaction with incumbents, holds the belief that democratic procedures and institutions are the most appropriate way to govern collective life, and when

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support for antisystem alternatives is quite small or more-or-less isolated from prodemocratic forces. Constitutionally, a democratic regime is consolidated when governmental and nongovernmental forces alike become subject to, and habituated to, the resolution of conflict within the bounds of the specific laws, procedures, and institutions sanctioned by the new democratic process [emphasis in original]. 7. Scott Mainwaring, "Transitions to Democracy and Democratic Consolidation: Theoretical and Comparative Issues," in Scott Mainwaring et al., eds. Issues in Democratic Consolidation (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 298 [emphasis in original], 8. David Laventhal, address at the International Press Institute General Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, 15 May 1995. 9. Jon Vanden Heuvel and Everette E. Dennis, The Unfolding Lotus: East Asia's Changing Media (New York: Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University, 1993), 13. 10. Jae-kyoung Lee, "Old Machineries in New Political Framework?: South Korea's Press Freedom in the Post-Authoritarian Era," paper presented at the biannual meeting of the International Association for Mass Communication Research (Sydney, Australia, August 1996), 17. 11. Sheryl WuDunn, "Radicals in South Korea Look Fondly Northward," New York Times, 31 August 1996. 12. Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956), 1-2. 13. Heuvel and Dennis, The Unfolding Lotus, 18. 14. Hak-Kyu Sohn, Authoritarianism and Opposition in South Korea (London: Routledge, 1989), IS. 15. Min-hwan Kim, History of the Korean Press [In Korean] (Seoul: Sahoe Pipyongsa, 1996), 404-405. 16. John Kie-Chiang Oh, Korea: Democracy on Trial (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), 90 [footnote omitted]. 17. Kyu Ho Youm, Press Law in South Korea (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996), 49. 18. Military Revolution in Korea (Seoul: The Secretariat, Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, 1961), 29. 19. Chang Yong, The Press and Human Rights [In Korean] (Seoul: Sonmyong Munhwasa, 1969), 159, footnote 185. 20. Jae-won Lee, "South Korea," in George Thomas Kurian, ed. World Press Encyclopedia (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1982), 1: 582. 21. Kim, History of the Korean Press, 517. 22. Law no. 3347 (1980), revised by Law no. 3786 (1984), translated in The Korean Press 1986 (Seoul: Korean Press Institute, 1986), 207-224. 23. Law no. 3979 (1987), translated in The Korean Press 1990 (Seoul: Korean Press Institute, 1990), 136-145. 24. Law no. 3979 (1987), translated in The Korean Press 1990, 82-95. 25. The Korean Press 1990, 48. 26. The Korean Press 1996 (Seoul: Korean Press Institute, 1996), 159. 27. Kyu Kim, Won-Yong Kim, and Jong-Geun Kang, Broadcasting in Korea (Seoul: Nanam Publishing House, 1994), 49. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., 130.

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30. The Korean Press 1984 (Seoul: Korean Press Institute, 1984), 48. 31. Ibid., 113-114. 32. Heuvel and Dennis, The Unfolding Lotus, 17. 33. Kim Yong-sun, Political Power and Press Policy in Korea [In Korean] (Seoul: Chonyewon, 1995), 113. 34. Yung-Ho Im, "Media and the Politics of Citizens' Press Movement in Korea, 1985-1993," Sungkok Journalism Review 6 (fall 1995): 77. 35. The Korean Press 1991 (Seoul: Korean Press Institute, 1991), 8. 36. For a detailed discussion of cable television in Korea, see GwangJub Han and Jong G. Kang, "Development of Cable Television," in Kim et al., Broadcasting in Korea, 183-215. See also Gwang-Jub Han, "The Cable Television Development Planning in Korea: A Critique," Sungkok Journalism Review 5 (fall 1994): 23-64. 37. The Korean Press 1996, 8. 38. Y. S. Chay, "Cable Television Programming," National Trade Data Bank and Economic Bulletin Board, U.S. Department of Commerce, 12 December 1996. 39. "Satellite Broadcasting to Be Launched July 1," Newsreview, 29 J u n e 1996, 27. 40. Se-hyon Cho, "The Olympics for the Press?" Korea Herald, 16 May 1995. 41. Won Ho Chang, Mass Communication and Korea: Toward a Global Perspective for Research (Seoul: Sungkok Foundation for Journalism, 1988), 40. 42. In preparing this section, the author has extensively relied on his recently published book, Press Law in South Korea (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996). 43. Decree no. 1 (1961), reprinted in Chong Chin-sok, ed. Complete Collection of Korean Press Laws, 1945-1981 [In Korean] (Seoul: Kwanhun Club Sinyong Yongu Kigum, 1982), 780. 44. Chang, 159, n. 186. 45. Bong-Ki Kim, History of Korean Journalism (Seoul: Korea Information Service, 1967), 2: 97. 46. Min-Hwan Kim, "The Centennial Traces of Korean Journalism," in Chie-woon Kim andjae-won Lee, eds. Elite Media Amidst Mass Culture: A Critical Look at Mass Communication in Korea (Seoul: NANAM, 1994), 38. 47. Yunshik Chang, "From Ideology to Interest: Government and Press in South Korea, 1945-1979," in Dae-Sook Suh, ed. Korean Studies: New Pacific Currents (Honolulu: Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawaii, 1994), 253. 48. The Declaration of State of National Emergency (1971), reprinted in Korean Press Laws, 786. 49. Martial Law Decree no. 1 (1972), reprinted in Korean Press Laws, 7. 50. Sunwoo Nam, "Newspapers Under Tribulation: The Present-Day Korean Press," Gazetted (1978): 110. 51. Chie-woon Kim and Tae-sup Shin, "The Korean Press: A Half Century of Controls, Suppression and Intermittent Resistance," in Elite Media Amidst Mass Culture, 50-51 [footnote omitted]. 52. Lee, "South Korea," 582. 53. Kim and Shin, "The Korean Press," 53.

