Using both secondary literatures on the media and primary data collected via in-depth interviews with a diverse range of government officials, journalists, academics, researchers, lawmakers, NGO representatives, social activists, and political actors, this paper examines the role and impact of a diverse range of media outlets on various aspects of governance in Bangladesh. It looks at an interlinked set of issues encompassing the national media’s role as a state watchdog and shaper of public opinion, and how this is enhanced or hindered by its lack of capacity, ownership structure, and internal governance. Findings suggest that, there is large failure on the part of the media to adequately address, investigate and compel concrete action from those responsible to address these failures. While NGOs, human rights organizations and corruption and media watchdogs do undertake gathering information on governance related reportage in the media; this is still limited and not industry wide. These organizations generally concentrate on human rights or corruption related reportage, and do not actively extend their research to investigating newspaper stories for veracity or following up on eventual responses and outcomes.
Author: Ali, Irum Shehreen
Type: Working Paper
Year: 2006
