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THE KAS DEMOCRACY REPORT 2008 MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY VOLUME II PUBLISHER Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. EDITORS Karsten Grabow Christian E. Rieck www.kas.de © 2008 Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. Sankt Augustin / Berlin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, without written permission of the publisher. Layout: Switsch Kommunikationsdesign, Cologne Typesetting: workstation gmbh, Bonn This publication was printed with financial support of the Federal Republic of Germany. Printed in Germany. All contributions in this volume reflect the opinion of their authors, not necessarily that of the KAS, unless otherwise stated. ISBN: 978-3-940955-25-8 CONTENTS 3 | PREFACE 5 | INTRODUCTION: OBJECTIVES, METHOD AND STUDY DESIGN 13 | COUNTRY REPORTS BY REGION 15 | AFRICA 17 | NIGERIA 33 | SENEGAL 43 | ASIA 45 | CHINA 59 | GEORGIA 72 | MALAYSIA 82 | PHILIPPINES 94 | THAILAND 101 | EUROPE 103 | BULGARIA 116 | POLAND 126 | RUSSIA 135 | UKRAINE 143 | LATIN AMERICA 145 | BOLIVIA 155 | BRAZIL 165 | VENEZUELA 177 | MIDDLE EAST 179 | EGYPT 189 | TURKEY 199 | ANALYSIS: MEDIA AND MEDIA FREEDOM – DEVELOPMENTS AND TRENDS 214 | PROMOTING FREE MEDIA: THE MEDIA PROGRAMME OF THE KONRAD-ADENAUER-STIFTUNG 222 | APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE 227| CONTRIBUTORS 3 PREFACE The KAS Democracy Report describes the state of key democracy sectors in partner countries of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. With the publication of the first three volumes, Media and Democracy (2005), Rule of Law (2006), and Parties and Democracy (2007) the first cycle of the series was completed. This year, the cycle starts again with a study on the media, although the selection of countries differs to some extent from that of 2005. Free media form a core element in any democratic system. Crucial in assisting citizens to form their political opinions, they also cover and criticise the actions of political decision-makers, always provided they can work without fear of government reprisals. In the developed and consolidated democracies of the West, the ‘power’ of the information and images conveyed by the media is so great that one speaks occasionally of the media as a ‘fourth power’ or even a ‘media democracy’. However, the KAS Democracy Report does not focus primarily on the influence of the media in Western democracies. For almost 50 years now, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung has been committed worldwide to promoting the development of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in developing and emerging countries. For those countries as well as elsewhere, independent media play a key role in the communication of information, the formation of political opinions, and the control of government. It is equally true, however, that there are numerous countries where the media cannot fulfil these duties because they are used, controlled and censored by political rulers, or forced into self-censorship through intimidation. Unfortunately, cases are anything but rare in which we are forced to witness critical media representatives being subjected to physical violence or even murdered. Yet, neither governmental nor non-governmental organisations in political development cooperation are in a position to guarantee the physical integrity of critical journalists or other democratic forces. Concerning their mission in international development policy and democracy promotion, German political foundations in general, and therefore also the KAS in particular, try to contribute, together with their partners abroad, to the development and stabilisation of democracy. To this end, the KAS has launched a variety of sectoral programmes that are based on our funda- mental political values, namely freedom, justice, and solidarity. While our international rule-of-law programmes as well as our programmes to promote the social market economy mainly aim to create a regulating framework that encourages democratic development, our worldwide media programmes focus on promoting legal framework conditions that ensure the independence, freedom, and diversity of the media. Moreover, the media programmes focus on training and educating critical and independent journalists, and on establishing international networks for the media and their representatives. Independent media do not only play an important role in the development and stabilisation of democracy, they also bear unusual political responsibility. For this reason, media coverage must be governed by ethical standards, and the media must not be allowed to abuse their very freedom, for which national and international organizations are fighting. Whenever the freedom of the media is politically restricted, or whenever the media abuse their freedom by, for instance, according greater value to the maximisation of profit than to sound journalistic work, their service to democracy may fall by the wayside. This is why communicating the ethical foundations of journalistic activity is one of the focal points of the KAS media programmes worldwide. To achieve these objectives sustainably, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung has launched four regional media programmes: first in Latin America (1994), followed by East and Southeast Asia (1996), Africa south of the Sahara (2002), and finally Southeast Europe (2005). Some of these programmes tied in with previous programmes, as for instance in Latin America, where the KAS began supporting pro-democratic media and media representatives in the 1970s. In part, they complement the national programmes under which KAS representatives abroad promote the media on a bilateral 4 KAS Democracy Report 2008 basis through workshops, seminars, scholarships, and media awards. The concluding chapter of this year‘s Democracy Report presents an overview of the contents and methods of the global media programme of the KAS. The Democracy Report 2008 focuses on the importance of independent media for democracy in general, and, in more detail, on structural characteristics of the media landscape and the status of media freedom in selected project countries of the KAS from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Even though the report follows the principles of good scientific practice throughout, it is not intended to be a purely scientific study. Because it identifies both, shortcom- ings and progress in the cases under study, the Democracy Report constitutes also an important project management tool for the worldwide development-policy activities of the Konrad-Adenauer- Stiftung. As in preceding years, in the spring of 2008 the KAS held an international conference on the Petersberg, place of several important political negotiations and great historic significance for Germany, near Bonn at which the Democracy Report was presented. Some of the results of that conference have been included in this book. At this point, I should like to thank once again all participants for their committed contributions. I also want to thank the representatives of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung abroad and the external experts who contributed directly to the country studies. Furthermore, I express my gratitude to Professor Karl-Rudolf Korte and the members of his research group at Duisburg-Essen University for their scientific guidance and, finally, to the editorial team of the Democracy Report at the KAS head office. Professor Dr Bernhard Vogel Chairman of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Introduction 5 INTRODUCTION OBJECTIVES, METHOD AND STUDY DESIGN1 STUDY OBJECTIVES At present, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) maintains more than 70 field offices from which local representatives conduct projects to promote democracy in more than 100 countries all over the world. This being so, the KAS possesses a global network of political development cooperation as well as a large body of knowledge about opportunities and problems connected with developing and embedding democracy. The KAS has been publishing Democracy Reports since 2005. One of the objectives is to inform the public about the state of democracy in general and certain sub-sectors in particular, such as media freedom, the rule of law, or parties and party systems. Another objective pursued by the KAS with its Democracy Reports is to pool the knowledge of the experts in its field offices about the development of democracy in general and media freedom in particular. To this end, general trends in the development of media systems and the freedom of the media will have to be identified and placed in the political, economic, and historical context of the states investigated. A profound analysis of the findings also helps to discover points of departure for future political development cooperation activities as well as for promoting democracy and – as far as this year’s Democracy Report is concerned – the media and media systems. Supported by the Research Group on Governance2 at Duisburg-Essen University, this study marks the start of the second round of KAS Democracy Reports. Following an examination of the situation of the media and their freedom (KAS 2005), an analysis of the rule of law (KAS 2006), and a study of political parties and their significance for the process of democratisation and consolidation (KAS 2007), this volume once again addresses the status of media freedom and the significance of independent media for the development and stabilisation of democracy in 16 countries in which the KAS is running projects of international political development cooperation. The qualitative results obtained about the influence of the media on