Many voices one cause: One cause many voices? An investigation into Zimbabwe broadcasting corporation's news hour as a democratic platform of participation.

o Editorial Charter: Broad guidelines that govern the performance of media organisations.

o Political Matter: To be political matter, the matter broadcast must, when viewed objectively, be capable of being properly characterized as participation in the political process or an attempt to influence or comment upon that process, the administration of government or those who participate in these activities.

o News Monitors: Those in the news production line who spike stories that may be damaging to the status quo.

o News Value: News that is viewed as worth broadcasting in line with the editorial charter.

o Political Reality: Absolute facts relating to political matter as it stands on the ground

o Self-Censorship: A situation whereby a reporter withholds certain information in fear of victimisation, even if the information may be in the public interest.

o Agenda Setting: The process of deliberately giving prominence and salience to certain issues and not others to influence public opinion.

.9 Scope of the Study

The concept of public service model is generally asserted to be the bedrock of broadcasting policies throughout the world and has its firm foundation in the evolution of broadcasting in England. The idea of public service broadcasting is coined around the stipulations of the public service model and is rooted in the enlightenment notion of the public and of a public space in which social and political life democratically unfolds.

This dissertation approaches the question of participatory democracy from a broader perspective that includes establishing whether ZBC-TV news hour is still in the Reithian tradition, sustaining an informed electorate, is still apolitical, neutral to political views and an institution that is still positioned to be a medium offering public access to information. The study will limit itself to the voices that deal with political matter on ZBC news hour. Political interference by the ongoing government will also be treated where it appears explicitly or implicitly.

This study will not as a matter of focus dwell on all principles of public service broadcasting but will deal with these aspects of principle as and when they are interwoven with the public service broadcasting promise of accuracy and impartiality - which promotes reliable and credible news, education and information for the public as a contribution to the national political debate.

The Presidential Campaign period will be looked at because in the case of public broadcasters, it is customary that equal access, both in terms of timing and length of broadcast should be given to the competing sides and that the information provided by the government owned media should not be biased in favour of one side or the other.

.10 Summary and Conclusion

The ethos of public service broadcasting and the practices associated with it have changed considerably since earlier decades of the last century. Amongst some of the challenges is the abuse by the incumbent governments in their attempt to preserve or enforce prevailing proportions of political power. The fact that institutions like the ZBC rely largely on government revenues for their funding instead of politically independent boards exposes them to abuse. This may explain why most African governments are particularly uneasy at the idea of deregulating the airwaves.

The accelerating demise of the public service ideal owes in part to the policies of deregulation in the broadcast sector in recent years and the expansion of new commercial and technological forms of media to challenge the previous dominance of public service media. All this provided, there still remains a concern to argue for a more positive reassessment of the achievements and values of public service broadcasting which has been condemned for its elitism and ideological bias. However, this presentation needs to underline at the outset that along with commercial networks, public service broadcasting systems are an essential part of the overall structure of broadcasting.

Broadcasting, then brings public life into private life, and private life into public life, for pleasure and enjoyment as much as for information and education. The many voices that speak in this domain - the broadcasters themselves, public persons and private people amount to a universe of discourse.

The next chapter discusses the theoretical and conceptual framework on which this whole study and inquiry is predicated.

CHAPTER 2

Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

2.0 Introduction

This chapter looks at the theoretical concerns of this study. The public service theory is the main theory that is used to evaluate the institutional performance of ZTV against the backdrop of its public service mandate. Other concepts that have been used to consolidate on this are those of the public sphere, citizenship and its concomitant rights to information, education and entertainment. For example citizens have the right to be informed so that they can make wise decisions in the social, political and economic processes of the day.

2.1 The Public Service Broadcasting Theory

David Morrison et al (1995:3) outline the eight general principles and values, which constitute the heart and soul of public service broadcasting systems:

i) Universality: Broadcast programmes should be available to the whole

population.

ii) Universality of Payment: The major payment of this type of broadcasting is

That it should be directly funded by the corpus of users.

iii) Universality of Appeal: Public Service broadcasting programmes should cater for all interest and tastes.

iv) Public service broadcasting should be structured in such a way that its major aim is to promote competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.

v) It should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular, from those of the government of the day.

vi) It should recognise its special relationship to the sense of national identity and community.

vii) Minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities should receive some special provisions. For example, the deaf should have their own sign language broadcasting

viii) The public guidelines for public service broadcasting should be designed to liberate rather than restrict programme makers Morrison et al (1995:3).

It must be noted that there are different models of the PSB but all of them try to satisfy all or some of the values and principles mentioned above. However, the mandate of most public broadcasting stations is to inform, educate and entertain listeners and viewers. According to Scannell (1995:14) these attributes form the three basic functions of every public service television station. He asserts that:

Public broadcasting has an educative role and the broadcaster of the day must develop great contacts with the great educational institutions and movements in order to foster the spread of knowledge (quoted in Godwin: 1990:14)

In other words public broadcasters must work closely with other public institutions like the school and the church in order to play fully their fundamental role as institutions of socialisation. As part of the broader cultural industry the public broadcaster must be bequeathed with responsibility that make it an embodiment and articulation of public interest and public concerns. For instance, the American PSB mission statement is "to promote artistic, cultural public affairs as a supplement to the United States Commercial broadcasting" Melody (1999:65)

Public broadcasters must preserve a high moral tone; avoid the vulgar and the hurtful Scannel (1995:13). What this means is that a public broadcaster must be the vanguard in maintaining a high morale fibre of a society. For an example the BBC has a clear guiding policy to ensure that it shuns the vulgar and subversive. According to the BBC Producers' Guidelines (1989:12), "programmes for which BBC is responsible should not offend against god taste or decency or likely to encourage or incite to crime or lead to disorder, or be offensive to public feeling".

A public broadcaster should therefore maintain high programming standards. It must not play into the invisible hand of the market forces and advertisers who may manipulate programming to achieve their own financial gains. Tomaselli (1994:134) castigates this link between advertisers and public broadcasters. He observes that:

If public broadcasting becomes part of a profit oriented industry then the programming service would be influenced by commercial considerations and the need to appeal to bigger markets. Entertainment, a legitimate right of the public broadcaster would become of paramount consideration - all to the detriment of educational and cultural programmes Tomaselli (1995:56)

Advertisers can do anything as long as it brings them money. Their manipulation of sexual images, foul language and bad humour subvert these and other important values that characterise public broadcasting. In view of this, Watson and Hill (1989:129) emphasised that a public broadcaster is "one whose first duty is to a public within a democracy, serving to inform, educate and entertain, not serving to fulfill the requirements of commercial interests" The other value typifying a public broadcaster is that it should offer universal coverage and appeal in a nation state. Its service must be national and should take cognisance of the pluralism and diversity of the citizenry. The programming of a public broadcaster should reflect regional and national identities. This programme diversity should create a link between cultures Pleitgen (1996:13).

Closely interwoven with this is the question of altruism and national duty. A public broadcaster is the kingpin in the creation of national consciousness. For example, the aim of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is to "promote national unity, develop a national consciousness and interpret Canada for Canadians" Ferguson (1993:73).

A public broadcaster therefore should be able to promote a people's history and identity through the broadcasting national rituals such as Independence Day, Heroes day and other important state functions. Lord Reith, the first BBC Director General (1923:4) acknowledges that is only by "providing a common access for all to a wide range of public events and ceremonies that public broadcasting would act as a kind of social cement binding people together in the shared idioms of a public, corporate and national life"

Garnham (1992:108) argues that public broadcasting should offer a platform for the people to participate on national policy issues regarding politics, economics and development. He says that broadcasting should enable men and women to take an interest in many things in which they have been previously excluded. To ensure the achievement of the above, Garnham stresses that a public broadcaster must ensure universal accessibility and have mixed programming so as to cater for contending interests of the majority and minority. Programming must not be paternalistic and domineering to minorities. For example the BBC mandate as a public broadcaster is to ensure that anyone living anywhere in the United Kingdom is entitled to good quality reception of BBC programmes. Programmes must be universally accessible and available to all. To achieve this mixed programming is prerequisitial. Typically it should include news, drama, sport, religion, music, variety and light entertainment. This mix should cater for different needs in society such as education, entertainment and education and for different demographic groups such as children, women, men, the youth, farmers and many more.

In brief, the following therefore constitute the core values and responsibilities of a public service broadcaster:

i) Educating, informing and entertainment of the citizenry

ii) Universal accessibility, availability and appeal

iii) High programming standards

iv) Mixed programming that takes cognisance of cultural pluralism and diversity

v) The predominance of altruism and public good over profit maximisation

We need to note that the above are theoretical generalisations about public broadcasting systems. Public service objectives are defined differently in different countries, and are constrained in varying degrees by cost, audience criteria and political manifestations. Some public service broadcasters like the BBC emphasise a national public service while others emphasise a regional or local perspective Melody (1993:35), Raboy (1995).

2.2 Public Broadcasting Models

There is no single model for fulfilling the goals of public service broadcasting. Various models exist from one country to the other. For example in Germany, Italy, France and Britain they have models which are deeply rooted on their own history and experiences. The McKensey Report (1996), on public broadcasting in South Africa identifies six models of a public broadcaster namely the Lion, Cheetah, Crocodile, Impala, Leopard and Beaver. Below is a description of each of the models:

i. The Lion Public Broadcasting Model

The Lion model has a broad public service mission and depends entirely on licence fees, which are efficiently managed from a sound adoption of modern management practices. In terms of funding it enjoys consistent and secure funding from its extensive audience. For example, BBC 1 has about 91% audience reach ensuring it of consistence in revenue generation. Licensing creates a high degree of independence for this model and it is therefore only answerable to the public. Although other funding methods such as government subventions may be used, this model should depend mainly on the license fee. The recommended ratio of licence fees and other forms is 97% to 3% but this of course depends on a context McKensey (1996:23).

Most public broadcasting stations in Africa fail to satisfy this demand because of a poor and small licence base. The Lion broadcaster is identified by high levels of local programming which are rated at around 90% or above.

The Lion's mandate is mainly to inform national debate and also to express and preserve national culture.

ii. The Cheetah Public Service Broadcasting Model

The Cheetah is a highly aggressive model that targets niche audiences. Its funding is highly commercial, depending mostly on advertising:

The Cheetah broadcaster relies on commercial funding almost completely and consequently, emphasises popular programming to capture a large audience share McKensey (1996:26)

Licensing should contribute minimally to its revenue base, at about 5%. Popular programming consisting of films, drama, and music is used to deliver audiences to the market. The programming is predominantly foreign while local programming is low. Bop TV in South Africa, although it does not depend on foreign programming, is a good example of the Cheetah model in terms of its high and specialised market share.

iii. The Crocodile Public Service Broadcaster

The Crocodile poses as a public broadcaster yet in actual fact it is a commercial broadcaster. Its public mandate is not consistent with its method of revenue generation, which is largely advertising. As such the Crocodile occasionally serves as a public broadcaster and is mainly a platform for the market forces to advertise and sell their commodities. McKensey outlines its major public functions as follows:

i) To bolster public service broadcasting through products reflecting the overall

demands of society.

ii) To establish new programming criteria which better responds to the expectations of the public.

iii) To provide news report that is balanced and reflects the pluralistic structure of society McKensey report (1996:35).

