Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot (2017) PDF

ARTICLE SHIFTING THE SOUTH AFRICAN MEDIA DIVERSITY DEBATE FROM THE STICK TO THE CARROT: LESSONS FROM SCANDINAVIA, LATIN AMERICA AND WEST AFRICA Julia Plessing Department of Politics University of Johannesburg [email protected] ABSTRACT More than 20 years into democracy, the South Afr...

ARTICLE SHIFTING THE SOUTH AFRICAN MEDIA DIVERSITY DEBATE FROM THE STICK TO THE CARROT: LESSONS FROM SCANDINAVIA, LATIN AMERICA AND WEST AFRICA Julia Plessing Department of Politics University of Johannesburg [email protected] ABSTRACT More than 20 years into democracy, the South African media landscape, although free and moderately pluralistic, still does not represent fairly the diversity of viewpoints held in the country. Yet, the South African media debate on transformation has been dominated by the ANC’s continued focus on media accountability. This has silenced a more constructive debate on how to foster media diversity. In the wake of a review of the MDDA (Media Development and Diversity Agency) Act, this paper seeks to reignite this debate by investigating different types of print media regulation and support in Scandinavia, Latin America and West Africa. It argues, firstly, that print media regulation and support is crucial to foster and maintain democratic debate, which is endangered if the media market is left to its own devices. Secondly, government support to print media has been much more common around the globe than often assumed, especially in the Scandinavian countries, which have invested heavily and successfully in the sector. Thirdly, an analysis of national contexts of print media support highlights the perpetual danger of governments exerting censorship or university of south africa African Journalism Studies DOI: 10.1080/23743670.2017.1288645 Volume 38 | Number 1 | 2017 | pp. 66–84 Print ISSN 2374-3670 | Online 2374-3689 http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/recq21/current © 2017 iMasa 66 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot control. However, as is demonstrated in the paper’s final section, a multiplicity of mechanisms of support exist that could be adapted to the South African context, whilst seeking to minimise state control. Keywords: media diversity; media transformation; media policy; state support to media; South Africa; Latin America; Scandinavia; West Africa THE QUEST FOR MEDIA DIVERSITY AND TRANSFORMATION IN SOUTH AFRICA Media diversity and transformation have remained hotly contested issues in South Africa since the onset of the new democratic dispensation. Many steps have been taken to dismantle years of institutionalised white domination of the media. The constitution enshrined freedom of speech, access to information and freedom of the media; a public broadcaster and regulatory bodies, such as the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA), were created; the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) was legislated to preserve and develop grassroots and community media; and ownership of white- owned commercial media was to be transformed through more general regulatory policies such as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BB-BEE). However, two decades into democracy, the South African media landscape, although free and moderately pluralistic, has been under attack from many different quarters for not representing fairly the manifold viewpoints of the South African population. Members of the ANC have claimed that “the South African story…as recorded by the media, is told through the eyes of white males” (Sefara 2013). In a similar vein media analysts have found that South African media has a strong middle-class bias. The voices of poor communities are not heard and their issues are misrepresented (Friedman 2011; Wasserman, Bosch and Chuma 2016). Others have noted that access to the media is highly unequal, in that lower income earners remain poorly served (Duncan 2015; Reid and Isaacs 2015). Even from within the industry itself, journalists have started to address the lack of transformation and the discrimination against black journalists. The Forum of Journalists for Transformation was launched in late 2015 “to see the industry transform structurally and systematically…we must tell the entire South African story, not pick and choose which stories we want to tell” (Rampedi quoted in Grootes 2015). Despite this considerable unison of voices in the analysis of the problem, the national debate on how to remedy this situation has stagnated over the past few years, giving way to an almost exclusive focus on media accountability (Reid and 67 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot Isaacs 2015, 81). Since 2007, the ANC has expended significant energy on criticising the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA) for being ineffective and toothless in ensuring accountability of journalistic ethics (Reid and Isaacs 2015, 6). In 2010 it tabled concrete proposals to investigate the establishment of a media appeals tribunal (MAT), based on the idea that press freedom is not an absolute right but must be balanced against individual rights to human dignity (ANC 2010) – a commitment that was reaffirmed at the ANC’s National General Council (NGC) meeting in October 2015 (Reid and Isaacs 2015). Many media organisations and civil society groupings, such as the “Right to Know” (R2K) campaign, have fiercely contested these plans for policing the media. While this is a very important struggle, the focus on the development and diversification of the media, through regulatory bodies such as the MDDA, has almost vanished from the national debate. The MDDA, which was legislated in 2001, was designed to ensure access to information by marginalised groups, especially through support for community broadcasters and local independent newspapers. The MDDA can be regarded as a path-breaking attempt