Gunaratne, S.A. (Ed.). (2000)
The
Handbook of the Media in Asia. New Delhi: SAGE Publications India
The Media in Asia: An Overview
Shelton A. Gunaratne
Contents
This volume follows the customary division of Asia into the South, the Southeast and the East. It excludes Oceania, as well as the parts of the Asian continent that belong to the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. Yet this book covers an area inhabited by 3.2 billion people or 56 percent of the world’s population. They live in 23 countries, two autonomous economies—Hong Kong, which Britain reverted to China in July 1997, and Macau, which Portugal will revert to China in December 1999—and an independent economy—Taiwan, a breakaway province of China.
The seven countries in South Asia—excluding Afghanistan, which is more akin to the Middle East—belong to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). They have set up plans to liberalize trade within the region by 2001 through the creation of a South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement. Within SAARC, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka have formed the Bay of Bengal Club. Another offshoot group comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal was also in the offing. Excepting the Maldives and Sri Lanka, SAARC belongs to the world’s low-income countries, which the World Bank has defined as those with a Gross National Product per capita of $785 or less. In terms of the Human Development Index, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Pakistan are in the medium category while the others are in the low category. South Asia accounts for 1.3 billion inhabitants or 39 percent of Asia’s total population.
The 10 countries in Southeast Asia belong to the Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). [This number excludes East Timor, which separated from Indonesia in 1999.] They fall into all four income categories as defined by the World Bank. Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, comprising a total population of 141 million, are low-income countries. Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, with a total population of 337 million, are in the lower middle-income category—countries with a GNP per capita of $786 to $3,125. Malaysia is the only country in the upper middle-income category—countries with a GNP per capita of $3,126 to $9,655. Brunei Darussalam and Singapore, comprising a total population of 3.4 million, belong to the upper-income category—economies with a GNP per capita of $9,656 or more.. In terms of the HDI, Singapore and Brunei are in the high human development category; Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia in the medium category; and Laos in the low category. Southeast Asia as a whole has 500 million people or almost 16 percent of Asia’s total population. (The currency crisis that afflicted the region in late 1997 may have shifted some countries to a lower level.)
East Asia Asia has four of the richest economies in Asia. However, the vast majority of the people are in China, which belongs to the lower middle-income category, together with North Korea. The populations in these two countries exceed 1.2 billion. Sparsely populated Mongolia is the only low-income country. The other economies fall into the upper-income category. In terms of the HDI, China, Mongolia (and possibly North Korea) are in the medium human development category while the others are in the high category. . The region as a whole has almost 1.5 billion people or about 45 percent of Asia’s total population.
In Asia, press freedom—as defined by Freedom House—is
not necessarily correlated with the economic standing of a country. (The
correlation between the per capita GNP and Freedom House scores was a negative
0.31.) Press freedom is higher in the low-income countries of South
Asia (bar the Maldives, Bhutan and Pakistan—which returned to
military rule in late 1999) than in the middle-income countries of Southeast
Asia (bar Thailand, Philippines and possibly Indonesia—which became
freer under President Wahid in late 1999). However, the upper-income
economies of East Asia have greater press freedom than all other
Asian countries. South Korea transformed itself into a free and open media
system following the overturn of Chun Doo-Hwan’s regime in 1987; and Taiwan
transformed itself similarly with the lifting of martial law in 1988 (Heuvel
& Dennis, 1993).
Press freedom in Asia: An Occidental view
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers." However, more than half a century after the adoption of the declaration, its practical application has much to be desired. Mehra (1986), a South Asian scholar, says, "Publicly, all societies profess to be free. In practice, no society permits absolute freedom; restraints only come in varying degrees. The issue becomes even more complex during interaction among societies with different levels of freedom" (p. xii).
The annual Freedom House survey of press freedom worldwide makes that point clear. The 1998 survey rated Norway as the freest. Yet it had a restriction score of 5 on a scale of 1 through 100. Nauru and New Zealand came second with a score of 6. Bahamas came next with 7. Marshall Islands and Switzerland followed with 8. Australia, Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden came next with 10, followed by Canada, Germany and Jamaica with 11.Only then came the United States with a score of 12 in the company of Austria and Iceland. Thus the land of the First Amendment was not the freest in press freedom on the Freedom House criteria. Significantly, not a single Asian country came within the first tier of free-press countries scoring 15 or less. Japan, the freest in Asia had a restriction score of 19. Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines were the only other Asian nations that qualified as free with scores not exceeding 30 (Table 1).
