When, in a democracy such as ours, one starts noticing more and more signs that indicate that some of the pillars of the democratic organisation of society are being eroded, it should be a stimulus to all reflective citizens — those who value what ”democracy” stands for anyway — to stand up, or speak up, in defence of what one might call democratic space.
There have been several such worrying symptomatic indications, but I have in mind especially those pertaining to one of these democratic spaces, namely the crucial place occupied by the media in a democracy.
To be sure, in a world that is saturated by media, ranging from traditional print media to the still-diversifying range of electronic media, no one should delude her- or himself that any of these are truly ”neutral”, or — heaven forbid such naivety — completely ”objective”. A long and intricate history of science has demonstrated incontrovertibly that ”objectivity” really amounts to, at best, inter-subjective agreement among those who work in the same theoretical domain.
Moreover, as the French theorist Louis Althusser argued, there is not a single person who is not somehow ”interpellated” by an ”ideology” of some kind, even if he or she is only dimly aware of this. This means, of course, that every human being with a modicum of intelligence has an implicit idea of what a ”good” life amounts to, and usually behaves accordingly.
Ideology is therefore something that is much broader than the clearly identifiable ideologies of typically ”modern” provenance, such as communism, socialism, liberalism, or fascism — for example, it includes, as Althusser argued, all religions as well.
So much then, for neutrality or objectivity, and the media are no exception to this rule. There is therefore nothing unusual, or even wrong, with a newspaper, for instance, showing its ideological or political allegiance in various ways, most clearly in its editorial column. Editors are also human. But — and this brings me back to the ”sinister signs” referred to at the outset in this piece — when people who are very close to the president of a country (and to add insult to injury, who work as state officials) put in a bid for one of the most powerful media companies in the country, it is time to sit up and take notice.
Citizens should remind themselves that, difficult (if not impossible) as it may be, the functions of government and those of media should not be too overtly intertwined, lest an already gullible populace be further manipulated into believing that what they read in the press is ”objective” reporting or commentary, instead of what it may well become, namely the promotion of ideas that suit the governing party. Or, negatively speaking, such direct ”ownership” of a newspaper is a way of effectively preventing certain kinds of journalistic investigations from being conducted at all.
Those people who have been defending the right of the owners of a certain company to bid for a 100% stake in Johncom, arguing that it is in order for anyone to do so, as long as they declare their business interests, forget that these are not just any citizens of the country, but individuals with close ties to the president of South Africa. If this does not represent a clear clash of interests, I don’t know what would.
Have the defenders of this patently compromising bid forgotten the infamous case of the Citizen, where the National Party blatantly used a newspaper for promoting and defending the indefensible, namely apartheid? Or that, during this time, National Party Cabinet ministers served on editorial boards of newspapers? I realise that it is not apartheid which is at stake now, but the underlying principle of government control of an important sector of the ”free” press is exactly the same.
It is well-known that ”control” of the media is a very effective way to entrench a party’s rule — probably the most effective way ever devised. It is simply a matter of excluding certain kinds of news items, or modifying their presentation slightly, so that no one can be accused of ignoring important news, or of giving more prominence to representatives of the governing party than to those representing other parties, or of limiting the exposure of listeners, readers or viewers to what may be construed as ”negative” material from the ruling party’s perspective.
Case in point: Is it at all surprising that one encounters more and more people who tune in to e.tv’s newscast than to that of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)? They know that they can expect a more ”balanced” account of newsworthy events on e.tv than on the SABC. Similarly, anyone who compares CNN and Sky News with coverage of events by Al-Jazeera will know that the latter provides an important corrective to the mainstream perspective disseminated by the former two channels.
Bert Olivier is a professor of philosophy at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University