Careful what you say
Today, in Pretoria, is the final day of a government-led gathering to discuss print media: who owns it, who prints it and, the lifeblood of the press, advertising. No one could dispute the value of the stated goal: to include the voices of those historically and currently excluded from the media environment. “No single media owner should have too much influence over public opinion. Instead there should be a plethora of viewpoints,” Communications Minister Faith Muthambi said in an official statement. She’s right. Community media platforms in particular should be a place where citizens hear each other’s concerns, and where problems are aired. Ideally the reporting is done in such a way that issues are aired early, so there is space and time to deal with them before they become injuries or flashpoints.
That needs frank and open fact-sharing by those in power about what goes on in decision-making structures, and the freedom (and resources) to report on what is actually happening on the ground.
It also requires extra effort by media practitioners to seek out those excluded voices.
Journalists these days seldom fit the stereotype of impulsive, boozing degenerates. But it definitely nevertheless seems a very risky business to trust the journalists and/or administrators running any South African media organisation – or in fact any human being who isn’t a dead or living saint – to have what it takes to “uphold the moral fibre of society”.
Which is obviously why the government itself has decided to take on that role. First at the SABC. Perhaps with other media to follow.
Monolithic media organisations, or the government, or organised religion, may try to control or manage what they can, but bar internet policing and data shut-downs, communities will speak to each other when and how they want anyhow. Here in Grahamstown, starting this weekend, is another media conference with more or less that as the point. The 20th edition of Highway Africa is themed, The Internet and the Media.
Conference Director Chris Kabwato explaining the theme, says among the things media practitioners and academics attending want to try and understand are whose voices are marginalised, delegitimated or downgraded in cyberspace.
“How is ICT innovation enabling people to ‘commit acts of journalism’ or tell their own stories and to challenge dominant narratives?” Kabwato asks.
And finally, what are the threats to civil liberties in cyberspace, and what is to be done about them?
This week a press release announced new telephone software that can in real time detect the presence or absence of words and phrases and the sentiment expressed. Its ability to “identify situations in which a phrase is said at a certain point in the call or not recited when it should have been... can provide the right, contextual help and guidance to agents”.
Saying the wrong thing in that context seems inevitable and it’s almost a relief that here in Grahamstown our challenges meet us face to face, in the form of sewage, poor and dangerous living conditions, poverty and donkeys.