Jeannine E. Relly

A comparison of political, cultural, and economic indicators of access to information in Arab and non-Arab states

Abstract As more and more countries adopt access-to-information (ATI) laws to advance economic development and democratic self-governance, efforts are under way to foster ATI movements in the Arab world. While one nation in that region already has adopted the legislation, the likelihood of adoption in other Arab states is unknown. This comparative study analyzed 12 quantitative indicators measuring political, cultural, and economic factors associated with access to information. Results indicate that Arab countries, as a whole, contrast sharply in nearly all areas with non-Arab countries that have ATI laws and are consistent with non-Arab countries that do not have ATI laws. However, the study also found that the most recent ATI law adopters had weaker political, cultural, and economic enabling environments for government information access, which may portend a global phenomenon that will continue and could explain the interest in adopting the legislation in the Arab world. Findings also suggest that while a handful of Arab countries might have the wealth to effectively implement ATI laws, political and cultural conditions may be substantial obstacles for greater government transparency. Other results regarding the use of quantitative indicators of ATI adoption, particularly structural pluralism, are discussed.

Silencing Mexico A Study of Influences on Journalists in the Northern States

During President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s administration, the military was called on to confront organized crime, and dozens of journalists were killed in Mexico. Attacks on journalists have continued under the new administration. This study focuses on the erosion of the democratic institution of the press in Mexico’s northern states, for the majority of journalists murdered in the last decade worked in that region. Utilizing Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy of influences model, this study examines pressures constraining the press working in a tide of violence. The thirty-nine semistructured, in-depth interviews with Mexican journalists, who report in five of the northern states, indicate the strongest influences came from outside newsrooms, where intimidation and unthinkable crimes were committed against the press along the entire border. Individual-level influences, such as lack of conflict-reporting training, safety concerns, and handling the trauma of covering violence, were among the strongest pressures often leading to self-censorship. Organizational-level influences, including newsroom policies and financial arrangements with government and business, also influenced journalistic practice. The study added an inter-media level for analyses of news organizations and individual journalists working together to increase safety. Additional findings show major disruptions in border reporting where news “blackouts” exist amid pockets of lawlessness.

Examining a model of vertical accountability: A cross-national study of the influence of information access on the control of corruption

Abstract This cross-national study used a vertical accountability model to examine the extent to which four societal and four political indicators would influence perception of public corruption in 150 countries. The model appeared strong, given the significant inverse correlation of corruption perception with access-to-information legislation, media rights, cellular phone use, internet subscriptions, electoral pluralism, political participation, political culture, and length of time of the political regime. The study found that low news media rights, low internet and cellular phone use, short duration of the polity, and weak political culture were significant explanatory indicators for corruption. However, the presence of access-to-information legislation, or a draft of the law, did not impact corruption.

Freedom of Information Laws and Global Diffusion: Testing Rogers's Model

This exploratory study applied Everett Rogers’s diffusion framework to the global phenomenon of countries adopting freedom of information laws. The external influence of geographic proximity and the internal influence of news media were examined over time. The models indicated that a strong environment for news media had a significant influence on legislation adoption in United Nations member states (N = 192). The models also showed that Europe, followed by the Americas, had the greatest influence on diffusion among the regions, with a predicted trajectory indicating 80% of nations adopting the legislation by 2025 in challenging environments.

Watchdog journalism: India's three largest English-language newspapers and the Right to Information Act

Indias Right to Information Act (RTIA) has been described as one of the strongest laws in the world for access to public information. The preamble spells out its promise to expose government corruption. Given that the Indian news media is the largest in the world and has a storied history of unearthing public corruption, this exploratory study employed the normative theory of the monitorial role of the news media to examine the extent that the RTIA was used to uncover government corruption. This content analysis examined a census of 221 articles published in Indias three largest English-language newspapers in the period after the RTIA was adopted in October 2005 and then five years later. Slightly more than 80% of the articles referencing corruption fell into four thematic categories: progress on implementing the law, public education about the legislation, the watchdog role of activists and other non-journalists, and a brief mention of the RTIA. During this period the English-language dailies reported their own use of the RTIA to expose corruption in 2% of the articles.

