Media Policy of Guyana

8/3/2019 Media Policy of Guyana

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Terrence EsseboomUniversity of Guyana

Center for Communication StudiesA Review Analysis of Media Policy in Guyana: 1968-1992

(AN PRELIMINARY VIEW)


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INTRODUCTION

After 45 years of political independence from Britain, Guyana is still without a formal,

documented media policy. There is evidence to suggest that there have been many efforts by

successive political administrations to hammer out a policy, but each move seems to have

foundered for reasons best known to those governments.

This qualitative analysis seeks to trace the contours of what was discernible of those

policies in the post-independence history of this former British colony. Of course, crafting a

media policy in todays world throws up myriad other challenges intellectual, political,

economic, cultural, race/ethnic, technological - since the environment nowhere resembles

that of a mere forty years ago. There is a plethora of new challenges facing this independent

CARICOM country, a mere David facing the Goliaths in a converged media

environment.

Responding to ongoing changes in the news environment will demand that governments

constantly relook their strategies to satisfy the needs of their countries. This will never be an

easy assignment given new challenges thrown up by digitalization unknown to the world

when the Golden Arrowhead was hoisted some four decades ago.


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Definition of terms

Media Policy refers to the development of goals and norms leading to the creation of

instruments that are designed to shape the structure and behaviour of media systems

Media Regulation focuses on the operation of specific, often legally binding tools, which are

deployed on the media to achieve established policy goals.

Media Governance is the sum total of mechanisms, both formal and informal, national and

supra-national, centralised and dispersed, that aim to organise media systems according to the

resolution of media policy debates.


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Development Journalism in Guyana

As assessed by Frank Campbell, former Information Minister in the government of the late

President L.F,S. Burnham administration, the media policy of the then ruling Peoples

National Congress (PNC) was characterised by the determination that the state-owned

media must support government policy and must seek to promote development.

As an insider, he had a clearer view of the shortcomings of his governments strategy, and,

as the point person for communications, Campbell had his hands daily on the pulse of

media development in the country.

In retrospect, he admitted that that plan of action did great harm to the profession (of

journalism), the media and the country generally.

But the narrow-mindedness of the policy was not the only defect highlighted by the former

Information Minister.

In a biting critique, he also faulted what he described as a pathologically narrow

interpretation and implementation of this policy.

By a narrow implementation of a government-supporting, development-oriented media

policy, I refer, inter alia to the withholding or distortion of the truth; an apparent fear that

criticism of inefficiency in even a single government agency would cause that agency, if not

the entire government to crumble; and an exclusion of the opposition voice from the media,

especially the print media.


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Media Development in shaping policy

Gareth Locksley, in Media and Development. Whats the Story? delves into the travails

facing contemporary governments particularly in the regulatory realm in the face of

mounting convergence challenges. He notes that the goals of governments often vary

according to the line of business, notably between broadcasting and telecommunications,

although both aim to achieve universal access and service. Good practices in regulating

broadcasting include taking into account social and cultural objectives. In

telecommunications the main concern has been the transition from monopoly providers to

competition. Convergence challenges this state of affairs because the content of these lines

of business are now indistinguishable. Digital messages can reach their audiences through

terrestrial systems, satellites, cable TV, the Internet, game boxes, or TV-enabled mobile

handsets.

Locksley further states, Although the goals of governments for a particular line of

business may not have changed, those goals will become harder to achieve in the new digital

market space. Broadcasting, for instance, has been charged with such tasks as nation

building, protecting minors, preserving languages, promoting common values, cultures, and

gender equality. Legal limitations on the press share some commonalities with broadcasting

regulation, especially in terms of promoting common values, protecting minors, and

containing slander and defamation. While the Internet is largely unregulated, there are some


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controls on content. As yet there is little regulatory experience with Web casting, even

though live audio-visual streaming can be a substitute for television broadcasting.

Moreover, these platforms often provide the same or overlapping services, applications, and

content. (pp. 17-22).

