| Introduction The Western media, by its own admission, has been guilty
of popularising an image of Africa as one that is
perpetually suffering endless natural and self-inflicted catastrophes.
According to this narrative, this is a continent of hopeless
and hapless victims who need the “international community”
to save them from those afflictions visited upon them by the
malevolence of nature and of their leaders (who are represented
as kleptomaniac dictators and warlords). Thus, this international
community is a benign presence, with a role to more or less
save Africa from herself and help to guide her on the path
towards “international” normality and acceptability. Behind
the patronisation, therefore, is an ideological framing of
Africa’s relationship with the developed world and the international
institutions. In other words, Africa’s well known crises are
caused wholly by her own internal weaknesses and she can only
get out of these by depending on external help. Such a position
is used more or less explicitly to justify why it is necessary
for African countries to unquestioningly go along with the
neo-liberal economic and political prescriptions that have
come to characterise this phase of globalisation. The tendency
is to respond to this reductionist position with the other
argument that Africa’s problems emanate from external factors,
mainly our weak position in the global economic relations
and the accompanying cultural and ideological onslaught that
has, over time, negatively affected the elite and turned them
into a compradorial group. In any case, this argument goes,
African countries have little control over their economies,
and are thus not able to chart out autonomous paths of their
own development.
This debate is still on-going. That it exists at all
serves to underline that the factors that have led to the
present crises in Africa are far from simple and transparent.
They require going beyond the simple explanations popularised
through the media to a more analytical understanding. It is
necessary at the outset then to identify this as the major
challenge facing the media, researchers, academics and those
others in Africa whose mandate is to seek after knowledge
and to disseminate it for the collective good. Yet, it is
these, and more so the local media, who come under the strongest
influences of received interpretations of, and ideologies
about, Africa’s crises. The institutions that should support
the work of producing and disseminating information and knowledge
are weak in material and human resources. On the other hand,
information that is produced in the richer countries is readily
available through books, workshops and seminars, the Internet
and other information technology.
What is to be done?
Given this rather uninspiring introduction, what can
the media do about globalisation and international trade?
However posing this question begs another: is there any need
for the media to do something at all other than to explicitly
or implicitly support the existing international order. Can
the African media, in any case, perform differently from the
way that the dominant media does towards Africa? The first
of these questions (that is whether there is any need for
the media to do something about the present international
order) shall, I am sure be the major focus of this workshop.
The media’s role and priorities, on the other hand, can be
defined and discussed in the context of the broad consensus
that ultimately the responsibility for overcoming the challenges
facing Africa rests on us in Africa. Simply put, we in Africa
should make it a top priority to work for our collective self-interest
in the new order. It is here that the media in Africa should
seek to locate itself and to define its role and priorities.
At the same time, it is also important to know what factors
have undermined our efforts to work for our best interests
and to discuss how these can be overcome.
Background to the crises
Decolonisation and demise of authoritarian colonial rule
did not lead to “developmental states” in Africa as it did
in some Asian countries. Apart from this, African states (following
external advice) followed what came to be recognised as a
flawed development model. This is because the model they were
following - the modernisation development paradigm - contained
within it assumptions which were not consistent with existing
realities. This was also a paradigm that was highly dependent
on ideas, planning and technical assistance from the developed
countries.
Accordingly, it was not long before both the donor community
and African governments themselves came to question the validity
and effectiveness of the well-meaning, albeit naive, assumptions
underlying development co-operation. Others have noted that
one reason why aid seemed to perform better in Europe after
the Second World War and in East Asia than it did in Africa
is because there was far greater human capacity in Europe
than there was in Africa. Another reason is that many African
countries were not able to properly manage their macroeconomics
policies in the period during which aid was flowing in.
African states were able to achieve commendable growth
in the 1960s and early 1970s and to fulfil, to an extent,
the “social bargain” of the anti-colonial nationalist coalition.
This varied from populist to radical measures such as the
boosting of domestic consumption, Africanising certain aspects
of the economy, promotion of self-reliance, nationalisation
of foreign capital, public ownership of assets and promotion
of an import substitution industrialisation project. This
enhanced the interventionist role of the state and fitted
in well with its nation-building objectives.
The steady growth was to be weakened by the oil crises
of the 1970s. The decline in growth led to decline in the
state’s social and welfare programmes and made it difficult
for the state to maintain the “social bargain”. By the time
of the second oil crisis in 1979 which was to be followed
by the debt crisis of the 1980s it was clear that the old
approaches and models were not working.
This situation opened the way to the introduction of
Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and the locking of
African countries into the “Washington Consensus” prescriptions.
