The Quality of Democracy: Learning from the Candidates?

The Copenhagen political criteria for accession defined the political values of the EU clearly for the first time. Democracy, respect for minority rights and the rule of law in candidate countries have since been thoroughly screened by various EU and international human rights institutions. Transition and democratisation in central and eastern Europe have helped create monitoring mechanisms often lacking even in the established democracies of western Europe. However, democracy – not the mechanics of elections, but the quality of life and freedom supposedly characteristic of democracy – is also of concern in many EU members. Paradoxically, as the new democracies of central and eastern Europe have acquired more experience with democratisation, the established democracies of western Europe have appeared less open to change. This paper argues that integration is a two-way process, giving both sides an opportunity to learn from each other. In particular, EU members can learn from the candidate countries about the creation, maintenance and use of independent monitoring institutions to protect and improve their democratic mechanisms.

The paper examines media monitoring in EU member Italy as against candidate Slovakia. The starting assumption is that the mass media, like other forms of independent monitoring, is crucial to human rights – an invaluable and objective diagnostic tool for the quality of democracy.

Italy: the media as political football

Italy has gradually become the pariah of west European democracies when it comes to media freedom and equal access to the media. Most media analysts and political scientists agree that the Italian television market is a profound deviation from the western model. Criticism has come from all sides – international and domestic, government, inter-governmental and non-governmental. Czech President Václav Havel, the avuncular authority on freedom of expression, has expressed his concern about media freedom in Italy. [1] Similar objections have been raised by Freimut Duve, the OSCE Representative on Media Freedom, as well as the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the International Press Institute (IPI) and the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. [2]

Italy is criticised for its media duopoly, consisting of the public broadcaster RAI and the private Mediaset. Currently, three RAI channels (RaiUno, RaiDue, RaiTre) and three Mediaset channels (Canale 5, Italia 1, Rete 4) effectively control around 90 percent of the audience share. [3] Competition between RAI and Mediaset gained a new dimension in 2001, when Mediaset owner Silvio Berlusconi became Italy’s Prime Minister – a position that guarantees immense influence over RAI also.

The implications of this became apparent in April 2002, when the new media board named the heads of the three RAI networks and the editors of their news services. Traditionally, these appointments are carved up along political lines – accordingly, RaiUno went to Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, RaiDue was split between its coalition partners, the National Alliance and the Northern League, and RaiTre was left to the opposition. [4] The impact of the new political appointments was soon evident. Journalists Enzo Biagi and Michele Santoro, both known for their criticism of Silvio Berlusconi, were sacked and their programmes cancelled.

The perceived objectivity and allegiances of the Mediaset channels also varies. As the Economist puts it, paraphrasing Berlusconi himself: “the coverage of his main news bulletin, on Canale 5, has been fairly objective (as it has, though the station can hardly be expected to investigate the prime minister's own financial dealings, for example). He also admits that other of his own news bulletins (Rete 4) are more like fan clubs, and proud to be so.” [5]

Despite ongoing criticism of the government’s instrumental approach to the media, there is no independent monitoring data that would systematically evaluate public and private broadcasters in Italy and their political bias or impartiality. Italy’s experience is not unlike that of some candidate countries. Just as the media in Central and Eastern Europe was subordinate to the communist parties, RAI has had since its inception a long-standing and deep-rooted tradition of dependence on the political elites.

Communications Regulatory Authority?

EU member states generally have a rather detailed normative framework for the activities of public and private broadcasters and different sets of regulatory and oversight bodies. The configuration of broadcasting regulators and the level of their independence from the executive and legislative branches varies, however. Italy was among the first European countries to introduce the “single” or “convergence” regulator in 1997. Compared with regulation authorities in other EU countries, the Communications Regulatory Authority reveals some distinctive features: its remit is very broad, covering audiovisuals, telecommunications and the printed press. And despite being defined as “fully autonomous and independent”, the Communications Regulatory Authority is effectively under the total control of the parliamentary majority. [6]

From the human rights perspective, a problem with convergence regulation is that it does not focus on protection of freedom of expression, equal access to the media, prevention of monopolies and concentration, and preservation of plurality and diversity of opinion and programmes, but rather tends to adopt a business view, prioiritising market indicators, technological innovation and growth. This problem appears even more acute in Italy, where a number of international and domestic human rights-related complaints and criticisms have appeared regarding the mass media.

