The role of social and digital media in extending freedom of expression.

By Denis Jjuuko

Legacy media in Uganda have a lot of debates/talkshows/phone-ins going on, but a lot of these radio stations prefer to discuss Barack Obama’s policies that have no effect on Ugandans than their own leaders. When they discuss Uganda’s policies, they easily cut off callers who they may think have gone astray—in this case freely expressing their views. I think there is fear that the media regulator may come for their transmitters. And probably most media owners being less interested in freedom of expression, reprimand such media personnel who won’t adhere to the rules of muzzling freedom of expression.

This has given the rise in the use of social media tools most notably Facebook, Twitter and video sharing platform YouTube. There are other digital platforms such as blogs that have become popular for users in expressing their views. And of course those who are against press freedom aren’t happy about it.

Because mostly it hasn’t been easy for regulators to cramp down on social media and other digital platforms (even though anti-censorship technology is being used in Iran, cyber attacks in Belarus, internet monopoly in Ethiopia, state-supported email designed to take over journalists’ personal computers in China). And according to a recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 69 journalists have been imprisoned for content that solely appeared online.

There has always been a debate on whether Facebook posts and tweets on Twitter are journalism. And whether freedom of expression the way we understand it in journalism could be extended to conversations on social networks and other digital media platforms. For me, this is not the case, social networks are just platforms in the same way newsprint is for print journalists.

Social media and other digital platforms, therefore extend freedom of expression. And that is the main reason the regulator has been and is still trying to bring it down in the wake of the walk to work campaigns. At least that’s how freedom of expression has always been muzzled by states for centuries.

How do these platforms extended freedom of expression?

• Even though regulators and governments will register some success in blocking these platforms, at least the internet will not be easy to fully shut down and unlike legacy media, social networks and digital platforms allow journalists to publish from anywhere for a much more wide audience.  
• Journalists can publish freely what their editors could not for specific reasons---commercial, political, professional, or otherwise.
• News tips that journalists could work on and bring to the mainstream – influencing the agenda and helping create more inclusiveness in freedom of expression
• Timeless and limitless, and enabling authors to create multi links for their stories and opinions
• But also reduces the exclusivity of the beneficiaries of press freedom  through SMS texts and postings on the web thereby creating more stakeholders for press freedom and freedom of extension as indicated by Guy Berger (2010) in an earlier presentation on press freedom
• Low cost of entry or even zero costs of entry extend freedom of extension. More people who would otherwise have no access to legacy media can use these tools to express their views

Opportunities for media

• Stories can be easily broken using cellphones and other portable digital devices faster and quicker before state agents could put fire to the printed materials, the press machines, or carry away the transmitter
• Empowers journalists to provide journalism in more ways than one through tweets, postings, and video and photo uploads.
• Integration of legacy and social media by extending letter pages and op-eds to enable more comments for legacy media.

The Future

• As indicated in a CPJ report on the occasion of this year’s World Press Freedom Day, there is need to empower journalists with the skills to utilize anti-censorship technologies, protection of source data and identities is as well important (see 10 Tools of Online Oppressor. www.cpj.org).

Conclusion

Any extension of freedom of expression whether it is for professional journalists or citizens gives us hope for much more press freedom. Even though censorship strategists are working on ways of taking this freedom away that is offered by social media and other digital media platforms, journalists must continue to demand for more freedom of expression.

This is an abridged version of Denis Jjuuko’s presentation at the journalism symposium to mark World Press Freedom Day 2011 held at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala Uganda. www.facebook.com/djjuuko. @Denis_Jjuuko on Twitter.