Media diversity and the contested character of the post‐apartheid state

Abstract

This paper tests the popular view within the Left that the post‐apartheid South African state is ‘neo‐liberal’, as opposed to being a site of contradictory impulses and tensions. This is done though an examination of the policy process towards the formation of a statutory, but independent, Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), to address media imbalances. It primarily examines the tension between, on the one hand, government's ‘social democratic’ commitment—supported by sections of civil society—to reduce a particular social deficit within the media sector; and, on the other hand, the constraints imposed by the neo‐liberal global environment and the liberal‐democratic political order, which encourages the increased commodification of the public sphere, and reduced social spending.

Notes

Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg), South Africa. The author was until June 2002 working for the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) with the prime responsibility of setting up the MDDA. He was also involved in the initial stages of setting up the Independent Media Diversity Trust whilst Managing Editor of the alternative publication Work In Progress during 1991–3.

See also see Macpherson (1977) for a penetrating critique of western liberal democracy; Adler and Webster (1995) for a more extended review and critique of transition theory, particularly that of Przeworski (1991); and Le Roux (1996) for an overview of theories of the state in the context of South Africa's social transformation.

Community media in the sense used here refers to non‐profit media that serve geographically defined communities or communities of interest. This is distinct from profit‐driven local media.

As contained in the Press Ombudsman of South Africa's handbook (undated, circa 2000).

The Mail and Guardian newspaper is a case in point. It played a major role in exposing the activities of the apartheid régime, and, while it endorsed the ANC in the last three elections, has been a continual thorn in the side of certain public officials. As a result it is resented in many government and ruling party circles.

Discussion with Clive Emdon, IMDT director, 4 February 2000.

View expressed by PMSA members at a meeting with GCIS officials during November 1999.

See Atkinson (1996) for a discussion of differentiation within the post‐apartheid government soon after 1994. Many third world countries, socialist and non‐socialist, mimicked Soviet forms of one‐party state formation during the post‐independence period, and adapted these to various forms of pre‐capitalist patrimonial and clientilist social relations. See for example Chabal and Daloz (1999) and Bayart (1993). While South Africa's liberal‐democratic order is a deliberate departure from these forms of rule, it has become apparent from government's own corruption investigations, media reports and the author's observations that narrow nationalist, authoritarian and/or clientilist tendencies persist in various government departments, parastatals and state agencies. The depth and extent of this phenomenon, however, requires further research.

This was made very clear to GCIS by Finance Director‐General Maria Ramos who, in a meeting with senior GCIS officials during November 1999 including the author, indicated that it was only with great reluctance, and after protracted negotiations, that Finance eventually agreed to a skills levy proposed by the Department of Labour in 1998. A further levy on industry, she suggested, was out of the question

Comments made at a meeting between GCIS consultants and senior Department of Finance officials, at which the author was present, on 8 March 2000.

These views emerged out of a workshop between PMSA and the Community Media Forum on 14 December 1999. See also GCIS (1999).

Discussion with Mark Weinberg, then of the Community Media Forum, during December 1999.

Interview with John Robbie during September 1999.

Discussions with senior officials in Naspers indicated this. Media owners, however, did not want to be seen to be entirely against transformation in the media.

The words of a senior DOC official at a meeting during which the author was present. There has been a movement in thinking about media policy from the ‘public interest’, to the ‘national interest’, and of late, and most ominously, ‘security interests’. Key DOC officials, many of whom have backgrounds in the armed wing of the ANC, analyse the media environment in terms of ‘the liberation movement’ and ‘the enemy’—although the latter remains to be clearly defined.

It became apparent that many in the ANC saw the MDDA as a potential source of support for ANC‐aligned media, given the strongly‐held view among many ANC politicians that the media was ‘hostile’ to the ANC. This is reflected in Minister Essop Pahad's Foreword to the Draft Position Paper, where he included amongst ‘marginalized schools of thought’ the ‘broad democratic movement that fought against apartheid’ (p. 4), which suggested MDDA support for ANC media. The final Position Paper omitted these words.

A major portion of government's contribution involved the re‐allocation of existing commitments to community radio made by the Department of Communications.

Discussion with GCIS official during January 2003.