Press Freedom and Globalisation - International Press Institute

Press Freedom and Globalisation
Foreign owners have had major shares in East African media. Further, East African
media have to operate within the regime of global media. Both factors limit their freedom.
Put to an extreme, Tom Mboya stated that Kenya achieved independence despite the world
press. 86 East African mass media do not work in a vacuum. Their content depends on
foreign sources and news agencies. 87 Advertisement income depends on foreign global
business and its preferences. 88 Media ideology is a result of Western capitalistic concepts. 89
Hence, East African media are wrapped up in a web made by global media. One view is
that this is how global forces secure universal spread of press freedom. A competing view
is that East African media are slaves of a global media regime and have lost freedom to
play their own unique role. According to the latter, one allegation is that such a Western
ideological press would never liberate the third world. 90
Foreign owned media were initially nationalised in Tanzania and Uganda. Kenya
allowed the presence of foreign owners and precipitated recurring debates about their role
and purposes. One claim is that foreigners were the only ones strong enough to resist
pressure from Kenyan authorities. Foreign ownership was thus a security for press
freedom. Another claim was that foreign owners through Kenyan media can interfere with
domestic affairs. This made foreign ownership an agent for foreign interests. A third view
was that owners were owners, and both locals and foreigners were pursuing their media
business according to commercial interests. In that case, the question was not about foreign
ownership, it was on how private media operate as agents for capitalistic interests. 91 If
86
Mboya, “Relations Between Press and Governments in Africa”, p 144.
87
Paterson, “Global Battlefields”, pp. 79-81.
88
Carrington and Nelson, “Media in Transition: The Hegemony of Economics”, pp. 226-232; and Abuoga
and Mutere, The History of the Press in Kenya, pp. 94-95.
89
Makali (ed.), Media Law and Practice, pp. 60-61; and Abubakar, “The Mass Media and Ideological
Apparatuses in Post-Colonial Africa”, pp. 55-56.
90
Ochieng, I Accuse the Press, p. 49.
91
Mytton, Graham, Mass Communication in Africa (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1983), p. 19,
Ochieng, I Accuse the Press, pp. 52, 55, 115 and 167, Makali (ed.), Media Law and Practice, p. 71.
93