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54. Don Oberdorfer, who covered Asia for the New York Times for years, said in 1993: "[T]here was a KCIA censor in every newsroom and the government was tightly controlling whatever was said by the newspapers and, God knows, by the broadcast media." Don Oberdorfer, remarks at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs conference in New York, 14 December 1993. 55. Sukhyon Kim Moon, "Aspects of Korean Press Development: From Its Beginnings to the Present" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1988), 140. 56. Chayu Shinmun [In Korean], 3 June 1983. 57. Lek Hor Tan, "South Korea: 'Guiding' the Press," Index on Censorship, May 1987, 28-29. 58. See Youm, Press Law, 61-63. 59. Kim Tong-gyu, "A Structural Approach Toward News Decisionmaking: Social Issues, State Authority, Media's Institutional Status," Study of Press Culture [In Korean] 6 (1989): 166-174 [quoted in Kim Yong-sun, Political Power, 75]. 60. Kee-soon Park, Jae-won Lee, and Chie-woon Kim, "Elite Pressmen and Their Dubious Roles in the Repressive Regimes," in Elite Media Amidst Mass Culture, 286. 61. Sung-joo Han, "South Korea: Politics in Transition," in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds. Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), 292. 62. "World Press Freedom Review," IPIReport, December 1988, 26. 63. Han-kyoreh Shinmun [In Korean] (U.S. edition), 15 May 1988. 64. Heuvel and Dennis, The Unfolding Lotus, 14. 65. Ibid., 19. 66. Hyo-Seong Lee, "Political Manipulation and Mass Media During the Sixth Republic in Korea," Sungkok Journalism Review 4 (fall 1993): 93. 67. Ibid., 99. 68. For texts of the Reports on Individual Contacts with Journalists, see Journalists Association of Korea Newsletter, 16 December 1988, 23 December 1988. 69. David E. Halvorsen, Confucianism Defies the Computer: The Conflict Within the Korean Press (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1992), 3. 70. David E. Halvorsen, "How Koreans Squander Press Freedom," Asian Wall Street Journal, 22 September 1992. 71. John C. Merrill and S.Jack Odell, Philosophy and Journalism (New York: Longman, 1983), 152. 72. See Lee, "Old Machineries in New Political Framework?" 9 ("[M]uch of the old surveillance mechanisms in [sic] gone. Overt newsroom visits by secret agents no longer exist. The notorious press guidelines have all but disappeared. This observation applies to both newspapers and broadcast media. This is indeed a remarkable progress from the authoritarian past"). 73. Hans Verploeg and Tony Wilton, Press Freedom in Korea: The Search for Professionalism (Brussels: International Federation of Journalists, 1991), 15. 74. "News Media Should Be Prudent Against Violation of Rights: Kim [Young Sam]," Korea Herald, 18 June 1993.

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75. "Joongang Daily Reporter Arrested on Libel Charges," Korea Herald, 15 June 1993. 76. "Defense Minister Files Libel Suit Against Joongang Daily," Korea Herald, 12 June 1993. 77. 'Joongang Daily Reporter Arrested," 3. 78. "South Korea: President's Son Sues Han Kyoreh Shinmun for 2 Bil. Won in Damages," Korea Economic Daily, 4 May 1994. 79. Kim Hyon-chol v. Han-kyoreh Shinmun Co., 94 Kahap 5021: Damages, Seoul District Court (West Branch), January 26, 1996, Press Arbitration Quarterly [In Korean] 16 (summer 1996): 144. 80. Ibid. 81. Report on the Mission to the Republic of Korea of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr. Abid Hussain, Submitted Pursuant to Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1993/45, United Nations Economic and Social Council, E / C N 4 / 1 9 9 6 / 3 9 / A d d . 1, 21 November 1995, 11. 82. Sanford J. Ungar, "The Role of a Free Press in Strengthening Democracy," in Judith Lichtenberg, ed. Democracy and the Mass Media (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 371. 83. Sang-jin Han, "The Korean Democratic Transition," remarks at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs conference, New York, 13 December 1993. 84. Ahn Byung-joon, remarks at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs conference, New York, 13 December 1993. 85. Ibid. 86. Susan Chira, remarks at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs conference. 87. Chong Ha Yoo, address at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs conference. 88. Se-hyon Cho, "The Olympics," 6. 89. Kwon-sang Park, "Slouching Toward Press Freedom in Korea," in Heuvel and Dennis, The Unfolding Lotus, 11. 90. Sang Hoon Bang, "The Korean Press: New Challenges in a Changing World," address at the International Press Institute convention, Budapest, Hungary, 1992. 91. Yi Hye-bok, "Reporting on Accidents and Violations of Personal Interests: An Examination," Press Arbitration Quarterly [In Korean] 10 (autumn 1990): 17-18. 92. Youm, Press Law, 67-68. 93. Ibid., 77. 94. Se-hyon Cho, "The Olympics," 6. 95. Ibid.