by a developing country to promote media diversity and access to information by marginalised communities (Pillay 2003). However, it has not lived up to expectations in terms of both its conceptualisation and implementation. Initial ideas that foresaw regulatory powers for the MDDA and a statutory levy on corporate media to subsidise community media, were soon abandoned. Instead, the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) committed its own funds to support community radio and television (Pillay 2003). Local commercial print media did not receive these moneys, as they were not regulated in the same way as radio or television. Instead, a deal was struck with the four big media houses to provide an annual voluntary contribution of R4.4 million, a negligible amount if structural change in the news industry is to be achieved. In 2014 the news industry withdrew its voluntary contribution and the Department of Communications (DoC) is considering moving the MDDA into the department to avoid duplicating support for the community broadcasting sector (L. Vale, personal communication, January 25, 2016). Other efforts by the news industry itself, the Print and Digital Media South Africa (PDMSA), have also failed to inspire the national debate. The PDMSA, under pressure due to the lack of transformation in its industry, commissioned the Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team (PDMTTT) in 2012 to investigate the state of transformation in the media and to recommend new mechanisms. The comprehensive report (Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team 2013) that emerged from this exercise on the state of the media in South Africa has not received due attention. Indeed, with the exception of Media 24, which made changes to its training unit, the media houses did not really take note of the recommendations of the report (L. Vale, personal communication, January 25, 2016). 68 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot In the context of the planned, but still outstanding discussions on the review of the MDDA Act, this paper seeks to contribute to shifting the debate from the state having a policing role of the media ‒ i.e. the “stick” approach ‒ to the possibilities of government actively promoting media diversity. It does this by inquiring into how governments promote media diversity in other parts of the world, namely in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, Latin America and West Africa. This article is not intended to be a comparative study of these disparate regions, but includes experiences from the global South that can provide useful lessons for South Africa. The Northern European countries were chosen for their long and extensive history of state support of the press and their current debates on how to adapt these support mechanisms in the face of structural changes in the news media industry. The main questions that are addressed, which should form the basis of a thorough debate on media regulation in South Africa, are: What role should the government play in supporting media diversity? What forms of support have worked elsewhere? What have been the main contextual challenges? And what can be learned from these for the South African context? This paper suggests that, in order to create more media diversity in South Africa, substantial and long-term state regulation and intervention is necessary. This is possible without necessarily increasing state control and censorship. Yet, the redesign of media policy must be based on thorough debate, taking both warnings and inspirations from other national contexts into account. The first section highlights the continuous need for government regulation and support of the media, based on the argument that news, information and debate are a public good and are necessary for democratic participation, which is endangered if the market is left to its own devices. Secondly, it is argued that government support to media has been much more common around the globe than is often assumed. Governments in Europe and North America have pumped billions into their news industries, in order to maintain media pluralism. But in West Africa there is also a tradition of government support to the media. Thirdly, a glance at the different contexts in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, Latin America and West Africa, reveals varied approaches to state support to the media. As the European example shows, state support to the media is possible without an increase in state control. However, in contexts such as Latin America, where politics and media monopolies have developed mutually beneficial relationships and dependencies over decades, the threat of state control looms large. Finally, a discussion of different types of subsidies in the selected regions serves as a basis for shifting the South African media debate towards thinking more constructively about promoting media diversity in light of the expected revision of the MDDA Act. The focus of this research has been predominantly on print and, to a lesser extent, digital media. A focus on broadcasting is beyond the scope of this article. However, to address the question of media diversity more adequately, the regulation of radio and TV would need to be included for a fully-fledged assessment on how to 69 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot promote media diversity in South Africa. Nevertheless, there are still good reasons to take the print sector in South Africa seriously. Although there has been a decline in white readership, black readership has grown substantially over the past decade, increasing newspaper readership to 50 per cent countrywide (PDMTTT 2013, 41). Furthermore, globally, the print sector has remained important for the production of content. Newspapers’ newsrooms have always been much larger than those of broadcasters. Bloggers, digital journalists, broadcasters and social