Democratizing the Media

From the abstract:
"Democracy promotion encourages the development of media as a means of
checking government and providing citizens with a platform for expression... This paper provides an
overview and discussion of media assistance that contributes to democratization and civil society formation. Criteria for supporting
projects that open space for freedom of expression and strengthen
connections between media and civil society are suggested, and concrete
examples of successful project approaches are provided to illustrate the
kinds of interventions that are possible."



This article reviews research conducted by World Learning for International Development in 2003 to understand challenges to democratic media and to find innovative models that attempt to democratise the media. Methods included polling media professionals around the world who had participated in World Learning's training programme on investigative journalism. Combined with this were the results of a survey by The Communication Initiative that assessed communication interventions to support international development. The results suggest that challenges to freedom of expression and to media/civil society organisation linkages have increased, coming from authoritarian regimes trying to retain power, as well as from liberal democratic regimes struggling to cope with threats to national security and limiting access to information in the process.

The authors suggest that assessing how democratic a media system is in a particular country requires exploration of three interrelated and fundamental questions:

1. How is information mediated in society?
2. Who is mediating information?
3. Who is left out of the mediation process?

Within this assessment framework, the answers point to strategic opportunities where external support may have maximum impact in terms of advancing freedom of expression and civil society formation. Further, the authors propose that supporting linkages between civil society and the media provides an opportunity to support the development of a more democratic media system, one that provides a greater portion of the population with information they need to make decisions that affect their lives.
The paper then puts forth new models gleaned from survey results and based on the civil society - media linkage. These include:

• The Civic Journalism Movement, proposing that media must be accountable to the public, rather than independent of it.
• The Public Engagement Project of Philadelphia which convened citizens to talk about the future of Penn's Landing and linked the citizens' results to the planning of experts and officeholders. For example, in one of the public forums about 150 citizens met in ten small groups to engage in dialogues led by trained moderators.
• The New Hampshire Public Radio which identified itself as a 'civic journalism' outlet following models developed by the Pew Center for Civic Journalism for configuring public broadcasters as mediating institutions. In this role, the public broadcasters mediate between individuals and society, create a place for people to speak, and take the perspective of people living within a certain situation more seriously and use that perspective to shape a story.
• US public service broadcasting, which promotes what have been called "nested" public spheres in which the media is able to capture the debate by local people and bring it national level attention, influencing decision making.
• Communication for Social Change (CFSC) - a model for developing democratic media systems in ways that foster cultural and artistic expression - looks for culturally specific answers to the question, "what are communication media that foster debate?" These may be print or broadcast media, film or video, drama, song, or community radio, including talk radio, religious radio, and FM stations. With the goal of economic poverty reduction, CFSC aims to build local capacity, avoiding reliance on external experts. It supports communities' use of their own traditions and processes to connect community knowledge to the formal media sector to reach government, and facilitate inclusion of diverse and plural voices in the policy process.
• Despite the challenge for community radio of the legislative environment favouring privatisation, particularly in Latin America, organisations that monitor the media, according to the authors, can form coalitions that advocate for freedom of information and expression in society and the promotion of social change initiatives. A model is the Peruvian organisation Calandria, which, within its civil society division, trains journalists, encourages citizen oversight of government, and monitors media channels to determine what citizens think of the media and to widen public debate. To that end and with Calandria support, Vigilancia Ciudadana de los Medios started in 1999 as a coalition of civil society groups that aim to help citizens shape the quality of communication and advocate for the media to be responsive to audience needs and preferences.
• National Coordinator of Radio, founded in Peru in 1978, focuses on "promot[ing] and develop[ing] radio as a means of grassroots education and evangelization." It broadcasts news and has formed an intercommunication system via satellite called ALRED to broadcast throughout Latin America.

In conclusion, community radio and other media can be a means for encouraging civil society formation and the democratisation of the media sector
by empowering communities to make their own analysis of situations that affect them, share relevant information through media channels, and communicate with elected officials and decision makers.