Index

The Enabling Environment For Free and Independent Media
By Monroe E. Price & Peter Krug

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Our effort in this Study has been to identify and describe processes of change that move societies toward democratic governance, focusing on the enabling environment for media law reform. Throughout, the objective has been to ask which steps assist in the development of free and independent media. We have sought to identify the relationship between media reform and the growth of democratic societies, examining the specific elements of media law that are part of media reform and the larger context in which these laws are developed.

Thus, we assume that the steps toward an enabling environment are related in some substantial and reciprocal way to the nature of the relevant society’s political development. Each step in political and legal transitions contributes to the state of an enabling environment for independent media. At the same time those independent media structures may also promote the achievement of the broader political goals.

In this process, the concept of the enabling environment is central. It is not only particular laws themselves that must be addressed, but the institutional structure which administers those laws, including the courts, regulatory agencies, and the culture of censorship or its absence. In some societies there is little effective law. What we mean by “law” may take the form not just of legislation emanating from a parliament, but other forms as well, including orders or actions of the executive branch.

In any society, there will be those who will support and those who oppose the public policy assumptions that underlie this effort. Many persons within and without the state who favor development of civil society will look for ways to further the process of incipient change. They will seek ways to bolster those in power that are inclined to foster openness and reform. They will also seek ways to augment a pluralistic society’s access to additional means of communication in order to disseminate information, opinions, and views.

NGOs have employed a variety of techniques to assist willing governments in these transitions. Institutions like the Independent Journalism Foundation have established training institutes. Other NGOs, like Internews and the Open Society Institute, directly fostered the development of independent media. More generally, Western governments have also encouraged a small but significant effort to address more comprehensively the need for legal structures that enable media reform.

In the specific area of legal norms and institutions, strategies or tools which deserve consideration include: the analysis of competing legislative media models; the analysis of how emerging economic legislation will affect the development of media; the assistance of media law specialists in the drafting of legislation; consultation with specialists from countries that have undertaken similar efforts; development of skills in lobbying government effectively for desired legislative solutions; and on-going attention to the developing institutional structure in order to understand how it functions.

In addition, economic issues, such as the questions of state subsidies or tax incentives for both state-owned and private media should be addressed, with recognition of the fact that reforming economic structures often cannot by itself support the development of an economic enabling environment for truly free and independent media. The inevitable imbalances within institutional and economic structures will have an important impact on the evolution of media law, and should be addressed as an important element in this process.

Those committed to developing free and independent media have explored how steps toward change can be specifically related in some substantial way to the nature of the relevant society’s political development. There is not yet a Rosetta Stone that decodes how distinct elements of the enabling environment can be related to the stages of a society as it passes, for example, from state control to more democratic forms.1 Development of one will have to await another day.

 1 See, e.g. Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Johns Hopkins, 1996). See Zbigniew Brzezinski, Polska scena obrotowa, Polityka, Oct. 29, 1994. Brzezinski’s analysis is set forth by K. Jakubowicz in Democratizing Media, Democratizing the State: Communication Law and Policy in Transition., (M. Price, B. Rozumilowicz, and S. Verhulst eds., Routledge, 2001).Chapter 7: Conclusion

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