media users rely heavily on news and information provided by newspaper organisations (Picard 2013, 54). The research for this paper included a review of available literature, reports and newspaper articles on government support in the three regions as well as interviews and e-mail correspondence with media practitioners from the regions. The countries within the regions of Scandinavia, Latin America and West Africa were chosen on the basis of the availability of data. For convenience, the Netherlands has been grouped with Scandinavia because of its specific efforts in promoting media diversity, even though it is not geographically part of the area. SAFEGUARDING MEDIA DIVERSITY: ARGUMENTS FOR STATE INTERVENTION The fact that states intervene in media systems for the wrong reasons, such as controlling content and curbing the freedom of the press, is a concern for all democratic societies. Civil society organisations and human rights groups around the globe continuously monitor and engage with states to ensure freedom of information and freedom of expression. The fact that states have a long history of intervening in media systems for the right reasons, such as promoting media development, pluralism and diversity, has received much less publicity. Yet, there are many good reasons for states to intervene in media systems. The two main arguments that will be proposed in this section are firstly, that due to rapidly transforming media markets and the decline of print media, both external pluralism, as in a plurality of print media outlets, and internal pluralism, as in a multiplicity of viewpoints within a publication (Hallin and Mancini 2004; Valcke, Sükösd and Picard 2015), are threatened. The rise of digital media does not necessarily remedy this situation. For instance, Ohlsson found in the Nordic countries that the online presence of newspapers does not compensate for the decline in the readership of print (2015, 60). Secondly, media diversity is not only about a pluralistic media landscape. In highly unequal societies, such as South Africa, media diversity needs to include the needs of the diverse audiences, both in terms of availability of viewpoints and people’s access to diverse media platforms (Duncan and Reid 2013). Regarding the first point, one of the eternal challenges of print media has been that selling news and information is not profitable and that news providers 70 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot have always had to rely on other sources of income, such as advertising (Picard 2013, 49). This can lead to several challenges. Newspapers are dependent on their “market value” to increase readership and through this to become more attractive for advertisers. Where public taste for news has become depoliticised, as has been found in Sweden, newspapers may follow suit and depoliticise content to remain competitive (Ots 2013). This is even more challenging for news providers seeking to address the issues of the marginalised or poor, since the latter are not attractive consumers for advertising. Advertisers will always favour market leaders that provide the bigger audience. This can suppress media pluralism as it will disadvantage secondary newspapers and, in the worst case, push them out of the market. This is all the more relevant for the South African context, where many small commercial newspapers, publishing in poorer areas, are struggling with marginal economic viability (PDMTTT 2013, 43). Furthermore, the economic viability of print media has deteriorated globally over the past decades. Print runs have declined and advertising income has subsequently decreased, which has not been matched by income through digital advertising or online sales of newspapers. This has led to the downsizing of newsrooms (Nichols and McChesney 2009; Ohlsson 2015). For instance in Denmark, more than 500 journalists were laid off between 2006 and 2013 (C. Berg, personal communication, 2013). In such a scenario, news and information is in danger of becoming a mere commodity. It threatens fundamentally the role that media can play in democracies, as a platform for political and social debate. Often referred to as the fourth estate, it is a public good, fundamental to ensuring that the information needs of communities are met in democratic societies and that forums for serious political and social debate exist (Picard 2013, 54). Many European countries have inscribed media diversity in their media policy to safeguard information supply and opinion formation of the public in order to uphold a multiparty democracy. Policy makers in the Netherlands have gone one step further, propagating the idea that the state should take on a caring role: “that, like in other fields of policy such as health care or education, government should be intervening more actively by creating the conditions for a ‘real’ freedom of the press”, where real freedom of the press is understood as upholding and enhancing the diversity of the media (Lichtenberg and d’Haenens 2013, 280). Yet, and this leads to the second argument, the concept of media diversity is more complex and context specific than may appear at first sight. In the European social democracies of the 1960s and 1970s, the main rationale for introducing support to the media was the need to have the viewpoints of the different political parties reflected, achieved through the retention of diversity and pluralism in ownership of media outlets. Hallin and Mancini refer to these connections between media and political spectrums as political parallelism (2004). This view of media pluralism is however 71 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot limited and out-dated in the context of changing demographics and media landscapes in Europe (Ots 2013, 318). Media concentration does not necessarily decrease the diversity of available viewpoints in the media, as was found for the Danish media industry (C. Berg, personal