As such the crocodile broadcaster depends on "its public service guise to collect public, as well as commercial funds while delivering a largely commercial programme mix which captures large audience shares. Examples of such stations include Italia 1 and Canale 5" Mckensey (1997:37).

The ratio between educative programmes and informational ones is at 68% to 24% respectively. Entertainment programmes are mainly films, drama, sports while informative programmes are mostly news and current affairs.

In brief therefore, the Crocodile broadcaster is characterised by a programming mix that seeks to maximise audience share and advertising spending while providing a limited public service mission. It is not exactly concerned with programme quality but values high viewership as it captures audiences for advertisers.

iv. Impala Public Broadcasting Model

The Impala is characterised by a strong public service mission on specialised niche audiences who offer voluntary support in terms of programming and the running costs. It also depends on government grants. Examples include the Germany public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, whose reliance on state grants is legally guaranteed. The two stations are protected by the constitution that obliges government to pay subventions to them Humphreys (1994:1340). Its major public mission is outlined as follows:

i) To distribute quality children's cultural, educational, news and public affairs, and science and nature.

ii) To select programmes for their value to the viewer, rather than to the advertisers.

iii) To pursue programme diversity, which is, designed to reach its various niche audiences Mckensey (1996:31).

The Impala model therefore is a pure public broadcaster whose funding is dependent on voluntary support and government subventions. It does not use the licence system and that explains why it has a small audience share compared to the Lion.

v. The Leopard Public Broadcasting Model

This broadcaster is able to balance between public and commercial programming. In terms of funding the Leopard relies on a dual system of licensing and advertising revenues. The programming comprises a mix of public-interest programmes and commercial ones. Its dependence on licence fees demands it to have a big audience share so as to generate adequate revenue for the running costs. It also has a reasonable level of local content but heavily depends on international purchases.

The deregulation of economies and liberalisation of the airwaves has seen most public stations of the Lion model being transformed into this model so as to generate adequate revenue for the running costs. It also has a reasonable level of local content but heavily depends on international purchases.

The deregulation of economies and liberalisation of the airwaves has seen most public stations of the Lion model being transformed into this model so as to survive on their own. The commercialisation policy of ZBC is meant to transform it into this model so as to be able to satisfy the public and commercial needs. Mckensey (1996:27) summarises the public mission of this broadcaster as follows:

i) Protect national culture

ii) Cater for individual and public tastes

iii) Guarantee freedom of expression, information and diversity

The programming is therefore predominantly entertainment consisting of films and light entertainment, serious drama, music and other forms of cultural arts. News and current affairs are rated at 28% of the entire programming Mckensey (1996:35).

vi. The Beaver Public Broadcasting Model

This a small broadcaster which is entirely dependent on government subventions. Its exclusive reliance on government funding exposes it to manipulation by party, sectarian and government interests at the expense of the other interests. Kasoma (1999:5) summarises this problem:

Because of government funding, official broadcasting stations, in particular, become promoters of government interests, with programmes with news bulletins becoming more than litanies of what the President and government Ministers are saying. Any other news, particularly if it contradicts or differs with government position, is labelled as counter revolutionary. Kasoma (1991:5).

This is the problem that the Beaver model faces. Again with the newly adopted government policies of cutting down of funding of public institutions, this model was gradually but surely, vanishing from the scenario. However in recent months the government of Zimbabwe has been pouring in a lot of money into ZBC. Its public service mission nonetheless, is to provide access to objective information, provide good programming that should educate and entertain the nation, and to enhance minority participation in broadcasting.

2.3 Policy Models in the Evolution of Broadcasting

Policy

Concern For Audiences

Concern for the Media

a) Authoritarian

Low (restrictive)

Low

b) Paternal

High (protective)

Low

c) Commercial

Low (consumptive)

High (Imperative)

d) Democratic

High (supportive)

High (supportive)

Table One: Adopted from Corcoran et al:1995:63, Democracy and Communication in The New Europe.

a. Authoritarian policy

In this system interest in audience is restrictive in the sense that it limits, by means of censorship, the amount and diversity of contents available to audiences.

b. Paternal Policy

Interest in audiences is protective, media controllers aim at controlling audiences against certain kinds of ideas and values that would be damaging to them.

c. Commercial policy

Interest is consumptive because it considers them only as (potential) consumers of the advertised goods and services. In this policy, concern for the media organisation is imperative because technological and professional development of the media is a necessity to survive the market competition.

d. Democratic policy

Interest in audiences is supportive because it is aimed at advancing competencies (the right to transmit) and opportunities (the right to receive) of audiences to participate in communication processes, including their access to the media. The concern for the media is supportive as it seeks to promote diversity and pluralism in content. This theoretical model is going to be used in the assessment of ZTV institutional performance especially as reflected in its programming services.

2.4 In Search of Common Ground: The Public Service Broadcasting theory and the Public Sphere theory

Before defining what a public sphere is, there is need to point out that the debates in the 1990s on the normative role of public broadcasters seem to be greatly inspired by the public sphere theory. The theory's democratic principles underline the ideals for public broadcasters and also form a basis on which policies on public communication can be formulated. The arguments on ZTV's public service broadcasting system form the basis of this dissertation and are also to a greater extent, informed by this theory.

According to Habermas (1994), a public sphere is a platform where everyone inspite of race, class, income, creed and ethnicity has a leeway to sit and share ideas with others through reasoned discourse, in socio-economic and political issues of public interest and public concern. The significant point from this definition is that it underscores the element of participation in public communication. The public sphere is regarded as an open forum for all and sundry. A public broadcaster in the same way can only fulfil its role as a public sphere only when it offers universal coverage and appeal to the population. The public service theory itself also emphasises the need to value and respect cultural diversity and plurality.

It is important to establish some values that define the public sphere. In the first place, the public sphere must be constituted of players who exercise and enjoy equality of right. This means lateral equality of discussants. There must be no threats or potential exercise of threats as to limit self-expression. The state, market forces and the rich corporate citizens must not curtail this freedom nor speak on behalf of the general citizens through various tactics such as ownership, institutional control and editorial control. Again the public service broadcasting theory posits that both the rich and the poor must participate in the communicative process about issues that affect their lives. Public service broadcasting, with its concept of universality, offers a safeguard against the Polarisation of society into the information rich and the information poor. Sparks (1996:17).

Again the public sphere should not take regard of gender difference or economic status Goldberg (1978:124). It must be a democratic and an open forum for all. These and such ideals therefore epitomise an ideal public sphere and public broadcaster.

Benhabib (1994) defines the public sphere as " a space of competition for acclaim and immorality among a political elite. It is viewed democratically as the creation of procedures whereby those affected by the general social norms and collective political decisions can have a say in their formulation, stipulation and adoption".

Benhabib emphasises the creation of procedures, democratically designed for the well being of the citizens to participate in the political processes of the day and decision making. In modern day democracies these include various civil society groups where citizens can gather to discuss, shape and influence public policies. Local examples include the ZBC itself, National Constitutional Assembly ( NCA ), Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), ZIMRIGHTS and many more. According to this definition political parties also constitute public spheres where ideally the most competent political thinkers should win. The media, particularly public broadcasters should serve as a platform for debates between all the above mentioned actors, including government. The public broadcaster must also analyse and give informed and unbiased commentary on the issues raised by various participants.

Public broadcasters should therefore be perceived as an ideal public sphere enjoying their editorial and institutional autonomy to the fullest. Neither the market forces nor government should curtail these freedoms for the public broadcasters to play a meaningful role in the process at national and global levels.

2.5 Economic Liberalisation and Corporate Penetration of Public broadcasting

This section basically interrogates the validity and strength of modern neoliberal economic theory in sustaining public institutions and creating a better world for millions of people whose life is impossible without such institutions. These institutions are not only the lifeblood for the poor majority of this world but are also key in providing subsidised services in health, education, information and other important basics. However, the neoliberal classical theory that informs most of the economic policies in post independence African countries has inflicted these public service systems with terminal ailments if not absolute death.

Basically neoliberal economic posits that social, economic and political institutions of society should operate in a perfectly free market. These institutions compete against each other in offering the best products and services to the customer. The ones that win at the end of the day are those which are able to offer the best products at competitive prices.

In the media the theory presses for a deregulated environment. Anyone who has the means to own a broadcasting station or newspaper can do so without any regulation from government. In brief, it is said that government has no business in business. Keane (1994:132). In a perfectly free market economy government must not own any business and cannot be the referee for regulating the deregulated economic environments. Business in both communication and general industry is therefore made an exclusive domain for private capital.

However we need to note how the neoliberal theory has not only facilitated the penetration of the public broadcasters by private capital but also expedited the demise of the welfare state. The demise of the welfare state, especially in African countries, has led to untold suffering of the poor whose life is completely dependent on public institutions. As the media, public libraries and other cultural institutions are invaded by private capital, information, which people can use to make informed choices in their daily lives is increasingly difficult to get. As Schiller (1982) observes an information class structure composed of the information poor and the information rich is created. This is not consistent with the democratic principles of progressive modern societies.

Another poignant issue is that, as private capital penetrates the public broadcasters, there tends to be a dramatic change from qualitative critical and informative discourse to commercial promotional and uncritical discourses. Again this is unhealthy in a democracy. Mattelart (1992) endorses this point when he rightly points out that, the system of finance and the structural relations between advertisers and broadcasters affect the programming content.

The market forces also tend to develop monolithic structures through concentrate monopolies and conglomerations in the liberalised broadcasting environment. These concentrates and monopolies make the enjoyment of the freedom of expression a preserve for the few. Good examples include the following the Disney Company, Time Warner, Rupert Murdock companies and many others. These enjoy vertical and horizontal ownership of media companies in broadcasting, film and publishing. Bagdikian (1992) calls these conglomerates and concentrates the new "Private Ministries of Information" because of their dramatic displacement of governments in the control and dissipation of information. All this is done by way of usage of catchy phrases such as very democratic principles that private capital purports to promote. What we should note in all this is that the public is marginalised from meaningful contribution in participatory democracy.

2.6 Towards the Privatisation and Refeudalisation of the Public Sphere?

The aggression of advertisers and the corporate world in penetrating the public sphere seems to suggest that the public sphere can eventually be reduced to an exclusive domain for private capital. Only those with the economic power and political clout can reasonably participate while the majority of the citizens are ostracised. This ruthless aggression of private capital at a global scale is another form of the enclosure movement where the average citizen is denied participation in the public sphere and can only do so as a victim responding to the bombardment by selling messages from the market forces. This is probably why Bagdikian (1992) argues that in commercialised broadcasting we do not speak of an audience but a captive audience. This may probably explain why audience researches at ZBC are done by the advertisers such as the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF) research and the Probe Marketing Research. This may also serve as evidenced to the relative or absolute "influence of advertisers on the philosophy of the station" because Corcoran (1997) says; "the commercial stations interest in audiences is consumptive because the system only considers them as consumers of advertised goods and services".