10 The Media and Democratic Development: The Social Basis of Political Communication W . LANCE BENNETT The occurrence of the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe suggests that free media systems are much better at bringing down authoritarian regimes than they are at later sustaining stable, participatory democracies. The signature of democratic revolutions in the electronic age is the nearly irrepressible flow of political images—often across geographic borders. This global net of news, propaganda, consumer advertising, music, and entertainment can inspire resistance and outpourings of public pressure, exposing the fragility of seemingly iron-clad centralized states. Even when efforts to suppress conventional communication media do succeed, protesters may turn to new media such as the Internet to restore contact with solidarity networks, as happened after the annulment of elections in the former Yugoslavia in 1996. Similarly, when efforts are made to block access to subversive Web sites, as is practiced in China, the decentralized, multireferential pathways of the Internet often enable dissidents to continue to communicate. Indeed, we may be moving beyond the point where repressive regimes can control dissent by isolating individuals, blocking independent channels of communication, and using numbing levels of propaganda to deaden popular hopes and sensibilities. The channels of communication are now so numerous, decentralized, and accessible that even the most determined efforts are unlikely to isolate members of prodemocracy movements from contact with each other and the outer world. When repressive regimes resort to open terror and sustained persecution of the press, the result may be less the consolidation of control than the descent into civil chaos, as in Bourgault's frightening account of Nigeria in this volume (see Chapter 5). 195

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An irony of this electronic age is that as nations attempt to compete successfully in the global economy, the first fruits of economic success are often the electronic gadgets that liberate individual citizens from the communication control efforts of undemocratic states. Yet the greatest irony of contemporary communication is that free and open communication, when institutionalized within newly democratized nations, often generates more noise and cynicism than reasoned debate and stable participation among the citizenry. This chapter explores the conditions that make open and competitive communication channels powerful agents of revolution and at the same time make them far less effective in the crucial next phase of building democratic institutions. At the risk of offending true-believers in the religion of the free press, I also consider the possibility that unregulated media and political communication in newly democratizing contexts may actually be more disruptive than productive in the formation of stable institutions and patterns of citizen participation.

The Elusive General Theory of Media and Democratization First, a disclaimer is in order: It is difficult to imagine a simple typology or theoretical proposition that organizes the rich variety of democratic developments in recent times. Moreover, given the chaos and the nationalist movements that have emerged in many of these contexts, it is not even clear that democracy has as bright a future—or as prosperous a present—as that promised by its many boosters. These distressing developments, however, make the need to understand conditions of successful democratization all the more pressing. The essays in this book make it clear that if we are to search for theoretical pattern, we must go beyond familiar typologies of regimes and media ownership. For example, Romania and Hungary might easily be lumped under the heading of former authoritarian regimes with state controlled media. Yet Hall and O'Neil point out the important differences in political and media cultures in Hungary and Romania that produced quite different postCommunist roles for the media and the building of democratic institutions (see Chapter 7). It is equally easy to lump Mexico and Brazil into the category of long-term private ownership of the media. Yet Fox's essay (see Chapter 2) raises questions of whether a tradition of private ownership is theoretically meaningful;

