Can a Radio Station Govern a Country?
My friend Hannah Bowen has a great post up at the World Bank's Communication for Governance & Accountability Program (CommGAP) on how control over the flow of information in a closed society can be tantamount to control over the state. Bowen, who works at InterMedia, blogs at the Bank as an expert on communications in developing economies.
She takes a look at the role of radio (one of our favorite low-tech techs!) in the ongoing electoral crisis in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where presidential incumbent Laurent Gbagbo has refused to concede to Alassane Ouattara (declared victor by the electoral commission).
Gbagbo has successfully maintained authority over the state broadcaster, Radiodiffusion Television Ivoirienne (RTI); RTI has broadcast reports recognizing Gbagbo as the winner of the election. This week, Ouattara's supporters announced their intent to take control of RTI.
Why is this important? Bowen explains:
Control over RTI has become a flashpoint in the crisis precisely because information is both severely limited and crucial to building legitimacy, however tenuous, with the public. In the absence of a robust private media to report on the election controversy, the state-run broadcaster may effectively have as much power to declare the ultimate winner as the electoral commission formally tasked with doing so...
...RTI has long been considered a tool for influencing political outcomes. With few readily accessible, reliable sources of political news to turn to, Ivoirians face a great deal of uncertainty... Both sides in the current Presidential dispute seem to recognize this, and want to impose clarity by presenting their side of the story via the most effective means of mass communication, RTI’s radio and TV broadcasts.
As we've said before, the free flow of information is crucial to functional democratic governance. Radio is a particularly essential technology in low resource, low infrastructure environments; for citizens, the relatively low cost of radio units has enabled a high penetration rate for radio ownership, while broadcasters benefit from significant competitive advantages with regards to geographic reach and operational overhead.
Bowen notes the situation in Cote d'Ivoire is only one illustration of the role the control of information can play in influencing political outcomes:
The situation in Cote D’Ivoire raises larger questions about government participation in media... Although we observe media environments across sub-Saharan Africa becoming freer and more competitive in general, government stations remain influential in many countries, and can become more so during times of crisis. Particularly in the least developed countries, where mass media is primarily limited to radio and some television, it is far easier for governments to limit access to information.
In the lead-up to this year’s parliamentary elections in Ethiopia, for example, the government was able to effectively block out the main international broadcasters simply by jamming certain shortwave radio frequencies at certain times of day. Even when private stations exist, as they do to a limited extent in both Ethiopia and Cote D’Ivoire, they often do not have the reach or freedom to truly compete with government-owned media. In times of political crisis, then, it can be state-run media that call the shots.
Read the whole article and more from Bowen and the CommGAP team here.