There are different media systems across the world today and theses systems are formed based on the country and its political system. McQuail
(2005) describes the media system as:
Today I will carefully analyse the broadcast media system, major
media policy and the prevalent media theory in Kenya, will equally examine
the movement from authoritarianism to libertarianism in Kenya’s broadcast
media. And will further study how external forces (i.e. foreign organizations)
have influenced, shaped and impacted on Kenya’s broadcast media.
It is not
surprising that the Kenya media industry is going through a revolution and
becoming a centre of attraction for other international media corporation. Over
the years, through the colonial to post-colonial era, Kenya has gone through
various political reforms which also has a great deal of impact on its media
systems. In this regard, it will be necessary to briefly state how the
broadcast media in Kenya has evolved over the years.
In
1963, Kenya gained its independence from Britain but still remained a de facto
one party state beneath the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party till
1992, during which the party President Daniel Arap Moi repealed Section 2A of
the constitution that made the one-party politics mandatory. (Maina, 2006) The
Kenyan economy and media environment over the past 20 years has become
liberalized through the help of the multi-party politics. In spite of the
improvements in the freedom and development of the media, through the new
constitution and vivacious media sector of various competing print, radio and
television news groups, the unique history of Kenya’s colonialism,
authoritarianism, post-independence political competitions, and following
economic and political liberalization has resulted in a harmful effect on the
pace and depth of the development of the mass media (Mbeke, 2008). Therefor the media evolution in Kenya, as
well as its success and failures can possibly be ascribed to the nation’s
political, colonial, economic and cultural heritage.
According to McChesney (1998), “in order to understand the media situation
of any nation, it is important to first understand the local and national media…”
(McChesney, R. 1998 in Thussu). Even though the media in Kenya is seen as part
of the most respected and thriving systems in sub-Saharan Africa, in the
Freedom House estimate, it still ranked “partly free”. The anti-media laws in
Kenya are very strong, most of which weakens the freedom of the media because
they are mostly retrogressive, repressive and punitive. This means that despite
its appearance as being libertarian the system is still quite authoritative and
the media theory that best describes the media system in Kenya is the
Authoritarian theory which according to Siebert, F.S et al (1956) describes a
system in which the press is the servant of the state who is responsible for
most of its content for the benefit of the figures in power at any time. He
stated further that this concept has been originally adopted by most national
press systems across the world and is still persistent and is still being
practiced in some part of the world like the non-Communist nations despite the
fact that they have adopted another theory in word or deed (pg.3) Which is the
same situation obtainable in Kenya as well.
The president is given too
much power via the law, he appoints the chairman, and the information and
communication minister assigns the board of directors which means the board is
not independent. Though section 8 of KBC’s Act provides that the cooperation
will be impartial, independent, balanced and fair in its coverage, this has
been far from it since the country’s independence. KBC serves as a tool of the
government rather than being a public broadcaster and it lost most of its
public credibility due to the absence of fair and balanced coverage’s of issues
since the beginning of the 80’s (Oriare, P. et al.2010:19-20) this goes further
to support the claim of the system as being authoritarian.
The
government (under the Moi’s administration) was however, not interested in the
foreign press. It stopped the local media from publishing news from wire
services and deported foreign correspondents (Mshindi, 2008). When the multi-party
politics began in 1992, the scope of political and press freedom expanded. This
period saw the continuous expansion of aid flow. Kenya’s need for developmental
assistance tripled within 1978 and 1990. The aid program was quickly increased
by the United States by the 1980’s which consequently made Kenya the largest
recipient of U.S and the Sub-Saharan Africa total aid by 1990.
The Kenya
broadcasting has expanded since the liberalization of the economy, the work of the KANU
party seems to have been more significant in this aspect and this development
resulted into the introduction of the policy on ownership. Newspaper companies
like The Nation and The Standard also established their own broadcasting. Kenya media has been moving gradually towards
monopoly and the concentration of ownership in the hand of a few and producing
duplicative and biased content. Most media owners make profit from ‘convergence
of ownership’ and have keenly opposed
government suggestions to limit cross ownership (Mbeke, Ugangu, and
Okello-Oriale, 2010). In an environment like this, where the media ownership
structure is being shaped by just a few players, is strengthening the barriers
to market entry in the media sector; key media houses are employing different
methods such as interference with licensing procedure to the monopolization of
adverts and network distribution. That notwithstanding, there has been
beneficial effects of the entrance of a big regional player on the standard of
journalism. Till date there has been a failed attempt to regulate the media
ownership and evidence in the impact of powerful media players on the climate
of politics. This can be best illustrated by the Kenya Communication Act of
2008.
Kenya
is ranked amongst the top 20 recipient of bilateral, multilateral governmental
and non-governmental aid, receiving 1.275 billion dollars on an annual basis.
The top two contributors to the country are the United States and United
Kingdom. The Department for International Development (DFID), the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA) and USAID, including other industrialized
economies frequently condition development assistance on political rhetoric.
The main goals stated by these organizations are democratization, good
governance and transparency. There has been a tremendous expansion of the aids
from China since 2004, which is very much different from the aids of the United
States and U.K considering that China’s aim is not for democratisation or
liberalization and has just a few political criteria to its funding. The World
Bank and IMF are top multilateral donors and Kenya was the first sub-Saharan
African country the World Bank gave a sub structural adjustment lending and
first to get an Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) loan from the
IMF (were, 2008). The most active governmental, regional and international
donors are the United Nation, European Union, and the East African Community,
their developmental assistance has to do with media development. The important
non-governmental organizations that contribute to the health of the media
directly or indirectly are: world vision, Christian Children’s Fund, the Ford
Foundation and Oxfam.
In
all, we see a clear situation where the broadcast media in Kenya which began as
an authoritarian media, established, owned and controlled by the government
began to transit towards libertarianism. There are traces of authoritarianism
captured on the policy of regulation as vested on KBC. Again, there is a clear
manifestation of Libertarianism captured in the policy of ownership. This
movement is made possible or necessitated by some key factors that affected the
socio political and economic development of Kenya. And these also contributed
to the reshaping of the broadcast media in Kenya. As a way of remedying this
socio political and economic situation, foreign nations and organisations
(international forces) where allowed to provide aids, which of course where
given alongside foreign media policies. These foreign media policies greatly
reshaped and induced the Kenya broadcast media, hence its movement from
authoritarianism to libertarianism though, the broadcast media system in Kenya
is still characterised by authoritarianism, it is envisaged that with the
continual influx of foreign aid in terms of finance and technology the Kenya
media will be characterized by libertarianism in the nearest future.