Introduction and Background

South Africa recently emerged from more than 300 years of colonial and apartheid domination. This domination manifested itself in all spheres of South African life, including media ownership, control and content. Current legislative/policy changes within the media therefore need to be looked at within the context of this transformation. Some of the recent institutional developments include the creation of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), a regulatory authority within the sphere of commercial print and broadcast media. Other developments include the strengthening of competition law, specifically the passing of an act regulating ownership and control of telecommunication services. The act prohibits the holding of more than one license by a person/company/institution, which already has a license in any telecommunication service category.

Media Ownership

Prior to 1994, five conglomerates owned and controlled the media industry in South Africa. Whilst some of these corporations still play a dominant role in the industry, there has been a significant dilution of ownership and control due to increasing participation by previously marginalized groups. This is a product of concerted effort by government to ensure that the media indeed does reflect the diversity of our society.

The print media is still predominantly white, and reaches only about 20% of the population due to illiteracy, the lack of newspapers in rural areas, and the cost of newspapers. The majority of South Africans receive news information through radio broadcast and television. The national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), continues to control the majority of broadcast outlets.

However, due to the importance of the media in any society, but more so in our country where we are building a new society founded on democracy, non racialism and respect for cultural diversity, it was felt that a more active role needs to be played by the government, the media industry and donors in determining a new and clear course for the South African media in the long term. An independent agency, the Media Diversity and Development Agency (MDDA) was therefore created to grapple with issues of media diversity and ownership.

Amongst others, the MDDA wants to "encourage ownership and control of, and access to, media by historically disadvantaged communities, historically diminished indigenous language and cultural groups, encourage the channeling of resources to community and small commercial media, as well as supporting initiatives which promote literacy and a culture of reading." It is a funding body, but also offers non-funding support of various kinds to community and non-profit media. These include direct and indirect subsidies, capacity building and training, emergency funding and media research. The MDDA is seen as a catalyst for transforming the media in South Africa. The rationale for involving the media industry is that the commercial media is bound to benefit from an expanding readership and listership.

The Role of the Public Broadcaster

South Africa's broadcasting system comprises public, commercial, and community broadcasters. Freedom of expression and journalistic, creative and programming independence of broadcasters and independence of regulation are guaranteed by section 192 of the constitution.

Chapter one of the broadcasting act states that "a public service is necessary for the maintenance of South African identity, universal access, equality, unity and diversity."

Another objective that the broadcasting act sets for the national broadcasters is:

• Contribute to democracy, development of society, gender equality, nation building, provision of education and strengthening the spiritual and moral fibre of society.

The Broadcasting act also obliges the national broadcaster to amongst others:

• Make services available to South Africans in all official languages
• Reflects both the unity and diverse cultural and multilingual nature of South Africa and all of its cultures and regions to audiences.
• Enrich the cultural heritage of South Africa by providing support for traditional and contemporary artistic expression.
• Include programmes made by the corporation as well as those commissioned from the independent production sector.

Cultural Diversity

Acknowledgement and promotion of our diversity is prominent in our constitution. Amongst others, the constitution makes provision for the recognition of eleven languages as official languages. The policies of the national broadcaster, the telecommunications regulatory authority, ICASA, our national policies on media and communications to mention but a few, all emphasize and are geared towards promoting South African culture and its diversity. We see our cultural diversity as a source of strength and richness. We also use our diversity to promote nation building, social cohesion, national identity and pride. This should also be looked at from a context, where in the past, both racial and ethnic differences were used to foster divisions in our society. Therefore, our understanding of cultural diversity transcends narrow ethnic identity and is mindful of the legacies of divisions and racism.

In this era of globalization, we believe that promoting and preserving cultural diversity allows holders of unique cultures the ability to enter or adapt to globalization on their own terms rather than those of a dominant culture. Preserving and promotion of cultural diversity is not equal to protectionism. Our view is that it is embodied in products and performances of different sectors of society and ensures a diversity of domestic and foreign content

Research done by our national regulator (ICASA), demonstrates that there is widespread commitment to producing and seeing South African content on both television and radio, and that South African broadcasters exceed their quota requirements. The research also indicates that quotas facilitate economic opportunities for many South Africans. Our current quota requirements are as follows: Public service radio stations 40%, community radio stations 40% and commercial radio stations 25%. For television, the public service broadcasting 55%, commercial free to air television 35%, terrestrial subscription services 8%. Quotas are constantly reviewed to assess their impact on the industry. The current quota requirements will be reviewed in 2007.

Conclusion

The media has and does play an important role in the promotion of cultural diversity. Our own experience is that government needs to come with strategic interventions to ensure that the media is sensitive to issues around cultural diversity. Also important is the ability to engage and persuade the media industry, rather than threaten them with punitive measures. We attribute high levels of compliance with our quota requirements to this engagement.

However, our challenge remains regulations around media ownership. Ownership changes hands all the time. It is therefore difficult to strike a balance between attracting investments in the industry and simultaneously ensuring that domestic ownership of the media is not diluted. This is particularly so in the context of a developing country such as ours, where you have to deal with many competing priorities.

Another challenge is managing the relationship between the national broadcaster and government, often, when the government complains about anything concerning the national broadcaster, be it content or operations, the immediate response is to perceive those concerns as interference.

Back to Top