The Media and Democracy
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| John Willis of the IRI (Photo: R. Carmichael, VOA) |
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| Cambodia is moving in the right direction (sic!): Boeung Kak Lake residents protest forced eviction (Photo: Reuters) |
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| Kingdom of Wonder? Wonder why the cops shoot at unarmed civilians? (Photo: John Vink/Magnum) |
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Op-Ed by MP
IRI's findings are just another Win-Win endorsement of a closed single party state.
I don't know the methods used to gather public opinion on the government's performance or the effects of public policies on social issues such as public services like roads and the like, but I do see that the majority of Cambodians still live in a closed, insulated environment where public information and opinion making are still largely a product of manufactured uniformity where diversity or dissent is neither tolerated nor encouraged.
It would be interesting to ask the public instead questions pertaining to that closed climate of uniformity, out of which public views of social issues are patterned and shaped, which such findings can be said to merely mirror in the first place. For example, respondents could be quizzed on how much they know about the management and manipulation of television broadcasting operation in Cambodia; how much of an influence/representation, if any, do opposition parties and civil society or organisation have via these state-controlled information delivering outlets; who decide what news items to be aired; who own and fund these television stations; how many stations are owned by the state and how many are in private/commercial hands; what is the media's appropriate functions and responsibilities in respect of news coverage invariably devoted to highlighting the government's 'achievements' in a country still ranked among the world's poorest and most corruption plagued, or is that because negative news reportage has no constructive role to play in the developmental process? Is it because such news compromise or impair people's sense of well-being; that feel-good factor that only popular cultural shows and entertainment programmes are said to engender in their audience?; is it because Khmer people are not at all concerned or have no right to know how many kilometres of Khmer territory or how many villages had been ceded to Vietnam in the last 30 years?; is it because it is not their business to know how much their government has acquired in revenue from off-shore exploration deals, numerous land concessions and sand-dredging operations etc? Or how is this public fund being managed and ploughed back into the mainstream of the national economy?
