Government–media relations in Tunisia: a paradigm shift in the culture of governance?

Abstract

The removal of the Ben Ali regime from power in Tunisia raised fundamental questions over the future role and structure of the country's media. A new structural relationship with government would have to reflect changes in ownership patterns and a new narrative about the media's future function. The government too had to adjust to a new relationship with the media in a participatory political system in transition. This paper discusses how and why these concepts have developed in the way that they have. The learning processes involved have been more difficult than first imagined, especially for government, and the environment in which the media has operated has become more difficult, a factor which has affected, both the media and its relationship with government. The key events have been elections and the consequences of Ennahda's victory, the assassinations of two prominent political activists and Tunisia's new constitution approved in January 2014. Connected with these events has been the worsening security environment with the growth in salafi–jihadi extremism and Tunisia's declining economic fortunes. Yet perhaps the most difficult issue has been the actual development of media–government relations. Media professionals had assumed that the relationship under the former regime, in which the media served as the obedient handmaiden to government, would be abandoned and replaced by a genuinely free information space automatically encouraged by government. In reality, the coalition government, and its successor have realised the utility of a media subservient to government and have been reluctant to support proper freedom of information and communication. In short, they have repeated the practices of their predecessor, justifying such authoritarian action as an entitlement of government. In reality, they have revealed their own anxieties about media freedom and fears over the dissemination of opposition opinions. The arbitrary practices of authoritarian rule had not been eradicated and the media was still seen as a weapon in a political struggle, rather than as an essential vehicle of public participation in the construction of a new political order. This is, therefore, the major problem that must now be tackled by Tunisia's new media.