Abstract
This paper examines collective action by “media sectors” in the defense and promotion of media freedoms. Much of the literature on media freedoms has focused on structural and contextual determinants of those freedoms, with little attention to the roles played by the individuals, firms, and organizations of the media sector. Yet the record from a number of sub-Saharan African countries indicates that collective action by the actors of the media sector can help them prevail in struggles over media freedoms and positively shape the climate in which they operate. The paper illuminates this and explores the conditions that contribute to media collective action. Drawing from fieldwork conducted in three African countries, I argue that collective action is more likely where the media sector faces issues that affect most of the actors in that sector, enjoys robust organizational resources to help coordinate and sustain collective action, and operates with some level of solidarity.
Introduction
With media freedoms under threat globally, scholars and media advocates confront the need to better understand the conditions and dynamics facilitating the growth and preservation of those freedoms. To date, much of the scholarship on this has focused on broader structural determinants of media independence, while giving less attention to how media outlets, professionals, and organizations actively shape the political and legal climate in which they operate. Focused on the experiences of media in hybrid and democratic societies in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper examines this issue and seeks to deepen our understanding of struggles over and the development of media freedoms cross-nationally. Specifically, the research examines collective action by “media sectors”—the firms, individuals, and organizations that constitute and represent “the media” as a distinct group in society. My focus is on instances when media sectors have acted collectively to advance and defend media rights.
The empirical record from several countries indicates not only that the media sector is often involved in struggles over media freedoms, but that collective action by actors within that sector can abet efforts to prevail in those struggles. While this general point is underappreciated in much of the scholarship on press freedoms, we also have little understanding of the factors that shape the propensity of media sectors for collective action. Building from this, I undertake two tasks.
First, focused on the experiences of the media in several African societies, I highlight the consequential role that media sector collective action can play in the evolution of press freedoms. Second, I consider the conditions and factors that facilitate collective action by media sectors on behalf of their interests. Informed by the literature on social movements, and drawing from research conducted in three countries, I suggest that three factors are central: the issue contexts facing the sector; the extent of organizational resources in the sector; and, finally, the level of solidarity among the actors within the sector. While all three of these are important, the latter two deserve particular attention as they might be targeted in efforts to strengthen the media.
The research is part of a larger study on the conditions that shape state–media relations and media freedoms in sub-Saharan Africa. During initial investigations and fieldwork, particularly in the context of efforts to trace key developments in the evolution of state–media relations in several African countries, the importance of media collective action for the defense and promotion of press freedoms came into relief. Further exploration not only confirmed this but also revealed that the extent and character of collective action varied across contexts. This then led me to examine the conditions that shape propensities for media-sector collective action, with research focused on the experiences of media sectors in Malawi, Zambia, and Ghana. I describe the research process for that aspect of the project below.
As the research was inspired and informed by observations from the field and “bottom up”/inductive theorizing, the conclusions are necessarily tentative and invite further inquiry. Nonetheless, at its core, the paper illuminates the need for greater consideration of media collective action in the analysis of the development of media freedoms. This involves more focus on agency within the media sector in shaping the political and legal climate in which the media operate. It also calls for greater attention to the conditions that enable successful action by the elements of that sector. In this regard, the experiences of media sectors in the African cases discussed here may offer lessons for those seeking to understand the role of the media in struggles over media freedoms in other contexts.
Media Collective Action Matters: Examples from Africa
In the last decade, a growing body of research has examined the determinants of media freedoms across different settings. In this regard, scholars have focused largely on discerning the structural or contextual factors affecting media freedoms. Some focus on economic conditions. For example, Egorov et al. (2009) link levels of media freedom in nondemocratic regimes to the resource base on which the state depends, while Dutta and Roy (2009) focus on levels of foreign direct investment. Others connect press freedoms to political factors. Popescu (2011) and Stier (2015) focus on different types of regimes, specifically how press freedom varies across different authoritarian subtypes. Another line of research highlights institutional considerations such as the extent of the rule of law (VonDoepp and Young 2016) or the degree to which executives are constrained by other institutions (Kellam and Stein 2016). Finally, scholars have linked changes in press freedom to political dynamics, such as the ideological gulf between executives and the media or events such as conflicts or mass protests (Kellam and Stein 2016; VonDoepp and Young 2013).