communication, 2014). On the other hand, encouraging pluralism of ownership may also not necessarily yield the desired results. Referring to Hotelling’s law of excessive sameness, Duncan and Reid warn that in a context where there is a higher risk of product failure, i.e. where many smaller media outlets are competing for the same market, media outlets will try to make their products as similar as possible. This can lead to highly competitive systems that tend “to display a homogeneity of content” (Duncan and Reid 2013, 488). Media concentration in ownership is thus neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for media diversity (Valcke, Sükösd and Picard 2015, 2). Pluralism in ownership also does not address the situation in many southern countries where differences in terms of race and class, urban and rural location cut across political parties. The South African media landscape reveals a limited pluralism of ownership and practically no political parallelism. Four big media houses dominate it: Media24, Caxton, Times Media Group and Independent Newspapers. Media24 alone owns 40 per cent of the media market. This degree of concentration is not peculiar to South Africa (PDMTTT 2013, 51). However, where elsewhere it may not lead to a homogenisation of content, in South Africa, where ownership structures are still predominantly white (ibid, 17), and whites still dominate public debates in the media and academia (Friedman 2015, 150), the diversity of viewpoints of the population is not reflected in the bulk of the commercial press. That is why an understanding of media diversity needs to go one step further and include diversity of content, which goes far beyond a diversity of political viewpoints. In South Africa this would need to include “a diversity of opinions, languages, styles, genres and formats, as well as a diversity of voices, including the voices of those who are often marginalised by commercial media, such as workers, the unemployed, youth, women, and aged” (Duncan 2015, 237). Finally, Duncan and Reid point out that contrary to many northern countries, where access to and accessibility of media are assumed to be almost universal, this is not the case for many southern countries. Audiences in southern countries may not be able to access all the available media platforms (Duncan and Reid 2013, 490). Factors such as the availability and affordability of Internet access, distribution of media, language and literacy affect the “bouquets” that citizens can access. This accessibility or lack thereof has a great impact on citizens’ opportunity to participate in public debate. Measures to promote media diversity need to take this into account and intervention should not react to the needs of the news industry alone, but to the needs of society (Picard 2013). 72 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot GOVERNMENT SUPPORT TO MEDIA: MORE COMMON THAN ASSUMED One of the main findings of this research has been that state intervention, in the form of support to media outlets, is not an anomaly, and is practised widely across Europe, North America and even West Africa. Most social-democratic European governments, including Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, have provided large-scale support to the media sector from the 1960s and 1970s onwards, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, even in places like the United Kingdom and the US, which have always had a great belief in market self-regulation, governments have pumped billions into the press and media houses. For instance, in the United States, where the First Amendment is the great protector of press freedom, the government has supported the media with millions of dollars over many decades through postal subsidies, public and legal notices and tax breaks (Cowan and Westphal 2010). This kind of support has declined significantly over the past decades, but in the face of the structural crisis of the economies of the press and decreasing advertising income, there are renewed calls advocating for government rescue of journalism (Nichols and McChesney 2009). The Scandinavian countries have a long and much more explicit history of governments supporting their press to ensure that citizens have access to diversity of information and opinion (Ots 2013, 310). This became more pertinent following a significant drop in the number of publications in the 1960s. Subsidies were devised to balance out the negative impact that the competitive situation in the market had on weaker newspapers. The subsidies that were, and are still, handed out to the press include both direct and indirect forms of support and amount to millions of euros annually. In Norway, production support to newspapers amounted to €44 million in 2013 (Ohlsson 2015, 26). In Sweden direct operational support to secondary newspapers amounted to €53 million in the same year (ibid, 27). In addition, the Scandinavian press benefits from reduced VAT policies in Sweden and Finland, and zero VAT policies in Denmark and Norway (ibid, 29). Over the past decade, direct support to the press has declined, most visibly in Finland. The large-scale subsidy schemes are contested, both internally by conservative parties and externally by the EU’s market-orientated approach to media production (ibid, 59). Nevertheless, most governments are still committed to uphold subsidies and adapt these in the face of a structural crisis of the print sector. But also in West Africa, one can find evidence of state support for the diversification of the media. In the countries of Burkina Faso, Senegal, Benin and Ivory Coast governments provide direct subsidies to the print sector, ranging from between XOF 300 to 700 million (an equivalent of approximately ZAR 8 to 19 million at the time of writing) annually (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 2013, 2012, 2011). Even if these amounts are small, they are still