The news media is usually one of first casualties of bungled
or contested elections. From the recent US elections, the UK’s Brexit vote to
Zambia’s controversial 2016 presidential elections, the mainstream news media
bore the brunt of much of the criticism that followed.
In Africa, biased
media coverage, most often in favour of incumbent presidents, is one of the
reasons voters have little faith in the legitimacy of election outcomes. In
South Africa for example, the public broadcaster routinely comes under intense
criticism at election time for being a propaganda outlet for the ruling African
National Congress.
Kenya’s state broadcaster has often shed its public mandate
to become the governing party’s mouthpiece during general elections. In
countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia,
public broadcasters openly canvas for incumbent governments during elections.
Media as independent arbiter
Over the last few years, the nature of political campaigns
in Africa has changed significantly. Politicians and political parties are now
actively shaping their public profiles. They are engaging powerful PR agencies
and even starting their own media organisations to market themselves.
In Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta’s governing Jubilee Party has
engaged the services of British PR firm BTP Advisors, as well as the data
mining company Cambridge Analytica (CA). CA played a key role in Donald Trump’s
win in the US presidential elections, and in the UK’s Brexit vote through
aggressive data driven campaigning.
This changing political landscape has complicated the
media’s role in the coverage of elections. But there’s still an expectation
that the mainstream news media should play the role of impartial arbiter. They
are expected to provide an open platform for broader public deliberation
particularly at election time.
It’s this expectation that informs criticism when the media
fails to fulfil this important mandate. Indeed, while digital technologies such
as social media have now been widely adopted in Africa, millions remain
unconnected to the Internet. This means that that these new platforms are
inaccessible to the masses.
Traditional media - particularly radio - therefore remain an
important platform for public engagement. At election time, these kinds of
legacy media formats are critical in enabling the public to make informed
choices. Elections in Africa are fiercely fought because the state is seen as a
resource.
Winning elections makes accessing the state possible, usually to the
exclusion of those who lose. Because the stakes are so high, when people lose
faith in the credibility of an election some resort to violence. This was the
case in Kenya following the disputed 2007-2008 elections. This led to
post-election violence. Over 1000 people lost their lives, 600,000 were
displaced and property worth millions of Kenyan shillings was destroyed.
The peace narrative
This August, Kenya goes to the polls again in what’s
expected to be another bruising political context. For the country’s news
media, the coverage of these elections will be extremely challenging.
The last elections held in 2013 were largely peaceful even
if the outcome of the presidential tally was disputed. The peaceful elections,
which were fought with as much passion as the disputed 2007 poll, didn’t happen
that way by accident. The Kenyan media adopted a new approach in 2013 after
having been accused of contributing to the violence that engulfed the country
in the aftermath of the 2007 elections.
“Peace” journalism was uniformly adopted by all mainstream
media. Controversial stories were not covered. Meanwhile, reference to
politicians’ ethnic identities was avoided in media coverage. Ethnicity remains
an important characteristic of political competition in Kenya hence the
sensitivity to ethnic markers of identity.
But “peace” journalism remains controversial and the Kenyan
media was widely criticised for adopting it. Many argue that focusing on peace
at the expense of the credibility of the elections, ignoring for example
numerous electoral anomalies, was a case of self-censorship. Indeed, renowned
writers such as Michaela Wrong likened the Kenyan media to “a zombie army”. She
argued that it had “taken up position where Kenya’s feisty media used to be,
with local reporters going glaze-eyed through the motions”.
Changing media landscape
Local journalists didn’t agree. They argued that erring on
the side of caution was a sacrifice worth making in light of the 2007-2008
post-election violence, when the news media was accused of irresponsible
coverage which contributed to it. As the news media decides which approach to
adopt in the coverage of the next general election, it must recognise that its
role has changed considerably in Africa and around the world. While mainstream
media remains an important space for public debate, it can no longer be
regarded as an impartial arbiter due to three key changes.
First, the African media has become an active participant in
the political process because quite a few outlets are now owned by politicians.
In Kenya for example, the current president owns Media Max, a company with
diverse media interests including TV, radio and newspapers. Media outlets that
are owned by politicians have been known to take sides either covertly or
overtly.
While this tradition is part of the political culture in the
United States and Europe, such partisanship is still only grudgingly accepted
in Africa. Second, elections have become an important source of revenue for the
media with wealthy candidates and political parties spending large amounts of
money in political advertising. As such, coverage is skewed in favour of those
who can afford the high cost of advertising.
In Kenya for example, a staggering 8 billion shillings ($77
million) was spent on radio campaigns alone during the 2013 election cycle.
Finally, the number of news content providers has grown exponentially.
Mainstream media now has to fight for audiences like never before. This has
forced it to ignore some of the most fundamental features of journalism like
the verification of stories and strong gate-keeping processes. As political
campaigns evolve in Africa, so must media coverage of elections. However, it
remains incumbent upon the press to act responsibly and in the interest of
democracy.
The writer is Senior Lecturer in Journalism, University of Central Lancashire. The article was originally published on The Conversation.