Although this research has substantially advanced our understandings, when one observes struggles over media freedoms and considers the processes by which governments advance and undermine those freedoms, one wonders whether something is missing. In particular, this concerns the comparative roles played by those entities that, theoretically at least, have the greatest interest in media freedoms: the actors, organizations, and firms that constitute what I call “the media sector.”
In using this concept, I refer to the assemblage of individuals and firms that are involved in the production and dissemination of news and information for the public, and the organizations and actors that represent the media in the public sphere. My conceptualization breaks somewhat from understandings of the news media as an “institution.” This view argues that the media is characterized by some level of distinctiveness from political actors and uniformity/homogeneity in practices and role understandings (see Cook 1998, 2006). As Ciboh (2017) has illustrated, given clientelistic ties between politicians and journalists, assumptions about the distinctiveness of the “media” as a separate sphere can be problematic when applied to the context of hybrid regimes. Similarly, the notion that “media” are characterized by some level of uniformity of practices and common norms may be exaggerated, especially if such tendencies are assumed to operate across contexts. In light of this, I adopt the simpler notion of “the media sector” focusing on the collection of actors and organizations who represent the media writ large (although I return to key themes from the institutionalist literature below).
A casual reading of the recent histories of state–media relations in sub-Saharan Africa reveals that these entities are rarely passive, uninterested, or irrelevant bystanders when governments establish or modify parameters for press freedom. To the contrary, journalists, publishers, and media organizations have often been actively involved in efforts to advance and protect media freedoms. Moreover, in instances where the media sector has mustered some level of durable collective action, governments have shown willingness to backtrack on measures that might curtail media freedoms and even taken positive steps to advance freedoms. 1
A number of examples of successful collective action by media sectors in African countries over the last twenty years illuminate this point. Among the most notable was the extended, and ultimately successful, effort on the part of Ghana’s media sector to have criminal libel laws removed from the country’s statute books. Shortly after the liberalization of the country in the early 1990s, several media outlets came into a conflictual relationship with the government of President Jerry Rawlings, with the latter undertaking a number of measures to harass and undermine these outlets, among them the use of criminal defamation legislation. 2 In 1998, two leading editors were arrested and charged with criminal libel. In the aftermath of this, a new group called “Friends of Free Expression,” made up of journalists, academics, publishers, human-rights lawyers, and opposition parliamentarians, organized public demonstrations to protest the imprisonment. 3 This, in turn, galvanized a movement of media professionals, organizations, and their allies pushing for the removal of criminal libel laws. Public fora sponsored by the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and other bodies allowed prominent individuals, such as judges and the human-rights commissioner, to advocate for the scrapping of the laws. Newspaper stories reported on the activities of media advocacy organizations while editorials called for removal of the laws. By 1999, claimed one advocate, “the issue of criminal libel was consuming journalists.” 4 As the 2000 election campaign began, the issue had garnered enough attention that the opposition adopted the removal of criminal defamation as part of their platform, a step taken soon after John Kufuor assumed the presidency in early 2001.
Consider as well two examples from Zambia. Perhaps the most visible instances of collective action have been associated with efforts to defend the media from government plans to create state bodies and schemes to regulate it. One of the first took place in the mid-1990s when the government sought, first, to legislate the creation of a media association to replace the independent Press Association of Zambia (PAZA) and, second, to pass a law creating a regulatory body to enforce professional ethics. In early 1997, as the government proceeded with its plans for the regulatory scheme, five media organizations, including PAZA and the local chapter of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), formed a committee to fight against such legislation (Matibini 2006; see also Makungu 2004). Even before the initial draft of the bill was released, representatives of the five organizations publicly challenged the government’s intentions, threatened legal action, and established an independent body to address professional ethics. 5 As the government moved ahead with legislation, press freedom advocates, sometimes in tandem with international allies, continued open criticism in both the private press and donor-sponsored public fora. 6 Ultimately, the committee organized a series of public demonstrations to oppose the bill. 7 The government then withdrew the bill just three days after demonstrations in a number of cities. 8 A second scheme to regulate the media ten years later was also thwarted by effective collective measures undertaken by the media.
