The press in Uganda has come a long way right from the colonial days when newspapers sprang up, mainly from missionary activity, through the eras of Obote 1 (1962 – 1971), Idi Amin (1971 – 1979), Obote 11 (1980 – 1985), Tito Okello (1985 – 1986) and the Museveni administration (1986 – to date). For most of this time, the press in Uganda enjoyed very little or no freedom to do its work. The year 1986 saw the ascendancy to power of the Yoweri Museveni as president after a five-year bush war with promised to restore peace, democracy, the rule of law, economic prosperity and civic rights and freedoms. Several achievements in these areas have been registered since 1986. Newspapers have sprouted and the broadcast industry liberalised to allow private ownership that has seen the proliferation of FM stations. However, the relations between the government and the press remain strained with journalists arrested and/or prosecuted mainly for offences relating to sedition, publication of false news and criminal libel. This study was intended to examine why journalists in Uganda continue to suffer arrests and incarceration when the country has been reported to be moving towards democratisation. The study was also aimed at assessing the impact of arresting journalists and arraigning them before the courts of law in the period under study and what this portends for freedom of the press and democratisation. It is recommended, among others, that journalists in Uganda need more unity of purpose to pursue meaningful media law reform that will de-criminalise publication wrongs. The civil remedies available to people who feel offended by the press are sufficient, if not excessive. The efforts already undertaken by the Eastern Africa Media Institute (EAMI) Uganda Chapter in this direction should be pursued to a logical conclusion.

On July 29 2000, Uganda held a referendum to decide whether to continue with the ruling Noparty Movement system or to revert to the Multi-party platform. This research entails a qualitative content analysis of the role the media played in driving debate and understanding of the referendum and its role in the country’s democratisation process. The research is informed by Jurgen Habermas’s public sphere paradigm as well as the sociological theory of news production. The research covers Uganda’s two English dailies – The New Vision and The Monitor, examining whether they provided a public sphere accessible to all citizens and devoid of ideological hegemony. It concludes that the newspapers were incapable of providing such a sphere because of the structural nature of Ugandan society and the papers’ own capitalistic backgrounds and ownership interests. The research concludes that such English language newspapers published in a country with a low literacy rate and low income levels, can only provide a public sphere to elite and privileged sections of society. A case is then made that multiple public spheres would be better suited to represent the views of diverse interest groups.