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national media barons, for example, have preserved their lucrative franchises by remaining politically agnostic and in Brazil have given voice to democratically elected leaders and military dictatorships alike. In the case of Argentina, Waisbord paints a complex picture that would move press and political regime types through various cells of a conventional typology with little obvious generalization to be gained about the construction of a democracy (see Chapter 3). If conventional distinctions among regime types and media ownership patterns provide little insight into the dynamics of democratic communication, the chameleon-like adaptability of media organizations following democratic transitions further obscures their impact on democratic development. Achieving the proliferation of U.S.-style newscasts and election campaigns is as easy as hiring U.S. media consultants and advertising agencies. Moreover, this cosmetic gloss on democratic communication may be less than helpful in the formation of deeper democratic identifications among citizens. As the studies in the important volume by Swanson and Mancini indicated, the remarkable adaptation to "Americanized" political communication formats by diverse media systems has not served the interests of democratic stability in polities as different as Poland, Russia, Italy, and Britain (or, one might add, the United States). 1 The mystery of what kinds of media systems foster democracy deepens further when we turn to the many efforts to design democracy-friendly national communications policies in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the most ambitious of these efforts has been The Commission on Radio and Television Policy co-chaired by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Eduard Sagalaev, president of the Moscow Independent Broadcasting Corporation, and directed by Ellen Mickiewicz.2 The goals of the commission's various working meetings seem unassailable. For example, a meeting to address pluralism in electronic media included among its goals the establishment of "a fixed, predictable, rational, and nonpolitical licensing system" and adherence "to a regulatory policy that promotes rather than undermines the financial viability of private broadcasting." 3 Although these seem to be unassailable objectives, the specific policy proposals for their implementation reflect a minefield of political problems. Most policy guidelines on the list of commission recommendations are followed by an equal number of convincing "cons" for every "pro." Even the idea of a "rational" licensing system was countered with concerns that any government

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connection with the media is subject to political manipulation, corruption, and the bureaucratic exclusion of new players. 4 The above complications do not imply that the media are inconsequential in building democracy—only that their roles and potential are far from transparent. In an effort to illuminate the range of media impact on democracy, consider several general propositions that seem to hold for a variety of cases: First, the uses of mediated political communication appear to be far more effective in precipitating regime change than in later building stable institutions. Second, the remarkable capacity of former state and authoritarian media organizations to quickly embrace the formats of western European or North American political programming may surpass the capacity of publics to process and effectively use the volume of new information they receive. Third, an often ignored variable in .the media and democracy equation is the condition of civil society. The absence of social experiénces that correspond to the new vocabulary of democracy undermines the capacity of audiences to convert communication content into stable political identifications and beliefs. Thus, the role of media in democratic development cannot be separated from an understanding of the social context in which communication is received. These propositions are explored in the remainder of this chapter. The next sections address the questions of what makes the initial impact of regime-challenging communication so powerful and why the introduction of a competitive, politically oriented, free press in many newly democratized nations may be not only insufficient for the creation of sustainable democratic regimes but also counterproductive. The final section explores the connection between social formations and political communication, providing a rationale for rethinking national media policies with social and economic structures in mind. Electronic Revolutions at Work As recent history attests, the potential for uncensored political communication to undermine undemocratic regimes is overwhelming. As indicated by Youm (see Chapter 9), the systematic

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press control and suppression of political freedoms under the South Korean military regimes turned the private media into lucrative outlets for government propaganda. Yet the persistence of journalistic protests mixed with various forms of communication about the activities of opposition groups—particularly students— created widespread pressures for reform. In the mid-1980s, for example, reports of the Kwangju student massacre were beamed back into the nation through satellite sources and communicated in the form of pirated tapes of news from the surrounding nations. 5 The democratic opening in 1987 and 1988 centered prominently around televised corruption hearings on the Chun years, with great attention given to the Kwangju incident. As Youm notes, however, the initial opening of the press as part of the reform movement was more instrumental in bringing about the end of military rule than in creating a model democratic system led by strong parties and a crusading press. The velvet revolutions of Eastern Europe were driven in part by economic and political messages broadcast across borders. Underground communication created ties among expanding networks of activists and facilitated the planning of protests against governments. The day the last Communist regime fell in the former Czechoslovakia, people gathered outside offices and businesses that had copy machines, and news of events floated on sheets of paper above the outstretched hands of the crowds. 6 On that icy clear day, the grand parade field above the Prague castle was filled to witness the appearance of Havel and Dubcek, who declared the revolution a success. As the balance of power tipped in favor of popular movements, state broadcasting organizations were transformed rapidly from propaganda outlets to windows on the revolution. Out of the throng rose a crane with a television camera that beamed the event to those who could not attend the historic moment. Perhaps the greatest irony of all the electronic revolutions was in East Germany, in the economic success story of the Soviet bloc. The showplace of the East was saturated with news and consumer images from the West that made the German Democratic Republic's drab success appear meager by comparison. Hesse noted that the '"October Revolution' would not have happened at that time and in that way without the continual influence of Western media, and in particular, Western TV."7 One region of East Germany that lagged behind in protests against the old regime was dubbed by activists "the valley of the unknowing," referring to its shielded terrain that blocked broadcast

