Media Environment

In an age of multinational media corporations we are constantly persuaded to believe that we live in a "global village" - a single, undifferentiated information society. Undoubtedly the flow of information through the media is greater and faster than it was, say, in the 1960s when the term "global village" was coined - still more by comparison with the age before mass broadcasting. Nevertheless, access to information by the mass of people - and the mass of voters in particular - differs enormously according to the national context. Globalization of information no doubt affects the rural African, Asian, Latin American or East European. But it does not mean that they have the same information sources as a West European or North American, or indeed their own urban compatriots.

The media environment will largely determine the role that the media play in an election. And that environment in turn will be decided by a variety of factors. The first of these is the level of economic development. In situations of severe poverty, most people will be unable to afford newspapers and probably unable to read them either. Often televisions will be prohibitively expensive and ownership and audience will be almost exclusively urban. Some of the poorest countries, such as Malawi and Tanzania, have only very recently established national television networks. Radio is likely to be the most important national medium of communication in these circumstances. But even so it is likely to be constrained by shortage of advertising revenue. A higher level of economic development is likely to mean a greater number of media outlets. Increasingly this even overrides the significance of constraints of political control over the media.

Economic development in turn may influence the ownership structure of the media. As a general pattern, poorer countries, including most in Africa, will tend to have a larger governmental media sector, because of the shortage of advertising. Independent media in these countries are likely to be owned by small, private business interests. In the larger economies of regions like Latin America, East Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, media houses are more likely to be under the control of substantial national businesses (that are also likely to have political interests). Either prominent political figures acquire media in order to advance their own political careers. Or wealthy individuals use their control of media outlets to launch a career in politics. The best known (and most extreme) example of the second phenomenon is in Italy, where businessman Silvio Berlusconi used his media interests to become head of government. However, what some media theorists describe as the “Italian model” can be seen in less extreme variants in many countries.

Increasingly media throughout the world, except in the poorest countries, fall under the control of multinational media companies. These too are likely to have their own political inclinations. These may take the form of backing for particular political parties or candidates, or they may entail a more general tendency to set the terms of political debate.

But wealth is not the only factor determining the structure of media ownership. Political and cultural traditions play a large part. Most European countries, for example, have a strong tradition of state or public ownership of broadcasting. France only legalized private broadcasting in the 1980s. The United States, by contrast, has almost no history of publicly owned broadcasting. Not surprisingly, countries with a history of military or single-party rule may have developed their own tradition of state control of the media. Clearly, the extent to which the government or public authorities are involved in owning or controlling the media is likely to have a direct impact on the role of the media in elections.

Another critical dimension of the media environment is the strength of the traditions of political freedom and respect for freedom of expression. Media with a long history of pluralism, freedom and independence will have developed a greater capacity to deal with political issues in a frank and forthright manner. They will also probably have developed higher professional standards (although the low ethics of some media in advanced democracies show that the correlation is not an exact one). Most importantly, a recent history of censorship or physical intimidation of the media is likely to loom as a constant threat over journalists and editors in their election coverage.

The media environment is also to some degree a legal environment. Preferably the media will operate under the protection of strong constitutional and statutory guarantees of freedom of expression and access to information. Legal traditions differ greatly in this area. Common law countries tend towards an approach marked by an absence of explicit laws regulating the media. The assumption is that the media are free to do whatever is not explicitly prohibited by law. The civil law tradition, by contrast, usually requires statutory regulation of media activity. There are strengths and weaknesses in both approaches, although in practice they are tending to converge. Broadcasting is one area where differing legal traditions are seeking to find common solutions. Almost all countries demand some form of statutory regulation of broadcasting, even the traditionally unregulated United States, as a way of ensuring pluralism over the airwaves. The extent to which the allocation of broadcasting frequencies is a fair and transparent process is likely to have a significant influence on how the broadcasters discharge their responsibilities at election time.

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Ghana's election on the BBC by bbcworldservice is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License.

Where do people get their information?

It is often assumed that the media are the main source of information for most voters. But this is not necessarily true. Even in an advanced, media-saturated democracy like Britain, between one quarter and one third of television viewers are estimated to switch channels when a party election broadcast starts. There used to be a convention that all channels would screen these broadcasts simultaneously so that there was no escape for the audience, other than making themselves a cup of tea. Perhaps as a result, a survey in 1968 found that party election broadcasts were the main source of information for undecided voters. Since 1987, however, simultaneous broadcasts have been abandoned, and the audience has declined. And a 1990 survey found that party broadcasts were the least believable source of political information, apart from the Sun newspaper. [1]

Before the rise of modern electronic media, political information was conveyed through the two mechanisms of the print media and direct personal contact. In those days, newspaper readership was higher than today, but this still excluded a very large proportion of the population that was either too poor to afford a newspaper or that simply could not read. Hence direct personal communication assumed great importance. This would include public political meetings addressed by candidates or hustings, where the different candidates would debate and be questioned. It would also include door-to-door canvassing by the candidate or party activists, as well as leaflets and posters produced by the parties or candidates.

In industrialized countries with extensive electronic media, these methods have declined dramatically in importance. Elsewhere, however, the political meeting and personal contact with the candidates remains important. In rural Africa, for example, radio is usually the only accessible mass medium. The stations that broadcast to this rural audience are usually government-controlled and give little, if any, voice to opposition parties. Sometimes, the obstacles to the communication of information are even more basic. Most radio sets require batteries. These are expensive and unlikely to be a priority in communities that are struggling to survive. So personal contact remains important.

Yet, even in conditions of dire poverty, the media still have a role in communicating political information. Even when rural communities do not have direct access to independent media, the information generated by, say, the private press will still go into general circulation and may reach the rural voters at some stage. So, although word of mouth may be the direct source of political information, the media will contribute importantly to the mass of information in circulation.

In rural Africa, like other parts of the world generally regarded as "information-poor", the means for circulating information by mouth are quite sophisticated, and were often honed in the difficult conditions of colonialism and single-party or military dictatorship. Audiences became skilled at interpreting the highly controlled messages contained in the official media and relaying an alternative interpretation. They were assisted in this by cultural conventions allowing the oblique communication of sensitive information and views. For example, the Ngoni of Central Africa have a convention known as kukulawika - women's pounding songs that are able to convey explicit messages about sex, but without using obscenities. The Tonga have a similar mechanism. Under British colonial rule, African staff at the Central African Broadcasting Corporation in Lusaka would broadcast a type of political kukulawika, allowing them to convey hidden nationalist messages. This means of veiled political communication was especially useful during subsequent restrictive one-party rule. [2]

The informal communication of political news is often described, disparagingly and not entirely accurately, as rumour. Colonial administrators used to call it the "bush telegraph", while French-speaking Africans have invented a rather better term: radio trottoir or "pavement radio". Whatever name it is given, there can be little doubt that millions of people the world over form their political opinions on the basis of their own experience and what they learn personally from those whom they trust. Much of this information may originate in the media, but how much is difficult to determine.