The public sphere is therefore refeudalised in the sense that a caste system determining who participates seems to have developed. Again it is privatised in the sense that only a few corporate citizens seem to enjoy unfettered freedom in their selling messages to an increasingly defenceless public. The use of economic power to own, control or curtail media freedom can be seen as a new form of censorship but now manifested in its most ruthless form in that it does not only control policy but actually denies popular participation in the democratic process.

The cost of information technology has not made it any better. Instead of facilitating access to information by public member the new information technologies such as satellite dishes is sold at exorbitant prices, which are not affordable to the public. As such public broadcasters have failed to exploit satellite broadcasting in that respect. The distribution of these technologies also follows class lines with the rich being the only one able to acquire these technologies.

In Zimbabwe television sets still remain unaffordable to the ordinary man. The overall effect of this is that information is commodified into a saleable good. If one cannot afford a television or radio then one is not able to fit and function very well in the imagined community called the nation. Mr W Muonwa ( 2001: Lecture) argued that it is incumbent upon government to subsidise radio and television sets so as to avoid the marginalisation of the general poor populace. Such thinking is indeed premised on the fact that participatory democracy requires a citizenry that is both informed and has a continuing opportunity to be heard in the market place of ideas. Melody (1993:18).

2.7 Public Service Broadcasting Versus Politics And Marketing: Implications for the Communication Policy

The penetration of market forces into the broadcasters presses for new demands on the formulation of public communication policies and principles that regulate and contain actions of private capital. However as Ferguson ( 1993 ) notes, government should notice that in the modern day scenario public communication policy is not divorced from economic policy, industrial policy, technological policy and even social policy. For example the macro economic policy influences decisions on whether public institutions should still operate on government subventions or be commercialized. For example Bagdikian ( 1992 : 12 )says that the aim of private capital in controlling the media is that of hegemony. First, the corporate world needs economic power and secondly, they need the political power to influence government decisions. Therefore, instead of using the media as a communication introspect of social values and systems, private capital and the state use the media to manipulate the people. Media are reduced to state and commercial ideological machinery for a hegemony project to maintain the status quo.

The public communication policies should ensure that they create a broad based national public sphere by way of protecting the public service broadcaster. The public service system should be a sacred area for both the state and market forces. It must be a public domain. For example, the public broadcasters in Norway and Britain have not allowed unregulated and undirected corporate penetration. What they have done is to create new channels and stations, which are of a public service nature but operating form advertiser generated revenue.

Melody (1993: 18) maintains that it is still the role of national governments to see that a national public sphere is resuscitated. As institutions are elected on a special public mandate it is their prime role to inform and educate the electorate and or citizens so that they can participate meaningfully in the democratic processes of their individual countries and the world at large. As Bagdikian says the hidden agenda of the corporate world is to bolster their economic power and influence political decisions on who controls the sharing and distribution of global and national wealth in individual countries. Their penetration into the information industry is meant to create a deliberate information vacuum in the public on issues to do with substantive rationality on governance, justice, social values and other ethical and political questions. The capacity to propagate information and ideas is the root of political power and political power is essential to modern corporate ambitions. So is the power to suppress information and ideas. Bagdikan (1992:18)

To sum it up, governments need to create policies that guard jealously against the loss of institutional autonomy and editorial independence of public broadcasters. In cases where the public broadcaster is commercialized, independent regulatory bodies can be set to monitor whether allocative and operational decisions meet the public service broadcasting standards.

2.8 Summary and Conclusion

The media are ideally a public sphere. The media should therefore, as per the concept of the public sphere allow for unlimited participation and response. The refeudalisation of the public sphere should be discouraged where for instance [there is] Internal differentiation in the national press (television; my addition) according to which readers are addressed by elite or quality newspapers [television channels] receive a radically different account of the world from those who read the mass or popular newspapers. Schlesinger, cited in Slatta (1995: 185)

A strong and fearless press is a powerful institution in support of democracy. The free flow of information is necessary for the proper functioning of democracy. Democracy and development are two sides of the same coin. This puts to rest development theories that suggest that the media in Africa should concentrate on issues of national building other than the creation of a platform for democratic participation.

Upon embarking on agenda setting television should strive not to promote certain issues at the expense of others, deliberately, in line with its editorial policy. The guiding principle should be the need to promote critical debate.

Politically, non partisan, individually reasoned and free from state control debates should be encouraged, as these bear fruit to supreme ideas that can be operationalised into law-improving not only on public policy but indeed as well as on the relationship between the state and civil society.

This chapter looked at the theoretical and conceptual ideas that form the framework of this research. The public service broadcasting theory and public sphere theory were used as guiding principles that can inform the operations of public broadcasters. The theories are viewed not only as an ideal example of how the communicative process should manifest itself in public broadcasting but also as a sinew of national democratic processes. In fact, it is crucial for democratic players in media, public forum and politics to strive to cultivate an environment conducive for the development of self-determination in their publics as this can help arrest the so-called democratic-deficit

The following chapter gives a summation of research methods used in the data gathering process for this study and inquiry.

CHAPTER 3

Methods of Data Gathering

3.0 Introduction

This chapter explores research methods in this dissertation. There are three notable trends this research employs for data gathering. These are mainly content analysis research, institutional research and audience research. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the sampled news programmes while institutional research, through an analysis of ZTV's adopted set of standards, the " 10 Golden Rules" governing " direct access and political advertising" explores the interaction of the coverage and democratic participation in the process of news production at ZTV.

Audience research tries to interrogate, through focus group interviews and ethnographical participatory observation, how audiences perceive the coverage of different voices during the election campaign and programming of news at ZTV.

The ultimate aim of the three paradigms of research methods used was to knit together pieces of information gathered from each of the methods, so as to come up with an overall comprehensive and coherent analysis of the subject under study. The programme under study in this section is ZBC-TV News Hour, which is scheduled at 2000 hours everyday.

3.1 Research Methods Used

Below are the specific methods that are used for data collection in this research. Each of the methods is used for a particular reason and those reasons are highlighted in the various explanations of various sections below:

3.1.1 Content Analysis and Justification

According to Fiske (1992: 136), content analysis is a research method designed to produce an objective, measurable and verifiable account of the manifest content of messages.

Two methods of this type are used. First is the quantitative research on selected news broadcasts and secondly is the textual analysis of some of those sampled news programmes. Quantitative research is more effective on large scale, the more it has to deal with, the more effective it is Asamen etal (1998: 272). Quantitative research is used to measure the programme itself. While textual analysis is used to measure the structural make up and organisation of images in selected news items.

While both quantitative research and textual research analysis belong to the broader realm of content analysis research methods, the two were used for different reasons. Quantitative research served to come up with empirical data of quantitative or statistical nature that can be deemed scientific and objective while textual analysis is used to generate debates of a qualitative and subjective nature in view of the programming being studied. This method will help in the study of messages in the recorded news clips that is how the text is fashioned, constructed and projected. Textual analysis also involves searching for ideologies embedded in a text. The two methods are not antagonistic, but complementary as they both cater for the other's weaknesses.

3.1.2 The Sampling Process of News Hour

Typical case sampling was used in the selection of broadcasts, which were considered to be of public interest. This is a sampling technique that does not depend on random probability where every population element has an equal chance of being selected or not selected but is purposeful in order to derive that qualitative data so wanted Miles and Huberman (1984: 84). It should be noted that all figures for statistics provided in this dissertation relate to stories appearing on ZBC-TV News Hour from December 1, 2001 to March 8 2002, monitoring however began earlier than this as the Presidential Campaign in essence began in the year 2000. The Presidential Campaign period was sampled because in the case of public broadcasters, it is customary that equal access, both in timing and length of broadcast, should be given to the competing sides and that the information provided by the government owned media should not be biased in favour of one or the other side.

Sample selection therefore took a deliberate bias towards ZBC- TV newshour, a programme of public interest. A public interest programme was defined as one which is very important to the public either because of its educational and informational value, or entertainment and cultural value. In essence such a programme is fundamental in nurturing a citizenry that is not only proud of its identity but also able to participate meaningfully in the democratic process of the nation-state. In view of the above, ZBC -TV newshour was sampled. The prime variable for sampling a programme at this stage was therefore, the extent to which the programme was considered to be of public interest. It is important to note that typical case sampling is premised on the assumption that the chosen cases must represent what is typical as opposed to the unique and extraordinary. In essence the selected case was assumed to be representative of the general way public interest programmes are generally understood and preserved.

The newshour programme was studied everyday of the sampled three months and eight days. From December 1 2001 up to March 8, the penultimate day of the election campaign. All the days of the week which feature the programme were monitored, although it should be noted that ZBC-TV's main news bulletin is only so called between Monday and Friday. The reason behind this selection was to get a fair picture of the amount taken by the bulletin covering stories and statements of different political parties during the campaign, News airtime given to each political party, percentage distribution of political voices during the campaign and content allocation of various issues on ZBC- TV.

3.1.3 The Coding Schedule for ZBC-TV News Hour

Day

Date

Number of Stories Covering Rallies and Statements of Different Political Parties during the Campaign

News Airtime per Political Group during the Campaign

Percentage Distribution of Political Voices during the Campaign

Monday

Tuesday

Table Two

Day: means the day on which the news programme was studied. All the days from Monday to Sunday were sampled

Date: means the date, month and year on which news programmes were studied

3.1.4 Textual and Discourse Analysis of Sampled Broadcasts

Textual and discourse analysis was used to study the organisation of symbols or images and words in the news programmes.

The objective of this was to establish, through these research methods, how images, words and in some cases music are organized in the production of this programme. While textual analysis was used to cater for the analysis of the organisation of images on the text, discourse analysis was used to investigate what the presenters of the programme say during the presentation.

3.2 Institutional Research Methods

This research was used so as to gather first hand experience about the ZBC as an institution. The period of this research was about five months and a number of research methods were used in the gathering of information. The following methods were used :

3.2.1 Interviews

Interviews were also central in the data gathering process of this dissertation. The style of such interviewing was that of informal interviews.

3.2.2 An Analysis of ZBC's adopted " 10 Golden Rules " governing " direct access

and political advertising" during the campaign.

It was considered reasonable to use these standards chosen by the ZBC as a yardstick against which the corporation's coverage could be measured.

3.3 Audience Research

This research was done so as to elicit information about what viewers think of ZBC-TV newshour as a platform for democratic participation.

3.3.1 Focus Group Interview

People of different stations in terms of class, income, age, profession and sex were sampled from the Midlands State University to be involved in focus group interviews. The special criteria for selection were that a member must represent a particular sex, class, discipline, age and even profession. These were then asked to view a news bulletin. After that there was a discussion of what each one of them thought about the programme and how representative it was in terms of coverage of different voices. The following were sampled:

Female secretary

General male worker (must be a parent)

General female worker (must be a parent)

2 male and female Humanities students

2 male and female Science students

This sample roughly tries to source views across class, age and sex.

3.3.2 Audience Participatory Observation

This was done mainly to reduce the error in the focus group approach where people watched television away from its natural place of consumption. According to Lull (1992: 63), the consumption of television competes with other information sources such as VCRs. Other critics are even pessimistic about the idea of a television audience. The method of Focus Group Interviews is usually criticised for creating false television audiences.