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signals f r o m the West. As pubic protests and defections to the west grew in v o l u m e , state television newscasts m i r r o r e d the shifting political a l l e g i a n c e by gradually a d o p t i n g m o r e w e s t e r n i z e d formats. T h e final days of the old o r d e r witnessed television crews c a m p e d outside the h o m e of the last C o m m u n i s t leader, k e e p i n g a death watch for the regime to fall. In these and o t h e r cases, it is clear that b r o a d access to perceptibly i n d e p e n d e n t m e d i a — b o t h e x t e r n a l a n d d o m e s t i c — e n c o u r a g e d social m o v e m e n t s to rise u p against regimes that relied on a c o m b i n a t i o n of fear a n d m e d i a h e g e m o n y to sustain them. T h e fear and loathing that are signatures of authoritarian regimes can be created t h r o u g h spying, disappearances, and other means of state terrorism. T h e long-term solvency of these states, however, d e p e n d s on m i n i m i z i n g the various costs of such repression. T h i s is w h e r e c o m m u n i c a t i o n enters the political equation. Sustaining paralyzing levels of fear (short of all-out military assault on the citizenry) may be less d e p e n d e n t o n oft-credited p r o p a g a n d a systems than on c o n t r o l l i n g i n d e p e n d e n t , o p p o s i t i o n a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n that can cue broad-based resistance to the regime. T h e inability to suppress such credible challenges to regimes explains the i m p o r t a n c e of familiar d e v e l o p m e n t s such as broadcasts across borders, the p r o l i f e r a t i o n of u n d e r g r o u n d publications, a n d , ultimately, the o p e n i n g of the state communications apparatus to c h a l l e n g i n g images and messages. In i m p o r t a n t respects, then, the u n l e a s h i n g of mass movements that c h a l l e n g e the repressive capacities (and the wills) o f states r e p r e s e n t a symbolic process that involves c o m m u n i c a t i o n that constructs a historic m o m e n t in w h i c h the will a n d m o r a l virtue of the p e o p l e are p e r c e i v e d to surpass that of the rulers. T h e impact of m e d i a on democratic transitions at this stage is n o t as simple as, say, revealing that the e m p e r o r has n o clothes o r throwing back the curtain to reveal that the Wizard of O z is just a venal and d e m e n t e d crackpot. A l o n g the way to these collective m o m e n t s o f truth are t h o u s a n d s o f small acts of resistance that create r o o m for public political action that leads to small openings for r e f o r m . T h e s e o p e n i n g s are in turn protected by what m i g h t be called the witness role of the media—alerting b o t h rulers a n d subjects to the fact that e v e r y o n e is aware of the subtle transformations o f p o w e r that are o c c u r r i n g and, n o t incidentally, that the w h o l e w o r l d is witness to the same political d e v e l o p m e n t s . T h e m e d i a d r a m a that evolved in Myanmar, i n c l u d i n g the N o b e l prize f o r

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Aung San Suu Kyi, is an example of this interaction among people, regime, and the media. A similar democratizing media script that played out in Guatemala included a Nobel prize for Rigoberta Menchu and culminated with a World Press photo of Menchu at the signing of a peace accord with representatives of the nominally elected national government. In addition to the witness role of communication media in revolutionary moments, another role plays an equally important part in democratic transformation: the reifying or confirming role. Reality in the electronic age is increasingly a matter of commonly available images confirming and legitimating one another. Just as the power of undemocratic regimes depends on the absence of competing messages, the power of resistance movements depends on external confirmation that their values are alive and popularly supported. The symbolic confirmation of dissident values may come in the form of political songs of the sort broadcast throughout El Salvador during the 1980s on the clandestine revolutionary radio of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front or it may come in the form of entertainment programs and commercials from West Germany that show the failures of East Germany's economic development. The capacity to sustain resistance movements in the face of repressive regimes depends significantly on this backdrop of sustained symbolic confirmation. Even when individual movement participants and leaders are "disappeared" (to use the language of Latin American liberation movements), the symbolic coherence of the movement may be sustained through communication practices. It turns out that what sustains successful revolutions, whether the armed or the velvet variety, is the same thing that can discourage the subsequent formation of stable democratic institutions. Open political communication following regime change can take on a noisy quality that confuses newcomers to democracy. At the same time, the exhilaration of free, unrestricted speech favors the rise of opportunists and demagogues who promote unrealistic promises and fantasies about the future. The lack of social forums and familiar public institutions in which to deliberate and discipline the heady new democratic discourse can raise popular expectations about both the pace of change and the ability of invariably weak governments to deliver the promised rewards that motivated revolutionary action. What is seldom acknowledged in public discourse following these celebrated regime changes is that democracy requires social networks and political filtering organizations—whether parties,

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unions, or other social institutions—to anchor and deliberate about the political communication received from suddenly distant and noisy channels. Thus we encounter the possibility that free political communication exerts an often discouraging effect at the next stage of building democratic institutions.

