la nausée

I’ve actually got a few issues that I want to blog about, but let me focus on just one: the BBC World Service Poll on press freedom. Some pertinent links here:

• BBC World News, “World ‘divided’ on press freedom” (10 December 2007)
• BBC, BBC World Service Poll: World Divided on Press Freedom, (10 December 2007) (”BBC Report”) (1.86MB .pdf file)
• Todayonline.com, “Social stability is key: Poll” (11 December 2007)
• Readings From a Political Duo-ble, “Singaporeans for Free Media?”
• theonlinecitizen, “A government-controlled media is superior to a free media?”

Anyway, these are the portions of the BBC Report I wish to address:

GlobeScan President Doug Miller comments, “While people generally support a free media, the Western view of the necessity of a free press to ensure a fair society is not universally shared across all regions of the world.” (p. 3, BBC Report)

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Freedom of the Press vs. Social Stability
People across 14 countries were asked to choose which of two statements on the freedom of the media was closest to their own view:

• Freedom of the press to report the news truthfully is very important to ensure we live in a fair society, even if it sometimes leads to unpleasant debates or social unrest.
• While freedom of the press to report news truthfully is important, social harmony and peace are more important which sometimes means controlling what is reported for the greater good.

In most countries, press freedom is considered more important than stability. The exceptions are India, Singapore and Russia where around 48 percent support controls to ensure peace and stability and around 40 percent feel press freedom supersedes stability. (p. 5, BBC Report)

I will attempt to deal with the normative, rather than the positive: should press freedom or social stability be regarded as more important?

Do you see how the above question (”press freedom or social stability more important?”) is a loaded one? The subtext is simple: that there is an inverse correlation between press freedom and social stability. You can’t have your cake and eat it.

If plotted as a graph function (let’s call it the Press Freedom / Social Stability function, or PFSS), you’d get something much like your good ‘ol Production Possibilities Curve, with press freedom and social stability as two types of ‘goods’:

Image Temporarily Unavailable.

Ex hypothesi, Country A has relatively high social stability; it incurs the opportunity cost of having poor freedom of press. Conversely, the citizens of Country B enjoy substantial press freedom, but their government and political institutions are teetering on the verge of collapse.

Now, given such a PFSS, what is the rational thing to do? Well, if a country were under the PFSS curve, this would mean it has extra ‘capacity’, i.e. it can improve either its press freedom, its social stability, or both. Once a country is on the PFSS curve, though, exactly where on the PFSS curve it chooses to be, is left entirely to it. Every point along the PFSS curve is a rational combination of X amount of press freedom with Y amount of social stability.

This point is important. If we accept the first PFSS curve above, we would most probably accept a relativist view of what is the best outcome in terms of press freedom and social stability: “It depends.” Each country would be free to choose (rationally) any point along the PFSS curve. Atlantis may maintain a high degree of press freedom at the expense of social stability, whereas El Dorado might do the opposite — and both would be acting rationally. Absent any other consideration, there is no requirement that every country act to maximize its press freedom.

Is the first PFSS curve true, though?

I would contend that it isn’t. Instead, reality corresponds more closely to the second PFSS curve below:

Basically, this curve posits a positive correlation between press freedom and social stability over a certain range, until the law of diminishing marginal returns sets in. Now, if this second PFSS curve is correct, this means that instead of having several rational combinations of press freedom and social stability along the PFSS curve to choose from, there is only one rational combination, i.e. where the marginal returns on social stability from that last added unit of press freedom hit zero. Thus, there is only one goal: to attain the position of Country D. Any other position (e.g. Country C) is sub-optimal, and thus, irrational (ceteris paribus).

Of course, the PFSS curve may differ from country to country, depending on the salient geopolitical and socio-cultural features. But the conclusion is the same: each country ought to maximize its press freedom, up to point D. It is not rational to opt for point C instead.

Can this second PFSS curve be defended? Yes, I think it can.

We know that the press can be an incendiary tool, used to spark off revolutions against a despotic government (e.g. in the days before the French Revolution, there was Jean-Paul Marat’s L’Ami du peuple). Seen thus, the press appears to be a progenitor of social unrest. In Singapore, one historical example would be the 1950 riots over the case of Maria Hertogh, the Dutch-born girl raised as a Muslim. In the lead-up to the 11 December 1950 riots, there is much to be said about the role of the local press in fanning the flames of inter-racial enmity.

That much we know — the Government reminds us often enough. But can a free press promote social stability? To which we should answer: why not?

First, a free press enables a broad spectrum of ideas to be voiced and heard, which in turn leads to greater social cohesiveness. It is not opening up, but closing down, which strains the social fabric. Cass R. Sunstein, in his book, Why Societies Need Dissent, points to the phenomenon of ‘group polarization’: put a group of like-minded people together, and after some discussion, they are likely to end up in an even more extreme position than they started out with. A free press prevents that, because it ensures that the lines of communication between various opinion groups are kept open. As long as people keep talking to one another (even if they get upset with another viewpoint), balkanization is unlikely to occur.

Second, in the words of Louis D. Brandeis: sunlight is the best disinfectant. Arguably, what poses the greatest threat to social harmony, is the ‘asteroid belt’ of crackpot ideas out there at the fringe of our shared politics. The solution, however, is not to pretend that these crackpot ideas don’t exist. Ignore them, and they are allowed to fester, eating away at the foundations of our society. The best (and possibly only) way to deal with them, is to drag them out into the open, so that they are properly and thoroughly discredited. And that’s where a free press is needed.

Third, a free press ensures government accountability. Its promise thus is one of long-term social stability. Yes, stifle the publication of dissent, and you may get some order and subservience, for a while. But events such as the Soviet collapse show us that this stability is only an illusion — eventually, reality catches up with you, people finally yank the wool out of their eyes.

The economist Amartya Sen has written much on what he sees as the positive correlation between civil rights and economic development. In particular, he makes the startling assertion that, in the history of mankind, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. There are at least two reasons why this could be so: a free press ensures that every citizen’s claim can be heard by everyone else; it further compels the government to respond to those claims.

If freedom of press at least partially contributes to economic development (which in turn makes for more stable societies), it also directly contributes to social stability. By holding the government continually accountable for every decision it makes or every policy it institutes, a free press reduces the risk that discontent will build up (without a meaningful outlet) until there is a destabilizing, even violent, change of power. A free press therefore acts as part pressure-valve, part feedback mechanism.

The foregoing analysis shows that the second PFSS curve (based on a positive correlation between press freedom and social stability) is a more accurate model. The common assumption (evident in the BBC Report) that, first, there is some kind of trade-off between these 2 goods, and second, that this trade-off may be rationally achieved through several different PFSS combinations, is flawed.

Instead, press freedom and social stability go hand in hand, and it is possible (and optimal) for a society to have high amounts of both press freedom and social stability.

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Unfortunately, this blog post spawned more discussion than I’d originally planned. But at least my position on press freedom in general is made quite clear.