As Anglo-Egyptian actor, Khaled Abdallah[1], noted these are the first revolutions in history to have been reported and narrated by their participants as opposed to existing press organs. When censorship and self-censorship barriers were torn down, both professional and amateur journalists found themselves immersed in a completely new media-communication sphere. Debuting within this new and unregulated context, these new journalists tasted the emotion of exercising rights, which they had regained during the protests. These were rights, which they had never been able to exercise as long as whichever raìs[2], who had subjected them, had denied them. Thus, for the first time, new citizen-journalists experimented the power that media holds outside authoritarian regimes. They were now able to grasp the influence they could have on the public – from whom they had to partially veil the truth, and their own interpretation of events, for years. Indeed, a rapid evolution[3] of the role of the journalist and one which became increasingly militant was observed.[4] In this way, camera, microphone and pen became essential instruments for carrying out a political battle within turbulent transition periods.
Identifying the most fertile terrain for sowing democratic seeds cast by the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Arab Media Report has chosen to devote a monograph to an analysis of contemporary dynamics in the local Tunisian media context. Despite experiencing dramatic and bloody moments – such as the assassination of Chokri Belaid and Mohammed Brahmi – and especially after learning the Egyptian lesson of July 2013, the Tunisian transition phase has nevertheless embarked on a path of political compromise through inclusion. This seeks an answer to the dangerous political polarisation, which threatened to injure the country again by making it descend into a chaotic struggle for power. The effort for compromise has been obvious in the work of the Constituent Assembly, constantly monitored by Al-Bawsala, the non-government organization directed by thirty-year old Amira Yahyaoui[5]. The organisation monitors the Constituent Assembly, and acts as a compass for both its members and citizens, who can follow its progress live on-air. No discussion, vote or friction escaped Al-Bawsala, who presents itself as a non-traditional information tool, enabling the citizen to be at the centre of public and political action like never before.[6]
Which was the role played by more or less traditional means of communication that acquired greater authority during the revolution. How did they act and what mechanisms did they set into motion during the transition, especially in its highly polarised first phase? Did they accentuate or reduce it? In order to answer these questions we have attentively followed the evolution of the media system, which also underwent a complex and highly discussed reform process.
Entering the headquarters hosting[7] the Haute Autorité Indipendant de la Communication Audiovisualle (HAICA), we found ourselves immersed in an absolutely new phenomenon of the Tunisian institutional panorama. The offices of this ancient residence in the nearby suburbs of Tunis, host an organ, which despite being created by Decree 115 of November 2012, has only been truly functional from 3 May 2013. As he welcomed us, Ria Farjani – mass media specialist by profession, recruited into the team of this establishment– told us that, “For a year and a half the law of the jungle ruled”. Before the fall of President Ben Ali, management of the media system was tightly in the hands of the regime. The latter dominated television and radio transmission by direct controlling journalists and the advertising market. The media surveillance and repression system was implemented by the Ministry of Communication – who exercised total control over information; the Conseil Supérieur de la Communication – which carried out research and sector studies, also measuring audience quotas; the Agence Tunisienne des Communications Extérieures, which acted as the regime’s propaganda tool; and the Agence Tunisienne de l’Internet, that filtered information available to foreign journalists and controlled – unscrupulously censoring – internet sites. The revolution dismantled the structure of this repressive apparatus. Indeed, after the fall of the dictator, an assembly of elders, l’Istance National pour la Réforme de l’information et de la Communication, was created to direct Tunisian media legislation towards a new era.
Leaving the HAICA and entering the journalists’ trade union was enough to understand that the process has been anything but smooth. Among the angriest unionists we found those who described ‘new’ media nepotism, as a family very similar to that governing in the old regime. They drew our attention to the quasi anarchic proliferation of audio-visual outlets, which the HAICA was battling against.[8] In fact, pirate radio stations[9] were the first to populate the new Tunisian media jungle. They made their voices heard in primarily community settings. Not only did the exorbitant cost of the licence – roughly 50 thousand euro a year – push them underground but also the complex process of dismantling state monopoly over this sector.