According to Lull, family television viewing is not formal and systematical. People watch television while doing other things. For example, they may also be listening to music, talking amongst themselves and so on. All these things cannot take place in the " false audiences" of focus groups. Again the other fact is that the actors took note of that they were being observed and this must have distracted them in a way.

Participatory Research was therefore done to cater for such weaknesses. The strength of this approach is that people were observed in quasi-home environments. The University Rusununguko common room was selected for my participatory observation of ZBC TV newshour. This was mainly because this is the only hostel with a television set and therefore male and female students watch television together. The programme was given two (2) weeks participatory observation.

3.4 Limitations of Methodology

The use of typical case sampling in the choice of the programme that was analysed constitutes part of the weaknesses in this dissertation. For example, newshour as a programme seemed to represent what was termed public interest and was considered to the exclusion of others. Lindlof (1995: 47) says in typical case sampling, cases that are too deviant or are in the extreme are ruled out. As such most of the other programmes such as the images and music promoting land reforms which filled the continuity breaks between News hour bulletins and throughout ZBC's programming were left out.

Convenience sampling also meant the omission of some programmes, which could have been of public interest such as the footage, which was dubbed "Reflections", and the programme " Face The Nation". Since these programmes constitute political advertising during an election they qualify to be of public interest and could have been studied to deepen the scope of this research.

Convenience sampling used for the audience research also deprived the research of a broad and well-grounded study of the audience reception process. The universe was the university community and the population sample was done according to availability of time and financial constraints. As such the Focus group approach that Lull (1992) criticizes for the creation of false television audiences was used not because of efficiency, but not inspite of its inefficiency.

Ethnographic participatory research was also used. As a derivative of anthropology, ethnology as a research method refers primarily to a set of methods, usually qualitative, in which the researcher openly or covertly participates in the people's daily lives for a reasonable long time to make informed judgements. The ethnographer as a participant observer must watch what happens, listen to what is said, ask questions, participate in the chores of the day and also collect whatever data is available that throws light on the issues that are of interest to the research Lindlof (1995: 65). Although the research studied how the students consumed the sampled broadcasts, this can never substitute for a genuine ethno methodology where actors could have been studied consuming television in a home and family context.

Ethnography as a form of qualitative research does not rest its evidence on the logic of mathematics and statistics, but rather actual talk, gestures and other social actions, which are the raw materials of its analysis Lindlof (1995: 63). All these could not be done because of minimal time and financial constraints.

If there was time and money to fund this study a multi - racial, cultural, ethnic and regional sample would have been more informative on audience views on the representativity of ZBC TV newshour.

In the institutional research, only informal interviews were carried out. The respondents were uncomfortable with formal and recorded interviews. Formal and recorded interviews have an inherent weakness of curtailing free speech from respondents. This is evidently clear from some of the respondents who preferred not to be recorded for the fear of the loss of their jobs and so on. However to counter this, informal interviews were used where people did not realise that they were researched upon.

3.5 Summary and Conclusion

This chapter looked at the research methods that were used for the gathering of data in this study. It also went further to give the coding schedule that was used in the tabulation of the gathered data. The succeeding chapter presents the findings, analysis and interpretation of the collected data.

CHAPTER 4

4.0 Introduction

This chapter presents the main findings of this research as well as the analysis and interpretation of the collected data to come up with conclusions about the role of the ZBC newshour as a potential platform for democratic participation.

The researcher will present the collected data, analyse and interpret it, then look at how the presentation of news in a public broadcaster is a reflection as well as a product of the political environment from which it is produced.

4.1 Content Analysis; Presentation of Quantitative Data

The Main News is a programme that is scheduled on a daily basis at 2000 hours on ZBC-TV. It was sampled as one of the public interest programmes in so far as it seeks to inform and educate citizens of Zimbabwe.

Distribution of Campaign Stories on ZBC Television (1st December 2001 - March 8th)

TABLE THREE: Adopted from Media Monitoring Project report (2002)

ZBC television carried a total of 407 election campaign related stories in its news bulletins monitored between December 1, 2001 and March 8 the penultimate day of the election campaign. Of these, 345 (85%) were about ZANU PF'S presidential candidate. Only 38 (9%) covered MDC activities, but virtually all these were used to discredit the opposition party and its candidate. The 24 (6%) other reports gave publicity to the three other candidates contesting the election, none of which held a rally. Of this, NAGG had 15 (4%) and Kumbula one (0.2%)

Voice Distribution on ZBC Television News Hour (1st December - 8th March)

TABLE FOUR

TABLE FOUR

ZBC television voice distribution pattern in the same period reveals the following trend. In its campaign stories, the station carried a total of 469 political party voices. Of these, ZANU PF was quoted 400 times (85%), MDC was quoted 40 times (8.5%), NAGG 17 times (3.6%), Siwela eight times (1.7%) and Kumbula four times (1%).

ZBC Television - News Airtime Allocation per Contesting Candidate / Party ( 1st December - 8th March 2002 )

ABLE FIVE: Adopted from Media Monitoring Report (2002)

Out of a total of 14 hours and 41 minutes and 30 seconds that ZBC television news bulletins devoted to the Presidential Election Campaign between December 1 and March 8 2003, ZANU PF candidate was granted a total of 13 hours 50 minutes and 30 seconds, or a little over 94%. This compares to the national broadcaster's TV coverage of the MDC and its candidate of just 31 minutes and 30 seconds, a paltry 4%. But this was subverted by ZBC, which used the time to attack, denigrate and discredit the MDC. All other contesting presidential candidates were granted a total of 19 minutes and 30 seconds, or about 2% of the total news airtime devoted to presidential campaign coverage.

4.1.2 Analysis and Interpretation of Quantitative Data

An analysis of distribution of stories and airtime allocation per contesting candidate or party shows ZBC's skewed distribution of voices, which is in favour of ZANU PF party.

ZBC reneged on its public service obligation by giving ZANU PF an overwhelming percentage airtime in their television news bulletins and suffocated the other parties , hence denying the electorate access to alternative information. Even if the final election results are accepted as an approximate reflection of the political sympathies of ordinary Zimbabweans, it is clear that ZBC TV newshour manifestly failed to meet the demands of its national public mandate to provide fair and balanced coverage of the nation's political diversity. In addition, television quoted 270 other voices in its campaign related stories, of which 236 ( 87% ) favoured the ruling party.

All the ZBC TV's statistics are so similar that they suggest a coordinated and determined approach by the broadcaster to flood its audiences with favourable ZANU PF coverage. The fact that the opposition parties, especially the MDC, were also quoted is misleading in that in most cases there was always a negative qualification to their campaign statements.

Underreporting of opposition candidates' voices was the most manifest imbalance in the government-controlled media. But bias could also be seen in slightly more subtle ways. Take, for example, the dominance of the land issue in the public media. During the period between 7th January and 8th March 2002, ZTV, for example, ran 197 stories on the land issue, far more than on any other single campaign issue. This emphasis clearly echoed the ruling party slogan "Land is the economy and the economy is land". Yet it is far from clear that the emphasis on land reflected the actual preoccupations of voters. Of course these concerns are notoriously difficult to measure. Yet in 2000, when the government launched its ferocious land campaign, a public opinion survey found that a mere nine per cent of Zimbabwean voters considered that land was their priority political issue. The question here is not the rights or wrongs of the land debate, but the duty of the ZBC as a public broadcaster to service the information needs of the voters rather than to impose its own agenda (or rather, that of one of the presidential candidates). This failing becomes even clearer when it is seen that during the same period ZTV carried only 93 stories - fewer than half as many - on issues of poverty and food shortages. Questions of general economic well being had figured far higher in voters' concerns in the 2000 opinion survey already quoted. Since then the issue of food shortages had become critical.

The purpose of monitoring media coverage of elections is not simply to establish whether the people agree with what the media says. The people's views on the media coverage are more worth than those of the media. The point rather, is to measure media coverage against a set of generally accepted standards.

But before outlining what those standards are, it should be pointed out that media coverage of elections is conventionally divided into three separate types:

* Voter education - material that tells the electorate what they are voting for, why they should vote and how they should go about it. This will often be produced by the electoral authorities, but may be produced by the media themselves.

* Editorial coverage - that is, all news and current affairs coverage that is under the editorial control of the media themselves, rather than the political parties or candidates, or the electoral authorities.

* Direct access coverage - material that is produced by the political parties or candidates themselves, in order to use the media to tell the electorate about their policies.

Clearly, there are some fundamental standards of fairness that apply across the board to all these different types of coverage, but in practice the standards involved are rather different. It is worth getting clarity on this point, since the practice of ZBC news hour in this and recent elections has been to blur the line between the different types of coverage. The broad standards that apply to each of the three types of coverage are enshrined in the public service broadcasting regulations.

Voter education

There are two fundamental requirements of voter education.

* First, voter education should provide all voters with readily accessible information that tells them everything they need to know to take part in the election. This will include how to register to vote, how to check the voters' roll, what the election is for, where to vote, how to vote and that the vote is secret.

Second, voter education should not include anything - either explicitly or implicitly -that favours any particular party or candidate or suggests how an elector should vote.

Editorial coverage

In general terms the news and other editorial coverage that appears in the media should be governed by the general professional standards of journalism. These include accuracy, fairness and separation of the reporting of facts from the expression of opinion. Newspapers and broadcasting stations are allowed to have editorial views, but they may not distort the facts to fit these views.

However, as we shall see, a more stringent set of standards applies to those media that are publicly owned - that is those that are established by statute and/or use public money. These have an obligation to represent the interests and views of all sections of the population. In an electoral context, this means that they may not favour one party or candidate over another.

In an election, all media have an obligation to represent the views of the contesting parties fairly and with balance. In some countries broadcasters apply a formal "stopwatch rule", measuring the amount of time they give to each party to make sure that it corresponds roughly to the amount of support that each party enjoys among the electorate.

The other important responsibility that all media have, in the context of an election when loyalties may be expressed in strongly worded and emotional terms, is not to inflame passions in such a way that they may spill over into violence. There is clearly a delicate balance to be struck between reporting different views accurately - even violent views - and conveying those views to a wider audience in such a way that this may provoke violence.

Direct access

Direct access material in the media is the opportunity that parties and candidates have to speak directly to the electorate, unmediated by reporters and editors. There are two types of direct access - paid political advertising and free slots, such as party election broadcasts. Different countries keep direct access coverage in a wide variety of ways and there is no right or wrong way to do this. Often there is a mixture between paid advertising and free slots. Often the print media charge for advertising, while broadcasters may be required by law to provide free airtime. The latter is especially likely to be the case when the broadcaster is publicly owned.

Broadcasting slots especially will be allocated according to a formula that ensures that all candidates have a chance to get their views across to the electorate, whether this is through equal airtime or a fair division of available slots. There is an obligation on the media not to interfere with the content of direct access material. For this reason, it is often argued that the media should not have any legal liability for the content of material that is under the editorial control of political parties. The parties themselves, however, will be bound by the usual laws.

Those are the broad principles. In the context of the 2002 Zimbabwe election, three different sets of standards particularly apply:

* International standards

* Zimbabwean law and public policy

* Other standards adopted locally.

