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ANC Study Group on Communications 20 May 2015 ANC MPs Support Moves to Transform the Media Industry The ANC in parliament supports the decision by the minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, to place the transformation of the media, in particular the media print media sector, at the top of the department of communication's policy priorities for the 2015/2015 financial year. We welcome this policy announcement because it is in line with the policies of the ANC as a governing party and it is responsive to our long-standing resolve for practical steps to be taken by government to transform the media industry. We have in previously expressed frustration with the slow pace of transformation of the media, which is not reflective of the country's demographics as does not allow plurality of views to flourish. According to statistics, little has changed in terms of ownership of the print media since 1994, with 95% of the market share remaining in the hands of the big four companies, namely the Independent Newspapers, Naspers, the Caxton Group and the Times Media Group. We are encouraged by the minister's announcement that a media transformation policy will soon be finalized by the department and will be presented for public discussion and consultation with a range of important stakeholders, including the print media owners. We look forward to the consultation process on the formulation of the media transformation policy and we will actively take part in the envisaged process as ANC legislators. It is our belief that the media ownership land-scale also needs to be transformed to fairly and equitably reflect the demographics of South Africa, just as it is being done with other industries of our economy and the various professions. The media in our country enjoys total freedom in terms of its operations and the determination of their editorial content but we believe steps need to be taken by both government and parliament to ensure that diversity of views and ownership is allowed to thrive within the media. In terms of the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting, we welcome the fact that work continues in this regard with the department busy concluding bilateral agreements with the neighbouring SADC countries with the aim of minimizing cross border radio frequency spectrum interference. We are also pleased to hear the department is also developing policies to regulate online content. This is important because it provide clear guideline in the classification of digital content and ensure that our children are protected from exposure to disturbing and harmful content on the internet and other forms of new media. Issued by Joyce Moloi-Moropa, Chairperson of the ANC Study Group on Communications For Interviews with the Chairperson Call Thabo Mokone 082 490 9284 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
