LESSONS FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM CANADA

By Alasdair Roberts[20]

The United Kingdom's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which gives citizens a right of access to documents held by public authorities, will go into effect in 2005. The Labour government has promoted the law as a key element in a program of reform intended to revolutionize British politics.

For the majority of departments procedures for handling freedom of information requests are still to be determined, although there are a variety of proposed approaches reflecting the different needs and size of departments. Some departments will initially at least have some central co-ordination of requests for information in order to assess the level and type of demand. Other departments, notably the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office are planning for requests for information to be dealt with at a local level by the relevant policy official because of the wide range of departmental responsibilities (Lord Chancellor's Department 2002, 19)

A liberal and decentralized approach to FOIA could undermine the government's capacity to control the policy agenda and ensure that the outflow of information supports a consistent line. The Blair government has shown itself to be highly sensitive to such risks. "Spin, news management and message discipline," said Margaret Scammell in 2001, "are now the hallmarks of Labour's communications" (Scammell 2001, 526). This has meant an expansion of communications staff at the center of government, a concentration of their control over the communications work of other parts of government, and a more intrusive role for communications officers in the preliminary stages of administrative decisionmaking.

The structure of Canada's federal government is in many ways comparable to that of the United Kingdom. Authority is highly concentrated, often producing complaints that are familiar to British observers. And Canada has also undertaken an experiment with FOI legislation by adopting its Access to Information Act, which marked its twentieth anniversary in 2003.

Communications officers can be closely involved in the processing of these requests, developing "media lines" and other "communications products" to minimize the political fallout of disclosure. These practices are largely hidden from public view. Nevertheless, they play an important role in shaping the substance of the right to information in Canada.

EVALUATING PRESS FREEDOM: HAVE SOCIAL MEDIA

CHANGED THE LANDSCAPE?

By Dr. Lee B. Becker[21]

The concept of media freedom has a long history both in the political science and in the mass communication literature. Linz (1975), for example, listed fr eedoms of association, information, and communication as essential components of democracy. Gunther and Mughan called mass media the “connective tissue of democracy.” O’Neil (1998) wrote that without the freedom of communication mass media provide, the foundation of democratic rule is undermined.

Some have argued that definitions of media freedom should include other concepts, such as the role of media in nation building, economic development, overcoming illiteracy and poverty, and building political consciousness. Hachten (1987) and Hagen (1992) focused on media democratization and proposed altering the top-down, one-way flow of messages from contemporary mass media to the public by increasing citizen participation. Breunig (1994) called press freedom one type of freedom of communication. Others were freedom of speech, freedom of opinion and information freedom.

Whether mass media lead or follow change, whether they mirror or mold society, and whether they should be conceptualized as agents of change or of the status quo are questions that permeate the discussion of media freedom. Media freedom is recognized as a fundamental human right in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however, the extent to which nations enjoy freedom of expression through media varies considerably.

There are more than 100 organizations around the world that assess press freedom at national and/or regional levels. Three of them - Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and IREX - currently are pro ducing quantitative measures of media freedom at a global scale, based on the work of professional or elite evaluators. These evaluators assess characteristics of the media systems, such as whether the media in a country are able to operate independently of political or economic pressure and whether they actually do operate in service of the democratic goals of societies. Recent research has shown that these established systemic measures of media characteristics are internally consistent and highly intercorrelated, providing initial data on their reliability.