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When you have to choose between buying food for your family and
purchasing a newspaper, the choice is simple.
If you live in Africa, the type and amount of media you get largely
depends on where you live, which languages you speak and how much money you
have. Many people, particularly the poor, have little or no choice about the
media they receive.
The reality of unequal media access is a mirror of the overall
inequality of African societies. In cities across the continent, shopping malls
and supermarkets are mushrooming, suggesting that purchasing power is
increasing. But that is only true for a small part of the population. Most
Africans are poor, and their choices are limited.
While expensive private healthcare and education is open to the
wealthy, the poor rely on state-funded, basic services. It’s no different with
the media. A small, middle class can choose from a variety of media; the poor
make do with what they can access cheaply or for free. Corporate media outlets,
like other private services, often exclude the poor.
Private and corporate media flourish all over the continent, but
are consumed by a minority middle-class audience that has the expendable income
to pay for them.
Unaffordable, out of reach
In Ghana, a newspaper costs nearly half of the daily minimum wage.
In Kenya, the price is higher than a packet of milk. Many poor cannot afford
such “luxury” items. In addition, mainstream newspapers are mostly distributed
in urban areas, out of reach of those in rural areas. In Botswana, 70% of the
sales are within 100 km of the capital.
Commercial radio and TV have mushroomed over the last decades – but
again, access depends on where you live. These stations focus on the urban areas
and are often inaccessible to rural audiences, which form a sizable part of the
population.
They broadcast mainly in the languages spoken by the former
colonial powers, so people rarely receive media in their native tongues.
Reception is hampered by a lack of electricity in many countries. In Zambia,
about 3% of the rural population is connected to the electricity grid. In
Uganda, it’s four.
Private media coverage often reflects the interests of this
audience. Stories about poor communities and their struggles are rarely reported
on. The result is a lack of a diversity of voices, opinions and world
views.
The perils of concentration
When a small handful of companies owns most of the media, two
things tend to happen. Access to the media becomes expensive, and a certain
uniformity sets in – the same story may be featured across the outlets owned by
the same company. Diversity of content suffers.
In many countries, the media market is highly concentrated with a
few prominent players dominating each sector. Often, leaders in the print sector
expand into radio and television. Radio owners with substantial capital buy out
smaller competitors.
That means people on the ground have a lot less choice.
Research conducted by the Media Policy and Democracy Project in
South Africa paints a dire, yet predictable picture. The overall market is
monopolised; a few companies dominate each media sector. For the poor, media
content is almost entirely dominated by one outlet – the state-run,
public-service broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation
(SABC).
The predominance of state-run broadcasters is similar all over the
continent. But the media outlets which run crucial exposés or publish
investigative stories by brave journalists, rarely reach the majority. Most
people only see and hear the perspectives from state-run, and state-influenced,
outlets.
Can online and community media fill the gap?
Independent online media thrives in Africa. In South Africa, blogs
and news websites can be quite different in tone and coverage than corporate or
state-run media. News sites such as Groundup, the Daily Vox or the Daily
Maverick adopt a more grassroots perspective to reporting, and run stories more
relevant to the interests of the South African poor.
Access to this content is “free”, but only if one can pay for
internet data. In Kenya, it comes at a price: 3000 Kenyan shillings (about R429)
monthly for unlimited access, the cost of a pair of jeans.
Research published by the South African Link Centre at the
University of Witwatersrand shows that in poorer communities, people often have
to choose between buying food and paying for data packages. When the cost of
data is high, they’re likely to use it for low-cost social media services, not
downloading news articles.
Community media, such as community radio stations, are mushrooming
in many African countries, but they struggle to survive. Most rely on limited
advertising revenue and frequently face political interference. Large media
corporates often deliberately force community media outlets out of
business.
Media diversity is important to society because access to a wide
variety of opinions, ideas and world views is fundamental to the formation of
individuals’ views on society and politics. This is essential to
democracy.
Therefore, if Africans are to be informed participants in their
society, then access to a wide range of good quality media is vital. It is
crucial for them that access to media be easy, affordable, and in languages they
speak. The predominance of media conglomerates and their emphasis on their own
commercial interests form a high wall between the poor and everything that the
media has to offer them.
» Julie Reid is a senior
lecturer at the department of communication science at the University of South
Africa and a project leader for the Media Policy & Democracy Project.This article is an adaptation of a piece that originally
appeared in the African free press, a Misa project supported by DW Akademie.
