Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

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Overview Correlating this picture is data from Reporters without Borders. Using this information in conjunction with <strong>the</strong>ir measuring system to compare 2002 and 2010, <strong>the</strong> African average rating has worsened from 28 to 34 negative points. 111 (Eritrea ranked worst at 105 points; while Namibia was best at incurring only 7 points in 2010). As noted earlier, averages can obscure <strong>the</strong> diversity of situations in that a handful of bad countries can skew <strong>the</strong> trend downwards. But even if one takes a more nuanced and modal approach, <strong>the</strong>re are fewer countries with a “free media” and even <strong>the</strong> “partly free” category has shrunk while <strong>the</strong> numbers of “not free” countries has grown over <strong>the</strong> last decade. This depressing pattern is evident in Freedom House ratings for <strong>the</strong> percentage of African countries (out of a total of 52) which were scored as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free: 2000/ 2001/ 2002/ 2003/ 2004/ 2005/ 2006/ 2007/ 2008/ 2009/ 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Free % 17 12 12 12 15 12 8 13 4 10 Partly Free % 58 62 60 58 40 42 60 31 44 40 Not Free % 25 27 29 31 44 46 33 56 52 50 Shown in trend form, <strong>the</strong> downward slope is evident: 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2000/1 2001/2 2002/3 2003/4 2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 As was <strong>the</strong> case back in 1991, <strong>the</strong> verdict for media development today chimes with <strong>the</strong> observation by <strong>the</strong> African Media Development Initiative in 2006: “<strong>the</strong> key barrier to media development is <strong>the</strong> control that states exert over media”. 112 Much work is needed to claw back parts of <strong>the</strong> ‘promised land’, to prevent fur<strong>the</strong>r attrition by governments, and to ensure a universal yield of high quality journalistic ‘crops’. Free % Partly Free % Not Free % Media in Africa - 2011 | 37
8.2 Looking ahead: new media The growth of private and community media highlights that stateowned media has proved unable to satisfy <strong>the</strong> market in Africa. The rise of tabloids shows <strong>the</strong> same in regard to mainstream media genres. More recently, <strong>the</strong> advent of talk radio and blogging in Africa signals <strong>the</strong> limitations of <strong>the</strong> professional media sector to reflect <strong>the</strong> input of individual citizens. Just as <strong>the</strong> fax machine and cheaper media production equipment underpinned <strong>the</strong> growth of new African media outlets since 1991, so <strong>the</strong> increased accessibility of digital platforms will intensify this trend in expanding <strong>the</strong> media in <strong>the</strong> <strong>years</strong> ahead. In some parts of Africa, particularly mobile media uptake is moving ahead. Smart mobile operators like Safari.com provide zero-rated Facebook access to students in Kenya, while Twitter offers updates by free SMS in Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar and Cameroon (<strong>the</strong> last until March 2011 when it was banned). These strategies incentivise online mobile behaviours, and <strong>the</strong>y turn people instantly into micromedia publishers on <strong>the</strong> one hand, and super-consumers of content on <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r. Language barriers are being tackled with Google working on services in Swahili, Amharic, Wolof, Hausa, Afrikaans, and Zulu in addition to English, Arabic, French and Portuguese. At present, <strong>the</strong> potential is far from being realised. According to David Montez, a survey of Tanzania in 2010 found almost two thirds of adults using cellphones on at least a weekly basis. And of <strong>the</strong>se users, 15 percent received regular SMStext message information services, but fewer than 4 percent used <strong>the</strong>ir mobile phone for Internet access. In comparison, <strong>the</strong> survey found that 85 percent of adults have a radio 38 | Media in Africa - 2011 in <strong>the</strong>ir home and 72 percent listen to <strong>the</strong> radio for news on a daily basis. 113 On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, it can be confidently predicted that where radio fails to meet people’s needs, and where <strong>the</strong>re is affordable access to alternatives, many individuals take up <strong>the</strong>se options. In February 2011 it was estimated that 39% of urban South Africans and 27% of rural users over <strong>the</strong> age of 16 were now browsing <strong>the</strong> internet on phones, meaning that six million South Africans had internet access via cellphone. 114 About 140,000 Tunisians joined Facebook every month last year, using it to bypass local media censorship. There were about 17m Facebook users in Africa at <strong>the</strong> start of 2011, and <strong>the</strong>re are expected to be 28m by <strong>the</strong> end of it. 115 It is <strong>the</strong> case that <strong>the</strong> real media force in <strong>the</strong> Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions was television news received by satellite, and particularly Al Jazeera. But <strong>the</strong> role of new media in terms of recirculating news, deliberating on information, and organising physically on <strong>the</strong> basis of it, should not be discounted. According to Linus Gitahi, CEO of The Nation, in March 2009 more Kenyans had used or touched a mobile phone than had watched a TV screen. “Mobile phones are now ubiquitous in villages as well as cities. If an individual does not have a cell phone, <strong>the</strong>y almost surely know someone who does.” Young people, he noted, were growing up as “digital natives” and <strong>the</strong> prospect was becoming one of individualisation and customisation of mass communications. To add to his points, we can observe <strong>the</strong> coming transition to digital TV broadcasting. The digital switchover will make technical space for many more players on <strong>the</strong> airwaves and for more wireless internet access. As viewers acquire a set-top box to convert digital signals to view on <strong>the</strong>ir analogue TV sets, <strong>the</strong>y will effectively gain a computer in <strong>the</strong> home. In many cases, this could be used with a simcard and modem to enable <strong>the</strong>se people to email, social network, interact with content and publish content – all via <strong>the</strong>ir large screens and smart set-top boxes. Significantly, <strong>the</strong>se new technologies are harder for governments to control than traditional media, not least because more and more people use <strong>the</strong>m and <strong>the</strong> volume of information put into circulation escalates. It is <strong>the</strong> case that selective actions can be taken, such as <strong>the</strong> jailing for three <strong>years</strong> of blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad by <strong>the</strong> Egyptian army <strong>after</strong> <strong>the</strong> 2011 revolution, simply because he had criticised <strong>the</strong> military. 116 Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, <strong>the</strong>re is surveillance of individuals and <strong>the</strong> under-regulated co-option of cellphone operators and internet service providers into monitoring, filtering and blocking legitimate journalistic content that is unpalatable to autocratic regimes. Never<strong>the</strong>less, <strong>the</strong> overall mediascape is becoming sufficiently vast for new outpourings of journalism to emerge, survive, replicate and be enriched. The authors of <strong>the</strong> <strong>Windhoek</strong> <strong>Declaration</strong> would not have been able to envisage <strong>the</strong> African communications world that is beginning to unfold. It is up to <strong>the</strong>ir successors to apply <strong>the</strong> old standards and develop new ones in a networked world, and to advocate for <strong>the</strong>se against <strong>the</strong> forces who seek to maintain unfree environments even in <strong>the</strong> traditional media space. 8.3 Summing up This review set out to analyse <strong>the</strong> <strong>Windhoek</strong> <strong>Declaration</strong> and its significance. Central to this has been <strong>the</strong> recognition of how journalistic idealism runs throughout <strong>the</strong> history since 1991. Independence, pluralism and freedom as <strong>Windhoek</strong> values
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Twenty years after the Windhoek Declaration on press freedom

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