A somewhat less dramatic example of effective collective action took place in 2006 when the government attempted to impose a value-added tax on newsprint. Newspapers protested, claiming that the tax would drive up costs, undermining publishers and decreasing access to information. Operating through the country’s leading media nongovernmental organization (NGO) MISA, stakeholders formed a committee to coordinate and challenge the government’s plans. 9 In addition to issuing press releases, members of the committee appeared on radio programs, addressed a parliamentary committee, and spoke to the Minister of Information about the damage the tax could cause. 10 Concurrently, newspaper editorials and statements by opposition politicians and civil society groups raised public awareness of the issue. 11 In the face of this, the government reversed course and rescinded the tax.
A final example emerges from the recent effort in Malawi to have the government sign the Declaration of Table Mountain, which asks governments to pledge to remove insult and defamation laws. From 2010 to 2012, Malawi’s media faced a uniquely challenging climate, as President Bingu Mutharika took aggressive actions to stifle and repress press freedoms. After his death in April 2012, the new president, Joyce Banda, worked to reverse several of the measures undertaken by her predecessor. Yet, when the media, through their leading advocacy organization MISA-Malawi, pressured Banda to sign the Table Mountain declaration, she refused and openly criticized the media. News outlets, in turn, took a combative posture with Banda, criticizing her in editorials, while civil society and media groups challenged her hostility to the press and her inaction on the declaration. 12 Testifying to the salience of the issue, as the 2014 election approached, two leading presidential candidates announced their support for the declaration. While neither went on to win the contest, within months, the new president, Peter Mutharika, stated that he would sign it. 13 His ensuing failure to make good on his pledge led to renewed collective pressure on the government from media organizations and the leadership of private-sector outlets. 14 While the issue remains unresolved, it is nonetheless a victory for the media sector that it remains on the public agenda.
In all of these instances, united action by the media sector appears to have had direct effects on the behaviors of governments with respect to media freedoms. 15 In the face of collective action, governments embraced policies and legislation favorable to media sectors, or backtracked on proposed measures that might harm the sector. In this sense, media collective action has had positive consequences for the climate in which the sector operates.
Making Sense of Media-Sector Collective Action: Insights from Social Movements
The point above raises a more fundamental question. If collective action can facilitate the expansion and preservation of media freedoms, how do we understand those instances where it has emerged? As I discuss below, in some instances, the media have failed to generate collective action, sometimes with deleterious consequences for media freedoms. In this regard, understanding the conditions that facilitate media collective action can actually deepen our understanding of media freedoms.
In what follows, I attempt to shed light on the conditions that facilitate collective action by the media sector in efforts to defend and advance media interests. To do so, I draw on the literature addressing social movement development, which offers guidance on the question of why potentially aggrieved and mobilizable groups are able to generate and sustain collective action in some contexts and not others. Although other literature, notably that on interest groups (see Olson 1965), addresses the development of collective action, the work on social movements is especially useful as it frequently examines collective action in transitional contexts, such as those found in sub-Saharan Africa’s hybrid and newly democratic regimes, and addresses more contentious forms of collective action, such as those described above.
Three themes from this literature stand out as important for accounting for collective action successes (and failures) in the contexts discussed here. The first concerns the issue context facing the media sector, particularly, whether the challenge facing the media pertains to the sector as a whole or only a handful of actors. As Tarrow (1993: 5) argues, “common purpose” encourages individuals to “risk their skins or sacrifice their time to social movement activities.” Accepting this, a common threat, such as legislation or state actions that will deleteriously affect the entire sector, will likely stimulate a common response. Not only will such threats spur actors in the sector to see it in their interest to act collectively, they allow leaders to generate effective collective action frames through which actors might be mobilized (McAdam et al. 1996).