How far the media influence the behaviour of voters remains a great imponderable. In Zimbabwe, for example, in a referendum and election in 2000, a majority of voters rejected the advice being offered by the most important media. The state enjoyed a monopoly of all broadcast media, which were under tight government control. In a referendum on constitutional reform, and then in parliamentary elections, the opposition was given minimal access to radio and television, and the editorial line of both was shrilly in favour of the ruling party. Yet in each poll, a majority of voters favoured the opposition. Perhaps the critical information placed in circulation by the privately-owned press was influential. But ultimately, many people's voting choices seem to have been determined by other factors. An independent media monitoring group even suggested that last-minute broadcast propaganda in favour of the government may have influenced marginal voters in the referendum to vote for the opposition. Unfortunately, the quality of audience research is not good enough to allow a clear answer.[3]

Focus group studies in Ukraine suggest a similar popular scepticism towards the media, which were described as being "not free" and therefore not enjoying the confidence of the citizens. They say that the media are "short of analytical articles in the first place" and that the mass media play an "insufficient" role in elucidating the issues in the campaign and preparing the public for the elections. The focus groups said that "attempts of the mass media to shed light on political and economic developments in a timely and qualitative fashion cannot be successful". [4]

Even in industrialized democracies where the media occupy a very important place as a source of political information, the answer to this question of media influence is not clear. In Britain, for many years, the largest circulation newspaper, the Sun, supported the Conservative party, yet the majority of its mainly working class readership supported the Labour party. Of course, the paper may have influenced a marginal but potentially significant section of its readership to change their vote. In 1997, the Sun shifted its allegiance to Labour and claimed the credit when that party won - even though public opinion surveys and the size of the Labour majority showed that there were much broader factors at work. In fact, the paper probably had a greater influence on the new government than on the electorate. Labour leaders were anxious to be on good terms with the Sun's owner, Rupert Murdoch - an indication of the new globalized order where media houses are also powerful multinational corporations.

More generally, Britain provides an interesting case study of the political influence of the media. A large majority of the press supports the Conservative party. If its influence over the electorate were decisive, then there would never be a Labour government. Things clearly do not work like that. Yet the indirect influence of the media is more difficult to assess. Arguably, they influence the political agenda by emphasizing issues that are of priority to the right wing, such as law and order and restricting immigration. Hence a Labour government may adopt more conservative policies because it believes that the media influence the electorate in that direction.

Notes:

[1]Margaret Scammell and Holli A. Semetko, "Political Advertising on Television: The British Experience", in Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha (eds.), Political Advertising in Western Democracies, Sage Publications, London/Thousands Oaks, 1995.

[2]David Kerr, "Ideology, resistance and the transformation of performance traditions in post-colonial Malawi", University of Botswana, Gaborone, 1993.

[3]Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, A question of balance: The Zimbabwean media and the constitutional referendum Harare, March 2000.

[4]Gary A. Ferguson, Ukrainian Political Issues and Media Focus Groups: Summary of Findings, International Foundation for Elections Systems, Washington DC, 1999.

History of Respect for Media Freedom

The extent to which a country's government has a history of respecting media freedom will have a great bearing on the capacity of the media to report elections. Often, a country with little history of respect for freedom of expression also has little experience of elections, or at least of free and democratic ones.

The significance of this history is that, even where restrictions have been lifted - for example in a transition from autocratic to democratic rule - the media may still be influenced by the memory of past repression and be reluctant to report in a bold and independent fashion. Or the opposite may be the case: the media revel in a new-found freedom, but exercise it in an unprofessional and irresponsible way. The legacy of restrictions on media freedom may linger in the form of a state-owned and government-controlled broadcasting station that, even in the context of a newly democratic political system, is reluctant to act independently of government. Very often, a mixture of all these elements is in play.

Of course, sometimes the media may have developed its own professional standards and effectiveness in adversity. In that respect, they may be well-prepared for the challenge of reporting an election. But they are still unlikely to have much practical experience of election coverage.

In each of these contexts, media regulatory authorities and electoral authorities have an important role in creating a more favourable environment that will allow the media to carry out the unfamiliar functions of election coverage freely and professionally.

There are a variety of means whereby governments can infringe media freedom. The most common include:

• Physical attacks on the media and journalists. The most serious attacks on the media usually have the aim of silencing some critics and intimidating others. Journalists are beaten or even killed or "disappeared". Media premises are attacked, illegally raided or fire-bombed. Newspaper vendors may be targeted, with papers illegally confiscated or the vendors themselves beaten.
• The use of extreme legal powers against the media. The most threatening of these is pre-publication censorship, whereby each issue of a publication must receive prior official approval. Licensing of publications, or of journalists, gives the authorities massive leverage over the media. A whole battery of laws may be used to restrict freedom of the media, often on grounds of national security. These are often used as the basis for criminal charges against journalists and media owners, which can lead to long periods of imprisonment. Sometimes, a succession of sedition or criminal defamation charges are used against the media, even when cases are unlikely to come to trial, with the aim of intimidating journalists and draining their resources. Legal measures against printers and distributors are a particularly effective way of hampering the operation and the independent-minded media. Restricting the importation of newsprint has often been used as a tool to constrain media freedom.
• Tight regulation of the media. A total or virtual state monopoly of the media is a highly effective way of preventing critical voices from being heard. Although it is the deaths of journalists in the line of duty that grab the headlines, there can be little doubt that direct government control over the media has been - and continues to be - the commonest means for restricting what the public learns.
• Even when independent media exist and are nominally free from legal constraint, government control of vital resources such as electricity, printing presses, transmitters, and computers can often be used to cow or silence independent voices.

It is in new or "transitional" democracies that the legacy of these restrictions will loom largest. Often restrictive laws remain in place, even if they are not used as frequently as before. Their very existence may exercise what is usually known as a "chilling effect" on media freedom. Sometimes, during a transitional period, violence against the media may actually increase, as repressive governments no longer have recourse to the same legal measures to control the media and resort instead to secret and informal means of repression. Most frequently, the third set of restrictions - government control over a large section of the media - is likely to remain in place. Governments may also exercise tight control over the system of broadcast licensing, with the result that even "independent" media are in fact owned by their close political allies.