Presently, among the factors contributing to the low rates
of economic growth in the poorer countries are adverse terms
of trade, low foreign direct investment, poor internal resource
base, high dependence on aid and high external debts. It is
also worth pointing out that aid inflows to the region have
been decreasing drastically since 1990. Indeed the daunting
challenge facing the region is how to attain sustainable development
(understood as human-centred and including economic, social,
political and cultural factors).
Impact of trade and globalisation
We cannot here fully discuss the involved and far reaching
question of Africa’s place in trade and globalisation. Nonetheless
it is pertinent to raise some points to do with the significance
of this in order to highlight the role of the media. What
is clear, and is more or less a part of everyday discussion,
is that African economies are closely linked to the international
donor countries and institutions, and to global economic and
trade policies and practices. However while many continue
to look up to aid as a short, or even long, term measure for
helping African countries to get out of the current crises,
the reality is that aid to Africa has been declining after
the Cold War. James Wolfesnsohn, the World Bank’s president,
has, for example, pointed out that foreign aid to Africa has
fallen drastically from $32 per head in 1990 to $19 in 1998
(Hakata, M. ‘Home truths by European journalists’, New
African, August 2001). This has happened as inflows of
foreign direct investments have also been turning to a trickle.
The alternative, which is regional and international
trade (especially given Africa’s rich natural resources),
however poses problems. On the one hand, an equitably organised
world trade has the potential to effectively address our economic
and social crises by supporting economic growth and reducing
poverty. As Oxfam has stated, “If Africa, East Asia, South
Asia, and Latin America were each to increase their share
of world exports by one per cent, the resulting gains in income
could lift 128 million people out of poverty. In Africa alone,
this would generate US$70bn - approximately five times
what the continent receives in aid”.
However the rules that govern the global trade order
do not allow for this. Those rich countries which promote
“free” trade are guilty of protecting their own economies
through subsidies and other measures. In the words of James
Wolfensohn, “It is hypocritical to give debt relief with one
hand, then deny poor countries the ability to export their
way out of poverty with the other. Rich countries must open
their markets and reduce their agricultural subsidies. The
OECD today spends more than $300 billion a year on agricultural
subsidies, a total roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of
sub-Saharan Africa” (Hakata, 2001).
Oxfam has calculated that rich countries spend $1bn every
day on agricultural subsidies with the resulting surpluses
being dumped on world markets. This undermines the livelihoods
of millions of smallholder farmers in poor countries. At the
same time, ‘When developing countries export to rich-country
markets, they face tariff barriers that are four times higher
than those encountered by rich countries. Those barriers cost
them US$100bn a year - twice as much as they receive
in aid.
It is such practices which have led global NGOs and global
social movements to question the rules governing international
trade and to charge that these rules are “rigged”; they exhibit
“double standards” and “lock poor people out of the benefits
of trade, closing the door to an escape route from poverty”.
They do this because they protect the interests of rich countries
and powerful transnational corporations, while imposing huge
costs on developing countries. This bias raises fundamental
questions about the legitimacy of the WTO.
Globalisation and the media
Globalisation is a multifaceted phenomenon that has come
to mean different things to different people. It is important
to consider this as an approach to development that has informed
1) the way that the wider social-political situation and processes
of trade and development have been understood and practised,
and 2) the definition of the media's role in this process
and how the media has come to represent itself.
For those in the media, it is important to understand
globalisation from the point of view of two notable tendencies
1) the growth of mammoth media oligopolies alongside the technological
convergence made possible by new technologies particularly
digitalisation, 2) the claim that media products should also
be a part of global free trade. The big media organisations
therefore argue for deregulation and the liberalisation of
the free flow of cultural products and information. It is
also important to note the predominance of the USA in this
process leading some to point at the Americanisation of the
industry. Deregulation has made it possible for cross-media
ownership. This has made it possible for media mergers and
alliances in order to build synergies around technological
and media convergences resulting in mega-media corporations
worth billions of dollars. Thus, for the mega-media organisations,
the globalisation of the cultural and service industries has
become a major source for corporate profits. These industries
have also extended their monopolies by including intellectual
property rights (IPR), in particular ‘copyrights’ and ‘patents’
among their interests. These developments have far reaching
repercussions on public communication especially in Africa.
More to the point has been the effect on global flows of media
products on local social and cultural forms, norms and behaviour
and, hence, values and identities.
Media workers and society in general do need to understand
these developments in global communications and their consequences
for society. For those of us in Africa, it is especially useful
to remember that historically there has been awareness that
the global media situation and the flow of information has
been unequal and unfair. It was such an understanding that
led to calls in the 1970s and 1980s for the New World Information
and Communication Order (NWICO) leading to the setting up
of the McBride Commission. However this, and the accompanying
push for a New World Economic Order were superceded by the
emergent supremacy of the neo-liberal global order.