The second theme concerns the presence and character of organizational resources that can be harnessed and deployed on behalf of collective action (McCarthy and Zald 1977). Preexisting organizations and structures provide groups with the communication networks, leadership, and material resources that can abet collective action (Morris 1984). Organizations can also provide focal points around which actors can coalesce to develop collective action. Unions, some suggest, can be critical for mobilization of worker activism (Cornfield 1985, cited from Dixon et al. 2004). Other research indicates that the nature of “pre-existing NGO associations” can affect the success of efforts by NGOs to self-regulate (Gugerty 2010).
The final issue concerns the level of solidarity among the actors in the group. Here, I refer to the extent to which those actors have “deep-rooted feelings” of common identity and purpose (Tarrow 1993: 5). Where such sentiments operate, injuries or assaults on an individual entity can elicit feelings of common threat or grievance, thus raising the potential of a collective response even where general threats are absent (Oberschall 1993). Moreover, activism can be easier to mobilize where movement organizers are able to frame such activism in light of common loyalties. This theme is central in scholarship on labor movement development (see Camou 2009; Thompson 1963) and activism (Dixon et al. 2004; Fantasia 1988).
As we turn to the African contexts, I draw on field research conducted in three countries (Malawi, Zambia, and Ghana) to illuminate the importance these factors. As I indicated above, during initial investigations on state–media relations in sub-Saharan Africa, it appeared that patterns of collective action varied across contexts. Such variance was apparent both among and within these three countries. While Ghana had witnessed the successful action surrounding the removal of criminal libel, Malawi provided few analogs. Zambia’s media sector had realized success with collective action in some instances, but not in others. Thus, the countries offered substantial opportunities to comparatively examine the foundations of media collective action, specifically, what enabled its emergence in some contexts and not others.
From 2011 to 2016, I conducted seven 1- to 3-week field visits to these countries (at least two to each). During these, I investigated general conditions shaping the patterns of collective action by media actors, but more specifically explored instances where collective action had emerged, as well as cases where such action had failed to materialize (especially in the context of hostile government actions). My goal was to trace the processes and unearth the dynamics that facilitated (or undermined) united action by the media. To obtain this information, I interviewed journalists, editors, owners of mass-media outlets, past and present officers of media NGOs, academics, and civil society activists—A total of thirty-three individuals were interviewed (several more than once), at least ten in each country. Many had been involved in efforts to mobilize collective action. I also accessed newspapers reports, press releases, and newsletters from media organizations, and other reports and documents from NGOs. The material obtained through this research, as well as follow-up work undertaken remotely, was then examined to locate common themes in accounts of media action (and inaction). This proved especially valuable in revealing the importance of solidarity and organizational resources.
Before proceeding with a discussion of the three factors, several caveats and observations merit consideration. First, although I organize my discussion around these factors separately, they of course do not operate in isolation of each other. As Camou (2009) and Dixon et al. (2004) point out, for instance, preexisting structures and notions of solidarity interact substantially. Similar interactions are apparent in the African cases.
Second, my attention to issues such as solidarity and the presence of viable organizational structures opens up possibilities for dialogue with the institutionalist approaches to the media discussed earlier. Specifically, these issues speak to themes that emerge when scholars such as Cook (1998) describe the attributes of the “institutional” media. These include common procedures, ethics, and even professional identities. Yet, recalling Cook’s (2006: 164) later point that the “homogeneity hypothesis” is best considered a “starting point for empirical analysis,” I explore related phenomena, such as solidarity, as variables that are more present in some contexts than others and might account for variations in media-sector collective action. We might even suggest that attention to these variables could capture the extent to which media sectors in these societies are becoming institutionalized.
Finally, in focusing on the three issues highlighted above, I focus less on the “political opportunity structure,” generally understood as features of the political environment that can shape the development of collective action. Although acknowledging these features is important, they appear less consequential here. Collective action has emerged during periods of relative repression (Ghana in the 1990s or Zambia in the late 2000s) and relative openness (Malawi 2012 to the present), and at various times during electoral cycles (for example, in Malawi both before and after the 2014 contests).