The Irony of a Free Press As Novosel noted, democratic movements are seldom well-organized social formations motivated by positive understandings of democracy. 8 For all their grand embrace of the symbols of freedom and democracy, resistance movements generally arise from societies in which there is little civic group structure or social capital, as Putnam has termed it. 9 Indeed, many cases exhibit what might be thought of as negative civic capital formation, in the sense that the group structure of society has been organized and monitored extensively by the state. As a result of their birth from weak or contrived civil societies, many resistance movements founder in the transition to democratic governance, owing to the absence of sustainable, everyday social organizations. Large and seemingly well-organized public displays against the old regimes are often symptomatic of the outpourings of "citizen outsiders" who feel permanently disadvantaged by a corrupt and lawless state. Novosel described the ranks of the resistance in the final days of the old order as swelled by a "second class" of citizens who primarily resent the lack of preferred treatment by the regime in matters of jobs, housing, travel, and other luxuries—resentments that are often magnified by ethnic divisions in multinational states such as the former Yugoslavia.10 It is not surprising that from such fragmented and internally antagonistic movements, democracy does not spring eternal. As a result of the absence of legitimate civil society, the crucial phase of constructing democratic institutions is hindered by the lack of local social contexts and community forums in which to anchor and process political communication. Under these conditions, politics often becomes a volatile and personalized business, with political messages appealing to wide-ranging individual emotions that lack social accountability. In some instances, parties proliferate beyond any capacity to bring order to legislatures and executives. Political advantage quickly devolves to those with the resources to buy media and to hire communication consultants to create message content. Discontent is mobilized. Dialogue is

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discouraged. Noise reigns supreme. The result is often the rise of nationalism and militarism. The exceptions to this pattern are instructive. In the relatively more successful cases of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, for example, traditions of resistance are anchored in semiautonomous civil institutions such as churches, unions, and the arts. These greater measures of autonomy in civil society are both facilitated by and conducive to more tolerant centralized regimes. In addition, the evolution of art, literature, or religion as transitional political symbol systems provides some opportunity for public deliberation and experimentation with new political ideas. Creating such communication conditions (albeit with less success in the face of brutally repressive regimes) also seems to have been the goal of various strains of liberation theology in Latin America. Societies lacking these transitional social conditions are more likely to find the next (i.e., the institution-building) phase of democratic political communication as disappointing as the previous phase was exhilarating. In their analysis of post-Soviet democratic experience in Russia, for example, Mickiewicz and Richter went so far as to suggest that television, with its personalized political messages, may actually retard the social basis of democracy: In Russia, television electoral politics, with its emphasis on personalization drawing from both Soviet traditions and Western imports, plays to a nation uncertain of its future and lacking the secondary associations that can act as brakes or firewalls. Though it is only one variable in this complex model, television, the most powerful medium and desired political asset, could well retard the development of the very political parties that render electoral systems efficacious. 11

Audiences who lack social context and public references for the messages they receive may encounter the proliferating free press as a curse rather than as a blessing. After the novelty of free expression wears off—which it can do with astounding speed—the bombardment by competing messages from a never-ending parade of parties and political hucksters becomes distressing. A familiar pattern involves the drowning of initial popular enthusiasm in volumes of socially unfiltered communicational noise, which eventually gives way to cynicism and withdrawal from politics. 12 In understanding the role of the media in the democracybuilding process, we dare not overlook the weak social base from which political identifications, beliefs, and patterns of participation are often expected to emerge. It is, of course, possible to

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c o m m u n i c a t e a b o u t these missing aspects of society. However, it may be asking for electronic miracles to expect a communication process to e m e r g e that would both educate publics a n d incite t h e m to cooperate in constructing a society ideally suited to receive and process the flow of c o m p e t i n g political messages. Nevertheless, policymakers and the architects of new institutions ignore at their peril the importance of social context for democratic c o m m u n i c a t i o n . W i t h o u t conscious efforts to e n g i n e e r some fit between new c o m m u n i c a t i o n f o r m s a n d e m e r g i n g social institutions, a free press system can actually do m o r e h a r m than good.

Communication, Society, and Democracy In the absence of a social communication policy to guide the political transition, it is not surprising that fledgling "one person, one vote" democracies quickly b e c o m e the prey of demagogues, nationalists, and authoritarians. T h e new propagandists remind people of the nostalgic virtues of the old regime while pointing o u t new domestic enemies who b e c o m e the next second class—to use Novosel's term—of the emerging state. T h e dilemma, of course, is that in societies already suspicious of g o v e r n m e n t , it is h a r d to imagine what entity should guide the communication process or, similarly, what guidelines that entity should propose to the various publics and political factions in the new political order. An ambitious proposal by Vreg listed n o fewer than 14 guidelines aimed at preventing f r e e d o m of political c o m m u n i c a t i o n f r o m working against democratic development. Although Vreg's plan did not address the tricky issue of what entity should educate citizens about these conditions (much less, implement them), the idea of specifying conditions conducive to democratic communication seems a good start. T h e following summary points convey the flavor of this proposal. Actively p r o m o t e communication autonomy and decentralization with guarantees, for "communicative pluralism" (i.e., access for diverse groups) and "communicative federalism" (i.e., control of media by these groups). Design media policies to favor public participation in communication management. Limit the d o m i n a t i o n of the domestic media by global conglomerates while encouraging the flow of external ideas into the polity. 13