But it is not only dictatorships that restrict media freedom. Even in long-established democracies, there is tension between governments and the media. This is inevitable and not entirely undesirable - since, after all, the media are meant to act as a "watchdog" over government. But these tensions are not entirely healthy. Journalists in established democracies are less likely to face physical threats in carrying out their duties, but many have to contend with legal actions, for example to compel them to reveal confidential sources of information. Many of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights that have laid down standards on governments' obligations to respect media freedom have arisen from cases where European journalists' rights have been infringed.

Relative Importance of Different Media

A whole variety of economic, political and cultural factors determine which media are most important in different countries. It is widely claimed that the media - and particularly their role in election campaigns - has become "Americanized". Among other things this is generally understood to mean that television plays a dominant role as the medium of information. While this is increasingly true, it is not universally so. Also, what may be true for one section of a particular society may not be true for all. For example, those who are poorer or live in areas that are more geographically remote are less likely to have access to television than higher income or urban people.

Structure of Media Ownership

Who owns the media clearly has an enormous bearing on the way in which they will cover elections - or any other political issue. State-owned media are often under direct government control and will therefore tend to favour the ruling party. Privately-owned media may also serve the political interests of their proprietors, while in some countries, the political parties themselves may own significant media outlets.

The structure of ownership is also likely to have a bearing on questions such as how far political advertising is permitted during elections. It is well known that the United States, with media that are almost exclusively in private hands, organizes direct access by political parties to the media by means of paid advertising. But that is not an isolated example. For example, Finland, where commercial broadcasting developed rather earlier than in most of Europe, has a far freer approach to paid political advertising than most European countries. Countries like Britain and Denmark, with a stronger tradition of public ownership of the media, do not allow paid political advertising at all, but instead have a system of free direct access broadcasts.

Media ownership is sometimes seen as a simple reflection of political conditions: dictatorships or authoritarian regimes control the media directly, while democracies allow pluralism of ownership. There is a grain of truth in this, but it is clear that the reality is much more complex. Most Western European democracies, for example, had a state monopoly of broadcasting until relatively recently. Britain legalized private commercial broadcasting in the 1950s, but France, Germany, and Denmark did not do so until the 1980s. Britain and France are particularly important examples because of their extensive colonial legacy that influenced the organization of broadcasting and media in scores of countries.

In Britain and France, there was historically a strong distinction between broadcasting, with its strong public element, and the privately-owned print media. The argument for the involvement of the state in broadcasting - or at least in the allocation of broadcasting licences - has been that the frequency spectrum is a finite public resource. Access should therefore be allocated impartially. However, in some long-standing democracies - for example in Scandinavia - there is a tradition of public funding of the print media, usually as a means of ensuring pluralism.

Conversely, the private media in Latin America were often closely identified with the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. Far from facilitating pluralism, these media houses advocated its suppression. Indeed, many would argue that the large corporations dominating the US media are not conducive to the expression of alternative political viewpoints. Whatever the truth of such contentions, it is clear that there is not a direct correlation between private ownership and pluralism.

Economics also play an important part in determining the structure of media ownership. The size of the advertising "cake" varies according to economic conditions, but there is generally not much that individual media organs can do about it. All private - and some public - media are dependent upon advertising to make their business sustainable. One reason for the great weight of the public sector in the media of poorer countries is the small size of this cake - and in particular the fact that government advertising comprises a large proportion of it.

In African countries, for example, as well as parts of Asia and Latin America, this explains why national radio stations, broadcasting on medium- and long-wave frequencies, are almost entirely a publicly-owned phenomenon. Private advertisers are primarily interested in reaching an urban audience with disposable income - the type of audience served by private FM stations (most of which primarily broadcast music). Even when broadcasting regulations permit - and often they do not - neither private broadcasters nor advertisers have much interest in broadcasting to the entire nation. In this context, pluralism over the airwaves can only be ensured by developing a clear public service mandate for the state media.

The emergence of media such as satellite and cable television complicates this picture but, contrary to some of its most fervent advocates, does not change it fundamentally. Obviously, those who can afford to subscribe to a pay channel will not be among the poorest - television owners seldom fall into that category anyway. Local cable and satellite providers are subject to the same political and economic constraints as those broadcasting on terrestrial channels. Multinational broadcasters such as Cable News Network (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) can play an important role in breaching broadcasting monopolies. That is why many countries, especially in the Middle East, have prohibited ownership of satellite dishes (a prohibition that was circumvented in one memorable North African case by the widespread substitution of cous-cous pans). The Middle East has been fertile soil for satellite viewing because it shares a single language, Arabic. Few other regions of the world have a common language, with the result that English-language broadcasts from Atlanta or London will have only limited impact.

For the sake of simplicity, the different types of media ownership can be summarized thus:

• public or state-owned media, primarily in the area of broadcasting.
• private broadcasters.
• predominantly privately-owned print media.
• community media.
• media directly owned by political parties.

Public/State Media

A very large proportion of the world's media - especially radio and television - are owned by the public or the state. Three different terms are used that, in principle at least, have very different meanings:

• Public media use public money to broadcast in the interests of the public as a whole. They are not partisan towards any particular party, including the incumbent ruling party.
• State media are owned by the state (although of course the state is financed out of public money) and directly controlled by it.
• Government media are owned by the government of the day (but still using that same public money) and are controlled by the government of the day.

Two models of public/state broadcasting developed in parallel. In Western Europe most broadcast media were initially under public ownership, but usually with strict legal guarantees of independence from the government of the day. At the same time, in the Soviet Union (and later in many countries that followed its lead) was a model of broadcasting under the control of the government, directed towards achieving the objectives of the state.

The European public service model generally functioned well in its countries of origin but did not travel well. Colonial broadcasters on the British or French model enjoyed little of the independence of their metropolitan models, based as it was more upon convention than strong legal guarantees. After independence, post-colonial governments continued in the same tradition of broadcaster-as-government-propagandist. Hence the clear distinction in principle between government and public media has been largely lost in practice.

Yet the distinction is still important. Public service broadcasting was founded on a belief that still holds true in most of the world: the private sector alone cannot guarantee pluralism in broadcasting. The trouble is that government media have largely failed to do that too. In many countries, the advent of private broadcasting has made governments even more determined to cling onto editorial control of the public broadcaster.

In some cases there have been bold attempts to retrieve and modernize the public service ideal: for example, in South Africa where since 1993 the public broadcaster has statutory independence and even, at one stage, had its board members appointed after public hearings.

Public or state media may be financed out of one or all of three main sources:

• A licence fee paid by television viewers
• The government budget
• Commercial advertising.