Corruption, secrecy, and access-to-information legislation in Africa: A cross-national study of political institutions

Government corruption and secrecy are not new phenomena in Africa; however, international scrutiny has grown as nations end decades of conflict and seek to develop, donor nations consider providing more aid, and investors and transnational corporations look to the area for oil and other resources. Given that corrupt government activities account for millions of dollars diverted from public coffers each year in developing nations and lead to unfair benefit distribution to citizens, the chapter examines the global network of actors attempting to advance the international norm of government accountability to constrain corruption through advocating for the adoption of access-to-information legislation. The chapter also explores the relationship between perception of corruption in Africa and four political institutions of vertical accountability. The findings indicate that perception of corruption is inversely correlated with news media rights, civil liberties, and political rights. However, adopting access-to-information legislation or planning to adopt the law was not correlated with the perception of corruption.

Democratic Norms and Forces of Gatekeeping: A Study of Influences on Iraqi Journalists' Attitudes toward Government Information Access

Gatekeeping theory and the hierarchy of influences model were used as a framework to analyze democratic norm development in Iraq. The study developed three watchdog gatekeeping models that could be adapted for other conflict or postdictatorship environments or modified for longtime democracies. The study used hierarchical regression to analyze forces that influenced attitudes of 588 Iraqi journalists in their gatekeeping role. Individual-level forces, followed by ideological-level forces, contributed the most toward watchdog gatekeeping attitudes toward access to government meetings, and news media routine forces contributed the most toward influencing attitudes toward access to government records.

Journalism in times of violence: Social media use by US and Mexican journalists working in northern Mexico

Mexico ranks as one of the most violent countries in the world for journalists, and especially for those who work on the country’s periphery such as its northern border. Given the dire situation for Mexican reporters covering the northern part of the country, and the continued responsibility of US journalists to report on the area just south of the border, this qualitative study addresses the overarching research question that examines how Mexican and US journalists who cover northern Mexico are using social media, given the heightened levels of violence in the region. The authors utilize a modified version of the conceptual framework of scale-shifting to investigate how journalists in a specific transnational environment of conflict are using social media. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 41 interviews gathered in fall 2011 in 18 cities with news media outlets along the United States–Mexico border. Findings describe the innovative ways that journalists are circumventing online security risks (what the authors call scale-shifting) and how social media are used to build cross-border relationships.Mexico ranks as one of the most violent countries in the world for journalists, and especially for those who work on the country’s periphery such as its northern border. Given the dire situation for Mexican reporters covering the northern part of the country, and the continued responsibility of US journalists to report on the area just south of the border, this qualitative study addresses the overarching research question that examines how Mexican and US journalists who cover northern Mexico are using social media, given the heightened levels of violence in the region. The authors utilize a modified version of the conceptual framework of scale-shifting to investigate how journalists in a specific transnational environment of conflict are using social media. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 41 interviews gathered in fall 2011 in 18 cities with news media outlets along the United States–Mexico border. Findings describe the innovative ways that journalists are circumventing online security ris...

President's Power to Frame Stem Cell Views Limited

A top-down communication model failed in an examination of news coverage and public opinion about the use of human embryos for stem cell research. The study covered three years leading to Bushs veto of a bill to remove research restrictions.

Professional role perceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists from a ‘state within a state’

Twenty years after a foreign intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian rule, this study found that Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions appear, to an extent, to reflect liberal democratic news media values. The study used the hierarchy-of-influences framework to examine determinants of professional role perceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists (N = 175), who interacted with democratic institutions more than a decade longer than the rest of the country. The ‘Watchdog’ role perception model was the strongest of eight models in the study with influences including Western news media training, Internet use frequency, and ‘democrat’ political ideology over ‘Nationalist’. Furthermore, the ‘Islamist’ ideology had a stronger influence than ‘democrat’ on ‘Watchdog’ role perceptions, potentially indicating these perspectives, at times, may be embraced by groups not within the ruling parties.