edithhopegardenjournal

N ational and international media development and aid programs often embrace the objective of developing independent media as a means of promoting democratic development.  They do so in hopes of reducing political power over media, but fail to acknowledge that all media and communication infrastructures are systemically influenced by economic and social, as well as political power. And they often seem to ignore the reality that the history and cultures of nation states affect how that power is exercised. Media systems and their content, and the degree of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, are reflections of the alignment of the dominant cultural elements in society. Even in the West, most notably within European Union and Council of Europe governing institutions, efforts to promote media independence are gaining significant support—particularly when applied to m edia in Central and Eastern Europe. The term media independence is often used naively and imprecisely, cons...

Media ownership transparency has become a goal of media reform advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, but is often simplistically presented as a solution to problems in media performance. As I have shown in my research over time, it is not the form of ownership that matters, but the owners themselves. There are good and bad corporate owners, good and bad private owners, good and bad family owners, and good and bad foundation owners. And many owners whose media perform badly on issues of social service and public interest don’t care if the public knows who they are. This is not to oppose making it easier for the public to know who the owners are—in some cases (especially in southeast Europe) owners sometimes hide behind shell companies, investment firms holding their shares, and even individuals fronting for them. Gaining transparency may help identify consolidation and concentration for antitrust and pluralism analyses, but lifting those veils alone is not going to solve the...

Issues of transparency are not new, but have been magnified in the information society—often because of the scale and scope of information available— and because news media are increasingly part of the story, not merely, the storytellers. The roles played by leading newspapers worldwide—the New York Times , Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, O Globo, El Pais and others—in reviewing and publishing stories based on disclosures by Wikileaks and Edward Snowden’s NSA files have thrust them into the debate about how much transparency society needs. Arguments over information they published and whether disclosures serves public purposes have been animated. These debates highlight differences in views about transparency in security matters, but they also are forcing society to address more fundamental issues about transparency involving many other issues. Transparency debates are not just a struggle over information and secrecy, but about the bases of human interaction and experienc...