Monitoring the media: A shift from vertical to horizontal monitoring.

Abstract

The Media Monitoring Project (MMP) was the leading organisation monitoring the total output of news in radio, television and print before and during South Africa's first democratic elections in April 1994. The main objective of the MMP was to monitor the vertical top-down distribution of information from powerful media institutions to citizens many of whom were first-time voters, the majority illiterate, unfamiliar with the concept of human rights and not accustomed to the language of democracy.
After the elections the MMP has had to change its role from vertical to horizontal monitoring and to observe the equal distribution of Information TO all citizens, and FROM all citizens, and ensure that channels of access are available to all citizens. As Hamelink states: "Conventional human rights thinking focuses the vertical state-citizen on relation. This ignores the possibility that concentration of power in the hands of Individuals can be as threatening as state power Whenever citizens pursue different economic interests, individual human rights will be under serious threat. Citizens also need to be protected from each other"