New Technologies and the Media
Kingston, Jamaica – November 25, 1993
The expansion of regional media and the consequent
acceleration of technology-driven change are the natural outcomes of a pattern
of growth and economic development that postulates, at the information level, a
fundamental right to know, and at the business level, brings into prominence
the role of information as product.
The free market fundamentalism of Caribbean states in the
1980s and 1990s facilitates these processes through systems of liberalization and
a pre-occupation of structural adjustment programmes with meeting the demands
of a perceived post-industrial, information age.
Cable television, satellite technologies and other
telecommunications marvels have disarmed traditional theories of media
ownership and control and have rendered some notions of censorship and
regulation either impractical or downright obsolete.
It can therefore be said that for those with an interest in
the free movement of ideas and information, this new age has brought some
benefits.
The sheer hypocrisy of censorship laws in our countries has
been undermined by a range of technological advances that just won’t go away.
The much reviled advent of satellite dishes has in fact presided over the
erosion of state administered prohibition.
In addition, fears of media monopoly and a narrow band of
private control have been found to be baseless at the level of the once-feared
ability of conglomerates to erode social values in favour of their way of
thinking. The sheer volume of alternatives has changed all that.
It is not that, in any case, agenda-setting theory has ever
been properly tested in our environment or that the presumed influence of the
media has been established in any scientific sense. The latest research clearly
sets out the connection between deviant behaviour in children and their
exposure to violence on television, but by and large the fears of the determinists
are built on questionable empirical foundations.
Those who have been proven wrong in these matters, you will
find, are those who want our talk-show hosts off the air. Who want our
journalists to report only the so-called “good news” and who believe that the
media should perform as the propaganda arms of some unclear platform for social
change.
In societies such as ours where little distinction is made
between the manifesto promises of the parties in power and the stated
development goals of the government, development-support journalism is often
nothing more than the wimpish panderings of reporters and media bosses unable
to tell the difference between political taste and their professional
obligations.
For our discussions on these matters to transcend these
puerile pre-occupations of ownership, control and influence, we should first
accept the fact that there is no turning back from our journey into the
technological age.
Unwieldy transmitters have turned into compact, portable
instruments capable of taking us into the field such as we have never been
before. And, in some instances, the cellular phone has obliterated the need for
such devices.
We are filing our reports via computer modems, setting pages
on the screen and receiving photographs via satellite.
There is now greater potential for interaction between
broadcaster and audience and, through it, the airwaves are being democratized throughout
the Caribbean. It is a liberty we sometimes abuse, but one we should cherish,
not despise.
Our experience in Trinidad and Tobago has also shown that
media practitioners are not only displaying a greater propensity to operate
along multi-disciplinary lines but they are, in fact, being pushed in that
direction by organisations now operating several systems at the same time. The
Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) is one fine example and, soon, Trinidad
and Tobago Television and National Broadcasting Service will become members of
the club.
What this has done is to establish conditions for the
creation of a breed of professional animal who is technically competent in the
three major disciplines of print, radio and television. I believe that unless
governments intervene, this will be the trend throughout the region as the
media, in their role as businesses, recognise the cost-effectiveness of such a
strategy.
Of course, I do not believe that anyone should intervene
except that these media outfits should be made to pay due attention to the
industrial relations requirements of such undertakings and underwrite the cost
of training the young breed of journalist in whom I have the greatest
confidence.
It is time for us, as journalists, to tailor our responses
to these recent phenomena in a more informed and enlightened manner. The
classical dichotomy between state and private media, for one, is fast
disappearing in the more vibrant territories. The state media, in these cases,
have not displayed any substantial operational differences alongside their
privately-owned counterparts.
Satellites and cable have numbed the potential for monopoly
domination in television and recent developments in radio have radicalized prior
notions of exclusivity and oligarchic access to the media.
The journalist is likely to face the worst consequences of
these changes only if the industrial relations climate of the region remains
unresponsive to new demands and if there continues to be a failure to recognise
that media management is a discipline worthy of learning and mastering and that
the unenlightened, monodynamic leadership of the past is no longer viable.
While the journalist is racing ahead with his or her business, the bosses are
being left behind.
New technologies have also increased the capital cost of our
operations and we should be careful that our newsrooms do not become the
victims of these increases. Our vulnerability is typified in the use of
retrenchment through redundancy and attrition and, increasingly, the sales
department is justifying its encroachment into our newsrooms.
Whether it’s advertising to news-copy ratios or programme
logging activities, the editorial integrity of our newsrooms must be
maintained. Senior journalists who have a say in these matters should stand more
firmly against these very real threats.
These are only some of the challenges we face in what is
quite an exciting time for the Caribbean media. Many believe the prospects are
grim and that more serious threats await us.
I prefer the approach that places some value on our
resilience and ability to accept the challenge of change. So often we take our
politicians and civic leadership to task for their inability to cope with
change. It is time to show them how we can do it on our own behalf.