In a few cases this may be supplemented by other income, such as the sale of programmes. These different revenue sources have potential implications for the broadcaster's day-to-day independence. A licence fee or commercial advertising may make it easier for the broadcaster to maintain a distance from government, although it will still depend on government mechanisms (often the postal service) to collect the fee.

Much of the discussion about "regulation" of the media in elections - a term that creates nervousness among some freedom of expression advocates - is in fact to do with ensuring that publicly funded media operate with due independence of the government of the day, rather than trying to restrict the operations of media that already enjoy full editorial independence.

Public or government-owned media are usually broadcasters. But there are still many government-owned newspapers in existence. They do not enjoy the same economic rationale as public broadcasters and often function as little more than government propaganda sheets. There are exceptions - Uganda's government paper, for example, has a reputation as a reliable and independent source of news. But often even innovative approaches to newspaper ownership end up in the same old pattern.

Corporate Media

The conventional division of media into publicly and “privately” owned is arguably outdated in an era of corporate media ownership. To own a newspaper or a broadcasting station has long been an expensive undertaking. But to describe media as “corporate” is not just to say that the media are owned by large companies. The striking development of the last quarter of the twentieth century was the diversification of media companies into other business interests and the acquisition of media companies by corporations active in other types of economic activity.

The second of these developments slightly preceded the first, with US firms such as Westinghouse and General Electric acquiring media houses. The acceleration of a communications revolution spurred the second development, with media companies holding diverse portfolios in broadcasting, newspapers and magazines, book publishing, cinema, sound recordings, computer software, and the internet.

The result of these developments has been a media landscape that is far removed from the ideal of the neutral “fourth estate” – press that are independent and detached from the political process. The media owners have a partisan interest in the political process in the same way that any company will have.

Many theoretical models have been developed to explain the role of the corporate media in the political process. The “propaganda model” developed by Herman and Chomsky is influential. [Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1988] They explain the tendency of the mass media to conform to the political consensus in Western countries with reference to five “filters” through which all news passes:

• Ownership: mass media tend to be owned by large corporate interests with a vested interest in the political and economic status quo.
• Advertising: most income derives from advertising, not sales. Advertisers are themselves large corporate interests that disapprove of dissenting voices.
• Sourcing: there is a preponderance of official or “establishment” sources for political and economic stories.
• Flak: Critical reporting is met by a systematically hostile response from government and corporate officials, including lawsuits, informal pressure, withdrawal of advertising, or placing of damaging stories.
• Ideology: Herman and Chomsky described anti-communism as a shared and guiding ideology in the US media of the 1980s. This could be updated as an anti-terrorist, anti-Islamic or pro-globalization ideology in Western societies of the 2000s. Of course, other societies have their own official ideologies.

Herman and Chomsky were heavily criticized for the allegedly conspiratorial nature of their explanation. Actually they were at pains to point out that theirs was a structural explanation that operated independently of the individual choice of the editors and journalists involved. Whether or not the explanation is accepted, it is clear that the political role of media corporations is a fact of life in the twenty-first century.

Private Broadcasters

There is a wide range of different types of private broadcaster - from giant multinational corporations run by some of the richest and most politically powerful men in the world to small, local FM stations. The category is artificial, since what divides them is as great as what unites them.

What they do have in common, however, is that they are owned by private interests - usually a company that seeks to make a profit, though sometimes a non-profit making trust. In most cases, broadcasting will be under the terms of a licence granted on a periodic basis by a public authority. How prescriptive or restrictive are the terms of that licence will also vary. Sometimes a broadcasting licence will expressly prohibit the broadcasting of news. This is the case with the licence granted to the South African multinational M-Net, for example. M-Net is happy to provide pure entertainment channels, so elections, with their turmoil and debate, pass it by entirely. [1]

More often, a broadcasting licence will lay down certain terms under which news or current affairs can be broadcast. Sometimes this will include prescriptions as to what election coverage should be carried. There may also be an explicit public service component to the licence - for example, obliging the licensee to carry public education programmes.

How important private broadcasting stations are as an information source for voters is a question that cannot be answered separately from the role of the public broadcaster. In the United States, at one extreme, public broadcasting plays a minimal role, so voters derive a very large part of their election information from private broadcasters. Paradoxically, a country like Tanzania, where television has only been introduced in very recent times, private commercial television has much greater weight than the public broadcaster. (This contrasts with most African countries where state television still dominates - and indeed with Zanzibar, the one part of Tanzania where television has existed for a long time.) [2]

Private television is the fastest growing sector of the media in many parts of the world - not only in Western Europe, where it made a comparatively late start, but also Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. In many cases the owners of private broadcasting stations have explicit political and electoral ambitions. The clearest example is of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, whose broadcasting stations successfully promoted his ambition to become his country's Prime Minister. A similar phenomenon can be seen in many countries of Latin America, as well as Central and Eastern Europe.

[1]Richard Carver, South Africa, in Richard Carver and Ann Naughton (eds) Who Rules the Airwaves? Broadcasting in Africa, ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship, London 1995, p. 91

[2]Richard Carver, "Trends and Themes in African Broadcasting" in Richard Carver and Ann Naughton (eds) Who Rules the Airwaves? Broadcasting in Africa, ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship, London 1995, p. 5

Print Media

The print media display the greatest diversity of all, in both ownership and content. They range from daily to weekly newspapers, from news magazines to a range of special interest publications. For the purposes of elections we are primarily concerned with newspapers, although many of the observations and standards might also apply to other types of print media.

Even in situations where the state retains a large stake in broadcasting, the print media are usually in private hands. The main exceptions are likely to be authoritarian or dictatorial systems under which free elections are unlikely to be on the agenda. But there are also countries, such as some in northern Europe, where a public subsidy is paid to newspapers to ensure the political diversity of the press. In countries emerging from dictatorship, aid donors sometimes subsidize private newspapers with a similar aim. By and large, however, newspapers derive their income from advertising and sales revenue (with the former usually much more significant than the latter).

The ideal of the "Fourth Estate" - the media keeping a check over government - is perhaps more effective in the print media than broadcasting. At least some newspapers in any country are likely to conduct serious news investigations and to comment in a reasonably sophisticated manner on political developments. The same is not always true of broadcasters.

But newspapers still have their own political agenda, which may not necessarily be a democratic one. A notorious example was the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which campaigned against the elected government in 1973 and in favour of a military coup - a clear case where the press dismally failed to promote political pluralism. The usual argument, however, is that the existence of a variety of newspapers reflecting different viewpoints will ensure a better informed public and a free interplay of political ideas. The Herman/Chomsky “propaganda model” of the mass media applies as much to mass circulation newspapers as to broadcasters.

