So this is democracy?: 2004 report on the state of media freedom in Southern Africa

This report gives an overview of the state of the media in Southern African countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The report gives a general overview of and highlights several findings regarding the state of the media in this region.

Findings include:

there have been an ever-growing number of alerts on media freedom violations. This is an indication of increasing interest and an increased capacity to publicise and campaign on issues relating to media freedom and freedom of expression in the region
there seemed to be an increased number of cases of government attempts to restrict journalists’ access to government information. Campaigns to introduce Access to Information legislation did not bear much fruit in 2004
the total number of alerts issued by MISA has decreased from 188 in 2003 to169 in 2004
election periods also saw southern African politicians enter cyber space and recognise it as an influential communication medium
legislative environments (regarding media) varied from a state of no change in most countries through moderate improvements in Mozambique and Tanzania to fading hopes for improvement in Swaziland and Zimbabwe
MISA’s campaigns to open the airwaves and ensure that public broadcasters are regulated under the same laws and independent regulatory bodies as other broadcasters on the continent have started to bear fruit
a number of journalists were issued with or threatened with defamation cases.
The report also explores the state of gender in the media in SADC. Some of the key findings highlighted by the gender section of the report are listed below:

women’s views and voices are grossly under-represented in the media: women constituted 17% of known news sources in the media monitored in the study
there are significant variations between countries: these ranged from women constituting 26% of news sources in Angola (the highest) to 11% in Malawi (the lowest)
women sources still carry their private identity more than men: in all countries, a woman is much more likely to be identified as a wife, daughter or mother
women in certain occupational categories are virtually silent: the only occupational categories in which female views dominated were beauty contestants, sex workers and homemakers
women politicians are not heard relative even to their strengths in parliament: countries that have the highest representation of women in parliament – South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania – also had some of the lowest proportions of women politicians being accessed as news sources
gender equality is hardly considered newsworthy: gender specific news items accounted for a mere two percent of the total number of news items from media sources being monitored, and about half of these were on gender violence.

Publisher: Media Institute of Southern Africa
Year of Publication: 2004