The central role of media in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has led to restrictive precautions from the government. Restrictive legislation due to the genocide has for long limited media freedoms and been target for domestic and international critique. In light of the new media reform adopted in 2013 this essay seek to examine the experienced impact of the reform on the journalistic role as watchdog, setting the agenda, nation builder, agent of empowerment and government partner. The empirical material is based on qualitative interviews performed in Rwanda with journalists, bloggers, reform implementers and international collaborators. The analysis constitutes a discussion regarding to what extent the new reform seems to reinforce these roles. Here I will use my theoretical framework, namely Development Journalism, and the answers from the respondents in order to understand and examine this particular problem. The final part of the essay deals with my specific case, which is Rwanda’s media landscape after the newly adopted media reform. Here I will analyze the experienced change introduced by the new media reform. My essay finds that an official narrative, which is enforced by the Rwandan constitution, restricts the impact of the reform on the role of media

abstract: The World Economic Herald was a newspaper founded in April 1980 and was closed down by the Chinese government in May 1989 due to its dissident voice. The World Economic Herald was widely regarded as the most influential and important weekly newspaper in China in the 1980s. It became the leading publication pushing political as well as economic reform in China. This key publication in history has yet to receive much scholarly attention. By examining the evolution of the World Economic Herald from 1980 to 1989, this thesis explores the political and financial support behind the newspaper and, more importantly, the changing contents of the World Economic Herald. The year 1985 is seen a turning point for the World Economic Herald. After 1985, the World Economic Herald moved gradually toward being more of a politically dissident newspaper from an economic newspaper. The changes in the political patronage behind the newspaper played a crucial role in the fate of the World Economic Herald. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. History 2010

The study concerns the inter-relationship between media reform and civil society in Thailand between 1995-2000. It examines case studies of two selected television organisations - the production company Watchdog and the broadcast channel Independent Television (iTV) - and analyses their internal production decision-making processes, their public affairs programs and their urban and rural audiences. Debates about civil society and media reform between 1995-2000 influenced the government's media regulation policies to the extent that more attention was paid to media freedom as intended by Articles 39, 40 and 41 in the 1997 Constitution. Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) took an important role in monitoring government policies on media reform under the Constitution and issues about media re-regulation and ownership were canvassed, although the drawn out National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) selecting process delayed media reform. The transparency of the selection process of the NBC has been widely debated among NGOs, media scholars and media professionals. Most Thai public affairs programs in the period were shown on iTV, Channel 9 and Channel 11 and were in the minority compared with entertainment. Thai television stations normally screened entertainment programs to make profits, while they usually would not allow producers to air open debates critical of the government. Also, public affairs programs that were screened often were given inappropriate airtimes. Watchdog and iTV treated public affairs programs in different ways. Watchdog, originating from an NCO, the Creative Media Foundation, emphasized public participation in local community-oriented programs - such as Chirmsak Pinthong's Lan Ban Lan Muang - which exemplified civic journalism on television. In contrast, iTV was created in 1996 to meet the promise made in 1992 after Black May that a non-state commercial channel would be introduced. It was organised by journalists from the Nation Multimedia Company and focused on current national news issues which seldom allowed public participation. Both organisations attempted to maintain their professionalism despite political and business pressures. Chirmsak and Watchdog were accused of bias favoring the Democrat Party and often encountered program censorship. ITV staff, especially in the news department led by Suthichai Yoon and Thepchai Yong, unsuccessful fought. Shin Corps 2000-2001 takeover of the station that had been brought on by the financial problems of iTV and the Siam Commercial Bank after the economic crisis of 1997. There were three main concepts of civil society in the period 1997-2000 - Communitarianism, Self-sufficiency and Good Governance. These ideas were advanced by reformers such as Dr. Prawase Wasi and Thirayut Boonme, and were reinforced by His Majesty King Bhumibol's December 1997 Birthday Speech that endorsed the ideal of national self-sufficiency. Thai civil society debates often were involved with rural people, while the 8th National Development Plan and the Chuan government's policy on decentralisation aimed to strengthen the rural sector as an antidote to the 1997 crisis. However, the aims of civil society reformers were at times too idealistic and were viewed with skepticism by some middle class urban critics. The continuing influence of electoral corruption in rural areas also obstructed civil society ideals, while decentralisation and community development still maintained a top-down way of development and depended on government support. These difficulties in implementing pro-civil society reforms in the political process were paralleled by difficulties in developing public interest programs on Thai television. Current affairs and investigative journalism programs, such as iTV Talk, Tod Rahad and Krong Satanakarn, did not often open public discussion on the programs. Rather, the regular format of panel discussions, consisting of elites and some celebrities, tended to focus on national topics rather than local issues. The hosts of many of these public affairs programs depended on their own celebrities status and tended to invite well-known guests, whereas community-oriented programs such as Lan Ban Lan Muang and Tid Ban Tang Muang promoted civic journalism and deliberative democracy more effectively. The latter programs allowed the public to participate in the programs as the main actors and even proposed their own agendas. However, a limited study of three audience focus groups - an expert urban group, a young middle class urban group, and a rural group - found considerable scepticism about the possibility of developing public interest awareness via television programs. The expert and young middle class groups criticised both the hosts and the style of a selection of current affairs programs, which they thought were too serious and also biased. Some also considered that current affairs programs were a platform for the people in power rather than providing a space for the public. Therefore, they rarely watched them. In contrast, the rural group who participated in Lan Ban Lan Muang, believed that the program was useful for development communication. The audience gained information about other communities and used the media as the means to publicise their own community. However, they rarely watched it because the airtime of the program was the same as a popular entertainment program on Channel 3. The researcher used qualitative research methods to collect data, including indepth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, program recording and document analysis. Theoretically, the study has attempted to combine the approaches of western and Thai scholars. The main approach used to explain the relationship between the media and civil society is media and public sphere theory, as introduced by Habermas, and combined with the perspectives on media re-regulation of the Thai scholar Ubonrat Siriyusak. In terms of analysing Watchdog and iTV, the researcher used political economy perspectives to understand decision-making in both organisations. In addition, an organisational culture approach was used to explore conflicts of interest that arose in both organisations due to their different sub-cultures. Civic journalism, framing theory and development communication theory were further employed to examine the television programs and their roles in promoting the public interest and development projects, while the audience groups were considered in the context of participatory communication theory and reception theory.