International standards

The obligation of public media to inform the public impartially about election issues flows from Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that governments have an obligation to ensure that "Every citizen shall have the right and opportunity, without... distinction... to vote... at genuine... elections." This means that the government must ensure that electors have the necessary information to vote and to make informed choices. The significance of the right to vote "without distinction" is that it includes those who are illiterate and uneducated, for whom radio may be the only medium of information.

Equally, there is an obligation on governments to be balanced and impartial in election reporting. The UN technical team advising on the 1993 referendum on Malawi's political future noted:

In the case of government-owned media, it is customary that equal access, both in terms of timing and length of broadcast, should be given to the competing sides and that "the information provided by the government-owned media should not be biased in favour of one or the other side".

The balanced presentation of information may be important to the outcome of elections. Equally, the experience of election reporting (broadcasting in particular) may help to influence the future development of the publicly funded media. Elections take place according to established rules, which often determine issues such as the amount of direct airtime to be allocated to different political parties. This provides an opportunity to measure the fairness of coverage against agreed criteria. This may provide some protection to journalists and broadcasters who wish to exercise their profession in a more independent fashion than hitherto. Or it may provide an objective measure of how far political coverage is directly influenced by the ruling party. Either way, the coverage of elections can provide an important impetus towards the development of more publicly accountable reporting in the publicly funded media.

The role of the public media assumes a particular importance in election periods. This is for two reasons, one principled and one practical. The principled reason is that those media financed out of public funds have a particular obligation to serve the information needs of the entire public and not only that section which supports the ruling party. If the public media are used to promote the interests of a particular political party this is a misuse of public funds.

The practical reason why the public media are especially important is that the public radio continues to be the main provider of news broadcasting, through networking to commercial stations. This is the main source of political information for a majority of the population.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Abid Hussein, concluded in his 1999 annual report:

There are several fundamental principles that, if promoted and respected, enhance the right to seek, receive and impart information. These principles are: a monopoly or excessive concentration of ownership of media in the hands of a few is to be avoided in the interest of developing a plurality of viewpoints and voices; State-owned media have a responsibility to report on all aspects of national life and to provide access to a diversity of viewpoints; State-owned media must not be used as a communication or propaganda organ for one political party or as an advocate for the Government to the exclusion of all other parties and groups...

Zimbabwe law and public policy

The principal source of guidance on this issue in Zimbabwean law is, of course, the Constitution. The protection that it offers to freedom of expression cannot, as we have seen from the international standards, be understood in a narrow sense. It does not only apply to an individual's right to express an opinion. It also gives the individual a right to expect access to information through the media. And, according to an important Zimbabwean Supreme Court judgement, it also gives an individual access to the means of expression.

The Fourth Schedule to the Broadcasting Services Act, 2001, addresses the question of broadcasters' responsibilities during election periods. Among the standard conditions for broadcasting licensees is the following:

If, during an election period, a broadcaster broadcasts election matter, the broadcaster shall give reasonable and equal opportunities for the broadcasting of election matter to all parties contesting the election.

This begs a number of questions- what is meant by "reasonable and equal opportunities", for example? But the underlying principle seems clear.

4.1.3 Textual Analysis and Interpretation

The ZBC would sound as if it were a parody to real election coverage, as when " analysts" would discuss the latest " gaffe" by the MDC`s Morgan Tsvangirai, or else when, gleefully reporting the results, the ZBC would discuss the swing between 2000 and today. Yet in essence, ZBC made hardly any attempt to report what was actually happening.

Political violence, virtual distruction of the independent judiciary, the enforcement of politically determined starvation, the overarching big lie of the ZANU PF campaign was essentially a propaganda war. This required propaganda organs, a role that ZBC assumed with apparent willingness.

The big lie was that Zimbabwe was the victim of a conspiratorial attack from outside - from colonial interests that sought at worst to recolonise the country formally, at the very least to reverse the government's land reform programme, eject the "revolutionaries" and replace them with the sell-outs of the MDC. That there was not a shred of evidence for this conspiracy theory was not an insuperable obstacle - indeed it was scarcely an obstacle at all. Indeed, the reason that propagandists favour the big lie over the small one - as in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia or Rwanda - is that it is impossible to disprove. Small lies rest upon facts that may or may not be accurate and can therefore be proved or disproved. Big lies do not require proof or disproof.

The fact that, as far as can be determined, only a small minority of Zimbabweans actually believe the big lie is not an insuperable problem either. The purpose of the biased coverage of the two electoral campaigns in 2000 was to persuade a majority of Zimbabweans to vote for the government. It failed on each occasion. The purpose of the big lie in the 2002 campaign was to mobilise a hard core of people who would make sure that Robert Mugabe won the presidential election, regardless of what the people wanted. They did so because this was their patriotic duty, to deliver Zimbabwe from the threat of recolonisation.

In this respect there was an exact parallel with the role of the media in the Rwanda genocide. Contrary to international media coverage at the time, the purpose of the "hate radio" was less to mobilise the entire Hutu population to carry out genocide than to fire up the militia members who were the prime movers in the slaughter. At the same time, everyone else would fear to dissent from the big lie that the media put across.

One of the advantages of the big lie over several small ones is that there is no apparent obligation for the reports of the public media to be factually consistent, provided that the big lie is always kept in view. In this context "factually consistent" does not mean consistent with the facts so much as presenting a consistent account of what was going on from one week to the next. Some space is devoted to the coverage of political violence in the ZBC because it displays this failure so clearly. One may sense an echo of George Orwell's parodies of totalitarian propaganda in his satires Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. The contradiction is that while the government and ruling party triumphs and goes from strength to strength, so is the external enemy also becoming ever more dangerous. This explains why, throughout the weeks leading up to the election, the number of incidents of political violence (according to the public media) seemed to be simultaneously rising and falling. This was because of the effectiveness of the Public Order and Security Act and the excellent performance of the police on the one hand, and the "terrorists" of the MDC, playing to the gallery of international election observers, on the other.

Hate speech

The government of Zimbabwe is greatly exercised by the problem of the media reporting false news that can cause "fear and despondency" among the Zimbabwean public. So concerned is it, that it has recently introduced two new laws that address the problem - the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Order and Security Act. It has done this despite a previous Supreme Court ruling, in the case of the Standard journalists Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto, that such provisions were unconstitutional.

What is most remarkable about this concern, however, is that the output of a section of the media has not only had the effect of spreading "fear and despondency" - allowing for the difficulty in measuring these rather intangible concepts. Much of the content of ZBC television appears to have had the deliberate aim of creating fear and panic among the population. Broadcasters abandoned the most elementary standards of truthfulness in order to create stories that not only suited the government point of view, but also seemed calculated to incite a violent response to the government's opponents.

Part of the problem lay in the constantly repeated language of violence. To take a relatively mild example: in a speech in Lupane on 21 February 2002 President Mugabe criticised the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube. This was reported on ZBC television news. The President said:

We don't want to create trouble with men of God but I think Archbishop Ncube has gone too far. If he continues with his political stance, we will challenge him as politicians. We will respect him if he remains within the confines of the church but once he shows his political tentacles and if those tentacles are harmful, we will cut them short.

The President did not elaborate on what "cutting political tentacles" might entail in practice, but there are two reasons for supposing that this is something to be taken seriously. The first was simply the venom with which the President uttered the words. The second is the context within which they were spoken. As he spoke, upward of 50 people, almost all of them opposition supporters had died in political violence in the preceding year. There is no doubt that to make the transition between being a "man of God" and showing "political tentacles" is to attract the wrath of state machinery.

This was a single, and relatively minor, example of a phenomenon that scarred the entire election campaign. The fundamental tenor of the ruling party's campaign was that the MDC were "traitors" - to use a frequently repeated word. They wished to overturn Zimbabwe's independence and hand the country back to the "colonial masters", Britain. Their means for doing this were conspiracy, assassination and other forms of law-breaking. By this behaviour, by introducing violence into Zimbabwean politics, they placed themselves outside the democratic framework. They became "sell-outs" and "stooges", dehumanising labels that made the MDC a legitimate target for the people's righteous violence.

This strategy - "delegitimising" the MDC - was the cornerstone of ZANU-PF's campaign. But it could not have worked, had it not been so thoroughly disseminated. The portrayal of the MDC as violent conspirators depended upon the existence of a section of the media prepared to publish "evidence" of the conspiracy.

In the face of a sceptical media prepared to scrutinise such evidence critically, this campaign would have been deflated immediately. The privately owned media did play a critical and sceptical role, but spoke only to a minority. The ZBC - the publicly owned media - became a key element in the propaganda campaign.

Much of the responsibility lay with the politicians themselves. From the December 2001 party congress onwards it was clear that the ZANU-PF campaign talk was the language of war. "It's time for war," declared the President, while Elliot Manyika, the new national political commissar, declared: "Our machinery is now sharp. MDC, here we come. We are going to crush you." All this was reported on both print and electronic media. ZTV (15/12/01) reported the President saying:

We didn't talk of the command centre during the general election. Now we have to talk of the command centre. We have to move like a military machine. And you prepare in your own units to move forward.

It is not unusual to catch politicians using military metaphors - the British Prime Minister campaigns for elections in a "Battle Bus". The difference is this: his party is not engaged in murder, torture, rape and other forms of violence against its political opponents. If the language of violence is addressed to those who already have violent intent, then they will take it as an incitement to go ahead.

However, the use of violent language is still not as damaging as the apparently deliberate reporting of untruths in order to convince the public that the MDC were legitimate targets for violence. For example the media coverage of the Cain Nkala case at some length partly because it displays so clearly the lamentable professional standards of the public media. But that is not the only reason. It is also because such coverage might - and arguably did - not only misinform the public but also directly contribute to the violence that took place. To put it crudely, this appears to be a case where the public media may have blood on its hands.

There have been too many other cases where the public media have published unsubstantiated stories with the apparent intention of inciting violent behaviour - actually "unsubstantiated story" is a description that dignifies what often were straightforward lies. Examples of these stories abounded in the public media and included the ongoing "MDC anthrax terror" stories, MDC "killer houses" and the claim that the "MDC plans war" after the election. In none of these stories was there ever any substantiation of the central "facts". In the anthrax stories, the disease was never even identified as being present. And despite the fact that the presence of anthrax was ruled out in the first story about the contamination at Causeway Post Office, ZBC continued to publish and broadcast stories referring to "anthrax attacks", using these fabrications to link the MDC to the Rhodesians.

The same goes for the stories about the human rights organization, Amani Trust providing safe houses for "killers and terrorists". No evidence was ever provided to substantiate such atrocious claims and the media did not report a single arrest of the residents of these refuges who fled the real intimidation that took place. Yet this story would surely have warranted prosecution had it contained a grain of truth.

Advocates of freedom of expression are extremely reluctant to argue for restriction of "hate speech" or penalties against those who perpetrate it. The preferred approach is to make sure that there are a multiplicity of voices, which can drown out the voices of hate. However, when there is a de facto state monopoly of broadcasting, as in Rwanda in 1994 and Zimbabwe today, and when that monopoly is being used to disseminate lies with the intention of causing violence, the situation changes. No longer can the legal system solely invoke the guarantee of freedom of expression - Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Zimbabwe. It must also take account of Article 20, which reads thus:

* Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.

* Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

There is an important conclusion to be drawn from all this. Propagandists such as Reuben Barwe - rewarded for his unerringly loyal coverage of ZANU PF with an expropriated commercial farm - are not merely inaccurate and unreliable observers of mayhem and violence. They directly contribute to the unfolding of the events on which they purport to report. When, one day, the perpetrators of violence are held to account, those who incited them with "hate speech" should not be forgotten.

There are numerous examples of ZBC TV newshour's shortcomings the pre-election period. Conspicuously for example, ZBC was totally silent on the proposed amendments of the Electoral Act and did not contribute to the debates that were picked up by the private and public press.

An equally important issue in the pre-election period was the implications of the amended Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act on the electoral status of individuals affected by the Act. Regrettably ZTV did not conduct a thorough examination of this important law.

ZTV was consistent in their sourcing of expert opinions to reinforce the credibility and legitimacy of their views. But the voice distribution in the public media was dominated by official government announcements and supported by pro-government opinion to the extent that gave the impression that the public media was acting as the mouthpiece of the ZANU PF government. Apart from airing official and ruling party comment, this medium consistently relied on SAPES Trust's Ibbo Mandaza and the Tanzanian academic Mwesiga - Baregu among others.

On electoral issues, ZTV invariably only sourced the alternative voices of those who supported ZANU PF policies. As a result, they failed as a public broadcaster to present a representative variety of the opinions of ordinary Zimbabweans. This flagrant and undisguised bias in favour of the ruling party on all ZBC stations deprived Zimbabweans of their fundamental rights to be accurately informed and of the opportunity to make informed decisions. Such extreme levels of distortion in the coverage of the election campaign, again demonstrates that the national broadcasting corporation clearly became a propaganda tool of the ruling party. As a result there is a clear need for the authorities to put an immediate end to ZBC's anti-constitutional, unethical and discriminatory broadcasting activities, to enact legislation that will remove the corporation's oppressive de facto monopoly over the electronic media and place it under the full control of a truly independent broadcasting regulatory authority free from the tyrannical control of government.

4.2 Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Institutional Research Findings

This section discusses findings arising from informal interviews with news reporters and newsreaders. It also interrogates the ZBC's own " Golden Rules " governing its election coverage with a view of exposing any institutional hindrances that may have forced the broadcaster to detract from this good principle. The focus of this kind of research was to interrogate the extent to which the nexus between the base and the superstructure influences news value at ZBC.

4.2.1 Interviews

The central questions were:

* Is the choice of what makes news purely a decision of all in the newsroom at ZBC or it rests with certain individuals within and outside ZBC?

* Would you say the status quo has more influence than professionalism in deciding what makes news?

* In the gathering, processing and presentation of news, what outweighs the other between self and external censorship?

It is important to note that this had to be done in stages, taking very cautious steps, as a researcher there was a need to develop trust and confidence on the host. This type of research is predicated on the trust and faith that the researcher builds in the host since the initial stages are typified by suspicion. The strength of informal interviews is that they do not only create a relationship between the host and the researcher but also take place in informal settings such as lunch times, long walks and so on. This method usually makes the host free and forthcoming. Ideally when the rapport has been established through informal interviews it should be easier to exploit formal interviews (in this case all requests were turned down).

In the case of informal interviews that were undertaken, the respondents admitted that the question of what makes news lies way above them and in some cases way beyond the jurisdiction of internal editors. Half the respondents said self-censorship had equal influence with external censorship during normal programming of news. However they agreed with the rest that during the Presidential elections external censorship outweighed self-censorship in the area of gathering, processing and presentation of news. Virtually all the respondents agreed that in the same period all professionalism was thrown out in favour of the demands of the status quo. One respondent went further to reveal that new instructions regarding policy and conduct were pasted on notice boards in the newsrooms almost every morning.

At a broader conceptual level, it can be argued that what obtains at ZBC at policy level, is a dramatization of the conflict between the socialist legacy paradigm and the free market neo-liberal philosophy of the new dispensation. Most former socialist governments, such as the Polish, Hungarian and the Czech governments, face this adjustment problem. Sparks (1995: 31).

Government seems to pay lip service to the latter while it remains operating within the former paradigm. This probably explains why ZTV is still viewed as a party station instead of a public station.

4.2.2 The Golden Rules

The ZBC itself also adopted a set of standards - the "10 Golden Rules" - governing "direct access and political advertising". In fact, it appears from the preamble to the Golden Rules, that what they refer to is something rather broader than "direct access" in the way that it is normally understood.

The golden rules read thus:

. Each party's Presidential candidate or representative will be allocated time specified by the ZBC who will remain responsible for the publication of the broadcast material.

2. No sponsored party broadcast programmes will be accepted. Advertisements will be accepted in the normal way.

3. Political advertising will only be accepted provided it upholds the golden rules.

4. No political advertising will be accepted in all news and current affairs programmes. Equally, all advertisements that simulate news will not be accepted.

5. Name-calling and insulting offices and figures protected by the Zimbabwean law, national heroes and or any member of the public will not be accepted.

6. Use of inflammatory or defamatory language inciting members of the public to be violent will be strictly forbidden.

7. Parties and their candidates will be required to restrict themselves to policy matters and what they seek to offer to the Zimbabwean public.

8. All parties are required to be sensitive to gender, ethnicity, language, disability, legality, taste, etiquette and decency.

9. Schedules of party political programmes will remain the sole preserve of the ZBC, which will update the schedules from time to time.

0. ZBC reserves the right to drop and or edit out offensive material in the programme.

A number of aspects of these rules are highly problematic. One is the degree of control that the ZBC itself retains over the scheduling and content of direct access broadcasting, although this is not surprising in the absence of either an independent electoral commission or an independent broadcasting regulator. Some of the standards laid out are highly subjective and arbitrary, and apparently give the ZBC some leeway to refuse to broadcast material of which it disapproves. For example, who determines what is "name-calling" or what is and is not a "policy matter". The restriction of direct access programming to political advertising, which will be accepted "in the normal way" is hardly adequate. In each of the last two polls (2000 referendum and parliamentary election) the ZBC refused to run advertisements of which the government disapproved, leading to High Court applications and rulings in each case. The Golden Rules do not address this problem.

Nevertheless, for all their inadequacies, these are standards chosen by the ZBC and it is reasonable to use them as a yardstick against which the Corporation's coverage can be measured.

ZANU-PF's presidential candidate was shown arriving. Often he was seen sitting with chiefs, respectfully listening to what they had to say. Then he was heard at length giving his speech to the rally, sometimes in English, but more usually in Shona. His identity was captioned repeatedly, "Cde Robert Mugabe", for the benefit of any viewer who did not recognise him - or presumably so that voters could make the link between the face before us on the screen and the name on the ballot paper.

As propaganda it was predictable and unpersuasive. But this made it no less disgraceful that public money should have been spent in this manner - in clear defiance of the ZBC's own golden rules:

No political advertising will be accepted in all news and current affairs programmes. Equally, all advertisements that simulate news will not be

accepted.

ZBC would presumably argue that these nightly broadcasts were not advertising, but the researcher searched in vain for any instance in which Reuben Barwe or any of his colleagues established any editorial distance between themselves and the views of the President. Strictly speaking, advertising is something that is paid for. The allocation of a piece of land at Sunnyside Extension Farm in Norton to ZTV's chief correspondent was notably coincidental.

The adoption of a new background for the programme line-up continuity presenters cannot be described as a subtle development. This included a peasant farmer, Great Zimbabwe, Heroes Acre and the Zimbabwean flag. All these are symbols and images that ZANU-PF used in its campaign in an attempt to invoke nationalist feelings. And at the end of the programme line-up, ZTV adopted a familiar-sounding slogan: "Zimbabwe, OUR LAND, our Station". Whoever devised this nightly instalment of subliminal political advertising had not, presumably, consulted the Golden Rules.

The ZBC's own " Golden Rules " governing its electoral coverage prohibited the broadcasting of inflammatory and violent language - a good principle that was hardly ever adhered to. Occasionally, as with the ZBC's reporting of the ZANU PF Congress in December 2001, the use of violent language by the government politicians was played down. But this was not the answer either. The duty of the broadcaster ( or any other professional media outlet ) is to report such statements in a non inflammatory fashion and to review them critically. In the endless reporting of campaign speeches by the President and others, violent and dehumanizing language was allowed to go unchallenged.

Although there was no orthodox political advertising promoting the presidential candidates on ZBC throughout the campaign, ZTV filled the continuity breaks between its main evening news bulletins and throughout its programming with images and music promoting land reforms and peasant farming that supported ZANU PF`s main campaign policy. This footage, dubbed Reflections, constituted subliminal political advertising in favour of the ZANU PF candidate and, together with images form the Ministry of Information's musical video, Hondo yeMinda ( War of the Land ), dominated the continuity sections of prime time television viewing.

The airing of these images constituted a crude and reprehensive attempt by the broadcasting corporation's authorities to indoctrinate television audiences with ZANU PF propaganda. ZTV also flighted hours of one-sided prime time current affairs programmes promoting government's land reforms and repeats of " liberation " documentaries aimed at reinforcing the ruling party's claim that Zimbabwe's sovereignty was still under threat.

On paper the ZBC had a good principle but in practice they deviated from this. These findings invite this research to focus briefly on certain highlights of the organizational structure of the ZBC and possible implications.

4.2.3 The Organisational Structure of ZBC and Implications on Programming

As a cultural industry and a public broadcaster, ZBC's main function is to provide programmes that inform, educate and entertain the public. In other words, the production of programmes constitutes the co-business of the ZBC and the institution should be organized in a way that does not only facilitate the production of the best programmes but also motivate those who produce the programmes. The institution's organogram must be able to reflect its mission statement of informing, educating and entertaining the nation. From a managerial perspective, such principles should inform the organisation of leadership. However, it can be argued the ZBC organogram shows that managerial skills and operational skills are organized in such a way that the co-business of producing programmes is frustrated instead of being promoted and motivated. In short, the organisation of ZBC has negative ramifications on programming.

4.2.4 Description of Organogram

ZBC operates under the auspices of the Department of Information and Publicity. The Ministry is responsible for the approval of government funding of ZBC during crisis times, the appointment of the Board of Directors and the Chief Executive. Technically, the Board of Governors should be the one that appoints the Chief Executive, while the Minister of Information and the President ratify the appointment.

4.2.5 Limitations of Organogram

There are some schools of thought that see the Department of Information as compounding not only the programming problems of ZTV, but also the whole operation ethos. The Ministry is seen as a partisan body, which is loyal to the ruling party of the day. The impact of this on programming is that it ensures the preponderance of political content for the ruling party officials at the expense of oppositional discourses. As such programmes like news hour are patronised by the ruling party officials who use both their political clout as a ticket to impose themselves on such programmes even without being invited. At ZBC it is actually common knowledge among workers that the station is a ZANU PF broadcaster. Political influence also manifests itself in the news programmes where there is a preponderance of the ruling party in most of the bulletin ( MISA, Article 19, CCJPZ : 1999 ).