During discussions over a fair and equitable communication
order in the 1980s, governments in developing countries were
seeking to work through UNESCO. Today discussions over the
media, the flow of information and cultural products have
moved to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and
its successor, the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Here communication
has come to be defined as a service and ‘is said to include
everything from the products of cultural industries to telecommunications
services, tourism and management techniques’ (Mattelart, 1999:
4). This means that the media and what is called ‘information
highways’ come under the same rules that govern global trade
in goods and services. In other words, they are regarded as
commodities.
On the other hand, the concerns that led to calls for
a new world information and communication order have not diminished.
To the contrary, during the last few years, in fact, what
we have witnessed is not a decrease in inequalities but rather
in the widening of the gap between the media rich and the
media poor. New technologies and media organisations, as we
have seen, have become concentrated within a few corporate
groups in a few countries, they are accessible to a few in
the developing world (especially in Africa), while the majority
of people remain marginalised and excluded. Alongside this
growing inequality inside individual countries has been the
ever growing gap in wealth between the rich and the poor countries.
These two dimensions of inequality have a bearing on:
·
the
ways that the social groups and whole countries experience
inclusion or exclusion in the new global order;
·
how
the media in a specific country relates to the media in other
countries and how far it is able to generate is own indigenous
content;
·
how
the different social groups have access to the new information
technology (such as cell-phones and the internet);
·
how
access or not to this new technology shapes the cultural and
entertainment tastes of the different social groups and how
this influences what each group expects of the media;
·
how
the local and regional media attempt to meet the demands placed
on it by the global media situation, the owners and advertisers
and the social groups whom it purports to serve.
Role of the media
In Western Liberal democracies, there are normative values
associated with the media by a society. Briefly the media
are expected to provide what is regarded as a "public"
good – and to do so responsibly.
In ordinary life, people want to reach understanding.
The media are expected to help and provide a “public” service
in this through (among others)
·
facilitating
and mediating communication between knowledgeable others and
their audience,
·
providing
a forum for exchange of views and comments and criticism -
and being carriers of “public” expression,
·
projecting
a representative picture of the constituent groups in society
and their respective interests and needs,
·
clarifying
and representing the goals of society,
·
discouraging
the slanting of news to fit editorial policies,
·
avoiding
of reporting that would promote hatred, suspicion and hostility
within and between nations.
This provides a reference point in our discussion of
the media's expected role. However we should hasten to emphasise
that this is only a reference point in that the normative
role of western media’s role itself could be arguably modified
to serve our own purposes as developing countries. Further,
it is always appropriate to remind ourselves that normative
values are ideals which should be aimed for. The reality is
often quite different.
Media role in Africa
In reality the media’s role in Africa has been defined
by social-historical circumstances in general and, more particularly,
by dominant groups. During the 1960s, mainly American theorists
of media and communication identified the media as a major
tool in development. The new post-colonial states concurred
with this definition and thus began a sub-discipline known
as “development communication”. The
two decades of “development”( the 1960s and 1970s) were to
be characterised by a strong (and enduring) belief in the
efficacy of the use of the media (especially the radio) for
development. Hence most governments, were to take control
of the electronic media in order, ostensibly, to promote development.
However this effort was to falter when it was realised
that the understanding of the “development” that the media
was to promote was faulty as it rested on the modernisation
theory of development. In any case there was not enough conceptual
understanding of how communication works in development efforts
and the theoretical understanding of how the media works in
a society was flawed.
To the leadership, however, “development” was only one
of the challenges they thought they had to overcome after
independence. There were fears of cleavages along “tribal”
lines and hence concerns with national integration and “nation-building”
with emphasis on national integrity/identity/integration.
These two aspects - “development” and “nation-building” were
to define the two ideological underpinnings of the role defined
for the media up to the end of the cold war.
Thus the whole nation comes to be defined as the media’s
audience. However the underlying assumption was that the people
had all to learn from outsiders about development and
“nation-building” from outsiders and nothing to contribute.
The new state itself was quite happy to hire “experts” from
the outside for the endeavour. Thus began the dominant communication
model in Africa of the global world (posing as “experts”)
communicating to the people of Africa through the political
and other elite (including the bureaucratic and business
elite). The media’s role was to merely act as a means through
which this top-down communication was to take place.
However in more “political” matters, the media was also
expected to mobilise the populace to follow the ideological
inclination of the government and/or head of state (justified
as part of national integration). This role was to increasingly
take precedence. It had more to do with state-building -
and with the government’s concern with its own legitimacy
and hegemonic interests. Once again, this state-building project
promoted a top-down communication model with the state and
political leaders speaking through the media and the audience
passively listening.