Newspapers are perhaps more likely than broadcasting stations to endorse a political candidate or party explicitly. Political culture varies from country to country. In many countries explicit editorial endorsement of a political choice would be unthinkable; in others it is regarded as normal. Classical journalistic ethics would still demand that news reportage of fact be strictly separated from the expression of editorial comment. Nevertheless, a chosen political agenda will almost inevitably affect the selection of which news is to be covered.

In a more general sense the newspapers, along with other media, apply an overall selection of which are legitimate issues to be debated in an election campaign. The aspiration would always be that these are the issues of particular concern to voters. Unfortunately, it is often the cases that the media and political parties are complicit in their choice of the priority issues.

Community Media

In many parts of the world, community media are a rapidly growing phenomenon. Debates rage about who exactly are entitled to call themselves community media. Usually, the definition includes something about being produced by the community, for the community. In other words, it is not just enough for it to be aimed at a small local area; it should be produced with the involvement of that community.

But then, what is a community? Traditionally it has been assumed to refer to a geographical community. But in South Africa, for example, with one of the widest networks of community radio in the world, the term is also used to refer to a community of interest, especially among disadvantaged sectors of society. Thus there might be a "women's community", a "gay community" or a "community of people with disabilities". There may also be community media aimed at people of a certain religious faith. [1]

The media themselves will also vary. Community newspapers have a long history, but the last 20 years have seen the emergence of lower cost broadcasting technologies, accompanied by a liberalization of licensing regimes. This has facilitated the emergence in some countries of a vibrant community radio sector (and to a lesser extent television).

In some countries, national public broadcasters will also play a community role, carrying material produced by (or aimed at) particular local communities, or communities of interest.

The significance of this for elections is immediately apparent. Community media, almost by definition, have a small but highly loyal audience. For purposes of voter education, community media will be very important, especially since they can reach sections of society that may be bypassed by more traditional media.

The terms of community broadcasting licences often prohibit explicit political campaigning. It will be particularly important for a regulatory authority to monitor compliance with the terms of a licence during election periods.

[1] Richard Carver, South Africa, in Richard Carver and Ann Naughton (eds) Who Rules the Airwaves? Broadcasting in Africa, ARTICLE 19 and Index on Censorship, London 1995, p. 93. See also http://www.amarc.org (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters).

Party Media

It is a paradox that those media that are directly owned and controlled by political parties - which are likely to be the most concerned about the outcome of an election - fall outside most systems of media regulation. If a newspaper is simply a campaigning sheet for the party that owns it, it is not effectively bound by any of the professional or legal standards that govern the behaviour of the media as a whole.

In many countries, political parties are not allowed to own broadcasting stations, since this is deemed to be an unfair allocation of a national resource - the frequency spectrum - to a narrow political interest.

Essentially, political party media will fall into one of three categories, and it will be for the regulatory authority to decide which:

• Propaganda sheets that do not fall under a media regulator, but may be monitored if, for example, they constitute campaign spending , which may be limited by law.
• Conventional private media that just happen to be owned by a party. In that case, they will have to conform to the prevailing standards or regulations for other private media.
• Government media, in a situation in which the ruling party and government have been intertwined. In that case, media using public funds should conform to the same standards as any other public media - which in practice probably means that they cannot campaign for the party at all.

Increasingly, however, another type of media is emerging that straddles the distinction between party and private media. Individual politicians, or business leaders with political aspirations, own media that appear to be regular outlets. For all intents and purposes, these are conventional private media that are subject to the same laws and regulations as any other.

"New" Media

The practices and principles of media behaviour in elections were developed for what we now regard as “old” media: newspapers, radio, and television. Yet new forms of media are developing at a rapid rate. The Internet is the obvious example, but there are other technologies that have a clear relevance to elections: short messages (SMS) transmitted over mobile telephones, for example.

Are the regulatory practices and styles of reporting that have developed over the years for conventional media equally applicable to “new” media?

First, there is a potential confusion to clear out of the way. There are many possible uses for electronic communications technology in the electoral process itself. These include registering and voting online using the internet or SMS. However, these are quite specific and need to be distinguished from the role that these technologies may play as news or campaigning media. These are not discussed here.

Many of the assumptions that underlie the regulation of conventional media simply do not apply to new media. For example, the space to publish material on the World Wide Web is literally infinite, compared with the assumption behind broadcasting regulation that the frequency spectrum is a finite resource that must be shared.

New technologies may, to some extent, also challenge the dominance of powerful corporate or governmental voices. It is far easier for individuals or small groups to set up web sites or campaign using SMS messages than it is for them to launch newspapers or television stations. Ultimately, however, the internet and other new technologies are carried on media (such as telephone lines) that are owned by governments or large corporate owners.

The regulatory challenge posed by new media so far has been the following: old media can be regulated in a way that does not constitute censorship and enhances, rather than restricts, freedom of expression. Such regulation of new media has proven impossible. New media can be regulated, but the content of the Internet, for example, is so diverse and widespread that regulation has been heavy-handed and has amounted to censorship: interception of emails, closure of web sites, and pressure or legal action against Internet service providers.

The Internet, in particular, poses a challenge to traditional views of media conduct in elections. Election reporting blackouts, for example, have been rendered virtually obsolete by the activities of unregulated web sites. The characteristic of the Internet that places it beyond regulation is its international nature. Attempts by national regulators to close down websites are met by the creation of mirror sites (replicas) beyond the country’s borders.

This regulatory challenge is likely to extend beyond the written word, with the development of Internet radio and, with time, television. Other variants, such as podcasting – the transmission of audio files – RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and peer-to-peer networks, will only increase this challenge.

The Internet

The Internet has been hailed as the next revolution in electoral communications, just as it is claimed to have revolutionized the global flow of information. Already, opinion polls are conducted by Internet (though one hopes that the findings are treated with extreme caution). Treating such assertions with due scepticism does not mean dismissing them out of hand - simply taking a sober approach to how the Internet fits into the overall media structure.

The first point is that the Internet is dependent upon telecommunications - for the most part still land lines rather than mobile telephony. Two further examples immediately underline the significance of this. First, there are more telephones in Manhattan than in the whole of Africa. Second, in South Africa, which has about the eighteenth highest level of Internet connectivity in the world, more than half the population have never made a telephone call. [1] Put simply, the Internet remains a communications medium for the relatively rich, rather than the mass of the world's voters. In this it is unlike radio, or even television, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, the Internet has rapidly become a vitally important means of political communication - witness the lengths that governments such as the Chinese will go to in order to limit access to "subversive" Web sites. In a context where the conventional media are highly censored, the Internet can be an important means for small numbers of people to receive politically sensitive information that can then be more widely circulated. In other words, for most of the globe, the significance is more that the Internet will enable alternative ideas to be put into circulation rather than serving as a means of mass communication by parties, candidates, or electoral authorities.