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To implement these broad proposals, I suggest the creation of independent communication commissions, perhaps elective in nature. The purpose of these commissions would be to allocate scarce communication resources (such as bandwidth, channels, and newsprint) to entities that satisfy the goal of pluralism of voices and views expressed. Moreover, these commissions might apply some common standard to evaluate the fit between audiences and various communication channels. Part of the authority of such commissions would include providing new channels for potential audiences that fall outside the evolving communications net. Content diversity, resources, and audiences might thereby be optimized in terms of filtering communication through those social groups within which deliberation might occur and across which dialogue might result. One case that attempted to move in this direction was the solidarity movement in Poland, as described by Jakubowicz. High on the solidarity political agenda were communication goals that included both the right of individuals to communicate and the responsibility of communication media to society. These dual aims could hardly have been advanced by a blanket deregulation of the media and a declaration of free speech for all. As explained by Jakubowicz: According to this approach, removal of restrictions on media freedom and recognition of the freedom of speech and of the press must be regarded as inadequate means of achieving openness and pluralism, in that they allow freedom of speech to be realized within the means at the disposal of each individual, such as creating freedom of the press for those who own it. Because democracy depends on the active participation and the free contribution of all its members, this approach implies going beyond the concept of freedom of speech and espousing that of the right to communicate. . . . In other words, what was postulated was the creation of a "civic sector" of the mass media—noncommercial media undertakings devoted to speaking on behalf of various social groups, allowing them, in the phrase popular at the time, "to speak with their own voice."14

There is no sure path to a socially responsible and politicaly accountable communication system. Yet the alternative of unregulated media systems is a sure formula for chaos and public disillusionment, with the likely results of weakened institutions and unstable citizen participation. Given these alternatives, experimentation with different national communication plans seems preferable to blind faith in unrestricted free speech and free press as workable paths to democracy. Indeed,

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the experiences of established democratic nations suggest at least three reliable generalizations. First, free speech and free media systems have seldom emerged without political struggle, government intervention, and a combination of conscious experimentation and muddling through. Second, mature democracies display various regulatory policies and mechanisms aimed at introducing some degree of social responsibility in the media and some fit between communication processes and political institutions. Third, in the end, each polity invariably develops its own political communication system with its characteristic strengths and weaknesses. In light of these generalizations, it may be wise to acknowledge the necessity of public communication policy at the outset of democratic transitions and to build some deliberative policy mechanism into the design of government itself. If there is a lesson in the democratic revolutions of our time, it is that the design of communication processes is as crucial as the design of political, economic, and social institutions. One cannot easily separate the qualities of national communication systems from the character of other national institutions. Those who would advocate absolute freedom from regulation in the communication marketplace at best operate with a naive fantasy of freedom and at worst may dissemble the rhetoric of freedom to gain economic and political advantage in chaotic political contexts. What seems most prudent in light of these generalizations is to recognize the importance of communication to democracy, and to institutionalize its political role at the same level as that of legislatures, courts, and executives.

Notes 1. See David L. Swanson and Paolo Mancini, eds. Politics, Media and Modern Democracy: An International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and their Consequences (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1996). 2. I am indebted to Robert Entman, a rapporteur and participant in some of these sessions, for making the series of reports available to me. 3. Report of the Commission on Radio and Television Policy Conference Report Series, 7, no. 1, October 1995 (Atlanta, Georgia: The Carter Center, 1995), 14. 4. Ibid., 15. 5. I am indebted to James Larson for background understanding of the significance of this incident in the Korean transition. 6. The following observations are based on personal travels in Czechoslovakia and East Germany in the fall of 1989. 7. K. R. Hesse, "Cross Border Mass Communication from West to East Germany," European Journal of Communication 5, nos. 2-3 (1990): 7.

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8. Pavao Novosel, "The Iron Law of Communication," in David L. Paletz, Rarol Jakubowicz, and Pavao Novosel, eds. Glasnost and After: Media and Change in Central Europe (Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, 1995), 9-17. 9. Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993), 169-170. 10. Novosel, "The Iron Law," 3, 12. 11. Ellen Mickiewicz and Andrei Richter, "Television, Campaigning, and Elections in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia," in Swanson and Mancini, Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy, 125. 12. W. Lance Bennett, "White Noise: The Perils of Mass Mediated Democracy," Communication Monographs 59 (December 1992): 401-406. 13. France Vreg, "Political, National, and Media Crises," in Paletz et al., Glasnost and After, 49-61. 14. Karol Jakubowicz, "Poland," in Paletz et al., Glasnost and After, 132.