A distressing factor is that the lack of suitable monitoring instruments has actually been acknowledged by the Communications Regulatory Authority, which is legally obliged to carry out monitoring and ensure principles of equal treatment and equal access of all parties to the media. The Communications Regulatory Authority’s own report justifies the failure to create a credible monitoring mechanism as follows: “the main problem with monitoring remains that of professional and financial resources… [The] situation is certainly more complex [in Italy] than in other European countries due to the presence of twelve national networks and approximately six hundred local stations.” [7] However, in practice the problem is not monitoring hundreds of local stations, but effectively monitoring the politically relevant broadcasting of six national channels operated by the RAI-Mediaset duopoly, which monopolise audience shares. This is an example of a failure of a public institution backed by the parliamentary majority to produce credible monitoring results.

Slovakia: independent monitoring of independent media

Slovakia, on the other hand, despite its shorter and often fraught democratic history, has effectively surpassed Italy in successful monitoring of the media. MEMO’98 (www.memo98.sk), a Slovak media monitoring NGO, is an example of successful and credible independent monitoring of the political content of both public and private broadcasters according to a well-defined and rigorous methodology.

MEMO’98 conducts qualitative and quantitative analysis of media coverage to see whether it correlates with the basic rules of balanced, unbiased and fair journalism. The monitoring measures the time devoted to individual political parties, and records whether they are presented in a positive, neutral or negative light. MEMO’98 played a crucial role in Slovakia before the breakthrough 1998 elections, which brought moderates to power for the first time in its short history. At that time, the outgoing Mečiar government in Slovakia was, like the Berlusconi government today, criticised by a number of international and domestic bodies for infringing media freedoms and misusing the mass media, especially public television, for its own purposes. MEMO’98 produced a series of monitoring reports using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. These reports presented a clear picture of the level of media manipulation and lack of impartiality. [8]

Powerful and credible monitoring mechanisms have proved to be very helpful in countries like Slovakia that have experienced problems with media freedoms. Monitoring can have a significant role in nurturing a democratic political culture and in the promotion of impartiality and objectivity in broadcasting.

The lack of independent monitoring mechanisms in Italy and ongoing criticism of media institutions call out for credible and independent monitoring institutions capable of systematically reviewing politically relevant broadcasting and presenting data on media impartiality. [9] Such an institution could be a specialist NGO like MEMO’98, affiliated with and initiated by a well-respected and politically un-biased human rights institution, non-partisan journalists’ association or possibly a university. It is especially crucial that the institution’s independence and objectivity not be compromised by any political affiliation or suspicion of bias. The work of such institutions also impacts on political culture and public awareness of media independence and impartiality. There is a lot to learn from the experience of monitoring NGOs in the post-communist new democracies, as well as international media freedom NGOs.

Footnotes

[1] For these and other international criticisms of the Italian media, see Matúš Minárik, Media Policies in Italy and the United Kingdom, Budapest, International Policy Fellowships. Online here: http://www.policy.hu/minarik .

[2] Ibid., pp. 3-5

[3] Ibid., p. 2.

[4] The Prime Minister Objects, The Economist, 25 April 2002.

[5] Ibid.

[6] More in: Matúš Minárik, Media Policies in Italy and United Kingdom, (Budapest: International Policy Fellowships, September 2002), http://www.policy.hu/minarik , p. 7.

[7] Communications Regulatory Authority, Annual Report on Activities and Work Programmes, The Authority’s Activities of Television Broadcasting, III/4 The Monitoring of TV programs.

[8] More on MEMO’98 and its monitoring reports and methodology here: http://www.memo98.sk .

[9] Auditel is a reliable and credible monitoring company. However, the sole purpose of its independent audits are to determine audience figures, not to verify the objectivity and biases of broadcasters. More here: http://www.auditel.it .