Sussman (1998) asserts that Freedom House measures press freedom worldwide on a set of criteria founded on Article 19 placing emphasis on the singular indefinite pronoun everyone. Freedom House measures the level of press freedom using four criteria: A = Laws and regulations that influence media content. B = Political pressures and controls on media content. C = Economic influences over media content. D = Repressive actions. The first three criteria are judged on a scale of 0-15 and the fourth on a scale of 0-5 for both broadcast and print media. Not free (NF) are those countries with scores of 61 to 100; partly free (PF), those with 31 to 60; and free (F), those with 0 to 30.
On the basis of these criteria, South Asia has no nation within the “free” category; Southeast Asia has two—Philippines and Thailand; and East Asia has four—Japan, Taiwan South Korea and Mongolia. (Freedom House has not rated Hong Kong and Macau, both of which now belong to China.) Five countries in South Asia—India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and (pre-Musharraf) Pakistan—fall into the “partly free” category, together with one country—Indonesia—in Southeast Asia. “Not free” are two countries in South Asia—the Maldives and Bhutan, as well as post-coup Pakistan; seven in Southeast Asia— Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei and Myanmar; and two in East Asia—China and North Korea.
The Freedom House survey paints a grim picture of Asia: Only 7.1 percent of Asians (228 million people) enjoy a "free" press while 41.8 percent (1.3 billion) have access to a "partly free" press. More than one-half (51.1 percent or 1.6 billion) of Asians, are "not free" in terms of press freedom.
Sussman (1998) draws a connection between the authoritarian tendencies and the economic misfortunes that befell Asia in 1997. In his view, "pervasive and institutionalized" press controls had disabled transparency in two Asian nations in particular—Malaysia and Indonesia—that people remained ignorant of corruption, cronyism and bad economic policy. In Malaysia, individuals and companies close to the ruling coalition own the broadcast media and the major newspapers. "Conflicts with Malaysian values" can be sufficient reason for the government to withdraw a broadcast license. In Indonesia, the radio network of the government, comprising 49 broadcasting and 309 transmitting stations, provided official news reports that all "private" stations also had to carry. The official journalists’ association issued licenses to all journalists thereby ensuring "consensual journalism" or self-censorship (p. 1).
[Table 1]
[Figure 1]
In South Asia, as Table 1 shows, laws and regulations affecting media content are at a high point in the Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan. Political pressures and controls on media content are high in all the countries, except on print media in India. Economic influences on media content are high in Bangladesh (print) and Bhutan (broadcast). Pakistan stands out on repressive action although Ali and Gunaratne (this volume) see changes for the better—an optimism dashed by another military coup in late 1999. Repressive action on print media has increased in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan as well (see Table 2 in the introduction to South Asia section). Amic, the Asian mass media documentation center in Singapore, has published comprehensive compilations of mass media laws and regulations in India (Venkateswaran, 1993), Sri Lanka (Selvakumaran & Edrisinha, 1995), Bangladesh (Gaziul Hoque, 1992), Pakistan (Jabbar & Isa, 1997) and Nepal (Pokhrel & Koirala, 1995).
[Table 2]
In Southeast Asia, as Table 2 shows, Myanmar scores almost the maximum on all four criteria of press restrictions. Indonesia and Brunei are ahead of Communist Vietnam in overall press restrictions. Laws and regulations affecting media content have reached the zenith in Myanmar and Vietnam, closely followed by Brunei, Singapore and Laos. Political pressures on both broadcast and print media have reached the maximum in Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam and Cambodia, closely followed by Malaysia. Economic influences on both broadcast and print media are highest in Myanmar and on print media in Singapore. Repressive actions are at their maximum in Myanmar, Indonesia and Cambodia. Teodoro and Kabatay (1998) have documented the legislation affecting the mass media in the Philippines, the country with the highest press freedom in Southeast Asia. Ang and Yeo (1998) and Faruqui and Ramanathan (1998) have compiled a similar compendium for Singapore and Malaysia respectively.
[Table 3]
In East Asia, as Table 3 shows, laws and regulations
affecting media content, as well as political pressures, have reached high
points in North Korea and China, the two Communist countries in the region.
Economic influences over content, as well as repressive actions, have also
reached the maximum points in North Korea. China is also at the maximum
in repressive actions on print media. South Korea scores high on political
pressures on print media.