There is clearly no such thing as a media policy (singular) in the sense of a single or

uniformed pattern that can describe all the various modes of structuring media performance

and media systems.

There are of course media policies, hugely different approaches that depend on the specific

medium under consideration, daily newspapers or the free-to-air broadcasting; the web or

pay TV; magazines or recorded music; cinema or computer games.

One way of dealing with the multiple character of the mass has been to differentiate media

policy systems based on perceptions of their different characteristics and capacities: for

example, the extent to which specific media present security dangers or facilitate other

forms of harm or around issues such as audience access, scarcity of physical resources and

technical ease of regulation.

Policy aimed at a medium that is generally diffused (terrestrial TV or radio) are likely to be

more heavily regulated than those aimed at a medium that is called up by aud iences (the

web); different perspectives are also likely to be applied to a medium perceived to have

limited political importance (the music industry) as compared to one with a clear impact on

daily public life (newspapers), a medium that depends on the issue of publicly-owned


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spectrum (broadcasting) cannot expect to be treated in quite the same way as one that does

not (e.g magazine).

A crucial element of media policy analysis is an assessment of the extent to which certain

social groups dominate and certain ones are marginalised from the exercise of power.

Robert Mc Chesney: The real issue is not regulation on the public interest versus regulation

to serve purely private interests (2003:126)

Shalina Venturelli: the debate over the role of the state in the audio visual sector does not

in reality involve a choice between intervention and non-intervention, but rather a choice

between forms of intervention and which social interest ought to benefit. (Venturelli, 1998,

p.189).

Curran and Seaton (2003) note that regulating broadcasting based on the spectrum scarcity

illusion is an ideological argument masquerading as a technical one, since it presupposes

that public interest management of spectrum scarcity was best entrusted to the state rather

than the market place (p.388).

James Curran states further that the liberal approach is the dominant way of thinking about the

media in the United States and increasingly around the world (p.).


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Increasingly, there are calls for a more liberal and pluralistic media policy which some

adumbrate come with added rewards for the masses.

These include inter alia

- Ensuring the circulation of a wide range of voices and opinions, no matter how marginalor unpopular

- Facilitating a competitive environment in which multiple outlets, voices, andrepresentations are made available to citizens without discrimination on the basis of

race, colour, religion, national origin or sex

- Stimulate the creation of public opinion that acts as a communication channel betweenprivate individuals and the state

- Provide a climate in which the population is informed about issues perceived to beimportant to their daily lives

- Protect individual freedom from intrusiveness by the State as well as the States ability toprotect citizens from harm

- Stabilise society by maximising the expressive and cultural rights of all social groups


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Politics and Media Policies

Des Freedman

In his book The Politics of Media Policies Freedman asserts, correctly, that media policies do

not spring up spontaneously from the logic of communication technologies, or from business

plans of media corporations or even the fertile imaginations of those operating in the creative

sector.

But, he offers that media policies are moulded by contending political interests nurtured by a

complex combination of technological, economic, and social factors.

Freedman argues that in crafting a media policy one must take into account the role of political

actors andpolitical values on the character of the wider media environment.

Further he noted that: media policy, the systematic attempt to foster certain types of media

structure and behaviour and to suppress alternative modes of structure and behaviour, is a deeply

political phenomenon (p.1)

Continuing he observed that For many participants and commentators, media policy like

many other areas of public policyrefers to disinterested process where problems are solved in

the interest of the public through the impartial application of specific mechanisms to changing

situations (p.1)


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He was careful to acknowledge though, the influence of technology on policy and ongoing

changes to policy positions. Policymaking, in this view, is a rather technical procedure where

policy changes emerge in response to, for example, technological developments that necessitate a

re-formation of current approaches and a new way of doing things (p.1).

For Freedman, policy formulation is much more than a response to technological improvements.

It is, by and large, subtly, a tactic to fulfil specific political goals.

Policy practice is a decisive area in which different political preferences are celebrated,

contested or compromised.