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The Contributors

PATRICK H. O'NEIL is assistant professor of politics and government at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoraa, Washington. W. LANCE BENNETT is professor of political science at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. LOUISE M. BOURGAULT is professor of communication at Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan. ELIZABETH FOX works for T h e Center for Development and Population Activities, Washington D.C., as an advisor to U.S. Agency for International Development. RICHARD A. HALL is assistant professor of political science, New College of the University of South Florida, Sarasota, Florida. OWEN V. JOHNSON is associate professor of journalism and adjunct professor of history at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. JOHN A. LENT is professor of mass media and communication at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ROBERT MARTIN is professor of law at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. SILVIO R. WAISBORD is assistant professor of communication at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. KYU HO YOUM is associate professor of journalism and telecommunication, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

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Index

Abacha, Sani, 82, 85, 86, 91, 93 Abiola, Kudirat, 82 Abiola, Mashood, 81, 82, 90, 95 Africa: censorship, 64-65, 73, 74; colonial period, 63-66; democratization, 72-75, 79-80; development, 68-69; economic systems, 80; elections in, 79; nationalism, 68, 69-70; in the 1990s, 71-75; post-independence period, 66-71; unity, 68. See also individual countries Africa Watch, 89 Afro-Pessimism, 84 Ajasin, Michael, 90 Ajibade, Kunle, 96 Albania, 105, 108, 111, 115, 119 Alfonsín, Raúl, 47-48 Amnesty International, 88, 89 Andrei, Nicolae, 142 Ansah, Paul, 69 Antall, Jozsef, 116 Anyanwu, Chris, 96 Apple Daily (Hong Kong), 159 Aquino, Corazón, 157 Argentina, 22; Carrasco case, 55; censorship, 45, 55, 57, 58, 59; democratization, 42, 46-47; government-media relations, 56-58; investigative journalism, 52-55, 56; media during authoritarian rule, 45-47; media ownership, 42-45, 51-52, 60; military rule, 43, 55; Operación

Claridad, 55; privatization of media, 48-50, 52, 57; weakness of broadcasting industry, 35; weapon sales to Ecuador, 54 Article XIX. See International Centre Against Censorship Asahi (Japan), 152, 156 Asia: authoritarian media tradition, 151-153; censorship, 152, 163; concentration of media ownership, 154-163, 174; democratization, 147-151, 170n53; foreign media content, 161; foreign ownership of media, 153-154, 157-158; the Internet, 167-168; objectivity of media, 156-157; sensationalism, 158-159; television in, 153; women's issues, 159-160. See also individual countries Asia Television (ATV), 166 Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, 161 Asian Wall Street Journal, 153 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 148, 161 Aung San Suu Kyi, 201 Australia, 164 authoritarian systems: in Argentina, 45-47; in Asia, 147-148, 151-153; collapse of, 3; and economic decline, 71-72, 75; life under, 104; steps in transition from, 111 Aw Boon Haw, 152 Azikiwe, Nnamdi, 64

217

218

INDEX

Babangida, Ibrahim, 81-82, 83, 84, 94 Bangladesh, 149, 152 Bennett, W. Lance, 185 Berisha, Sali, 119 Berlin conference (1885), 79 Bernstein, Carl, 158 Bhutto, Benazir, 149 Bimantara, 155 Borbely, Stefan, 142 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 115 Bourgault, Louise M„ 9, 79, 195 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 74 Bradlee, Ben, 104 Brates, Teodor, 134 Brazil: democratization, 32-34; early-day television, 28; Estado Novo, 26-27; media monopolies, 22, 25, 26; state-subsidized broadcasting, 28-29; TV and military rule, 29-31 bribery, 55, 152, 187 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 11, 133, 161 Buhari, Muhummadu, 81 Bulgaria, 105, 115, 119 Cable News Network (CNN), 13, 117, 162 cable services, 51, 118, 160, 161, 176 Cambodia, 149, 163 Campaign for Democracy, 89-90 Carter, Jimmy, 197 Carvalho, Raul Machado de, 28 Cathay theaters, 151 Ceaugescu, Nicolae, 111, 129, 133-134, 135, 140 celebrities as politicians, 160 censorship: in Africa, 64-65, 73, 74; in Argentina, 45, 55, 57, 58, 59; in Asia, 152, 163, 165; banning of imported publications, 64, 73; by bribery, 55, 152, 187; in China, 12, 152, 164, 166; in colonial societies, 63; degrees of, 9-10; in Hungary, 128-129; in Latin America, 21, 37; of religious material, 64; in Romania, 111; of sex-related material, 64; in South Korea, 152, 177-180, 183, 192/i54

Central European Media Enterprises, 118 Chang Myon, 173, 174 Channel 13 network (Mexico), 35 Chateaubriand, Assis, 27, 28 Chile, 23, 35-36 Chiluba, Frederick, 74 China: censorship, 12, 152, 164, 166; economic sanctions against, 148; the Internet, 167, 195; prodemocracy campaign, 149; repression against media, 151; talk shows, 167 Chong Chae-hon, 183-184 Chosun Ilbo (South Korea), 154, 179 Chun Doo Hwan, 171, 173, 174, 175, 179-180 Citicorp, 50 Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), 87, 89 Clarin (Argentina), 50, 53, 54-55 Collor de Melo, Fernando, 33-34, 39 nl3 Colombia, 22, 35, 36 colonialism, 63-66, 79-80 Commission on Radio and Television Policy, 197-198 Commonwealth of Nations, 63, 75 nl concentration of media ownership, 41-42; in Argentina, 51-52, 60; in Asia, 154-163, 174; in Mexico, 22, 25-26 conservatism, 52, 116 consolidated democracy, 171, 189n