Asian Values: An Oriental view
Does the dearth of press freedom in Asia reflect what some identify as "Asian values"? If so, do such values run counter to Article 19 of the human rights declaration? Menon (Amic, 1994) says:
Is the Occidental view of pluralism at variance with the Asian perspective of press freedom? Some ASEAN journalists have proposed an Asian model of journalism in which the press works with the government to build a national consensus. They contend that the national press, as an instrument of nation building, should support the state’s development efforts. They say that the media need scrutiny because journalism is too important to be left to journalists (Masterton, 1996). Latif (1998) says that an Asian journalist “must respect, embrace and voice the authenticity of Asia” (p. 14); and that an Asian journalist cannot be free until he or she repudiates “colonial textuality” (p. 11). Chua Lee Hoong (in Latif, 1998) contends that Singapore editors have bluntly rejected “the 19th century notion of the press as the ‘Fourth Estate’” (p. 147). [Seow (1998), however, argues that the Singapore press has become the mouthpiece of the state, using invidious self-censorship to distort the news.]
The notion of press-government harmony is implicit in some definitions of developmental journalism as well. But Hartmann, Patil and Dighe (1989), in their study of Indian villages, hardly found evidence to support Schramm’s (1964) view of the “miraculous” potential of the mass media as “information multipliers.” They contended that “mass communications play little part” in the success of government-initiated developmental activities without the involvement of “the people concerned as participants” (p. 266).
Thus the press-government harmony model might merely relegate the press to be the public relations arm of the government as in the case of the Communist model thereby causing a media credibility gap. People, whether Asian or not, tend to distrust the mass media too closely associated with the government. Most Asian countries have in place an adversarial political party system inherited from colonial rule. Within such a structure, press freedom must reflect an adversarial press as well.
Locke (1998) says Western culture "is objectively the best" because it values reason, individual rights, and science and technology (p. A4). He draws attention to John Locke’s contention that individuals do not exit to serve governments, but rather that governments exist to protect individuals, who have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thus the Occident emphasizes individual rights as when Sussman (1998) asserts that the starting point of press freedom "is the smallest, most universal unit of concern: the individual" (p. 14). He says the operative word of Article19 is everyone—meaning the individual. As Mehra (1989) elucidates, the Occident views man as "a rational animal with an inherent dignity" and "sovereignty to determine his acts and destiny" (p. 1). This viewpoint has produced "the individualistic, democratic, egalitarian and liberal tradition of Western political theory" (p. 3). The Orient, on the other hand, does not necessarily accept "the notion of man as purely a rational animal or as an end in himself" (p. 3). The Asians "value their consensual and communal traditions with their emphasis on duties and obligations to the collective and social harmony" (p. 3).
This "epistemological distinction," however, is insufficient to explain the dearth of press freedom in Asia. Press freedom is an abstract concept that the Asian-values school may denigrate in the absence of a clear operational definition. Freedom House has operationalized the obstacles to press freedom within the context of Article 19. The question to resolve is whether the four strands of obstacles—legal, political and economic obstacles and repressive actions—are pertinent criteria to measure press freedom even if one were to construe press freedom as a collective right?
The MacBride Commission asserted:
Are political and economic pressures and repressive actions consistent with maintaining social harmony or the collective right to communicate? A South Asian seminar on communication ethics emphasized the indispensability of “commitment to truth, respect for human dignity and concern for the vulnerable, disadvantaged and oppressed” (Amic, 1997, p. v). This Asian perspective, in fact, is consistent with the call to remove the four strands of obstacles implicit in the annual Freedom House assessment of press freedom.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir appears to equate Asian values with "not-so-liberal democracies" that provide "political stability, long-range vision, and consistency" (Mahathir and Ishihara, 1995, p. 84). He says that from an Asian perspective "democracy does not confer a license for citizens to go wild" (p. 83). Mahathir, however, rejects the authoritarian and Communist models of the press because within such models wisdom becomes the monopoly of a few, and power becomes the determinant of truth. He also rejects the libertarian model because there aren’t too many ultra-stable countries "where full, free and utter license can be allowed to run riot" (quoted in Mehra, 1989, p. 114). He opts for a socially responsible press that must compete in the economic marketplace "within the bounds of decency and responsibility" (p. 116). Mahathir advocates the greatest media freedom consonant with the vital interests of society. Freedom House assessment shows a very high degree of political pressure on media content in Malaysia. The press has to follow the Rukunegara, the Malaysian national ideology that stresses national unity, democracy, social equity, progressive thought and traditional culture. The distinctions among authoritarian, Communist and social responsibility press models become unclear within Mahathir’s Asian perspective.