This is not a linear and/or simple process as it appears superficially. He adumbrates a much more

involved process noting that this is far from the mechanical or administrative picture that is

often painted, whereby faceless civil servants draft legislation on the advice of experts and

scientists in the interest of the public and at the behest of a responsible government.

Freedman tells us that his work seeks to go beyond the often procedural and technical accounts

of media policy to offer a broader picture of the voices, arguments, actors, arenas and

controversies that dominate contemporary media policymaking in the USA and the UK then

under the watch of former President George W. Bush and Tony Blair, respectively (p. vii).

Peter Humphreys in his critique of Freedmans work faulted him for underestimating the

importance of the economic and technological aspects of policy. While healthy skepticism about

political motivation is always welcome, sometimes the tone of suspicion of the economic stakes

of media policy gets out of hand.


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Nonetheless, the very strong and clear message of the book is that media policy is not

conducted openly. Rather, it is the preserve of a tightly circumscribed policy community. The

conflicts surrounding policy are unequal. Certain interests are much more likely to prevail than

others. Some solutions are more likely to be chosen than others. Some may not even get on the

agenda. This will hardly come as an earth-shattering revelation to political scientists specialising

in policy analysis, yet Freedman's compelling reminder that especially in connection with the

media this state of affairs is not very healthy for democracy, deserves the widest audience.

(Critique: The Politics of Media Policy: How Political by Peter Humphreys accessed July 20 @

5:08am [www.tandfonline.com]

Sarah Rayburn in her Book Review of Freedmans work credits him with doing a decent job

of explaining the evolution of media.

However, she is of the opinion that staying clear of exactly who and what shapes media policy

and its relation to the health of government.

Rayburn is of the view that the Politics of Media Policy would have made a more lasting

contribution to the discourse if it had concentrated more on regulations and the implication of

media globalisation.

But what is a policy? Policy is a way of labelling thoughts about the way the world is and

the way it might be. Policy-making can be seen as a battleground in which contrasting

political positions fight both for material advantage, for example legislation that is

favourable to particular economic or political interests, and for ideological legitimating, a

situation in which certain ideas are normalised and others problematised. How a policy issue

area is identified is political because it determines who participate in decision-making, the


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theoretical frames and operational definitions used and the resources - and goals

considered pertinent.

Every step is marked by a fierce competition for, a deployment of resources, influence and

power. There is a conflict that has been theorised in radically different ways by, for

example, pluralists, who maintain that their struggle is ultimately fair and productive, and

more critical voices who argue that there is a profoundly unequal playing field in which

talk of fair competition and open bargaining is misplaced and idealised.

Nicholas Garnham (1998:2010). Policy-making is not and can never be a tidy creation of

ideal situations. Compromises and trade-offs are endemic. Furthermore, for Garnham

policy development involves the ways in which public authorities shape, or try to shape,

the structures and practices of the media.

For Mc

Quail (2000), Mediapolicy refers to projects of governments and public administration

which...are characterised by deploying certain means in the form of regulatory or administrative

measures that are legally binding, nationally or internationally (pp.21-22).

For Mc Quail, media policy contains a number of legally sanctioned tools designed to modify

the structure and behaviour of media markets.

These tools include public ownership, subsidies, tax incentives, licensing powers, codes and

protocol.

Tunstal and Machin (1994) observe that media policy seems to be an area in which national

politicians combine functionary self-delusion and high moral purpose, with a fondness for

seeking crude short-term political advantage (p.4).


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Media policy is at best an umbrella term to describe a whole range of discourses and methods

used to shape the behaviour of specific media: at worst, it is a loose and highly misleading way

of ordering a heterogeneous and multi-layered environment, or, (series of environments).

Garnham (2000) notes that Mass media policy focused on press and broadcasting as media of

public communication and thus as institutions straddling the private economic sphere and public

political sphere. Policy intervention is justified on the basis that these media are obliged to carry

certain social responsibilities and to fulfil certain public obligations (p.48).

Analysing the Guyana Policy Environment

In an in-depth interview with me, former senior reporter of the Government Information Services

(GIS) unit under the PNC regime, Leon Walcott, drew an association between what he called

official fear and the political machinations behind media control.