The "convergence" between the technology of broadcasting and that of telecommunications is also likely to lead to a closer linkage between traditional media and the Internet. Certainly the major providers in one field can cross easily into the other. Telephony has moved towards the use of satellites, while broadcasting has moved towards the use of fibre-optic cable. The likely economic and social consequence is the growth of private media monopolies in the broadcasting and Internet field.

Even in the United States, where Internet use is most widespread, political parties have made surprisingly little and unsophisticated use of the Internet. The reluctance of modern politicians to engage in spontaneous interaction with the electorate perhaps explains this. Politicians' Web sites tend to be the same material that is available in other, more traditional formats, repackaged for the Internet.

Where the Internet has developed faster in relation to elections has been in the material posted by non-governmental organizations. In the US, this has included searchable online databases that allow the public to research campaign contributions to the different candidates or to research a politician’s voting record- developments that can only enhance democracy.

A more problematic development, however, is the use of Internet reporting to subvert conventions that have been widely accepted by "traditional" media - for example by reporting exit polls before voting has ended.

An important characteristic of the Internet – good or bad depending on one’s point of view – is the ease of access of individuals and small organizations. The Internet poses none of the traditional constraints on publishing: neither expense nor quality control. This has led, for example, to the emergence of “blogging” (a contraction of the term “Web log”). These independent and often intemperate individual political diaries have been condemned and praised in equal measure. But they are a political phenomenon that is here to stay.

Other technological developments within the Internet will also have political ramifications. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a means of disseminating news stories rapidly and at virtually no cost. Peer-to-peer networks allow the simple, low-cost transfer of large files (such as audio and video files) to a wide audience. “Podcasting” is a term coined to describe the broadcasting of audio materials over the Internet (and in theory their downloading to personal stereo players).

The combination of these technologies – such as the syndication of podcasts – has enormous potential significance. These are media with potentially mass audiences that are beyond the control of any regulatory authority. This is a largely beneficial development, something that evades censorship and increases freedom of expression. For example, in Singapore, where the main media are under official control, the opposition leader has used podcasts to distribute his political messages.

Taken in conjunction with the conventional media, the Internet can only grow in importance. After all, many journalists now use the Internet as an important source of stories. Electoral authorities increasingly use a World Wide Web site as a means of publishing information. This will then be picked up by the conventional media and made available more widely. This is particularly important, for example, in publishing results. If the Web site can be linked to the results database of the authority's computer, this will mean that results are publicly available immediately.

The Internet can also be an important way of distributing items such as packages for radio broadcast. This is a particularly effective way of making programming available to local or regional radio stations in large countries - Indonesia, for example, has experimented with this approach. This has a potential use for distributing voter education material or direct access slots.

[1] Sally Burnheim, The Right to Communicate: The Internet in Africa, ARTICLE 19, London, 1999. (http://www.article19.org.)

Cellular Telephones and Election Campaigning

Cellular telephones are potentially a very important medium for electoral communication, for two reasons:

• Ownership and access to cellular phones (cellphones, mobiles, handphones….) far outstrips access to landlines. This disparity is especially apparent in poorer countries, but it is a general phenomenon
• Cellphones have a potential as a “broadcasting” medium that is not comparable to traditional landlines. Whereas the landline could be used for voice calls and transmitting documents, the cellphone can send and receive text messages, audio and video files.

The use of cellphones in political campaigning or broadcasting is not yet well developed, but the potential is obvious. So far this has focused on the use of text or short messages (SMS). There are two well-documented examples from the Philippines. In 2001 President Joseph Estrada was forced to resign after a popular campaign against him orchestrated by SMS. Then, in the 2004 presidential elections, SMS was a very popular campaigning tool for the main candidates.

It is hard to see how SMS could easily be brought within the regulatory ambit without resorting to heavy-handed censorship. Also, SMS, like email, can easily be “spoofed”. This means that messages can be sent from masked or fake addresses (as with email “spam”), making the regulator’s task even more difficult.

What has so far been confined to SMS could rapidly develop through audio and video files, with the development of “third generation” (3G) phones capable of exchanging these easily. This is a point where Internet-based techniques (such as podcasting) and cellular telephony overlap. Political broadcasts could be distributed by a mixture of media, to be watched or listened to on telephones or personal stereo players.

These technologies are potentially available to all the players in election campaigns. Parties can use them to distribute campaign material; media can enhance the audience for their broadcasts; and electoral managers can use them to educate the public and increase political participation, especially among young voters.

Level of Media Professionalism

An important element in the media environment is the degree of professionalism and experience of journalists and other media practitioners. It is common that journalists in a country that has only recently emerged from a highly restrictive political system will lack many of the skills and professional standards of their counterparts in a country with a long history of media freedom.

Sometimes, the media will be emerging from a situation in which journalism was not freely practised at all. In that case, there may well be a tendency to abuse new-found freedoms with poorly researched and inaccurate stories. Often, journalists in these situations will simply not know what professional standards are expected of them: they will not have professional bodies or trade unions with codes of conduct. They will lack the basic skills for investigating, checking, and writing or broadcasting stories. In particular, journalists who are approaching their first free election are likely to be unfamiliar with even the simplest aspects of the process. Often, there will be no facilities for training journalists - or at least none that equips them with the skills that they need to play the "watchdog" role of the media in a democracy.

However, the experience of an authoritarian regime may not be entirely negative. In many cases, courageous independent journalism has played an important part in pressuring dictatorships to open up the political space. Journalists who have successfully investigated and published sensitive stories in such a media environment will have developed professional skills that are unmatched by their colleagues in friendlier circumstances. In the context of an election, the professional challenge will be to bring these skills to bear on a new and unfamiliar set of stories to be reported.

Journalism Training

The standards of journalism will be determined in part by the existence of training institutions. This, in turn, will be influenced by two main factors: the political and economic climate.

In a situation where the media environment is greatly restricted, there is unlikely to be any academic or training institution that can teach journalists the necessary skills. It is unlikely also that professional bodies will be willing or able to provide such training. In poorer countries, providing journalism training is seldom seen as a priority. This is often a result of the low social status accorded to journalists.