In a 1984 address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew said the theory of the press as the Fourth Estate did not fit Singapore, which had to build one nation out of four racial groups that had "co-existed in separate segments of the island demarcated by the British for disparate immigrant groups" (quoted in Mehra, 1989, p. 119). He cited India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka where the practice of "the marketplace contest of ideas" had "ended in less than happy results" (p. 118). In his view, media in these countries had produced "confusion and dissension" instead of building "enlightenment and consensus" (p. 6). These remarks, however, reflect the absence of a consensus on a collective Asian perspective of a free press. [Lee expressed a revised viewpoint in a speech at the Asian Media Conference in Los Angeles in October 1998. Because the new information technology had made it impossible for governments to suppress inconvenient news, he said, the best governments could do was “to require the official view to be carried in the media, along with other views over which they have no control” (The Straits Times, Oct. 31 and Nov.2, 1998).] Within ASEAN itself, the Philippines, Thailand and possibly Indonesia (under Wahid) have opted for the so-called Western model. In East Asia, Mongolia, Taiwan and South Korea have joined Japan and Hong Kong in practicing the free-press model.
Pancasila—the five principles—embodied in the preamble of the1945 Indonesian constitution determines the limits of media freedom in the archipelago. Article 1 of the code of ethics of the Indonesian Journalists Association requires its members to be faithful to Pancasila: belief in one and supreme god; a just and civilized humanity; national unity; democracy, led by the wisdom of consensus among representatives; and social justice for the people. Within this national ideology, the government closely monitors the mass media for tendentious or sensational writing relating to SARA--Suku (ethnic groups), Agama (religion), Ras (race) and Antar-golongan (inter-group relations). The Indonesian government claims that the Pancasila press philosophy is different from the authoritarian or the Communist models because it interweaves freedom with responsibility.
The long periods of colonialism—marked by a bewildering mix of liberalism and democracy—as well as ethnic, religious and other forms of civil strife, clearly have had an impact on the current state of the media in Asia. T. J. S. George (in Latif, 1998) argues that “in Asian countries, historical factors have brought about different realities in different societies" and that it “is neither prudent nor necessary to apply Western yardsticks to this scenario and praise one country or decry another” (p. 21). This school of thought also tends to place greater emphasis on the vitality and importance of grassroots and traditional forms of communication as evidenced in studies of the information flow in rural communities (e.g., Hartmann et al., 1989). B.G. Verghese (in Latif, 1998), however, adamantly states that “freedom of expression is properly a human right” (p. 32) and argues the need for a free flow of information. S. K. Datta-Ray (in Latif, 1998) points out the lack of a common Asian identity and claims that “the state of the Asian press is not far removed from the state of Asian politics” (p. 27).
The media profiles of the 25 Asian countries or economies that the contributors to this volume have developed clearly prove the veracity of George’s assertion that “historical factors have brought about different realities in different societies." However, they do not necessarily support his contention that the application of “Western yardsticks”—a highly abstract term—might not be prudent or necessary in these societies. These profiles, in fact, show a wide variety of “Asian values”—another highly abstract term—across these societies that “Asian values” fail to emerge as a viable substitute for “Western yardsticks” for determining media freedom.
The profiles show that countries in Asia broadly fall into the following political categories:
The first three models of the above classification represent varying degrees of authoritarianism rather than a value system common to all Asians. What is more important is to make the media system of a country more consistent with universal human values. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its covenants, as well as the NWICO vision of the MacBride Commission, provide the framework for promoting a socially responsible press in Asia and elsewhere. Pancasila, Rukunegara and similar national ideologies also can provide guidance for journalists within the UDHR framework. Debasing the watchdog function of the mass media as a Western-liberal value will not necessarily bring stability to nations in the long run. Case in point: Indonesia 1998. Masterton (1996) points out the lack of a general agreement on Asian values; and he observes, “News values ... are the same everywhere because human curiosity is the same everywhere” (p. 3).
Hamelink (in Hamelink & Mehra, 1990) points out that the universality of human rights could also mean the recognition of the concurrent existence of at least three concepts of those rights—the bourgeois/capitalist, the Marxist and the Islamic. But, he says, both the universalist and the relativist positions are fraught with risks. He argues: “Universalism may obscure a ‘human rights colonialism’ [that] abuses human rights as an instrument of foreign policy while relativism may imply an ethical relativism that amounts to moral indifference” (p. xvi). While the UDHR declares that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Article 19 of the ICPR not only attaches special duties and responsibilities to it but also subject it to legal restrictions related to areas such as defamation, national security, public health or morals, and public order. Are Asian values equivalent to conceding greater restrictions? [Bauer and Daniel (1999) present a collection of essays unmasking Asian values.]
Gunaratne (1976) contended that the media-subservience
protagonists, who vehemently criticized the libertarian concepts as irrelevant
Western norms, conveniently overlooked the Western contribution to authoritarian
concepts, which they found so relevant to the Third World. In the contemporary
context, one may well ask: Did "Asian values" originate in medieval Europe?