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Walcott felt that fear emanated from both government and opposition quarters in terms of

political-media relations based on an extreme caution on their part with regard to political

pronouncements. However, in the absence of a policy to guide such relations the former high

level media operative questioned the efficacy of the Government Information News Agency in the

1970s as an information policy outlet. Nonetheless, one could trace the underpinnings of the GNA

to the socialist era that proffered an information model to push the governments development

agenda. In this context, the administration declared in 1974 that Government has a right to own

sections of the media, and the government has a right as a final arbiter of things national; to

formulate a policy for the media so that the media can play a much more important part than it has

played in the past in mobilizing the people of the country for the development of the country

(Thomas, 1990, p.75).

According to Walcott, the Burnham-led PNC administration functioned on the basis of fear in

their relations with the media which he put the following way:

I find that when governments and maybe its hindsight, when

governments want to adopt a new policy theyre always in a hurry... as a

result theyre suspicious of anything that they did not say or they did not

put in the public domain...Therefore..they did not trust CANA, they did


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not trust the BBC, they did not trust the ESIS...and in fact the only people

they had a close relationship with was IPS and the press service because

that was basically third world co-operative right..When youre dealing

with people who are versed in English language like Burnham and Hoyte

and Reid, those guys know very well what things mean right, so they had

this whole big thing about destabilisation. They felt that the media, the

independent media were out to destabilise them. (Interview, August

2010).

Based on the foregoing one could detect what appears to be the institution of a deliberate policy

of control over the flow and dissemination of information filtered through a government-run

apparatus. Such a policy appeared to be associated with fear as asserted by Walcott who reflected

on the exodus of talented media professionals who found it untenable to function in a policy

environment characterised by high-level control. For those who functioned within government

information circles, self censorship had become normative as articulated by Walcott. The now

retired media operative who summarises his experiences the following way:

We had a framework in which to operate and framework is part of policy whether or not its

written, we knew...we had a fairly good idea of what words to use, the kind of angle to

approach it from. At GNA we were always advised to use a developmental angle (well

nowadays they would call it a community based angle) so when youre doing stories, bauxite,

timber, gold, even from a developmental perspective youre not going to ignore the negatives

but you look at the positives, you emphasise the positives and then you talk about the

negatives and once you know the framework within which you operate, you are h ome free.

Interview, August 2010).


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Apart from the pressure exerted on media operatives, there were agencies that felt the brunt of

control as noted by Walcott who said:

I think CANA which basically relied on governmental support throughout the

Caribbean would have said...well alright, that is it because CANA wasnt set up

to rock the boat, to expose your slip, it was there really to push development and

i think that is the reason why the govt of the day was able to exert pressure on

some of the reporters, CANA correspondents and cause them to be dismissed or

threaten them to cease communication to terminate the contracts and what have

you. (Interview, August 2010).

In his own reflections on relations between President Burnham and Father Andrew Morrison of

the Catholic Standard, Walcott could not recall a fall out between the two that led to Morrisons

disbandment from Burnhams press conferences. Although Morrison had grown a reputation for

asking deep questions, Walcott surmised that Burnham would redirect these to other officials,

but maintained composure.

He felt strongly that the absence of a media policy to guide development support communication

undermined the socialist message of local food production and consumption as sections of the

media crafted messages to portray racist intentions on the part of the government that had placed

a ban on certain food items including flour.


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Although inscribed differently under the current administration, it also appears that a similar

policy exists, and is exercised through the Government Information Agency (GINA) that was

established in October 2001 as the government information arm. Prior to GINA, the Government

Information Service (GIS) served a similar purpose. However, GINAs mandate is information

for nation building which the current government prefers above news they deem

counterproductive to advancing its development efforts. When the PPP/C came to office in 1992,

it promised to ensure a media environment that was open and free from state controls, but this

has not materialised.