In either circumstance, it may help to develop training facilities on a regional or even international level. International journalists' organizations such as the International Federation of Journalists have considerable expertise (including in the area of election reporting) and can provide training, especially in new or transitional democracies Regional training institutions can provide a type of journalism training that is well geared to the experience of a journalist's home country, without the same political or economic constraints. Aspiring journalists with access to the Internet will be able to learn a great deal from various websites.

Legal Framework for Media

An important factor in determining the pluralism, independence and vibrancy of the media will be the legal context within which they operate. Journalists themselves often tend towards the view that the less the law has to do with them the better. Certainly the ideal is probably that the legal framework for the media is aimed at creating an enabling environment in which journalism can flourish, rather than regulating its every aspect.

The broad legal framework within which the media operate derives in the first instance from international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is customary international law, which informs the way in which all other law is interpreted. In Article 19, the UDHR provides a fundamental guarantee of the right to freedom of expression, which encompasses the freedom of the media. This is echoed and elaborated in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR):

"Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice."

This is a treaty, which is binding upon any state that ratifies it.

Further, there are regional treaties in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, each of which contains similar guarantees of freedom of expression and media freedom.

At a national level, freedom of expression and of the media will be affected by laws at several different levels:

• The Constitution - the basic or supreme law of the land.
• Statutes passed by the legislature.
• Decrees, regulations, or other statutory instruments, which will usually have lesser force than statutory law.

In principle, of course, all these areas of law will relate to each other in a harmonious fashion. If a country has ratified the ICCPR or its regional human rights treaty, then its provisions will be reflected in the Constitution, which in turn will determine the content of subsidiary law. But life is seldom that simple.

In many legal systems, ratified treaties do not automatically find their way into enforceable national law. Constitutions may have been drafted long ago, before a treaty was ratified. Or the Constitution may reflect progressive developments in freedom of expression law, but other statutes may not have been amended to take account of this. In principle, ratified treaties may take precedence over the Constitution and provide the means for interpreting it. Or they may be deemed to be of equal status to it. Or they may still be part of the domestic law, but regarded as inferior to the Constitution. Likewise, the Constitution will usually be sovereign in relation to statutes, which will be deemed ineffective if they come into conflict with it.

All this, in turn, is contingent upon how far governments respect the rule of law in practice. Even in stable democracies, this is not something that can be taken for granted. A government can easily be irritated by what it sees an inquiring and interfering press and take illegal measures to try to stop its investigations - ranging from unlawfully seizing a journalist's notes to organizing death squads. In this area, as in any other, the vigilance of the judicial system and its readiness to confront the executive branch of government are vital.

Constitutional Protection for Media Freedom

The trend in recent years has been towards strengthening the role and supremacy of the constitution in law and government. Increasingly, notions such as the "sovereignty of parliament" are being superseded by the idea that there should be a single supreme law that governs everyone. Even Britain, the home of the "sovereignty of parliament" concept, with its supposed "unwritten constitution", has now incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into its domestic law as a type of Bill of Rights. The United States, by contrast, has a long history of constitutional rule. The first amendment to the US Constitution famously provides that "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" - in other words the supreme law is set above the legislature.

More generally, older constitutions that provide a general protection of freedom of expression are now understood to encompass freedom of the media and a right to freedom of information, two of the most relevant aspects where media and elections are concerned.

The South African Constitution (1996), in its Section 16 on freedom of expression, represents some of the most progressive modern constitutional thinking on media freedom:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes - (a) freedom of the press and other media; (b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; (c) freedom of artistic creativity; and (d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

(2) The right in subsection (1) does not extend to - (a) propaganda for war; (b) incitement of imminent violence; or (c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.

The exceptions in Section 16(2) echo those in Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

When a strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression is introduced, a government may conduct an audit of existing laws to determine whether they conform to the constitution. Any that do not will have to be repealed or amended to bring them into line with the constitution.

But in many instances, such an audit does not take place. The constitutionality of existing laws will then only be tested by litigation when the government tries to apply a law that may be outdated. It is in these circumstances that the existence of an independent judiciary that is prepared to enforce the constitutional protection of rights becomes especially important.

Under most constitutions, the right to freedom of expression may be suspended or "derogated from" in certain exceptional circumstances. According to international standards, this should only be when there is a lawfully declared state of emergency. The suspension of rights should only be for the duration of a genuine emergency threatening the life of the nation.

Statutes Affecting the Media

Different legal traditions have very different approaches to the role of statutory law in relation to the media (or other aspects of national life). Countries with a civil law or socialist legal tradition tend as a matter of course to have a comprehensive statute governing the media. Common law countries tend not to, instead assuming that the media are subject to the general law of the country except in narrowly specified areas.

The variety of different systems makes it difficult to generalize about the laws in force relating to the media. The following, however, is a list of principles derived from various international standards that give some indication of what laws that permit a healthy degree of media freedom might look like:

• Anyone is free to set up a media outlet, provided that they abide by the basic business law of the country. There will be no procedure for licensing the print media. Broadcast media may be licensed by a publicly accountable regulatory body according to publicly available standards.
• Anyone is free to practice as a journalist. There will be no legally prescribed qualification or registration process.
• Defamation law will provide a civil remedy in the event of wilful harm to reputation - but this will not be a criminal offence. Politicians and other public figures will be offered less protection by defamation law than private individuals.
• "Sedition" laws will not penalize journalists or others merely on the basis of the reporting of facts or the expression of opinions. "National security" provisions will be narrowly drawn and will only apply in the case of a genuine threat to the life of the nation - not in order to protect politicians or government agencies from legitimate scrutiny.
• There will be a presumption that official information belongs to the public. It will only be protected in order to safeguard a legitimate national security interest or for a number of other closely defined reasons. Otherwise there should be mechanisms in place to ensure public access to official information.
• Journalists should not be compelled to disclose the confidential source of information, except in very narrow circumstances - in practice only when maintaining confidentiality would impede a criminal investigation and where the information is not available from any other source.

Other Statutory Instruments Affecting the Media

Many statutes passed by the legislature will require the enactment of further detailed regulations to give them force. For example, the legislature may pass a broadcasting statute, but regulations will need to be drawn up to lay down the exact licensing procedure. Such regulations will usually be issued by the Minister responsible. This sort of statutory instrument is indeed legally binding, but it is inferior to a statute passed by the legislature. Should there be a conflict between the two, the statute will prevail.

Another type of statutory instrument is more problematic. Authoritarian governments will often rule by decree. A decree is also a law. Although most legal systems would take it to be inferior to a law passed by parliament, sometimes a decree may declare itself to be superior to other law, including even the Constitution. (The Nigerian military dictatorship, for example, enacted many decrees of this type.) In such difficult circumstances it will be the responsibility of the judiciary to assert the superiority of established law over the declarations of dictators.