significantly more than the amount 73 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot the MDDA has provided to independent print media in South Africa. The origin of support can be traced to a societal consensus in many West African countries that the state should provide subsidies to the media for them to be able to fulfil their role as the fourth estate. As Abdoulaye Diallo, director of the National Press Centre Norbert Zongo in Burkina Faso, explains: The money does not create dependencies on the state. The newspapers have understood that they receive a state subsidy because they have assumed a public responsibility. Pluralism and freedom are as such upheld. This is not a “gift” from government that seeks to influence the press. It was a demand by the press, which was approved at some point. (Diallo 2013, my translation) The Latin American countries have no significant history of state regulation of the media. However, since left-wing parties were voted into power, several governments have made substantial changes to their media laws redefining communication from being a commodity to a people’s right (Hall 2012, 56). BETWEEN REAL FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND STATE CONTROL: WHY CONTEXT MATTERS Despite good arguments for state intervention, the tension between ensuring “real freedom of the press” through state intervention – as is envisioned in the Netherlands – and the exploitation of support to media to control content will always remain. This greatly depends on the form of state, political culture, the historical development of the media and the extent to which freedom of the press is legislated. In their analysis of western European and North American media systems Hallin and Mancini have identified three models of media development: the Liberal Model, characterised by a dominance of market orientation and a high degree of journalistic professionalism, and the Polarist Pluralist Model, characterised by a high degree of politicisation and unequal consumption of public information. Finally the Democratic Corporatist Model is characterised by political parallelism, a historically strongly developed media system, a high degree of state intervention to promote the free flow of information and a culture of heavy consumption of public information (Hallin and Mancini 2004, 11; 299). Even though these models are not static and were out-dated as soon as they were published (Ohlsson 2015, 11), they indicate different ideological predispositions, also in the assessment of national media contexts. This is exemplified in the different values that two media indexes or barometers for Africa attach to them. The African Media Barometer, published by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, demonstrates its vicinity to the Democratic Corporate Model in one criterion that reads: “Government promotes a diverse media landscape with economically viable and independent media outlets”. The North American IREX Media Sustainability Index, following the more 74 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot liberal tradition, has one indicator for measuring newspapers’ business management, which reads: “Independent media do not receive government subsidies” (Media Sustainability Report: Senegal 2012; Media Sustainability Report: Burkina Faso 2012).1 South Africa does not fit neatly into any of the above-mentioned models. As Pillay formulates it, “the South African environment…is a complex of neoliberal, authoritarian nationalist and social democratic impulses” (Pillay 2003, 417). Thus, it features unequal media consumption as in the Polarist Pluralist Model, the market orientation of the Liberal Model, as well as a professed commitment by the government to support media development and diversity, more akin to the Democratic Corporatist Model. That is why, when assessing an active role of the state in supporting media diversity, the experiences of the different regions need to be given consideration. In the northern European countries, where schemes have handed out millions of euros over long periods of time, this research found no reports of state interference in the press. The Media Pluralism Monitor report for 2014, which measured media pluralism in a sample of selected European countries, showed that Denmark, together with Belgium, Estonia and the UK, scored low risk “related to political pressure and interference in the content and functioning of the media outlets” (Brogi and Dobreva 2014, 4). In Latin America, media reform and attempts at regulation face multiple challenges given that media concentration flourished over decades of authoritarian regimes that favoured market-oriented policies. Firstly, the large media conglomerates in the hands of a few wealthy families have amassed significant political power. This has led to increased demands for democratic regulation. Yet “the media’s perceived veto capacity and state capture have led political players to see accommodation as the only viable course of action” (Kitzberger 2014, 28). For instance, in Argentina, the Kirchner government has never been able to implement fully the Audiovisual Services Law (ACSL), originally passed in 2009. The law, which was conceived with significant civil society input, tried to break up the concentration of media ownership in the country by allocating 33 per cent of the airwaves to public broadcasting, 33 per cent to private and 33 per cent to community broadcasting. The Clarin group, one of the biggest media conglomerates in the country, fiercely contested the law in the courts. In late 2013, Clarin lost the case, with the Supreme Court upholding the law with the explanation that it “favours freedom of speech by limiting market concentration” (Ellis 2013).1 However, up until the end of term of the Kirchner government, the law had not been enforced fully. According to reports in the Argentina Independent of 1 Interestingly, while UNESCO officials have heralded the law as a model of media democratisation, Wan-Ifra, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers supported the Clarin group in its court action with the argument that the law allowed government interference in the press in the name of maintaining media diversity. 