Issue Contexts
Attention to issue contexts helps us to understand the emergence of successful collective action in a number of instances described above and helps to illuminate several instances where collective action failed to materialize. At the same time, other evidence suggests that the explanatory leverage of this factor may be limited, suggesting the need to consider other factors as well.
Considering the instances of successful collective action above, it is clear that many of them pertained to an issue that threatened the entire sector. For instance, media mobilization in Zambia in the mid to late 1990s occurred in the face of a proposed scheme to regulate the media as a whole. In other instances, the impetus for action involved proactive measures to improve the climate for the entire media sector. Recall the collective activism in Malawi around the Table Mountain declaration.
Notably, several other instances of collective action, albeit ones that failed to generate substantial policy or behavioral changes from government, also reflected general concerns. In Malawi in 2003, for instance, representatives from different media outlets and organizations demanded to meet with the president to discuss increasing violence toward journalists, which had escalated to such an extent that it was affecting a significant number of outlets. 16 More recently, in Ghana, a number of media outlets participated in a collective effort to pressure government to disclose how government had spent money for a media development fund. 17
Moreover, the experiences of media sectors in Malawi and Zambia indicate that concerns not affecting the sector as a whole, at least not immediately, are less likely to generate collective action. For example, in 2010, Malawi’s government placed a ban on advertising in the largest independent daily. As the ban persisted, the newspaper took the step of issuing a statement condemning the government’s move. Days later, Malawi’s leading media NGO did the same. Yet, collective action on behalf of the newspaper never emerged, this despite the fact that, by accounts, some media advocates pushed for a collective statement on the issue. 18 Likewise, a recent period witnessing severe challenges to press freedom in Zambia, including the closure of the largest independent daily in the country, met limited collective response from the media.
With this said, attention to issue contexts alone cannot solve the puzzle of why collective action emerges in some contexts and not in others. Some instances of media collective action suggest that manifestly common concerns are not necessary for collective mobilization. For example, the initial impetus for mobilization of the media sector and its allies in Ghana in the late 1990s was not necessarily criminal defamation laws but the imprisoning of two leading editors in 1998. Collective action on the issue of libel laws emerged in the aftermath.
Moreover, media sectors have sometimes failed to act collectively in the face of general threats or common concerns. For example, although the media sector in Zambia acted collectively to resist the initial imposition of a state regulatory scheme, they failed to sustain that to resist subsequent government threats. In the context of the first attempt by government to establish a media regulatory scheme, media outlets and organizations developed self-regulatory mechanisms to uphold ethical and professional standards for journalists. While an independent media council charged with this task began to operate under the auspices of the leading media NGO, disputes about the composition of the council, as well as others between the NGO and the country’s largest major independent daily (The Post), led to the latter’s refusal to participate. This later abetted government claims that self-regulation had failed and provided a pretext for their calls for state mechanisms to regulate the media. While the media successfully resisted this, the threat they encountered reflected the inability to work collectively on self-regulation in the first instance. 19 In yet another example, as was the case in Zambia in 2006, Malawi’s government in 2011 imposed a value-added tax on newsprint. Whereas Zambia’s media sector placed collective pressure on the government to backtrack on its proposals, Malawi’s media outlets, and print sources in particular, failed to mobilize.
Organizational Resources
The experiences with collective action in all three counties examined here confirm the point that viable organizational structures can help to facilitate collective action. In some instances, they have helped to channel efforts to challenge or pressure states; in others, they have been leaders of such efforts and instigated collective action. Where such structures have been weak or nonexistent, action has been harder to generate.
