The press in transition : a comparative study of Nicaragua, South Africa, Jordan, and Russia

Abstract

The Press in Transition adopts a comparative approach to transitional print institutions worldwide. It is based on some 150 interviews and archival research on four continents, over a decade of unprecedented global transformation and upheaval. The dissertation seeks to fill a serious gap in the existing literature on democratization and political transition. Theoretical chapters advance a comparative model of press functioning (Chapter 1) and a more tentative model of transitional media, with a strong focus on the mainstream press (Chapter 6). The bulk of the work consists of four case-studies, each drawn from a different geographical region (indeed, continent) and a markedly different "type" of liberalization or transition process. The case of Nicaragua (Chapter 2) stands out somewhat. It concentrates almost exclusively on a single newspaper, Barricada, the former official organ of the Sandinista Front. The newspaper's transformations in the 1990s are, however, set against the backdrop of Barricades history since 1979, intra-Sandinista politics during and after the revolutionary era, and the more general interplay of media and politics in Nicaragua. The remaining three case-studies (South Africa, Jordan, and Russia: Chaps. 3-5) combine system-level analysis with micro-level portraits of transitional institutions and individuals. The core of the theoretical analysis lies in a delineation of "mobilizing" and "professional" imperatives. The former I attach mainly to sponsors and managers of media institutions; the latter mainly - not exclusively or universally — to the editorial side of the operation. The interplay of these variables I see as integral to an understanding of events at the case-study newspapers. The opening theoretical chapter situates mobilizing and professional imperatives as both dependent and independent variables. I argue that they reflect and respond to variables like underdevelopment, authoritarianism, and pre-existing media culture. But they also serve as founts of important and interesting initiatives, whether professional, political, or commercial. Significantly, too, they regularly conflict. The dissertation struggles to avoid heroicizing, but it also tries to show that tensions and upheavals — both small-scale and radically transformative - tend to derive from the clash of mobilizing and professional priorities.

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