75 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot December 23, 2015, the conservative government, immediately after its election in 2015, threatened to scrap the law – amongst widespread public protest. The second challenge in the transformation of the Latin American media sector is that policies for more market orientation, and those for more state regulation have both “operated within the same context of clientelism and discretional, uneven application of regulation and the law” (Guerrero and Márquez-Ramírez 2014, 1). In Mexico, for example, though state sponsorship and censorship have disappeared since the advent of democracy, opaque and arbitrary allocation of official advertising continues to constrain pluralism and a diversity of voices (J. Dupuy, personal communication, March 11, 2014). Thus, even though voices from the left argue for state support for independent, community and indigenous media and for spaces for anti-hegemonic points of view (De Moraes, Ramonet and Serrano 2013), there is a fear among many localised media practitioners that state support of the media will come with more state control (M. Muniz, personal communication, March 13, 2014). In Africa, post-liberation transformations are fragile and although many countries have freedom of expression enshrined in their constitutions and boast a fairly diversified media, the threat of state re-regulation looms large (Duncan 2015). In West Africa, where most subsidy schemes on the African continent are found, the media are generally regarded as diverse and fairly free. However, a number of countries have clauses that override freedom of speech when it comes to “respect for public order”, as is the case in Benin (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 2011), or l’injure and l’offense (“abuse” and “offence”) of the head of state, as is the case in Senegal (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 2013). These threats also loom in South Africa, as can be seen in the ANC’s intention to legislate a Media Appeals Tribunal. DRAWING FROM EXPERIENCE: TYPES OF STATE SUPPORT TO THE MEDIA Media subsidies are commonly associated with direct operational support for newspaper production. However, as this section will show, many different types of support exist, especially in the Scandinavian social democracies, ranging from tax alleviation and support for distribution to more structural support for innovation in the news industries and the production of content. Some of these mechanisms will be considered for adaptation to, and testing in, the South African context. General Support to All Newspapers (Direct and Indirect) Many of the Scandinavian countries have pursued general support to all newspapers with the main aim being to alleviate market pressures, to lower the cost of the newspaper to the consumer and to protect smaller news industries (Murschetz 2013, 23). The most common indirect type of support is a reduction or full exemption of 76 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot VAT for newspapers. While many countries worldwide have abolished this type of support, Denmark and Norway still uphold this indirect subsidy (Ohlsson 2015). In the South African context it is conceivable that tax concessions or reductions could be applied for smaller independent local newspapers, which struggle to survive. The advantage of such indirect support is the minimisation of the threat of patronage or state control of content. Other forms of support in Scandinavia to lower the cost for the consumer have been subsidies for the distribution of newspapers and the reduction of postal tariffs. In Norway and Sweden the cost of distribution was lowered for those publishing houses that entered into co-operation schemes for the distribution of their newspapers. They would receive a small subsidy from the state for each distributed newspaper. While in Norway this scheme has failed due to a lack of co-operation among newspapers, according to Mart Ots from the Media Management and Transformation Centre, the scheme has worked very well in Sweden and can be equally applied to co-operation in printing (personal communication, April 11, 2014). However, this type of support is now also decreasing in Sweden due to falling circulation figures (Ots 2013, 314). In South Africa, the large media houses are often the only ones to operate printing presses in a specific region, and can thus dictate prices and conditions to smaller local publishers. Currently, printing costs for smaller newspapers can make up 50 per cent of the total production costs (PDMTTT 2013, 54). In a context where readership numbers are increasing among black and rural populations, co-operation schemes for either distribution or printing could be an interesting option to reduce production costs for smaller publishers. General operational support to all newspapers is a common practice in many West African countries. For instance in Burkina Faso, all newspapers are eligible for support if they have fulfilled their tax obligations. The scheme is working well and minimises state control, given that it is a mandated form of allocation. Government advertising, even though not a media subsidy in the strict sense, can be regarded as a type of general support as it is a source of income for the bulk of newspapers in countries such as Norway and Mexico. In South Africa, there has been a commitment by the government to channel advertising into smaller grassroots publications to increase their economic viability and thus to increase media diversity. In 2016, GCIS appointed a panel of advertising agencies, amongst which were also two provincial grassroots advertising agencies, to channel government advertising. This could be an innovative solution to provide support to more local media markets without increasing state control and soft censorship. However, its effectiveness and impartiality will have to be monitored over the coming years. 