Ghana’s media sector has benefited from the presence of multiple, durable organizations, such as the GJA and Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), which have been centrally involved in mobilizing concerted engagement in defense of media interests. For instance, the journalists association played an instrumental role in facilitating the collective action around the issue of criminal libel. In existence since 1949, the GJA in the early to mid-1990s began to aggressively promote media interests and press freedom and openly advocated for journalists targeted by criminal libel, and other, laws. 20 More fundamentally, when the Friends of Free Expression began to organize, the GJA provided an organizational network to expand participation in and coordination among the group and a meeting location. 21 The GJA also sponsored fora that brought together those advocating for the removal of criminal libel legislation and increased attention to the issue as media outlets reported on those fora. 22 Indeed, it was at a debate sponsored by the journalists association where John Kufuor, as a presidential candidate, offered a highly visible denunciation of the libel laws. The MFWA also organized public fora that helped to expand the reach and connections of those working for the removal of the laws and bringing attention to the issue. 23 More recently, they provided the fulcrum that facilitated journalists signing a petition to query government about the distribution of funds designated for media development.
The importance of organizational resources is also apparent when we consider media collective action in Zambia. The role of the Zambian chapter of MISA has been especially noteworthy. The organization has been one of the most visible public advocates for media freedom since the mid-1990s, often serving as a voice to challenge government infringements of media freedoms. In addition, over the past two decades, it has run a number of programs, supported by donors, 24 to support media interests. Even though the organization has faced challenges, some detailed above, it has been instrumental in the instances of successful collective action described earlier.
For example, MISA was one of the organizations that spearheaded attempts to challenge government efforts in the 1990s to create a state regulatory body for the media. One of the initial steps to resist the government, undertaken under the auspices of MISA, was the formation of an independent media council to “self-regulate” the media—thus undercutting the government’s argument. 25 MISA and other organizations also helped to organize demonstrations against the scheme (Matibini 2006: 25). 26 Moreover, when a new collective effort to generate a self-regulatory scheme developed from 2008 to 2010, MISA served as a “bridge-builder” among media houses in the development of a committee to work on the scheme and helped to acquire donor funds to facilitate meetings of the committee. 27 A similar pattern was apparent in the effort to challenge the imposition of a value-added tax on newsprint. MISA provided initial leadership of a group of six media bodies organized to challenge the tax. It also worked with foreign donors to help obtain funds to mount a successful advocacy campaign and sponsored radio programming to bring attention to the issue. 28
Consider, finally, the instances of failed collective action in Malawi. The country certainly has had different media organizations that have played courageous and important roles in advocacy for media interests. Yet, media organizations have suffered from weaknesses. On one hand, as in Zambia, there is no equivalent to the GJA, which enjoys legal status, 29 owns its own building, and has a regular revenue stream provided by member dues (employees of some outlets are required to be members). On the other hand, those organizations that have existed have, to varying degrees over time, experienced internal weaknesses and lacked the support of journalists and media outlets.
MISA-Malawi serves as an example. The organization has been very active at different times in efforts to support media interests, offering workshops for journalists, sponsoring research on the media, organizing awards ceremonies, offering financial aid to outlets that found themselves in legal trouble with the government, and offering condemnations of government actions against media outlets. Yet the vibrancy of and investment in the organization has sometimes waned. For example, toward the end of the 1990s, the organization encountered difficulties in its relations with the larger regional body, which actually sought to close the local chapter owing to questions concerning leadership and financial accounting. This diminished support for the organization from journalists and local media outlets. By the middle of 2002, the organization was again properly functioning. Yet this period of weakness coincided with the time that several media outlets and journalists came under attack. While the organization offered public condemnations of those attacks, a collective effort to address this, spurred by MISA, only took place in 2003.
Notably, during this same period, a second organization, the Media Council of Malawi, which emerged in the mid-1990s with the support and guidance of the German development agency German Technical Cooperation Agency, was also facing organizational weaknesses. The organization, which engaged in both public advocacy and efforts to promote professional standards, suffered from a lack of visibility and buy-in from member organizations. 30 When external funding dried up, rumors circulated about financial improprieties, undermining the organization further. By 2001, it existed largely on paper, but was later revitalized with donor aid in 2007.