Gunaratne (1978) argued that "the democratic Third World governments could
promote developmental journalism better through fostering a socially responsible
independent
press rather than through media subservience" (p. 6). Gunaratne (1993)
wrote: "Democracy requires the press to point fingers and hurl accusations
through thorough investigation. In the process, errors will inevitably
occur" (p. 180). The solution, he suggested, was to promote ethics to hold
down partisanship and sensationalism. In this sense, the proposal to standardize
press ethics on a global scale (Venkateswaran, 1996, p. 10) is more pertinent
to promote socially responsible journalism than the forced imposition of
so-called "Asian values," which rulers in medieval Europe also practiced..
Lerner’s (1958) semi-theory postulated that urbanization and literacy, followed by media participation and political participation, produced the critical mass of "modernity" that propelled countries to the take off point of self-sustaining economic and social growth. Lerner hypothesized that "in populous societies, urbanization is the intervening variable [that] is crucial for the take-off toward increasing literacy" (p. 66). He said the "critical minimum" of urbanization was about 10 percent and the "critical optimum" 25 percent, beyond which "literacy continues to rise independently of the growth of cities" (p. 59).
The correlation between urbanization and literacy for all three regions of Asia, presuming the reliability of data in Table 4, was 0.59. For South Asia, the least economically developed region, the correlation was 0.31; for Southeast Asia, 0.43; and for East Asia, the most advanced region, 0.76. In South Asia, urbanization ranged from 7 percent in Bhutan to 35 percent in Pakistan while literacy ranged from 38.1 percent) in Nepal to 95.7 percent in the Maldives. The Lerner paradigm failed to hold for Pakistan, which had the region’s highest degree of urbanization but a low literacy rate of 40.9 percent—slightly higher than Bangladesh (38.9 percent) but lower than the least urbanized Bhutan (44.2 percent). On the other hand, Maldives and Sri Lanka stood out as havens of literacy (³ 90 percent) at the “critical optimum” of urbanization.
[Table 4]
No country in South Asia has reached a daily-newspaper circulation of 10 copies per 100 people that Unesco recommended in 1962 as a minimum goal. Only two countries in Southeast Asia—Singapore and Malaysia—had reached that goal. All countries in East Asia, except China and Mongolia, had exceeded that target. The "old paradigm" saw literacy as the prerequisite for mass media participation. The data in Table 4 produced an overall correlation of 0.51 between literacy and newspaper penetration (i.e., circulation per 100 people) with South Asia showing the lowest correlation, 0.31; Southeast Asia, 0.40; and East Asia, 0.97. This provides clear evidence of the existence of intervening variables, such as per capita income in relation to price, between literacy and newspaper penetration. On the other hand, an overall correlation of 0.87 exists between tertiary enrollment and newspaper penetration—0.86 for East Asia, 0.74 for Southeast Asia, but almost a negligible 0.06 for South Asia.
Unesco had also set a basic standard of five radio receivers per 100 people in 1962. Every country in Asia, except Bhutan and Nepal, has achieved this target. Radio penetration was highest in Sri Lanka in South Asia, Singapore in Southeast Asia and South Korea in East Asia. The overall correlation between literacy and radio penetration for Asia was 0.61—with 0.83 for South Asia, 0.43 for Southeast Asia, and 0.93 for East Asia. Thus literacy has a higher correlation with radio penetration than with newspaper penetration. Literacy has even a higher correlation with TV penetration: 0.64 overall for Asia—with 0.59 for South Asia, 0.62 for Southeast Asia and 0.77 for East Asia. Sri Lanka has the highest TV penetration in South Asia, Brunei in Southeast Asia, and Japan in East Asia. All Asian countries, except Bangladesh, Nepal and Cambodia, have exceeded the Unesco minimum standard of two TV receivers per 100 people.
The new electronic media are supplementing or in the process of replacing the old media as the world heads on toward the Third Communication Revolution. An efficient computer network connected to a digitized telecommunication infrastructure are vital for the proliferation of the new media encompassing the World Wide Web, electronic mail, etc. (Gunaratne, Safar Hasim & Kasenally, 1997). Table 4 provides the data for mainline telephone penetration and Internet-host penetration to determine where the three regions of Asia stand in the process of informatization.
Telephone penetration, i.e., mainline telephones per 100 people, exceeds 40 in Japan and the three Tigers in East Asia, where only North Korea, China and Mongolia are behind with a low penetration of four to six. However, even that low is much better than the telephone penetration of the whole of South Asia, except the Maldives, which has reached seven. The telephone penetration of less than two per 100 people reflects South Asia’s unsatisfactory economic development. In Southeast Asia, Singapore stands far ahead in telephone density, followed by Malaysia and Brunei. Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia are in the same category as South Asia. (The APT YearBook (1998) provides greater details on telecommunication in Asia.)