77 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot Specific Support Aimed at Helping Weaker Papers, Market Entrants, or Papers with a Social, Political or Cultural Role One of the main ways in which states have attempted to foster or uphold media diversity is through strengthening weaker papers or market entrants. The support schemes can be roughly divided into large-scale programmes intervening structurally in media markets, and smaller subsidies granted to newspapers for limited periods of time on the basis of applications. One large scale subsidy scheme in Norway and Sweden has supported papers of high periodicity that are the second largest in a specific region, in order to improve these papers’ market positions and to avoid monopolies. These subsidy schemes have been cost-intensive and large scale (Swedish Ministry of Culture 1990). A less cost-intensive yet popular subsidy to increase media diversity has been support to newspapers with low periodicity (Ots 2013). Media analysts rate the overall effect of these subsidies as successful in maintaining media diversity (Murschetz 1998). Sweden, for instance, occupies one of the top positions in readership in Europe (Ots 2013, 309). Sweden’s subsidies could not, however, halt the concentration of media ownership. Although in 2013 there are still 74 newspaper companies, eight media houses controlled 87 per cent of the total newspaper circulation (Ots 2013, 317). Regarding the smaller subsidy schemes, Denmark, Norway and Sweden implemented these to support market entrants and/or papers with minority viewpoints. Often, however, they did not achieve the stated goal of creating sustainable papers (C. Berg, personal communicatin, 2014; Ohlsson 2015; Ots 2013). A similar experience was made in the Netherlands, which supported start-ups targeting minority groups or languages. They received few applications and the supported papers struggled to become economically viable (Lichtenberg and d’ Haenens 2013). According to d’Haenens, the main problem was the fund’s unconditionality, where papers did not have to present sound business plans (personal communication, March 24, 2014). In South Africa, where the MDDA has been supporting smaller grassroots commercial newspapers and market entrants, there have been similar concerns. Supported newspapers have often not been able to become sustainable through the MDDA grant system. An evaluation of the effectiveness of the MDDA has not been conducted thus far, but is in preparation at the time of writing (L. Vale, board member MDDA, personal communication, January 25, 2016). This will be a crucial precondition for discussions towards amending the MDDA Act. Thus, grants have a tendency to create dependency. When funding has ended, beneficiaries are in danger of collapsing, unless the grants are designed to support the business of newspapers in such a way that recipients have the opportunity to become economically viable during the period of the grant. However, this approach to media regulation only targets individual newspapers. Media policy and support systems 78 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot must make sure that conditions are created in which a multiplicity and diversity of outlets and viewpoints can thrive. This would require long-term commitment from government to support the news industry. Support to Innovation of the Media Industries with the Specific Target of Improving Content In the Netherlands and Denmark, national debates on media support have sought to address fundamental changes in their news industries, such as declining readership numbers and a shift from print to digital media. The Dutch government has abandoned traditional large-scale subsidies as a response to this and is turning to more flexible support structures. The Danish government, similar to the Norwegian government, has reaffirmed its commitment to long-term and large-scale support, but has opened up support mechanisms to digital media and content production. Looking firstly at the Netherlands, since the turn of the century, the Dutch innovation commission has gone through a continuous process of discussion. This resulted in the commitment to “stimulate publishers and editors to deliver news across diverse media platforms” (Lichtenberg and d’ Haenens 2013). It indicates a clear shift away from trying to keep specific print media alive towards bringing innovation to newsrooms with the aim of improving the quality of journalism. In line with this thinking, the Dutch support fund changed its name from “Innovation Fund for the Press” (Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers) to “Innovation Fund for Journalism” (Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek). Some of the main premises upon which the fund is based are that smaller companies should be helped along in innovation, that different groups have different ways of accessing information and subsequently, that a diverse information supply needs to be fostered. Furthermore, given that print media are genuinely in the public interest, leaving their problems for them to solve is “too risky for a free and diverse information supply to the press” (Lichtenberg and d’Haenens 2013). Examples of areas of support of the new media support scheme are: To expand options for papers and news magazines to co-operate with public broadcasting stations, mainly in the development of online services. To pay specific attention to the quality of journalistic infrastructure. For example, newsrooms could apply for funds to pay for employing young journalists. To look into re-organising regional journalism, such as through the establishment of regional centres where public and commercial, regional and local media could inventively co-operate. These regional hubs could also be collaborations between newsrooms, libraries and regional educational institutions (Lichtenberg and d’Haenens 2013, 282). 