This background explains why we may begin to understand
how both “development experts” (and this includes members
of this group to the present) and the state have used the
media as a means for social and political control in the name
of development and nation building. The definition of the
media as a tool for “development” and of the dissemination
of centralised state (and associated class) policies accomplished
some fundamental changes in what had been developing as a
model of the African press during colonialism:
·
it
turned its back on expressions of popular and progressive
sentiments that had been characteristic of the anti-colonial
struggles (that is, the mainstream media did this),
·
it
distanced the mainstream media from providing a defined constituency
or audience a forum to express their interests (for example
the mainstream colonial media in the Southern African region
and in Kenya decidedly served the interests of the white community
(not the state) -the post- colonial media was expected to
serve the “nation” through the state)
·
it
failed to provide a meeting ground between popular and more
traditional needs and forms of self-expression (which were
mostly oral based) and the more official means of communication.
In short the experts and official definition of the role
of the media could neither lead to the media to meaningfully
play the role it was expected to. To the contrary, it may
have contributed to the creation and development of the social
cleavage between the rich and the poor; between those whose
voices would be heard and those who are expected to be mere
listeners.
Priorities
Arising from this discussion, the priorities for the
media are more or less obvious. The institutional advantages
of the media can be used in the area of mobilising public
contribution into, and support for, national and regional
policy formulation and negotiation and creating a public opinion
on what are the nation’s and region’s priorities. These needs
can also be met through education, specialised training for
professional and the strengthening of research capacity. The
media are critical because they provide a platform for promoting
interactive dialogue in trade policy negotiations and establishing
or strengthening of trade information networks.
It is also obvious that the media have an indispensable
role to play in developing consciousness of the issues involved,
acting as a forum for discussions and dissemination of seminar
and conference outputs and research findings and generally
building “publics” around this important issue that concerns
citizens in the region. Above all it is important to remember
that trade is about negotiations and the media can play a
critical role in public discussions of the issues at stake.
(Note the absence of news on trade in the present media).
Economy and ‘experts’
There is a saddening attitude among many that matters
to do with the economy and global trade relations are best
left to the “experts” in government and academia. This is
flawed thinking because the consequences of these relations
affects everyone: governments, the private sector, farmers,
workers, and other groups in civil society. They even affect
children and unborn babies.
Where the media owners are concerned, a lot of indigenous
owners should be sympathetic to the argument that a weak
economy exposes them to constant uncertainty and risks. In
some developing countries weak economies have led to the concentration
of media ownership and control of media organisations by transnational
corporations. Further it is to the interest of all that the
media be not constrained by weaknesses in the economic and
political orders.
Fallacies
about international trade
Globalisation is shrouded with a lot of myths and fallacies
that need to be exposed. However the fact that forces behind
globalisation are able to mobilise a powerful technological
and ideological offensive makes this undertaking a necessary
but difficult one.
There is need to understand what is happening at the
global level not least because wrong policies have had such
a devastating impact not only on our economic but on the whole
fabric of our lives. It has indeed been surprising that such
little attention has been paid in the media and other institutions
to the change in thinking that has been taking place within
the World Bank reflected in its World Development Report of
2000. The then chief economist of the World Bank, Nicholas
Stern, told reporters that “. . . too much of the debate
has focussed on the false choice between free market reforms,
or developing effective government programmes to manage the
economy and ensure that the benefits of economic growth reach
the poor, on the other. In fact countries have to get both
right”.
Conclusion
Think of the media as an important meeting point of the
political, the economic and the cultural - in other words
of the major factors that a whole society in its everyday
life and in its relations with others - is involved in. This
can be done by revisiting the concept of public broadcasters
and the public role of the media. It also means re- introducing
the role of the state as a guarantor and protector of ordinary
citizens from exclusion by the profit logic of market-based
media organisations; and of new (and unaffordable technologies).
However, journalists do need specialised training in this
area, that is, reporting on economic matters in ways that
ordinary people can understand.
The media may have to rediscover some of the more positive
insights behind the participative approach to communication
and development in order to re-invent itself. This approach
poses to communicators and media practitioners the challenge
to address social issues, to make people aware and to fully
understand their social, economic and political situation,
nature of their problems and the causes and also to empower
them to become informed and active participants in the decision
making process. This in short means a conscious project of
producing citizens out of subjects. It also means a citizenry
who understand why they should, as a matter of necessity,
understand and question their position in the global order.
This is an abridged version of the paper presented by
Dr Kimani Gecau, at a workshop (Kadoma Conference Centre
24-27 February 2003) organised by SEATINI for the media in
southern Africa. Gecau is a lecturer in Media and Communication
Studies at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe.
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