|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 29 February 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Editorial |  |
| News Business Features Security
|
Please forward your comments to the
Editor, Sunday Observer. E-mail: [email protected] Snail mail : Sunday Observer, 35, D.R.Wijewardana Mawatha, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Telephone : 94 11 2429239 / 2331181 Fax : 94 11 2429230 Media and politics The on-going public discussion on the role of the mass media in the electoral process, to which this column has contributed in the past two issues, has been taken up by the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA). The OPA letter to the Commissioner of Elections last week, while commending his focus on the functioning of the State-owned media institutions during the election, suggested that those same strictures laid down by the Commissioner for the State media be made applicable to the privately-owned mass media enterprises as well. The OPA letter categorically charges that "partisanship" is "visible in certain sections of the private media". The private media should also be asked to ensure a fair and free election, the OPA argues. In this, however, the OPA may have fallen into the trap of believing that the mass media are a set of neutral institutions unconnected with the rest of society and therefore capable of picking information arising from within society and disseminating this information throughout society. This may be, perhaps, what the media industry would like their audiences to tamely believe. However, audiences are not that gullible and na Thus media institutions, even the privately owned ones, are not
perceived simply as being 'independent' as the official ideology of the
media would have us believe. Rather, most Sri Lankans actually expect the
media ownerships, whether State or private, to generally conform to their
ownership loyalties.
In any case, unlike the State media institutions, the private media
comprises privately owned enterprises with the full right to function
entirely according to the interests of the proprietors. Private media,
unlike the State media, is not accountable to the public in any way except
in terms of their market interests.
Thus, it is wholly unfair to demand that the private media functions in
the same non-partisan manner that the State media is expected to function.
They are not obliged to do so. Such a stricture would be an infringement
on the right of private media owners to direct their enterprises according
to their own objectives. The private sector media has a right to be
politically partisan. The State media, being owned by the public, has no
such right.
What is unfortunate, however, is that the Sri Lankan private media
hides its partisanship and its subjectivity by continuing to promote the
old mythology, long discarded in the West, where the media industry was
born, that the mass media is 'objective' and a socially neutral
disseminator of information.
This is in stark contrast to such respected and highly successful media
ventures such as the The Times and The Guardian of London which quite
openly declare their support for this or that political party. This is a
practice to be seen in the media of many affluent democracies.
Unlike the Sri Lankan situation, in these democracies different media
ventures give support to different political parties. In Sri Lanka, we
cannot see such a balanced relationship between media and political
actors, especially the main national actors. Rather, we have a scenario in
which the bulk of the private media is broadly and consistently in
sympathy with one political party.
If the dominant social elite of this country, who are the owners of the
big private media ventures, cannot see the importance of giving equal
treatment to at least the major mainstream political parties, they run the
immense risk of endangering that delicate equilibrium between competing
political formations so vital for the success of democracy. |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
