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| Title: | Paper tigers: the rise and fall of the independent media in Malawi, 1961-2001 |
| Author: | Lwanda, John |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Periodical: | The Society of Malawi Journal |
| Volume: | 55 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 1-23 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Malawi Central Africa |
| Subjects: | press mass communication Publishing and Book Trade mass media journalism history freedom of the press |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/29779083 |
| Abstract: | There was a natural expectation in Malawi that, with Dr Banda's declaration of a 'free press' at the end of 1992 and the lifting of repression, a vibrant and healthy press would develop. However, this hope was only, and initially, partially realized. In his review of the media in Malawi in the years 1961-2001, the author argues that the internal dynamics and failings of the independent media facilitated its own downfall. Journalists and the new owners of papers failed to exploit the successful informal use of fax and photocopying machines which characterized the 1991-1992 transitional period and which had made it possible to bypass the government-controlled printing presses. Many of the newspapers were started by active politicians. The desire for perfect newspapers, the obsession with a Western model of publishing, led to dependence on the new political patrons for money, the printers for printing, and ultimately, any future government that could control these systems. And the journalistic corps itself was not immune to the economic dynamics of the elite world it inhabited. There was also an amazing degree of complacency on the part of writers and journalists after the introduction of multiparty rule in 1994. Journalists completely ignored the rural audience, and failed to address the orality/illiteracy issue by providing simple and affordable reading materials in local languages. And with the advent of electronic media, they became increasingly irrelevant or marginal to their elite audiences, who preferred and could afford global entertainment. In sum, the independent media is no longer 'the people's watchdog' which Malawi journalists had envisioned. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |