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為了避免代議民主所產生的政治疏離感，加強公民間的聯繫以及政治參與，審議式民主近年來受到相當廣泛的討論。審議式民主的核心概念乃是透過人民深思熟慮的審議，以理性溝通、公開論理的方式，在決策過程中充分表現公民的多元觀點，獲得更高的民主正當性。審議式民主政治中，為了能透過開放的討論過程，達成公共審議的目標，公民勢必需要瞭解公共議題的各種不同多元觀點，而這恐怕並非目前商業化競爭機制中的媒體所能提供的。欲解決民主政治與媒體商業競爭所造成的惡性循環，本文乃提出審議式民主與大眾傳播媒體互相配合的論點，政治改革與媒體改革同時進行，一方面透過政治參與以凝聚公民意識，並改善媒體市場競爭亂象，如此方可能有效的打破媒體與政治的惡性循環，為民主生活的實踐帶來新契機。

本論文旨在分析在我國公視建構過程中(1990~2013年)的報紙相關評論與報導。從1915年開始，台灣就有許多透過媒體改革來爭取發言權的運動。然而，直到1990年，公民社會才出現了以產權為目標的媒改運動，亦即1990年代起的公視運動。因此，我們認為公視運動可被視為公民爭取「公共領域」的重要歷程，值得進行深入分析。 其次，本文主張公視這種「公共領域」的建構過程，應以公共對話為基礎。經文獻檢閱，我們認為公媒體與公共領域有以下關聯。以制度面而言，Habermas的晚近公共領域概念強調國家必須透過立法過程來保障溝通行動，這正和公媒體的制度契合。以公共論述判準而言，Habermas的「合理政治意志形成過程」與「理性溝通」則可用來檢視，關於公視制度的討論是否符合公共性。 此外，本文選報紙評論進行分析，不是為了比較各報論述的差異，而是報紙長時間地記載各報社、社運團體成員、學者專家與社會大眾對公視議題的論述，這可讓我們檢視及反思不同階段公視運動的論述目標與特徵。另一方面，我們也檢閱了公視相關的立法院、監察院公報等資料，藉此釐清政府、媒體與公民社會三者的關係。 本研究有以下三點發現。第一，政府政策意圖是引導公視論述的關鍵因素。只有當政府對公視採取較正面態度，公民社會才有機會對公視進行深度的討論。第二，公視議題的主要論述者是報社人員與學院知識份子，其中學知對於公視向來採取支持立場。相對而言，只有在公視處於不利局面時，各報才會較積極地對公視表達支持。第三，當報社與學知對公視議題進行討論，報社較支持「商業化」與「數位化」，學知則較重視「公共理念」。 / This paper aims to analyze newspaper commentary and reports published during the Taiwan Public Television Movement between 1990 and 2013. Since 1915, Taiwan has had a lot of media reform movements that fought for freedom of speech. But there were no media reform movements with the aim of dealing with media ownership until the Taiwan Public Television Movement happened in 1990.We believe that the public television movement was a very important process that structured" public sphere “in Taiwan and is worth an in-depth analysis. As a public sphere, Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS) should be constructed on the public dialogue. After reviewing the literature, we think that the public media and the public sphere have the following correlations. In terms of institutional designs, Habermas emphasized recently that the state needs to protect the communicative action through the legislative process. We think this is similar to the idea of public television. With regard to public dialogues, Habermas' concepts of “a process model of rational political will-formation” and "rational communication ideal " can be applied to analyze the discourse of Taiwan Public Television. In addition, we analyzed newspaper commentaries, not to compare the differences of representation between newspapers, but to document different kinds of discussions of public television by media, social movement organizations, scholars and the public over a long period of time. Whereby, we can examine and reflect on the discourse goals and characteristics of the Taiwan Public Television movement in different stages. We also reviewed the official gazettes of the Legislative Yuan and the Control Yuan in order to clarify the relationship between the government, the media and civil society. In this paper, we provide readers with three findings. First, the intent of government policy was a key factor in leading the discourse of public television. Only when the government adopted more positive attitudes towards the TBS did civil society have chances for more in-depth discussions. Second, the discussions of TBS were mainly made by newspaper staffs and college intellectuals. Furthermore, college intellectuals had always taken a stand that supported public television. In contrast, only when TBS was in an unfavorable situation did newspaper staffs become more active in offering support. Third, whenever newspaper staffs and college intellectuals participated in the public discussion, the former tended to support the "commercialized" and "digitized" TBS, but the latter were inclined to favor “the ideal of public sphere” of TBS.

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