Democratization through the media? Part 1/2

The contribution of an effective media with respect to the accountability system in any democratic country is undeniable. It raises public awareness about corruption, its sources, costs and possible remedies and investigates incidents of corruption that are sometimes unnoticed.

We are living in a communications revolution. The great advances in the communications technology have changed our lives completely, even in the least developed countries where the internet is limited. These changes are also affecting politics and democracy. In general, the mass media is believed to play a positive role in the democratization process, given the fact that they inform the civil society about the activities performed by governments, private and international companies, international organizations and agents involved in the everyday life that affect the citizens. But, is this true? How does the independence of the media affect the quality of democracy and political accountability? Is the new media technology good for democracy? Is the media responsible for civil society’s uprising?

First of all, we need to begin from the premise that a free society cannot exist without freedom of speech, which is often represented by press freedom. It is true that the media exists in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, but it is not hard to imagine the kind of problems that journalism faces in a controlled and restricted environment. This is why the media has received especial protection in many constitutions where freedom of speech is linked to the right of the media to be free of any governmental control. However, we should not forget that this right is also linked to the responsibility of the media to perform correctly when informing the general population.  

            In order to to study the effects of the media on democratization, we will adopt Keohane’s et al. (2009) view of democracy, which is constitutional democracy. According to this view, “contemporary democracies are constitutional democracies”, and constitutional structures are fundamental in establishing the framework and improving the power of the people to rule themselves by guaranteeing periodic, fair elections, democratic deliberation and decision-making, which require prior agreement in order to settle the rules to establish elections in the first place, as well as determine eligibility and responsibilities of the elected officials (Przeworski, 1999; Eisgruber, 2001).

            In addition, the rule of law, a wide variety of rights, impartial enforcement mechanisms, competing public institutions, and a system of checks and balances must also be guaranteed. Democratic institutions need to be fair and capable of taking account of reliable information, as well as to provide public access to information. Finally, the elected representatives must be able to defend their policy choices publicly. Constitutional constraints improve democracy by “combating special interests, protecting rights, and fostering robust public deliberation” (Przeworski, 1999).

            We are interested in the effects that the mass media might have on the society, on the individual, on the institutions and on the state apparatus in general. That is, after being exposed to a message of corruption, for example, does the society react asking for explanations to their government, organizing themselves into groups or associations in order to fight for their rights? Does this reaction help improving the quality of the existing democracy or help to push the “birth” of a new democracy?

            The contribution of an effective media with respect to the accountability system in any democratic country is undeniable. It raises public awareness about corruption, its sources, costs and possible remedies and investigates incidents of corruption that are sometimes unnoticed. Stapenhurst (2000) found a negative correlation between corruption and press freedom of -0.69. He studied the relationship between the Press Freedom World Wide Index and the Corruption Index finding, not surprisingly, that higher levels of press freedom correspond to lower levels of corruption. Even the World Bank recognizes that “civil society and the media are crucial to creating and maintaining an atmosphere in public life that discourages fraud and corruption (1997)”.

And the fact is that the media can contribute to fight corruption in so many ways, for example by giving the authorities the necessary leads or tools for them to launch an investigation, by forcing the corrupt leaders to resign or be impeached when their bad actions are taken to the public light, by doing and encouraging the continuous checks on corruption, by motivating public debates and they also help to create that feeling of necessity of accountability by reinforcing the work and legitimacy of the anti-corruption bodies. Nevertheless, the media can also be a problem when it is not independent, when it is managed by the powerful ones or by the government, or when the media is repressed by them, like in China, Namibia, Kenya, Azerbaijan, North Korea and (sadly) many other countries.

One solution for this problem is that the media be privatized, because when the majority of the media is under the control of the government, it can undermine its credibility and independence. Two good examples for this can be Mexico and Ghana where their main news broadcasters were at first owned by the government and then they were privatized, improving accountability from the government.

In the case of Mexico, after the administration of President Carlos Salinas Gortari gave up state control over all television in 1989 the media began reporting more aggressively on government corruption. The vice president of Mexico’s private TV Azteca, Sergio Sarmiento, said that the network’s coverage of corruption and other stories its pro-government rival once refused to cover helped the private network jump from a 5 to 25 percent audience share. On the other hand, Yao Dzeikpor, head of news for Ghana’s government-owned television network, told a similar story: “Over the last nine months, we have seen a new television station on (the air)”. “The sort of things that they cover were not the things the government would have allowed us to cover two or three years ago. We have also found the light and are also moving in that direction, very gingerly.” (Simon, 1998; Powell, 1998).

Dott.ssa Ana Figueroa