Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

New questions for African
public service broadcasting
By Dr. Monica Chibita
Dr. Monica Chibita is Associate
Professor at <strong>the</strong> Department of
Journalism and Communication,
Makerere University. She is Associate
Editor of <strong>the</strong> Journal of African
Media Studies (JAMS) and is a
member of <strong>the</strong> editorial boards of
four academic journals dealing with
communications issues. In 2012, she
will take up <strong>the</strong> post of head of <strong>the</strong>
Mass Communication Department at
<strong>the</strong> Uganda Christian University.
When a group of mostly print
journalists (yes, <strong>the</strong>re was once
such a category) met in <strong>Windhoek</strong>
in 1991 and passed a series of
resolutions about <strong>the</strong> condition and
future of <strong>the</strong> media in Africa, <strong>the</strong>ir
main concerns were <strong>the</strong> securing
of a free, independent and pluralist
media.
There was little attention to <strong>the</strong>
electronic media at <strong>the</strong> time
as most countries still had one
broadcast channel, owned and
controlled by <strong>the</strong> state. Still, radio
was even <strong>the</strong>n, <strong>the</strong> main source
of information for <strong>the</strong> majority
of Africans. Ten <strong>years</strong> later <strong>the</strong>
African media landscape, however,
had been dramatically altered by
a combination of forces including
privatisation, internationalisation,
media convergence and digitisation.
These changes have particularly
impacted upon state-owned broadcasting.
Calls to change this into
public service broadcasting have
long been based on <strong>the</strong> Reithian
ideal which emphasises quality programming
that provides information
to enable active citizenship,
which educates and entertains, and
Section 3: Independence
which draws out <strong>the</strong> best in a country’s
cultural resources and expresses
and promotes national identity.
In reality, across Africa, <strong>the</strong>re is a
wide range of “public service broadcasters”
each with a peculiar identity
along <strong>the</strong> continuum from South
Africa to Tanzania for instance. Often
<strong>the</strong>se identities are, for better
or for worse, home-grown and enshrined
in law.
Meanwhile, a number of scholars
have argued that <strong>the</strong>re is no future
for public service broadcasting and
that <strong>the</strong> model should be abandoned
as it competes unfairly with <strong>the</strong>
commercial broadcasters, does not
provide much that is new or popular,
and does not offer people anything
<strong>the</strong>y cannot find somewhere else.
“Ten <strong>years</strong> later
<strong>the</strong> African
media landscape,
however, had been
dramatically altered
by a combination
of forces including
privatisation,
internationalisation,
media convergence
and digitisation.”
Never<strong>the</strong>less, what remains valid
is <strong>the</strong> idea that state broadcasting
is <strong>the</strong> opposite of public service
broadcasting. This recognition was
on <strong>the</strong> agenda ten <strong>years</strong> <strong>after</strong> <strong>the</strong>
1991 conference. <strong>Windhoek</strong>+10
accordingly produced <strong>the</strong> “African
Charter on Broadcasting” which
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