Until an objective claim is made regarding the Arab citizen’s access to information, it is as yet premature to speak of a representative public opinion or a true budding democracy in the region.
There have been two recent and important roundtables touching on the issue of the formation of public opinion have taken place. The first was a conference held in Rabat, Morocco on ‘Fostering dialogue among cultures and civilizations through concrete and sustained initiatives, and the other a workshop in Beirut on ‘New media and socio political change in the Arab world’. Having participated in both, I can say that the two three-day discussions contributed to the ongoing search for realistic means towards a more peaceful global interaction.
Given the region – and particular country – in which we live, the discussions brought to the surface a pertinent question: to what extent is the Arab citizen allowed the ‘appropriate’ space needed to form an opinion before he or she can claim the right to express it? In other words, can democracy prevail in a territory that defies the formation of informed opinion?
We hear the words ‘public opinion’ mainly with regard to policy and politics. Exit polls are managed world wide to examine what the American people, for example, think of a certain issue or a particular legislation approved, or bill passed. Projects are designed, focus groups organized, surveys fielded, findings analyzed and then, results rather effectively communicated. The issue is not whether such opinions actually matter in shaping respective democracies, or whether the people have the voice they are claimed to have in order to express their opinions, it is: how did they form their opinion?
The notion of public opinion has been the subject of debate among social scientists for decades. In the mid-60s more than 50 definitions were compiled, attesting to the complexity of the concept. Although public opinion’s association with polls gave it a very convenient scientificity from the 1970s onwards, the dispute surrounding its meaning has carried on.
It is no wonder that this dispute is endless. The common-sense idea of public opinion concerns a contested belief that the people can govern themselves through rational thinking. The democratic aspiration for “government by consent” is necessarily based on the existence of informed public opinion; in this sense, popular wisdom is synonymous with rational thinking. This definition is based on an assumption of the implicit capacity of all groups in society to transcend their interests for the benefit of the public good. Public opinion as the aggregate of individual opinions hence refers to consensus or to the majority. It is the idea that every group can govern itself through a collective will, which is the foundation of ‘liberal democracy’. For positivist researchers, public opinion may therefore be grasped by polls and other quantitative techniques.
Critical theory, on the other hand, defines public opinion from a more ideal, utopian perspective that serves essentially as a legitimizing principle for political discourses and actions. It is seen as resulting from the public diffusion of speeches made by the political class and the media. Public opinion here is not the sum of individual opinions but is constructed by social actors interested in linking their plans to the people's will in order to increase their legitimacy.
What guides an opinion? Several interlinked factors, including: cultural backgrounds; interests; and information provided and accessed. It is within the latter field that our region seems to falter.
To what extent is a space allowed for the Arab public in which it can introduce information (access to information), formulate its own interpretation of such information (freedom and capacity), and express its opinion of it (voice and infrastructure)? In most Arab nations, there is no public space within which political figures, information carriers such as the media, and public opinion can interplay freely. In the presence of civil society, the media receives its legitimacy from public opinion, and not vice versa.
When talking about an informed public, it is both the provision as well as the access to information that is considered. Both conferences touched upon a certain distortion by communication and information tools of the image in the minds of people regarding history, politics, civilizations, and religions. How are obstinate opinions of people and events formulated? What makes a society pro-this or against-that?
We see governments such as those of France and Germany being changed by the people; informed people, to a good extent. Lebanon may be the first example of self-determinant citizenry in the region. But to what extent did a politicization of the media affect information?
Today, there are almost 200 Arab satellite channels. Special funding, political will and field specialization contributed to this skyrocketing in the 1990’s. While it took the BBC, for example, 15 years to develop to its current performance, Arab satellites jumped to presenting news round the clock in no time. The workshop on media and change in the Arab world, however, drew a clear distinction between common political entertainment and actual political empowerment. While field reporting does inform opinion, broadcasters participating at the workshop admitted that investigation of facts and events in the news is an expensive, risky and controversial activity. How informative can we consider our news to be?
The concept of ‘Red Lines’ was emphasized. Media in the Arab world – not unlike some other countries – faces restrictions posed by sponsors, rulers, political, social and religious authority figures. Thanks to progress in technology, however, fast reporting of news events has contributed to a decrease in fabrication and an increase in transparency. The almost immediate reporting of the assassination of Rafik Hariri on February the 14th in Lebanon contributed to its accuracy in news portrayal and even in speculations within one hour of the incident!
Interestingly, the workshop demonstrated an almost unanimous frustration amongst television dialogue presenters with what they termed a ‘sadistic’ government attitude when it comes to information provision. Requesting even more than one political perspective at a time therefore became a masochist activity.
Participants discussed whether the media currently portrays reality or is rather a tool for change (for the better or the worse, of course). On the one hand, an argument was made that in the last few months, media covered political development in Lebanon as it arose from the public (televising spontaneous demonstrations, burials of the assassins, and youth camps). On the other hand, examples were demonstrated where different Lebanese channels reported events differently; guided by their own political affiliations: some delay reporting certain news, some exaggerate them and some focus on rather misleading aspects of them. A good question to ask therefore is: where do we begin reform: in politics or in media? And is it not time that documentaries narrating facts and different perspectives be circulated rather than a manipulation of emotions.
Information carriers such as the media must have self-applied codes of ethics: systematic laws that regulate issues such as security, political affiliation, interest, privacy, decency, accuracy, and sources of information. This is distinct from existing ‘codes of ethics’ that are government imposed in some countries.
Access to information and freedom of expression are international human rights norms. Article 19 of both the UN Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights state that the right to freedom of expression includes not only freedom to ‘impart information and ideas of all kinds’, but also freedom to ‘seek’ and ‘receive’ them ‘regardless of frontiers’ and in whatever medium. The United Nations Development Program is currently supporting six Access to Information projects in five countries in the Arab states Region: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and Sudan. The graph below indicates assistance provided by the UNDP in these Arab States allocated to strengthening communication mechanisms and media development.
Work towards the formation of a more informed public is in progress. In the meantime, however, this public is challenged in the opinions it forms. Elections are best in an aware society. Only when information is properly disseminated and equally accessed can we then move on to discuss issues of democracy and accountability in responding to the needs and claims of the informed public.
Safa Jafari is a specialist on human rights and human development
