In 2007, The Media South Asia project began an audit of the existing state of knowledge in this field in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with the aim of fostering national expertise, developing a regional perspective and sharing experience across the region. The project is being supported by the Society for South Asian Studies.
Background
Over the past fifteen years, the South Asian broadcasting landscape has undergone seismic changes. What had been for decades a state-controlled monopoly broadcasting system operating within national boundaries has been transformed into a multi-channel, largely commercially driven, media environment, in which global and cross-border influences have acquired far greater salience. The issues thrown up by this dramatic transformation are legion and many of them have legal implications: issues of public interest, citizen’s rights, accountability of broadcasters, freedom of information and expression, censorship, copyright etc. But national governments have been slow to take up the regulatory challenges inherent in this process. For the most part, they have been more reactive than pro-active and more interested in the revenue potential of new media than in their social or developmental potential. Individuals and pressure groups in some South Asian countries have appealed to the courts to interpret the public interest in the new circumstances. As long ago as 1995, the Indian Supreme Court gave a landmark judgement in which it ruled that the airwaves are public property and that legislation on broadcasting should reflect this important fact. But ten years later the Indian government has still not implemented the ruling. Public interest litigation was started in Pakistan in a similar cause around the same time but delays have attended that case too. But in all South Asian countries, capacity to research, interpret and respond to these trends has remained very limited, despite a widely acknowledged need within the region for more systematic work in the field.
Research agenda
Aspects of the South Asian media regulatory regimes which are particularly important to research concern the relation of domestic broadcasting to regional and international programming and the conditions and means of access to them. Variables in the regulation and control of broadcasting in different parts of the region include the nature of regulation and justifications based on national security, the form of government, regional political issues, the construction of platforms for satellite services and conditions of access to them; the development of regulatory agencies and training for their personnel; and religious, moral and cultural issues associated with broadcasting services in national and regional languages and their role in the development and enrichment of those languages.
The specific priorities for the research project are as follows:
1. To develop a bibliography of existing published sources on media policy, law and regulation.
2. To provide an overview of important media issues being debated publicly, including constitutional rights and guarantees; and judicial responses to issues of media freedom, freedom of expression and information. Areas of research include:
· Restrictions on freedom of speech
· Media legislation and regulation
· Broadcasting in the public interest
· Media competition
· Media self regulation
· Freedom of information legislation
· Convergence issues
3. To identify areas of expertise in each of the South Asian countries
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Preliminary research is being conducted by Lawrence Liang in India, by Md. Asiuzzaman and Nayeemul Islam Khan in Bangladesh, by Jawad Hassan and Matiullah Jan in Pakistan and by Asoka Dias in Sri Lanka. Kishali Pinto-Jayawardene is acting as a consultant to the project.
