![]() ![]() Challenges remained, but the vast bulk of African countries had freer media environments as the 1990s closed than had been in place as the decade dawned. Just four years later, only 21 of 50 were so rated, even if the number of “free” countries rose only from two to six. Today, the country still has RTS, but can boast three-hundred radio outlets of various kinds.įreedom House’s 1989 press-freedom report rated 41 of 48 African countries “not free” when it came to media. ![]() In 1993, Senegal had a single official radio broadcaster, run by RTS. Radio, television, and print outlets proliferated, providing broader perspectives and offering information and entertainment in a wider range of vernaculars. State-owned newspapers and broadcasters, though no longer the only alternative, nonetheless remained and often gained editorial independence. ![]() Religious groups, NGOs, and “community” media organizations added further diversity. ![]() These businesses sought advertising revenue and, in some cases, political influence of their own. Nongovernmental organizations advocating “good governance” noted that corruption could not be exposed, nor citizens kept informed of officials’ doings, without a robustly independent press.Īs governments eased media regulations, commercial enterprises energized by economic liberalization rushed to create new broadcasters and publishers. 2 Oppositions insisted that free and fair multiparty elections could not happen unless all competitors could share their ideas through mass media. African journalists meeting in Namibia in 1991 issued a declaration calling for a free, independent, and pluralistic press. In their place emerged more open and vibrant climates for public communication. A key if now often forgotten reform was the end of state media monopolies. When the global “third wave” of democratization reached African shores beginning with Benin’s national conference in early 1990, authoritarian systems were rocked and their grip shaken. He has conducted research in Central, East, and West Africa, and is editor of the Afrobarometer Working Papers Series. He studies African media, focusing on how media affect electoral competition, ethnic and partisan polarization, and political engagement. Jeff Conroy-Krutz is associate professor of political science at Michigan State University. Agencies such as the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Radiodiffusion Télévision Sénégalaise (RTS), and Zambia’s National Media Corporation saw to it that authoritarian rulers were presented as benevolent father figures bringing order and development. In the 1960s and 1970s, not long after independence, governments often directly controlled print and broadcast media. As Michael Schatzberg wrote, “the media attribute all material progress and infrastructural development directly to the president’s magnanimous paternal solicitude.” 1 Other African media at that time might have stopped short of such over-the-top divinizing imagery, but they nonetheless frequently made it their goal to promote those in power. This is what viewers in Zaire saw on their screens nightly during much of the dictatorship of President Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled that country from 1965 to 1997. When the television news begins with an image of the president’s head floating through the clouds like a god crossing the heavens as a swelling chorus sings his praises, what follows is not likely to be hard-hitting, independent journalism. ![]()
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