On the latter issue, Walcott doubted the willingness of successive governments, including the

current administration, to embrace media freedom based on their fear of public criticism. He

asserted that governments have been and continue to be unrelenting in seeking to exercise media

control. Nonetheless, external pressures have been effective in opening the way for independent

news services such as the Stabroek News that came into being under the Hoyte administration.

As put by Walcott, a natural response by government to external pressure has been to make the

environment difficult for those who operate as independent outfits. He expressed conviction that

governments articulation of a media policy is highly unlikely as it removes the current structure

that allows flexibility to run with an arrangement, a loose kind of arrangement that is subject to

change at will.


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Conclusion

The post independence history of Guyana has witnessed successive PNC and PPP governments

being stubbornly resistant to the idea of documenting its media policy.

Given the colonial past when media was concentrated in the hands of expatriates to their own

advantage and as a tool of chastisement for local citizens, indigenous governments were not

unaware of this new power bequeathed to them when political independence were won.

Former government Minister, Frank Campbell hinted at some plausible reasons for this loose

arrangement two decades later which Leon Walcott confirmed.

The time is ripe for the local communications sector to be regulated by rules comparable

internationally rather than continue to exist under Wild West conditions, which are easily

exploitable by capricious administrations.

The late Hugh Desmond Hoyte had promised sweeping regulations if his party had won the 1992

polls, and successive PPP/C governments have done the same, especially during an election

season.

A Bill was tabled recently in the National Assembly as a positive step towards fulfilling decades

of promises by political administrations. But it was done, again, on the eve of elections and the

proroguing of Parliament imminent.


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One just has to wait and see if this regulation, like so many crucial pieces of legislation, will fall

victim to the machinations of capricious Guyanese politics such as suffered by the Khan and

Mordecai reports.

The media environment, globally and locally, is undergoing radical changes with frequency and

velocity. Uncertainty stalks all.

When the ruling PPP/C campaigned for office in 1992 its MANIFESTO Time for Change, Time

to Rebuild, the party had promised, among other things:

* no government or state monopoly over the media;

* a guarantee of private ownership in keeping with a pluralist democracy and freedom of the

media;

* opening the media to different shades of opinion.

So far this has mostly been honoured in the breach. Guyana can re-write its so far sordid post-

independence media policy history by pursuing and implementing contemporary policies

ushering the nation into modernity.


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References

1. Babbie, E. (2001). The practice of social research. 9thEdition. Belmont, CA:WadsworthPublishing Company.

2. Campbell, F. (1987). Development Journalism in Guyana 1968 1982. MastersThesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario Canada.


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3. Curran, J.; Seaton, J. (2003) Power without Responsibility, Taylor & Francis.4. Locksley, G. (2008). The Media and development: Whats the story?

World Bank Working Paper No. 158. The World Bank, Washington, D.C.

5. Mc Chesney quote BY HIMSELF is found on p17 of 'Politics of Media Policy'6.

Mc Chesney, R. (2008). 'Introducing Media Policy' In Freedman, D. The politics of

media policy. Polity Press, Cambridge, CB2 1UR, United Kingdom.

7. Mc Chesney, R. (2004: 367) The problem of the Media':U.S. Communication Politics in the21st

Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

8. Moemeka, A. (1994). Radio strategies for community development: a critical analysis,In Gumucio-Dagron, A.,& Tufte, T. (Eds.), Communication for social change

anthology: Historical and contemporary readings. CFSC o. 158. The World Bank,

9. Rayburn, Sarah. ( 2010) Book Review The Politics of Media Policy, Policy Perspectives,Spring 2010, Volume 17

10.Thomas, E. (1990). Mass Media in Guyana, In S.S. Surlin and W.C Soderland (eds).Mass media and the Caribbean, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New York,

USA.

11.Venturelli, Shalini (1998) Liberalizing the European Media: Politics, Regulation, and thePublic Sphere. Oxford University Press. United Kingdom.

12.Walcott, Leon. Personal Interview. August 2010.

13.Washington, D.C. South Orange, N.J. : Communication for Social Change Consortium,c2006.

Media Policy of Guyana

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