Press Freedom and Globalisation - International Press Institute

Press Freedom and Globalisation
in public owned media. Finally, the most powerful step is pointed out to be politicians
behaviour in practice of press freedom. 164
Another proposal has an underlying premise that African democracies have not yet
been well established. The ideal is yet similar to Western as described in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. According to this ideal, the proposal recommends constitut-
ions which guarantee press freedom as well as free access to information. Further, areas of
official secrets have to be reduced and journalists should be allowed to keep confidential
sources. To abolish regulations on contempt of parliament, government or the president
and leave criminal defamations to civil cases, are pointed out as crucial. 165
Press freedom is also accused of being a neo-colonialist instrument to suppress
Africa. Press freedom ensures spread of like-minded media and a global culture. Hence,
the media are among the means for the hegemon to control consciousness. This is
supported by how the West controls almost all news to and from the South. 166 Even news
events within Africa are, in African media, covered by Western news agencies due to lack
of resources to cover “their own” events. 167 The point is that if the oppressed ones can
view themselves as they are viewed by the ruling elites, then they can become their own
policemen. That means that there is no need for a colonial master because Africans are
ruled by the global culture and news flows. 168 In this argument global press freedom is
regarded as a necessity to create a web of control.
From the very beginning of Western civilisation, the Greeks portrayed Africa as an
otherness – as ‘barbarians’ and ‘savages’. Western science continued to acquire knowledge
about Africa within European philosophical frameworks. Present knowledge about Africa
164
Ogbondah, “Media Laws in Political Transition”, pp. 73-77.
165
Mbome, Peter H., “Aspects of Human Rights in an African Context” in Towards Press Freedom (Harare,
Zimbabwe: Willie Musarurwa Memorial Trust and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 1996), pp. 42-44.
166
Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa, Moving the Centre : The Struggle for Cultural Freedoms (Nairobi: East African
Educational Publishers, 1993), pp. 47-52.
167
Lehihi, Masego, “Broadcast Headaches” in Business in Africa (Rivonia, South Africa: Business in Africa
Group, 2004), June 2004, pp. 24-25.
168
Ngũgĩ wa, Moving the Centre, pp. 47-52.
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