East Asia is well ahead in Internet penetration, i.e., hosts per 10,000 people, with Hong Kong (103) leading the way with Japan (93) and Taiwan (82) slightly trailing. However, China, Mongolia and North Korea—with less than one host per 10,000—have a long way to go just as much as all of South Asia and most of Southeast Asia. Singapore (153) stands way ahead of the rest of Asia in Internet penetration. Malaysia (15) and Brunei (11) are ahead of most other countries in Southeast Asia.
[Figure 2]
Although Naisbitt (1996) extols the economic success of East Asia, Frank (1993), the father of dependency theory, points out that the "successes" of the Four Tigers—Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan—and Japan was "not associated with much electoral democracy" (p. 19). Three of the Tigers had "prospered" under "completely authoritarian regimes, which are only now beginning to yield in response to economic success" (p. 20). Frank explains that these economies were not models of free market capitalism. He says that "in Korea and Taiwan, growth was heavily dependent, and in Singapore less so, on national state intervention and Japanese foreign investment" (p. 8). They "owe their present economic position either to political beginnings born of the Cold War ... or to racial/communal problems" (p. 8). As bastions of anticommunism, they benefited enormously from Western economic and political support.
This interpretation of the success of the Tigers gives a different twist to the argument that "Asian values" propelled them to economic heights and that political and media freedom associated with the Western or neo-liberal model are not vital prerequisites. The exceptional conditions under which the Tigers prospered do not provide an Asian-values model for the rest of Asia to emulate. However, the developing countries worldwide can learn much from the Tiger economies’ ability to be exceptionally competitive in the world material economy.
If one were to judge global competitiveness on the basis of the share of the world trade, South Asia scores very poorly. Although Asia’s share of world trade in 1996 was 25 percent or almost $1.4 trillion (Figure 1), the SAARC countries’ exports accounted for less than $50.2 billion (Figure 2). Thus their contribution to Asia’s share of world trade was a mere 4 percent—a clear indication of the need for an accelerated program for the education and training of their large population to become more globally competitive. India, the Goliath in the SAARC, exported merchandise valued at $33 billion. Pakistan’s exports totaled $9.3 billion, Sri Lanka’s $4.1 billion, and Bangladesh’s $3.3 billion. Others failed to reach the billion mark.
[Figure 3]
Southeast Asia accounted for 24 percent of Asia’s share of the world trade—far better than South Asia (Figure 2). Tiny Singapore was the economic Goliath of the sub-region. Singapore, unquestionably the most competitive in world trade, led the others in world trade with exports valued at $125 billion compared to Malaysia’s $78.4 billion, Thailand’s $53.7 billion, Indonesia’s $49.8 billion, the Philippines’ $20.4 billion, and Vietnam’s $7.1 billion. The ASEAN countries altogether exported merchandise valued at $335 billion.
East Asia is the most competitive sub-region of Asia. It accounted for 72 percent of Asia’s share of the world trade that translated into $990.5 billion in 1996 (Figure 2). Japan led the way with exports of merchandise valued at $411 billion. Hong Kong came second with exports of $181 billion, China third with $151 billion, South Korea fourth with $130 billion, Taiwan fifth with $116 billion and Macau sixth with $2 billion.
The competitive superiority of the Four Tigers becomes apparent from their share of Asia’s total world merchandise exports. That share is 40 percent compared to Japan’s 30 percent (Figure 5)
[Figure 5]
The World Economic Forum (1997-1999) ranked Singapore (first) and Hong Kong (second) at the top of global competitiveness both in 1997 and 1998 (though it ranked Hong Kong third in 1999). It used an analytical framework of eight factors to determine the ranks of 53 countries that produced more than 95 percent of world output, trade and investment flows: openness, government, finance, technology, infrastructure, management, labor, and institutions. Within that framework, seven other Asian economies earned positive scores in 1997: Taiwan (eighth) Malaysia (ninth), Japan (14th), Indonesia (15th), Thailand (18th), South Korea (21st), and China (29th) while three economies—Philippines (34h), India (45th), and Vietnam (49th)—earned negative scores.
Two other organizations—Heritage Foundation and Fraser Institute—ranked Singapore quite high (Freedom House, 1997). The Heritage Foundation rated Singapore the second freest nation (for investment) among the 140 it surveyed in 1995. Singapore’s low tax rate, the small share of gross domestic product consumed by government and its foreign investment laws explained these high ratings.