In short, media organizations have figured prominently in instances where different elements of the media sector have effectively worked together to promote and protect interests. Where these organizations have been weak or absent, collective action has been harder to muster.
Solidarity
Finally, the issue of solidarity deserves consideration. Notably, while the literature on social movement activism highlights the importance of this factor, so have advocates for media independence. As media scholar Wisdom Tettey (2010: 295) points out, “(t)he erosion of solidarity among media practitioners in upholding the fundamental right to free expression can be the single most damaging threat to the media’s role as . . . a catalyst for sustaining democratic institutions and practices.” Beyond this, as I detail, the notion was invoked by observers and media-sector professionals in these three countries when they accounted for patterns of collective action.
Consider, again, the case of Ghana and the collective action manifest, first, in response to the imprisoning of two editors in 1998, and then around the issue of criminal libel legislation. Individuals who witnessed and participated in the activism emphasize that the media were quite united during this period. As one put it in simple terms, “solidarity was strong.” 31 Echoing these sentiments, Jennifer Hasty, an anthropologist who was working for Ghanaian media outlets in the 1990s, described the media sector as follows: “Although the competition for readership is intense, the sense of solidarity among journalists for the oppositional private press is remarkably strong” (Hasty 2005: 97). Some of this likely reflected the adversarial relationship between the emerging independent press and government, but it also corresponded with growing activism and visibility on the part of the GJA. Regardless, this sense of identity and common interest facilitated collective action.
The experience of the media sector in Malawi offers some contrast. In interviews conducted between 2011 and 2015, media professionals and advocates openly lamented the lack of solidarity in the sector. Especially during the first ten years of democratic rule (1994–2004), Malawi’s two major papers were split along partisan lines, leading to rivalry and suspicion among houses. Competition for market share and personnel also undermined unity. One media professional claimed, “the idea of working together was just not there, politics divided us and organizations were weak.” Another, discussing the intense polarization among journalists during the period from 2001 to 2003, claimed that “reporters were simply enemies in those days . . .” 32 Yet, even as the partisan alignments of the newspapers became less manifest during later periods, division continued to challenge the media sector. 33
Several media professionals saw this lack of unity as part of the reason for the limits in collective efforts on behalf of media rights and, indeed, their vulnerability in the face of government assaults on media freedoms. “We are our own worst enemy,” said one publisher, “we do not support each other”; another veteran journalist claimed, “that is our greatest weakness; we can’t lobby together, for example, with respect to the taxes on newsprint.” 34 In addition to undermining collective action in the face of common threats, many indicted the lack of solidarity as one reason that media houses sometimes failed to come to each other’s aid when attacks on individual journalists and outlets occurred. This was perhaps most glaring during periods of time, such as 2001 to 2003 and 2010 to 2012, when violence and harassment of media outlets and professionals increased. As one professional described, aside from “token statements and editorials” in the context of such attacks, “battles have been fought individually.” 35 As important, some attributed the lack of support for media organizations to this deficit of common interest and identity within the media sector. 36 As indicated, media organizations such as MISA-Malawi and the Media Council of Malawi have at times struggled to obtain backing and investment from media houses and professionals.
Interestingly, the collective action in Malawi surrounding the Table Mountain declaration corresponded with an increase in solidarity among the members of the media sector. In the context of President Bingu Mutharika’s assault on media freedoms from 2010 to 2012, the media sector developed a sense of how disunity left them vulnerable and an appreciation of the need to work together. “Bingu,” claimed one observer, “united the media.”
37
Indeed, the period shortly preceding and after his death witnessed greater investment in media organizations. Publishers formed a media owners association, while MISA-Malawi saw an increase in members paying dues.
38
This new solidarity was seen as a boon for retaining and even improving the climate for press freedoms. As one leading figure in the profession described it,
Divisions made us vulnerable; and if we had not closed ranks under Bingu, we would have seen even worse developments. Now the government knows they are dealing with everybody, a united front . . . Joyce (the president) is better partly because of the solidarity, the common stand . . .
