After the Revolution: Libyan and Tunisian Media through the People's Eyes

"This paper draws on audience research in Tunisia and Libya since their respective revolutions to understand people's perceptions of the media in the post-revolutionary context."

BBC Media Action's involvement in Tunisia and Libya provides the opportunity to summarise and draw insights from two sets of research on two countries that had their respective "Arab Spring" revolutions, which transformed their media landscapes "by the breaking of the former regimes' strict controls over the media and the proliferation of private media."

"The paper draws comparisons between the views of the respective audiences and assesses the performance of the media in Libya and Tunisia from an audience perspective. In Tunisia, the findings are based on a nationally representative quantitative survey and 26 audience focus groups held in urban and rural locations across Tunisia. The Libyan data comprises two nationally representative quantitative surveys and six audience focus groups held in the Libyan cities of Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata." Findings show that Libyans and Tunisians have similar criticisms and similar hopes for their media.

The paper introduces the research questions:

1. "How do Tunisian and Libyan audiences consume media, and why?
2. What level of trust do audiences in both countries place in the media and information sources available?
3. What do audiences believe that the role of the media in their countries should be?"

And then it is divided into the following four parts:

• "Part one looks at the political context that underpins the media in Tunisia and Libya and details developments in the media sector following revolution.
• Part two is a case study of Libyan audiences’ views of the media since the revolution.
• Part three is a case study of Tunisian audiences’ views of the media since the revolution.
• Part four draws comparisons between the two sets of data, illustrating that Libyan and Tunisian audiences share the same criticisms, suspicions, pessimism and hopes of their media sectors."

Main findings include:

• "Tunisians, and to a lesser extent Libyans, increasingly look to social media for up-to-date information and more detail on stories that interest them and that are not often found in television broadcasts.
• Libyans and Tunisians have little trust in the media. Our research indicates that they are politically savvy and streetwise, and interrogate media outlets’ sources of funding to establish what agenda they might follow.
• Despite the upheaval in both countries' media sectors and an outpouring of new media outlets, state broadcasters retain a privileged position in the minds of Libyans and Tunisians, and remain the dominant players in their media landscapes.
• A common desire among Tunisians and Libyans is for their media to address solutions rather than simply reporting the problems that their countries face."

Implications for policymakers and future research include the need to support the independence of public service broadcasters and exploration of possible production of "solution-focused" programming, which might be in the form of debate or, where subjects are taboo, in the more indirect form of drama.

According to BBC Media Action: "This working paper is open to consultation and we welcome feedback. For further information and to comment on this paper please contact media.action@bbc.co.uk using the subject line: Libyan and Tunisian media."

Click here to read the Research Report of March 2015, drawn from this working paper. [PDF format]