However, Freedom House (1997) rated Singapore "partly free" in its annual evaluation of political rights and civil liberties worldwide. (This is different from its "not free" assessment of Singapore vis-a-vis press freedom.) Singapore fared poorly on three factors: the ruling party’s de facto control of the trade unions, the difficulties private firms faced in competing against government-linked companies in several areas, and the Singaporean authorities’ tendency to treat earning a living or operating a business as a privilege rather than a right.
Eight Asian economies—Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines—topped the ranks in WEC’s 1997 Growth Index with scores ranging from 4.27 points to 7.66 points. Four other Asian economies showed positive but slower growth—India (10th), Taiwan (13th), South Korea (16th), and Japan (26th). WEC’s 1997 Market Growth Index ranked China second with a score of 24.67 points, outdone by only the United States. India, Japan, and Indonesia occupied the next three ranks with scores ranging from 6.30 points to 8.70 points. Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines also showed market growth exceeding one point.
South Korea received both a positive and negative rating from Freedom House (1997), which asserted that the country rated "free" on political freedom, but not economic. The reason: the government's policy of encouraging the growth of a few large conglomerates at the expense of the freedom of wage earners and would-be entrepreneurs. Freedom House said that over the long run, an unfree economy was unlikely to continue performing well.
Freedom House (1997)) ranked only Japan as "free"
in Asia. It ranked Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan
as "partly free." It gave the "mostly not free" rank to Cambodia, India,
(pre-Musharraf) Pakistan and South Korea. Finally, Bangladesh, Burma, China,
Indonesia, North Korea and Vietnam received the "not free" rank [The post-Suharto
changes have shifted Indonesia from this category.].
One can apply the elements of the dependency-world system theory to analyze the center-periphery structure emerging in Asia based on world merchandise exports. Barnett et al. (1996) used this theoretical framework to examine and evaluate the structure of the global telecommunication network. Their findings supported the basic premise of the theory that the "position in the world telecommunication system affects a country’s economic and social development" (p. 40).
The early dependency models (e.g., Frank, 1969; Galtung, 1971) attributed a country’s internal class structure to external domination, but the subsequent modifications of the model (e.g., Cardoso & Faletto, 1979) recognized the potential for internal class struggle and reform in the periphery without a radical break with the center. The world system theory (e.g., Wallerstein, 1979; Frank & Gills, 1993) explained the long-term cycles associated with shifts in the international system. This theory, which used the world system as the basic unit of analysis, incorporated the core-periphery concepts of the dependency model and added another level of development, the semi-periphery, that allowed "for the possibility of upward and downward mobility in the world system" (Barnett et al., 1996, p. 22). Both theories, which focus on distribution and exchange rather than production, share a basic premise: that a country’s position in the world system affects its development and wellbeing.
The structure of the countries in Asia in the world system, as well as within the region, emerges when we assign the countries to the three levels conceptualized in the dependency-world system theory on the basis of their ability to compete in the global economy. If exports of commercial merchandise and services are a reasonable measure of competitiveness, the following picture emerges:
[Table 5]
The World Trade Organization (1997) data documented that in 1996 Asia accounted for 25.6 percent of the world merchandise exports, next to Western Europe’s 44.6 percent. The same pattern held true for world exports of commercial services: Asia’s share was 22.7 percent, next to Western Europe’s 48 percent.
Although Asia—as defined for this volume—represents 56 percent of the world’s 5.8 billion people (Table 4), its share of the world trade falls far behind its potential in human resources. Asia’s competitiveness in the world material economy must more than double in the next millennium to overtake Western Europe, which has established itself on the foundation of a long colonial history. The trade data show that the large majority of Asian economies have little to do with Asia’s success in the global economy. That success reflects the enterprise of Japan and the semi-periphery economies.
A less satisfactory way to look at the center-periphery structure is to arrange the world economies on the basis of per capita Gross National Product. We may confer the status of the center on those that the World Bank has categorized as high-income economies. These economies are Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei Darussalam, Macau, Taiwan, and South Korea. Japan is the supreme leader in this Center group.
The semi-periphery will then consist of what the World Bank calls upper middle-income economies. Malaysia is the only economy in Asia that falls into this category. Then come the second-tier semi-periphery economies—Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Maldives, and North Korea. The low-income economies comprise the periphery. The world’s two Goliaths—China and India—and all other Asian economies fall into this category. This analysis is less satisfactory because it fails to take into account the ability to compete in the global economy. Moreover, the range of income within each category is relatively arbitrary
The less-satisfactory method of determining the center-periphery structure places 82 percent of Asia’s population is in the periphery. It places 11 percent in the second-tier semi-periphery and a mere 7 percent in the center and the first-tier semi-periphery. It’s this last category that is responsible for more than three-fourths of the 26 percent share of Asia’s world merchandise exports, and for more than three-fourths of the 20 percent share of world exports of services. The periphery lags way behind in the world exports of merchandise and services. It contributes slightly more than one-sixth to Asia’s share of merchandise exports, and a mere one-ninth to Asia’s share of exports of services.