79 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot In Denmark also, intensive national debates have led to a revised media support system in 2013. With more and more citizens getting their information digitally, the printed press has faced increasing competition. As elsewhere, Danish users are not willing to pay for digital news and many of the traditional papers have been slow to adapt to digitisation, creating serious crises for print media (C. Berg, personal communication, 2013). The state subsidy scheme responded by shifting the focus of support from distribution to the production of content. One of the main principles of the new scheme is that the support is “technology neutral and thereby more appropriate for the promotion of creativity and innovation in the media market, including promotion and exploitation of new technologies and distribution platforms” (C. Berg, personal communication, 2013). At the same time, the scheme aims to secure high-quality media content. However, contrary to the Dutch system, the Danish government has retained to a great extent its large-scale investment into the media through both direct and indirect forms of support. The South African media debate can draw inspiration from the schemes and subsidies discussed herein, especially those that move beyond operational support to individual media outlets, towards more structural interventions in the media industry. In summary, the following types of support could be explored in more detail: Support for co-operation schemes for printing and/or distribution in a context where grassroots independent newspapers are reliant on the printing facilities of the larger conglomerates. Support for regional grassroots advertising agencies to ensure that local papers that have small (or no) marketing departments get better access to both government and business advertising. Development of co-operation across media platforms and the support of regional hubs. Support for partnerships between agencies and newspapers involved in local content production and national mainstream outlets, to ensure that local content enters mainstream media. Tax concessions for smaller media outlets. Strengthening editorial content through a diversification of the news industry at editorial and managerial level, and by bringing more young black journalists into the news sector. CONCLUSION In view of the planned review of the MDDA Act, this paper has called for a more extensive discussion on how government can foster transformation and diversity 80 Plessing Shifting the South African Media Diversity Debate from the Stick to the Carrot in the South African print sector. In a context where public debate is largely restricted to the urban middle class and the voices of mainly black, rural and poorer populations are not heard, the state can play a more active role to ensure the free flow of information to the diverse South African audiences. This can neither be achieved by leaving the media market to its own devices, nor by a sole focus of government on media accountability and restriction. Some of the main lessons learned from looking at the different regions have been firstly, that state support to the press is not an anomaly and not only reserved for the Northern European social democracies. Practices from West African countries, such as Burkina Faso and Benin have shown that even in countries with a low tax base, moneys can be made available for sustaining media diversity. Furthermore, in the face of decreasing print circulation, losses in advertising income and digitalisation worldwide, there have been renewed calls for governments to take on a more active role to ensure journalistic production and universal access to information. Secondly, as the Nordic countries have demonstrated, state intervention in media markets does not necessarily lead to more state control. On the contrary, as the Latin American examples indicate, in a context where media conglomerates have been able to develop freely, albeit under authoritarian rule, the relationships between governments and the media have been marked by interdependencies, soft-censorship and state control. Thirdly, a public discussion on how to foster media diversity that is audience centred needs to be led on the basis of several premises. It has to include government, civil society and community media to represent also the marginalised voices. This has been successfully achieved in Argentina, where broad involvement of civil society and grassroots media led to a redesign of media regulation. In addition, it requires a sound analysis and measurement of media diversity in South Africa, which includes questions of media access and why Internet costs are still so prohibitively high compared to other African countries, excluding many poorer users from this type of news. Finally, it would need to include an analysis of the digital and broadcasting sectors in South Africa and how these interact with print media to ensure media diversity. In its last section, this paper has proposed a series of potential support mechanisms that could be adapted to the South African context. These should be provided at a distance from the state. The idea of incorporating the MDDA into the Department of Communications, as has been proposed by government, is thus not advisable. It is also important to provide funds to media outlets on the basis of objective criteria such as the size of market share in a specific region, the percentage of editorial content versus advertising, the number of reporters etc. These criteria can act as shields against favouritism and clientelism in the awarding of grants. 81