The regulations, which the HAICA is struggling to implement, is a necessary step to restore the Tunisian media landscape. The revolution has opened up margins of freedom never seen before in the country but it has simultaneously created a certain level of anarchy. The press, for instance, has been reduced to the role of a spokesperson for party requests. This has negatively impacted on professionalism and objective information. Paradoxically, freedom of expression enshrined by the new Constitution plays on this process. Today, after decades of censorship there are infinite ways to access information. However, without any form of control, the media would not be able to carry out its role as the fourth estate. It will therefore be up to HAICA, through it regulations; the magistracy – in cases where freedom of opinion is violated; and to journalists themselves, through a degree of self-censorship – to make themselves the guarantors of a new objective and pluralistic Tunisian media landscape.
The current media context is a battlefield in which a thicket of different factors and interests compete. Indeed, it is not merely characterised by the polarization between an Islamic and a secular pole. Despite presenting itself to the public as the most promising country affected by the ‘Arab Spring’, Tunisia has not been spared the development of partisan journalism. This was a natural consequence of the change in role of journalists in the aftermath of the revolutions. Their role shifted from those of government spokespersons to figures with a voice on media messages, which they channel. This confirms that the approach advanced by partisan journalism has become one of the fundamental features of post-revolutionary media systems. The latter has failed to lobby for rights and freedoms in order to sweeten the image of political and ideological allies.
Will the new political pathway and reforms carried out in the Tunisian media sector be capable of correcting the diffusion of partisan journalism? Not only will the future of news rooms – battlefields where the ferocious ideological and political clash between the country’s opposing forces are aired – depend on this, but also the identity of information agents who vacillate between being journalists, and backing specific political factions.
—
Azzurra Meringolo is the coordinator of Arab Media Report. A professional journalist who has worked in the Middle East for years, she is currently a researcher on the Mediterranean and the Middle East for the Institute of International Affairs (IAI). Here, she focuses on the Arab World with particular emphasis on Egypt. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations, is the chief editor of Affarinternazionali and author of The Guys of Tahrir Square. She has won the following journalism awards: Ivan Bonfanti (2012) and Montanelli (2013). Her doctoral thesis on Egyptian anti-Americanism was awarded the Maria Grazia Cutuli prize.
Notes
[1]Al-Ahram, 20 January 2012.
[2]In the transliteration from Arabic, a simplified standard has been privileged to facilitate the reading of the text by a non-Arabophone audience. Names and terms currently found in the Italian language have been transliterated according to their common usage, as opposed to following the scientific method of transliteration from Arabic.
[3]Followed by a devolution – at least in the case of Egypt.
[4]Although the role of the partisan journalist staunchly expressed itself in Egypt and Libya, it also dominated an equally bitter Tunisian transition.
[5]She is the daughter of Judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, fired in July 2001 after writing an open letter to the ex-President Ben Ali denouncing the magistrature’s lack of independence. Amira is also the cousin of Zouhair Yahyaoui – the pioneer of cyber-dissidence in Tunisia – who died aged 37 from a heart attack in March 2005 due to ill-treatment in prison.
[6]Kerim Bouzouita, “Al-Bawsala: la bussola che monitora la costituente tunisina”, in Arab Media Report, 5 February 2014.
[7]In the past it hosted the old Constituent Assembly.
[8]Azzurra Meringolo, “L’autorità radiotelevisiva nella Tunisia del post Ben Alì”, in Arab Media Report, 13 March 2014.
[9]Ernesto Pagano, “Stazioni pirata continuano ad affollare la giungla radio-televisiva tunisina”, in Arab Media Report, 23 April 2014.
Bibliography
AL-AHRAM, 20 January 2012.
BOURDIEU, P., “L’emprise du journalisme”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, Vol. 101-102, March 1994.
BOUZOUITA, Kerim, “Al-Bawsala: la bussola che monitora la costituente tunisina”, Arab Media Report, 5 February 2014.
MERINGOLO, Azzurra, “L’autorità radiotelevisiva nella Tunisia del post Ben Alì”, Arab Media Report, 13 March 2014.
– “Tra vignette e graffiti. L’auto rappresentazione femminile svela il paradosso di genere egiziano” in Renata Pepicelli (a cura di) Le donne nei media arabi. Tra aspettative tradite e nuove opportunità, Rome, Carocci, 2013.
PAGANO, Ernesto, “Stazioni pirata continuano ad affollare la giungla radio-televisiva tunisina”, Arab Media Report, 23 April 2014.
– “Auditel arabo: alla ricerca della pietra filosofale” Arab Media Report, 5 February 2014.
Translation Maria Elena Bottigliero