As Roach (1998) puts it: "Asian countries other than Japan account for just 7 percent of global trade – or just 1.5 percent of the world's gross domestic product. Even if Asia collapsed completely, it would hardly bring the global economy to it knees" (p. A21). This structural analysis based on trade and economic data indicate that economic progress in Asia is tremendously lopsided, with 93 percent of the population yet to learn how to compete successfully in the world material economy.
The center-periphery structure of Asia based on trade
flow is important because information flow among countries tend to follow
the trade flow. Mowlana (1997) says: “Interestingly, the nature, pattern,
and direction of the world economy are more or less parallel and depict
the directionality of world information flow. In almost all kinds of information
flow, whether it is news or data, educational, scientific, or human flow,
the pattern is the same” (p. 218). Global-information-flow analysts who
construct hypotheses within the structural framework, however, should recognize
the potential of generating spurious results if they analyze only the elite
media. The periphery’s “bridgeheads” or elites have similar interests
as those in the center (see Galtung, 1971). Because the Internet is largely
the preserve of the elites in the developing countries, the on-line media
in the center and the periphery may show more similarities than differences.
Gunaratne (2000) examines the prospects and limitations of the world system
theory for media analysis.
About this volume
This volume provides a fresh look at the media in Asia to complement the work of the Euromedia Research Group (1997) on the media in Western Europe. It also supplements and updates, wherever possible, other publications on media in Asia or its sub-regions (e.g., Amic, 1994; Goonasekera & Holaday, 1998; Vanden Heuvel & Dennis, 1993; Lent, 1972, 1978, 1982; Mehra, 1989). Moreover, unlike the Western interpretations of Third World mass media (e.g., Hachten, 1997; Merrill, 1995), this volume provides a predominantly Asian interpretation of Asian media. However, an Asian interpretation does not necessarily mean disharmony with Western interpretation.
The country profiles draw our attention to some significant trends in
the development of media in Asian countries at the beginning of the millennium.
The work on this volume started in late 1997 with an international
search for contributors. The editor completed the manuscript with the regional
introductions in May 1999 after the Thailand chapter arrived from a new
contributor. Coordinating the work of 36 contributors was a challenge despite
the technological facilities that enabled rapid exchange of lengthy manuscripts
through cyberspace. The editor wishes to thank the contributors and the
publisher for their cooperation throughout the project.
One monumental problem the editor faced was getting the latest reliable
data on the traditional media—newspapers, radio and television for each
of the 25 economies that are in varying stages of social, economic and
political development. Latest data on the new electronic media are more
readily available because of the current emphasis on achieving faster development
through telecommunications. Most Asian countries do not have independently
audited newspaper circulation data. UNESCO takes about two years to release
its data on newspapers, radio and television, mostly based on government
sources. UNESCO’s statistical surveys fail to adhere to a uniform standard
because some countries use different definitions, classifications and methods
of enumeration. Even though newspaper circulation data should refer to
the number of copies distributed, in some cases the figures reported are
the number of copies printed (World Bank, 1999). Moreover, radio owners
fail to report ownership in those countries that impose radio license fees
to help pay for public broadcasting. Thus the estimates of newspaper and
radio penetration vary widely in reliability. UNESCO and ITU often present
divergent data on television penetration for the same country. For instance,
UNESCO’s and ITU’s 1996 estimates on TV receivers in Indonesia are 13.5
million and 25 million respectively. ITU obtains data on TV sets and cable
TV subscribers through annual questionnaires sent to national broadcasting
authorities and industry associations. In countries that require registration
of TV sets, data distortion occurs to the extent households fail to comply
with that requirement. UNESCO data on radio penetration also often differ
from the data in the World Radio TV Handbook. For instance, UNESCO’s 199
estimate of the number of radio receivers in the Philippines is 11.5 million
in comparison to WRTH’s current estimate of 8.3 million. The Editor &
Publisher International Year Book continues to list defunct newspapers,
such as Sinar Harapan of Indonesia and Dawasa of Sri Lanka, and publish
old circulation data with no warning. Thus readers should use caution in
interpreting the data on the penetration of newspapers, radio and television.
Readers who detect inconsistencies in the tabulated data should check the
source.
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