Elections and The Media in Post-Conflict Africa: Votes and Voices for Peace? by Marie-Soleil Frère (review)

In Elections and the Media in Post Conflict Africa: Votes and Voices for Peace, Marie-Soleil Frère explores the challenges that the media face when covering the electoral process in six postconflict African countries. Overall, the book, presented in six chapters, questions what role the media (print, radio and television) play in postconflict election processes. Frère uses interviews with journalists and content analysis of newspapers and programming about elections in DRC, Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, Rwanda, and the Republic of Congo to construct a narrative that suggests that while the media have an important democratic role to play in the electoral process, both their role and function are limited by several factors, including the absence of economic resources, weak national infrastructures, and high levels of politicization within media outlets among other factors.

Frère examines the process of providing fair and balanced coverage of elections in six postconflict central African countries that share the same linguistic and geographic area (French is often the official language used in the media). They also share a common postcolonial and 21^st- century history and exhibit political similarities, and have engaged in armed conflict with neighboring states or in conflicts endemic to the entire region. She says that despite these similarities, shared histories, and interconnections, the media and political backgrounds of said countries have generally been observed separately; one of her important contributions is therefore to point out the shared experience that the context of conflict in Central Africa provides with regard to the media’s experience. While Elections and The Media In Post-Conflict Africa is not a comparative study, the point is to “juxtapose their experiences in order to show the media’s potential role in a crucial phase of the political development of each country and the difficulties that journalists encounter”(p.15).

Frère argues that in all six of these conflict countries, the media and journalists played a role as either “war monger” or “peace builder.” The process of covering the democratic electoral process that is informative, fair and free, and tests the fortitude of the journalists at a moment when they face “intense political pressure.” The stakes are high for all parties involved; international communities place a high level of importance, even if symbolic, on having people come to the polls as a decisive end to conflict. Voters also have a vested interest in the electoral process, as elections bring hope to populations that have suffered and been ravaged by armed conflict. Finally, politicians, candidates, and opposition groups are vested in the process at least to the extent that they might grasp or hold on to political power via the state. Subsequently, Frère is correct when she quips: “Indeed, elections are second only to war zones as the most threatening situation for journalists to report on . . . especially in countries with poor democratic credentials” (p.6).

For some obvious reasons, it can be difficult for the media and journalists to move outside of the particular role played during conflict into one in which they are neither political actors nor tools of the state leadership, but instead serve as mechanisms of information dissemination and accountability during the electoral process. The strength of Frère’s book lies in the rigor and depth of her examination of the limitations and challenges of the media, as both participant and observer in the electoral process. Frère establishes or formulates a typology of the roles the media are supposed to play in seven periods of the electoral process, which range from the period immediately before the electoral process begins (outside the electoral period), to the moment at which newly elected officials take office, as well as to the possible state interventions (actions the state might take to support or impede...