Case Law Affecting the Media

The relevance of previous cases in interpreting law differs according to different legal systems. In general, common law systems work very largely on case law since the "common law" is not written down anywhere and depends on judges "discovering" it. A judge in any particular case will rely heavily on previous judges who have decided upon similar cases or involving similar issues. Although precedence is naturally given to cases from the judge's own country (and from the more superior courts), this approach allows precedents from other countries with a similar legal system to be taken into account also.

Historically, civil law countries did not share this approach. However, the development of international law has provided new interpretative standards in many instances. Thus, for example, Spanish law requires the application of the European Human Rights Convention to be taken into account in interpreting Spain’s own constitution. The case law of regional human rights courts such as the Inter-American and the European cuts across distinctions between common and civil law jurisdictions and is intended to be invoked under either system.

In practice, common law systems have an increasing body of statute law, while civil law systems draw upon the approach in previous cases - including in both systems in relation to the media and elections. The two systems are undoubtedly growing closer together.

Existing Media Regulatory Frameworks

A vital part of the media environment - and one that will be of particular relevance during an election - is the existing regulatory system. These come in all shapes and sizes but, for the sake of convenience, can be broken down into three main types:

• Broadcasting regulator: these will exist in some form wherever there is broadcasting. Their basic function is to allocate frequencies to the broadcasters. To some extent, this will entail deciding who gets a licence to broadcast and who does not. It may also involve drawing up the terms of a licence to prescribe what type of content the licensee may or may not broadcast. It may also include a complaints mechanism.
• Voluntary media council: this is a form of self-regulation that is very common among print media especially. Media councils may develop codes of conduct, consider complaints and conduct training of journalists. This is not, however, a mechanism for licensing journalists or determining who may practice.
• Other statutory regulator: a large variety of institutions fall under this heading. These range from constitutional bodies designed to ensure the independence of the media to state licensing authorities that control who may publish a newspaper or practise as a journalist.

The regulatory system will in many cases have a considerable influence on the independence and professionalism of the media. A system that is under tight governmental control is unlikely to promote pluralism and diversity among the media. A voluntary system, or one with strong legal or constitutional guarantees of independence, can safeguard pluralism in the media from government interference and can help to develop professional skills and standards.

An independent and trusted regulatory body can be important in an election, since it may take on some or all of the specialized functions involved in regulating the media during an election campaign.

Broadcasting Regulator

The word "regulation" is one that makes many journalists and broadcasters nervous, yet the reality is that in almost every country of the world someone decides who may broadcast and on what frequency. The main argument in favour of having such a body is that the airwaves are a finite resource. It is a matter of national policy how they are distributed - unlike newspaper publishing, for example, which can be largely determined by what the public chooses to read. If there were no statutory allocation of frequencies, then anyone with a large and strong transmitter could drown out a broadcaster with a weaker signal simply by broadcasting on an adjacent frequency. Hence broadcasting regulation, when carried out properly, is not a means of censorship but of ensuring that a variety of voices are heard.

There is a growing argument that in the age of satellite broadcasting, digital technology and convergence between broadcasting and telecommunications the old rationale for regulation has become redundant. Now, it is argued, there are enough channels for everyone to have their say. But the reality is that most of the audience for broadcasting still uses the old technologies - often a battery-powered or even clockwork transistor radio, or an ordinary terrestrial TV set. Satellite technology may be more widely available than before, but community and small private broadcasters (not to mention public national broadcasters) still depend on the old ways.

The frequencies available within any one country will be allocated, after negotiation, by the International Telecommunications Union. How they are then distributed to broadcasters within the country will vary enormously. An example of modern thinking on the issue comes from South Africa, where the Constitution provides for the existence of an independent regulatory body. The South African Communications Regulatory Authority (formerly the Independent Broadcasting Authority) has responsibility for regulating broadcasters in three sectors: public, private and community. It is unusual for a regulatory body to have authority over public broadcasting, but this has the advantage that it should allow the development of a coherent national broadcasting policy. The US Federal Communications Commission also has overall responsibility for frequency allocation, but that is in a situation where there is very little public broadcasting. In Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is answerable to Parliament, while a separate body, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, is responsible for regulating private broadcasting.

It is now generally recognized that broadcasting licences should be allocated by an independent publicly accountable body, according to pre-determined criteria. A regulatory body will often incorporate a complaints procedure, which may allow it to impose sanctions on broadcasters for breach of the terms of their licence. In extreme cases, the sanction would be to refuse to renew a licence after its term had expired, or even to revoke it before the term had ended.

All this is relevant in an election context, since a broadcasting regulator already carries out some of the functions that an electoral supervisory body may wish to assume in relation to the media. It may be more practical, therefore, for the broadcasting regulator itself to play that role.

Voluntary Media Council

Many countries have a voluntary media or press council, formed by the media profession itself. This is a regulatory body only in the sense that it may act as a complaints mechanism for members of the public who have a grievance about the way a newspaper or broadcaster has covered a particular issue. Clearly, a voluntary body of this sort cannot fulfil functions such as granting broadcasting licences.

The value of voluntary media councils is that they may be a way of dealing with problems - such as public complaints - without resort to litigation. An informal solution, such as the publication of an apology or retraction, replaces a lengthy and costly legal process. The media often also adopt this sort of mechanism as a way of pre-empting statutory regulation that may interfere with their own independence.

The role of a voluntary media council may be broader. It may, for example, undertake training of journalists or formulation of codes of conduct. These are also activities that may be useful for election coverage. There are clear advantages in a media professional body organizing training, while a voluntary code of conduct may be a useful and non-confrontational way of introducing the necessary professional standards to journalists who are inexperienced in election reporting. The media council's own complaints mechanism would then be able to address a matter if journalists fall short of the required standards.

Statutory or Constitutional Regulators

Some countries have statutory or constitutional bodies that are charged with regulating the media, or some section of it. It is a type of structure that is more typical of civil law than common law systems. Usually what it entails is some system of registration of publications, as well as broadcasters, and sometimes of journalists as well. This type of approach is generally opposed by media practitioners, who take the view that only the profession itself is competent to decide who can practise. It is a short step from registering publications or practitioners to licensing them - with all the negative implications that that would carry for media independence and the right to freedom of expression.

However, constitutional bodies may sometimes be charged with protecting the independence of the media, including the publicly owned media, from the government of the day. This, for example, is the role of the National Media Commission in Ghana. Where a regulatory body genuinely does play this role, it may be well placed to help to supervise the media in elections.