39
Around the same time that the individual shared these comments, the media sector was pressuring the government to sign the Declaration of Table Mountain.
Finally, solidarity, especially the lack of it, appears important in the Zambia case. While the media sector there realized some important success with collective action efforts, division among media outlets and professionals have undermined efforts to defend and promote media freedoms. Part of this might stem from the peculiar character of the private media sector, dominated as it has been (until recently) by one major independent daily, and the fact that the media have operated in a highly politicized environment. Either way, there have been deleterious consequences. One manifestation of this was The Post’s 2000 withdrawal from MISA, a move prompted by concerns that the organization had been “infiltrated” by pro-government elements. 40 This undermined the credibility of the media sector’s first self-regulation effort, and provided some pretext for the government’s effort to develop a state regulatory scheme. It also undercut the strength of the country’s leading media advocacy group. Beyond this, division within the sector, including hostility among media houses, has translated into journalists and media houses feeling as though they “stand alone” when they are attacked by government. Some professionals from smaller press houses indicated frustration that The Post sometimes failed to report on attacks against other media outlets or failed to condemn those attacks. 41 As a result, the public remained unaware of such attacks on those outlets, and a potential check on government interference—public condemnation—never emerged.
To be sure, this discussion raises important questions as to the broader factors and processes that can generate a sense of common purpose and identity in the media sector, and whether, in that context, “solidarity” is, indeed, an independent variable. As some of the discussion suggests, aggressive state actions against the media can encourage the development of solidarity. The political environment may also matter in other ways. The extent to which media houses and professionals are aligned, sponsored, and (recalling Ciboh 2017) patronized by political elites, as opposed to independent of the political class, may be significant. We might also consider the nature of competition in the media market, as I imply above. Finally, the presence or absence of such solidarity may reflect institutional conditions in the sector—including the extent to which professional norms are cultivated and policed through mechanisms such as professional associations (see Cook 1998). Such considerations highlight the need for greater research on this issue, especially in contexts like those examined here. At the same time, though shaped by other factors, solidarity can ease the process of generating collective action in ways beneficial to the media sector.
Conclusion
The evidence from sub-Saharan Africa indicates that collective action by media outlets, professionals, and organizations can facilitate the preservation and expansion of media freedoms. As detailed, the propensity of the media sector to work collectively in this regard reflects the issue context they confront, the organizational resources within the sector, and the level of solidarity they enjoy.
These insights have implications for those seeking to understand the development of media freedoms cross-nationally. As I have indicated, scholarship on this issue has focused substantially on the structural and contextual determinants of media freedoms, while giving less attention to how elements of the media sector can shape the political and legal climate in which they operate. Yet, whether focused on emerging and hybrid regimes in Africa, or on more established democracies, scholars do well to consider the role of media-sector collective action and the conditions that enable and encourage it. Indeed, given new threats to media freedoms in contexts like Poland and the United States, such attention is especially warranted. 42
The findings also speak to the issue of how the strength of the media might be enhanced toward the goal of advancing those freedoms. Scholars and development professionals have advocated a variety of strategies in this regard. These include increasing professional training, expanding access to capital, and building the media’s “institutional infrastructure” (Kumar 2006; LaMay 2007). The material here suggests that the latter measure deserves special attention. Efforts to incentivize investment in media organizations might enhance prospects for collective action in defense of media freedoms.
Beyond this, media advocates should consider the importance of solidarity and develop strategies to cultivate common professional identities and norms among media practitioners and owners. As indicated, the sources of solidarity deserve greater examination from scholars. As inquiry proceeds, we should recall the insights from the institutionalist framework—particularly those that highlight the mechanisms promoting “professionalism” among media practitioners (Cook 1998). These include active efforts by media organizations and training institutes to develop and monitor professional ethics. In this regard, important interventions might include efforts not only to enhance the capacities of media organizations but also to shape the character of their substantive activities.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support was provided by funds from the Louis Rakin Foundation, administered by the Department of Political Science at the University of Vermont, and by the University of Vermont College of Arts and Sciences RANSS program.