Negotiating Democracy: Media Transformations in Emerging Democracies

Introduction: Media and Democracy in the Age of Globalization

Agents of participatory democracy or purveyors of consumer capitalism? Guardians of the public sphere or lap dogs of the power elite? Much of the debate about media’s role in the “democratization” of various societies around the world demands an examination of the implications of such questions . For starters we might consider if mass media engender, as Marshall McLuhan once envisioned, a “global village” where democracy is encouraged along with universal understanding and the cultivation of a cosmic consciousness . Or is media transformation within new democracies nothing more than a tool of global economic powers to colonize previously “untapped” social domains via information, entertainment, and new technology ? While perhaps seeming to be artificially oppositional in the face of today’s complex political and cultural landscapes across the globe, these questions are nevertheless useful points of departure in that they suggest how media might serve to alter, enable, or disrupt the cultural sovereignty of nations and political potency of communities. Indeed, variations of these themes have been at the heart of controversies regarding the scope and legitimacy of regional trade agreements (Galperin, 1999a, 1999b), and within them resides the core issue of in whose interest and benefit are media and new communication technologies being used to reshape nations and “democratize” the flow of information and capital. In short, what “kind” of democratic reform is taking place, and how are media involved? 1 INTRODUCTION Media and Democracy in the Age of Globalization PATRICK D. MURPHY Negotiating Democracy: Media Transformations in Emerging Democracies is an attempt to register and make sense of these questions by looking specifically at the relationship between media and democracy within the broader phenomena of globalization. The book takes as its focus the place of mass media in the political and cultural life of nations negotiating democratization while simultaneously contending with economic liberalization and privatization , the changing role of the state, and the reformation of civil society. In doing so, the collection addresses issues that have defined the challenges and consequences of media transformation faced by new and emerging democracies . These issues include the dismantling of national broadcasting systems, the promotion of private independent and pluralistic media, the clash between liberal democratic and authoritarian political traditions, the proliferation of commercial media channels and programming, the development of new opportunities for civic engagement, the socioeconomic impact of transnational broadcast partnerships and linkages, negotiations about the appropriate broadcast language, the potential for a free press and for freedom of speech, new roles for entertainment media, and the development of new legal and administrative frameworks for broadcasting. While partial, this list nevertheless identifies challenges and tensions that have become consistent enough in a diversity of nascent democracies to suggest core areas for investigation and analysis. Moreover, these points are important because of their intimate connection to the evolving political profile of a given nation-state. Indeed, it is through the media that public discourse about the scope and nature of democracy is circulated, even—or perhaps, especially—in fledgling democracies. Peruvian communication theorist Rosa Maria Alfaro (2006) asserts that today the media constitute a crucial source of civic education and legitimization of democratic power. Political elites legitimize themselves or join dissident discourses through their interactions with newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Notions of political authority, political values and general understanding of a nation’s political institutions are consolidated through the daily programmes of the mass media and particularly via news. The national and international agenda emerge from daily mass media processes of production and consumption. Both the concept and feeling of nation and of the world are also articulated in the production and consumption of media. (p. 303) It is in this context, therefore, that “[q]uestions of media access, diversity, ownership and content regulation define the type and quality of public sphere at work within a nation or region, because the media have become the key scarce resource in the struggle over ‘publicness’ in contemporary political systems ” (Galperin, 1999a, p. 629). Additionally, as Hallin and PapathanasPATRICK D. MURPHY 2 sopoulos (2002) remind us, the path to democracy is a slow and uneven process tied to historical patterns. “It is not simply a matter of lifting censorship and holding competitive elections, but involves the transformation of many political institutions—including the mass media—and of the relationships among political, social and economic institutions” (p. 184). POLITICAL, HISTORICAL, AND CULTURAL ISSUES To understand the interrelationships among these dynamics, it is therefore...