Most of these programming problems may look distant from the Ministry but it is mainly because of its political appointments, which are based on partisanship other than merit and professionalism that the whole institutional role of ZBC is undermined. It is only through programmes that are democratically constituted that ZBC can discharge its duty as a public broadcaster competently. The problem of political interference in programming shall be unraveled later in this research.

4.3 Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Audience Research Findings

This section presents the findings of the focus group interview and the ethnographic participatory research that were conducted as a way of investigating how viewers perceive the performance of the ZBC newshour against its democratic mandate to provide an arena in which the politics of difference can be negotiated and a provisional notion of the common good arrived at.

Three simple questions were asked to the audiences in relation to the ZBC TV newshour. These were:

* Is the ZBC TV news hour political content neutral or does it grant fair coverage of all political voices?

* Does this programme provide a potential space for free expression and open debate?

* How does ZBC TV news hour compare to other foreign news stations especially in the portrayal of Zimbabwean issues?

4.3.2 Focus Group Interview Results

ZBC newshour was perceived as deceiving viewers by covering only those issues which favoured the ruling party. The general feelings were that the ongoing government is abusing the ZBC in its attempt to preserve or enforce the present proportions of political power.

The viewers said they did not like ZBC TV newshour because it failed to present alternative political voices, other than those of ruling party members. Humanities students criticized the programme for its serious lack of political reality. They noted that the MDC was always denigrated and associated with violence.

The two general workers and the secretary were concerned that the ZBC newshour was unrealistic to a point where it was considered better to tune into foreign news stations to get to know the truth about Zimbabwean issues.

One of the students from the sciences was indifferent about the political neutrality of the programme while the other argued that some of the coverage was interesting. News hour at this point was characterized by political advertisements that are musicals, resulting in intertextuality between the programme and the advertisements.

4.3.3 Participatory Observation / Ethnography

This was undertaken in the University Rusununguko common room where the students were observed watching the programmes. Although the atmosphere was not an ideal place for studying television consumption, it nonetheless approximated what happens in the home scenario.

The observations are that male students were the most vocal against political advertisements that promoted ZANU PF`s main campaign. On 13/11/01 when ZBC newshour covered the exhumation of Cain Nkala gave every sign of stage management for national television. Students switched off the television set in unison and went back to study in their rooms.

4.4 Summary and Conclusion

On March 25, 2001 the SADC Parliamentary Forum adopted a number of recommendations designed to strengthen and transparency of democratic electoral practice in the region at its Plenary Assembly in Windhoek, Namibia. The document containing these recommendations, Norms and Standards for Elections in the SADC Region, includes a number of provisions relating to Press Freedom and access to the public media. Principally, the Forum calls on the governments to "...take the emergence of private media as a healthy development in the institutionalization of the democratic process and the conduct of elections, and should therefore refrain from taking decisions and actions that thwart a strong private media."

It also declared that: "Opposition political parties should be given equal opportunity and agreed-upon time and space on the state owned media to put their announcements, broadcasts and advertisements."

However, instead of implementing these clauses, the Zimbabwean authorities have passed laws and taken action that demonstrably inhibit-if not proscribe- the practice of these recommendations.

Despite the efforts of civic society to encourage the Electoral Supervisory Commission to adopt and enforce an equitable " code of practice" for the media during elections, the institution has steadfastly declined to accept recommendations from civic organisations submitted to the ESC during the parliamentary election campaign in the year 2000.

The government too, has failed to reform the Electoral Act in a way that would entrench the recommendations of the SADC Parliamentary Forum and the Act notoriously remains silent about media conduct during an election.

Ironically, the only piece of legislation that appears to provide some equity to the competing political parties appears in the controversial Broadcasting Services Act, which requires all broadcasters to give "reasonable equal coverage" to all parties contesting an election. However, the findings of the Media Monitoring Project (Zimbabwe) (2002) demonstrate that the service provided by the national broadcasting authority, the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), flagrantly ignored this condition.

In addition, the multitude of laws introduced by the government before and during the election campaign period included in the Public Order and Security Act, which among its other repressive provisions, contains a ban on any critical media coverage of the security forces and particularly of the incumbent president, who was, of course, a candidate in this presidential election. These vague and sweeping powers, together with the harsh penalties for violating them, added to an already hostile and intimidating media climate in the election period.

Despite several last-minute amendments to the Electoral Act, none of these dealt with regulations governing the activities of journalists, compounding existing confusion over media workers` plans for covering the election without falling foul of the law.

Clarity over the rules governing journalists` access to polling stations, other electoral centers and to voters, was only provided by the Registrar General, Tobaiwa Mudede, as polling stations opened on March 9th. These included the requirements that presiding officers should allow journalists to enter polling stations. However, the regulations also included restrictions preventing journalists from photographing voters casting their ballots or seeking exit poll samples, as well as asking how potential voters intended to vote.

CHAPTER 5

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations

5.0. Introduction

This chapter gives a summary, research conclusions and recommendations that derive from the main areas of this inquiry. The question, is public service broadcasting a luxury or a necessity for Zimbabwe?, is also addressed in this last chapter and the need for deregulation of the airwaves to ensure plurality is also grappled with. Above all, this chapter moots the idea of an Independent regulatory body whose express brief is to ensure that public service broadcasting in Zimbabwe keeps a relative distance from private capital and government although it naturally remains threatened by these forces.

5.1. Summary Of Study

The study setout to investigate ZBC's newshour as a potential democratic platform of participation. Content analysis research, embracing both quantitative and qualitative methods was used to analyse the sampled newshour programmes. The methods of institutional and audience research were also exploited in this study. The ultimate aim was to knit all three-research methods together in a bid to establish whether ZTV's newshour possesses the institutional autonomy and editorial independence necessary for a public broadcaster. Institutional autonomy and editorial independence are necessary ingredients in ensuring that a public broadcaster such as the ZBC maintains its special public mandate, the prime role of informing and educating the electorate and/or citizens so that they can participate meaningfully in the democratic processes of the country and the world at large. The study was prompted by numerous reports and complaints that the state was curtaining ZBC's potential role as a public sphere of creating procedures, democratically designed for the well being of citizens to participate in the political processes of the day and decision making.

It was not an easy study to carryout because employees of ZBC were unwilling to divulge information for fear of losing their jobs. In the informal interviews that this research undertook those employees in managerial positions were generally defensive- behind this curtain lies an attitude novel to democratic government- an attitude which says that we, the officials, not you, the people, will determine how much you are to be told about your own government. This consists of increasing resort to over classification of documents for purposes of national security, the extensive use of the doctrine of executive privilege, and the development of an 'attitude' toward concealment rather than dissemination of non-classified information. In addition some employees also tended to exaggerate the intensity of state-control and censorship of all political matter handled by ZBC, all in a bid to down play the gravity of self-censorship.

It is important to take into consideration, legal limitations that abound in the current political scenario. There is a plethora of legal instruments whose informing basics touch on the core of the official secrets act that made it virtually impossible for reporters and newscasters to grant formal, recorded interviews. Consolation however comes in the sense that the same legal instruments such as AIPPA and POSA were in force throughout the research process, virtually keeping in check this study from being subjected to the researcher's whims, thereby ensuring objectivity of the findings.

Inspite of the constraints, interesting findings as well as observations and the following conclusions were made:

5.2. Research Conclusions

* The study found out that although lack of neutrality in ZBC-TV newshour causes the public in general to lack confidence in public broadcasting, males tend to be more affected than females. The reason given is that males tend to be more intolerant to what they view as authoritarian policy models of broadcasting than their female counterparts.

* In the monitored stories, evidently between January 7th and March 8th, 2002, the ZBC-Newshour gave blanket coverage to campaign activities of ZANU-PF, at the same time as largely ignoring the Tsvangirai campaign. In its selection of issues, too, ZBC focused on the Land question, which was given priority by the Mugabe campaign, over the variety of governance and economic policies that formed the planks of his challenger's campaign.

* Although there was no orthodox political advertising promoting the presidential candidates on ZBC throughout the campaign, ZTV filled the continuity breaks between its main news bulletins and throughout its programming with images and music promoting land reforms and peasant farming that supported ZANU-PF's main campaign policy. This footage, dubbed Reflections, constituted subliminal political advertising in favour of the ZANU-PF candidate and, together with images from the Minister of Information's musical video, Hondo Yeminda (war of land, dominated the continuity sections of prime time television viewing throughout the election campaign. The airing of these images constituted a crude and reprehensible attempt by the national public broadcasting corporation to indoctrinate television audiences with ZANU-PF propaganda in a clear breach of its public mandate. ZTV also flighted hours of one-sided prime-time current affairs programmes promoting government's land reforms and repeats of "liberation" documentaries aimed at reinforcing the ruling party's claim that Zimbabwe's sovereignty was still under threat.

* The public media created an explanatory framework for the entire election campaign that consisted of a giant conspiracy theory, containing within it a number of minor conspiracies. The largest of these was the entrapment of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a supposed plot to kill President Mugabe. Evidence of this was systematically and brazenly manipulated in the public media.

* Conspiracy theories were used to explain the political violence that marred the election campaign. In the public media, violence was almost entirely attributed to the MDC. ZTV-newshour failed to provide a true picture of the extent of the violence, even according to official police figures given through Zimpapers.

* The legal and political environment in which the media covered the 2002 presidential election was extremely hostile to free and impartial reporting. During the run-up to the election, the government tightened existing limitations on free reporting through the public order and security act (POSA). The access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed into law just after the election, was also a threat hanging over the media.

* The organisation of the 2002 election was marred by a total lack of information from the electoral authorities-notably the Registrar General's office-to the public on a whole section of crucial issues. These included: who was to vote, the duration of the registration period, where and how to inspect the voter's rolls, what identification was required at polling stations, and where polling stations were. ZBC-TV newshour, which might have had a better chance of answering public queries on these issues, was apparently content to relay uncritically the confusing and contradictory messages from the authorities.

* The ZBC newshour systematically failed to provide it's audiences with accurate information about Zimbabwe's foreign relations during the pre-election and election period, in particular about relations with the Southern Africa Development Community Countries, the Commonwealth, the European Union and imposition of targeted sanctions on members of the government and party leadership was misrepresented.

* ZBC-TV newshour systematically distorted issues relating to the role of local and international election observers and monitors. The monitored news clips did not clearly reveal what the difference was between an observer and a monitor. International observers from bodies such as the Commonwealth Observer Mission were vilified and critical findings from their reports distorted or ignored. By contrast, ZTV newshour gave extensive coverage to the positive conclusions of other observer groups, while ignoring some of their more critical observations.

5.3. Recommendations

This section suggests some solutions to some of the problems encountered by ZBC-TV newshour in the performance of their public service mandate of providing education to the people and an arena in which the politics of difference can be negotiated ultimately facilitating arrival at a provisional notion of the common good.

In light of the above conclusions it is recommended that:

* The ZBC as a medium that receives public funds has a duty to be balanced and impartial in the election reporting and not to discriminate against any party in granting access to airtime.

* News, interviews, information or current affairs programmes or articles must not be biased in favour of or against any party candidate.

* There must be no government censorship of any election programmes or coverage.

* The media be exempted from legal liability for unlawful statements made by candidates or party representatives broadcast during the course of the election campaign, other than those that constitute clear and direct incitement to violence. The parties and speakers should be held solely responsible for any unlawful statements they make.

* Any candidate or party that makes a reasonable claim of having been defamed or otherwise injured by a broadcast should either be granted the opportunity to reply or be entitled to a correction or retraction by the broadcaster. The reply or correction should be broadcast as soon as possible.

* The ZBC as a recipient of public funds should not express an editorial opinion in favour of or against any party or candidate.

* News coverage of press conferences and public statements concerning matters of political controversy (as opposed to functions of state) called or made by the head of government, government ministers, or members of parliament should be subject to a right of reply or equal time rules. This obligation acquires even greater force when the person making the statement is also standing for office.

* ZBC-TV newshour must grant political parties or candidate regular airtime for direct access programmes on a fair and non-discriminatory basis.

* Paid political advertising should not be allowed on ZBC.

* ZBC be obliged to broadcast accurate, impartial, and effective voter information about the voting process, including how, when and where to vote, to register to vote and to verify proper registration; the secrecy of the ballot; the importance of voting; the functions of the offices that are under contention; and similar matters.

5.3.1. The Need For an Independent Regulatory Body

To bring to an end management and policy problems in regulating, government aggression at ZTV, there is need for the formation of an independent regulatory body, modelled along the lines of the South African Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), or the Nigerian National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). The Ministry of Information and Publicity has proved to be a failure in regulating government aggression mainly because it operates from a partisan instead of professional perspective. The independent regulatory body is supposed to come up with a broadcasting public service mandate, a mandate that must be clearly defined with explicit performance indicators. In overall, it must be responsible for the following:

* Political interests in public broadcasting

* Overall broadcasting policy

* Programming policy

* Licensing

* Hearing and adjudicating complaints

* Professionalism

Some people are of the mentality that we need this independent body only under a liberalized broadcasting environment. However, programming and regulatory problems currently bedeviling ZTV show that this body is needed even in a monolithic broadcasting environment like that of ZBC. The serious imbalance in participation at ZTV in terms of involvement of the general public explains why an independent regulatory body is imminent. Levey (1997) underscores the importance of citizen participation in the public broadcaster as a public sphere:

All should have access, as an entitlement of citizenship, to the means to communicate and to information necessary for participation in the economic, social and political life of their communities Levey (1997:26)

At a broader conceptual level, it can be argued that what obtains at ZBC at policy level, is a dramatisation of the conflict between the socialist legacy paradigm and the free market neoliberal philosophy of the new dispensation. This adjustment problem is faced by most former socialist governments, such as the Polish, Hungarian and the Czech governments Sparks (1995:31) Government seems to pay a lip service to the latter while it remains operating within the former paradigm. This explains why ZTV is still seen as a party station instead of a public station.

Secondly, under a commercial dispensation, the ZBC television management needs to have a certain leverage to choose what type of programming it needs to expose the public to. It should be a programming mix that is able to attract a qualitative and quantitative viewership but at the same time contributing tremendously to the integral element of political democracy and an essential part of the process of democratic governance. This study reveals that in terms of policy, ZTV is neither commercial nor authoritarian or democratic (see table 1:chapter 2). ZTV seems to be one of the most controversial and intricate stations because it blends all these policies. Authoritarian tendencies which are typical of the "socialist order" are not that pronounced as there are no draconian written censorship policies that curtail producers from broadcasting what they consider of public interest. In the final analysis ZTV policies fall within what Corcoran (1995), identified as typical policies in 'post socialist' countries of Central and Eastern Europe-the paternalistic commercial policy. ZTV seems to operate from this policy too. According to Corcoran paternalistic policies seek to satisfy interest of the political elite and business elite. Interest in audiences by government is mainly protective as the station is to a greater extent used as a propaganda tool, not so much by telling lies to the public but by way of limited programming to entertainment and current affairs programmes that do not stimulate oppositional discourses to those of the state. For example a number of employees, it is alleged, fell out of favour with government for exposing audiences to the truth about what the MDC stood for in the run-up to the election. In partenalism government uses broadcasting for the control and manipulation of public opinion. This policy also means that government cannot trust professionals to run ZTV but is comfortable with appointing people who are loyal to the state and the establishment.

The problem with commercial partenalism is that it has a half-hearted and negligent approach as government only cares about a public broadcaster only when it is supposed to perform state duties. Regulation for the protection of public interest does not exist since the public is not necessarily seen as citizens that have certain inalienable rights to dignity, but as masses, which are potential threat to the status quo.

An independent regulatory body seems to be the only answer to these problems. It is the anchor for the realisation of a communicative democracy premised on diversity and pluralism. As far as programming is concerned, its tasks are as follows:

* To shift the use of media from state to the public, programmes have to change from being repressive to emancipation of the citizen from the shackles and tenacles of the state.

* To change programming from depoliticisation of the citizen to the mobilisation and empowerment of the masses through civic education in public service broadcasting.

* To change from programme production by specialists to collective democratic participatory productions.

* To change from market and bureaucratic control of public service broadcasting to social control by self-organisation. Enzensberger (1972:115-116)

To achieve the above a new political culture, which is embroiled in a viable economic policy environment, has to be cultivated. It must be a political culture that values the ideals of citizenship and democratic participation and not the opposite. Again, the economic policy environment must not pre-empty achievements realized in the political sphere.

5.3.2. Deregulation and the Three - Tier System

After identifying the managerial and policy quagmire at the ZBC, the 1996 Ibboston and UNESCO reports underscored the need to liberalise the airwaves in a bid to democratise the broadcasting environment. There is no doubt that ZTV has failed the public in terms of its many problems associated with programming. ZTV has fallen into the fate of most public service broadcasters that are identified by a paternalistic and limited definition of the public Scanell (1990). Its definition and understanding of the public is increasingly paternalistic, resulting in the marginalisation of the minorities.

Government must deregulate as a matter of urgency the broadcasting environment so that there can be a three tier system so that viewers can have a wider choice from a wide spectrum of programming offered by various broadcasters. If ZTV resources are such that it is only able to satisfy the interest of government officials, then it is better to have this three-tier system because:

Democracy is about diversity. Democratic public spheres are sites where multiplicity of ideas from variety of perspectives can be aired. A democratic public television system needs to take charge of diversity seriously. Hoynes (1994:172)

The three-tier system must consist of public broadcasting, private broadcasting and community broadcasting. Splichal (1995:53) proposes a fourth broadcaster that should stand for government interests.

The community stations, which do not operate commercially, are in a way an extension of a public service system. Yet better still, are more audience-specific and democratic in terms of participation. Other countries in the SADC region, especially South Africa, use this system. As such the commercialisation of the SABC does not have serious ramifications on public participation as there are 83 community radio stations, more that 2 community television stations, 11 religious radio stations, 14 commercial radio stations and 3 commercial television broadcasters Golding-Duffy etal (1998:77)

As highlighted earlier in this chapter, programming of ZTV newshour is gradually to the marginalisation of the poor majority. The only way these people can be brought back in the mainstream of political and economic participation is through the democratisation and deregulation of the broadcasting environment, where they will not only be granted freedom of expression and press by the constitution, but also have abundant means for

the realisation of those freedoms.

5.3.3Public Service Broadcasting: A luxury or a Necessity for Zimbabwe?

This dissertation concludes by the assertion that it is imperative for the Third World in general and Zimbabwe in particular, to have public service broadcasting systems. Governments in the developing countries should know that public service broadcasting is not a luxury but a necessity. Many countries including Britain are discovering the ideological and ethical problems of commercialising public service broadcasting and the public in Britain is calling for a pure public service system for BBC Levey (1997:23). The following are the reasons why public service broadcasting system is indispensable for Zimbabwe and other developing countries:

* Communication is a cultural aspect to the processes of decolonisation, democratisation and development (Three Ds) and it is only through public broadcasting that government can be able to mobilize the people for participation in all these processes. If we conceive of development and democracy as inextricable and impossible to achieve without extensive participation, then public service broadcasters are certainly of development and democracy by nature of their mandates of universal coverage, nation building and so on.

* Africa and Zimbabwe in particular cannot have the luxury to commercialise the public service system because of the AIDS menace. Public service broadcasting as Scannell (1990:11) points out, should be the vanguard in maintaining a high moral fibre for society and also in preserving people's cultures, values and beliefs. ZBC-television is faced with a mammoth task of informing and educating millions of citizens about AIDS, poverty and many other pressing issues. Government has no choice but to fund ZBC. The problem with commercialisation is that as advertisers or market forces pursue specialized and mass markets, public broadcasters are coerced to shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, as they target those specialised niche markets. For example minority languages and cultures are marginalised as most programmes concentrate on major languages as advertisers search for mass markets. For example, the few programmes in local languages on ZTV are either in Shona or Ndebele while other minority languages are ignored.

* Lessons from countries which have deregulated broadcasting environments such as South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia show that the question of pluralism of broadcasting stations does not necessarily mean content diversity and democracy. Levey argues that "more channels do not necessarily mean more suppliers of programmes, or indeed that those controlling those channels will not use them to pursue their own commercial or political agendas. Public service alone can supply universal access to high quality programming catering for the poorer minorities as well as the well-off" Levey (1997:23).

Private commercial broadcasters usually broadcast in capital cities with specialised niche audiences, which are delivered to advertisers. In most instances they do not play a big role in development communication so much needed by lowly developed countries (LDCs). As such, even in the liberalised and democratised environments, public service broadcasters are still crucial in the communicative action of the masses to the governors and vice-versa. In terms of participation, the commercialisation policy at ZTV evidently benefits civil society groups, which normally pose as inclusive and representative of the majority yet in actual fact, are exclusive and representative of minority interests. As a result of the imbalances in programming, ZTV is reduced to a public broadcaster of the minority rich and the politically powerful posing as the public.

This study recommends that further study be conducted on the question of how commercial advertising impacts on programming on ZTV in order to fully establish the effects of private capital on public service broadcasting space.

5.4 Summary and Conclusion

This thesis focused on the effectiveness of ZBC-TV newshour as a platform for democratic participation. It was discovered that state interference influences news programming in a number of ways but in the main, undermines the programming values and ideals of a public broadcaster. Accordingly the classical Marxist position asserts that the mass media simply disseminate the ideas and worldviews of the ruling class, and deny or defuse alternative ideas. This is very much in accord with Marx's argument:

"The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it." Marx and Engels: The German Ideology, Cited in Curran et al (1982:22)

According to this stance, the mass media function to produce 'false consciousness' in working classes. This leads to an extreme stance whereby media audiences see media products as monolithic expressions of ruling class values, which ignores any diversity of values within the ruling class and within the media, and the possibility of oppositional readings.

I therefore proposed an independent regulatory body to regulate, among other things political meddling at ZTV.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Mckensey Report ( 1996 ) Assessing the SABC`s Performance

Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe Report on 2002 Presidential and Mayoral Elections

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Newspaper Articles

Saidi B. ( 10/08/03 ) Why lies, more lies will be the Death of ZBC-TV