Beyond State Regulation

Abstract

Holding the news media accountable has traditionally been a task of the state in Jordan. Media laws and regulations are numerous and do not leave too much space for self-regulatory practices on a national basis. The Jordan Press Association (JPA) is the core of so-called established media accountability institutions. It conducted a law-like code of ethics in 2003 and runs ombuds committees (currently three) dealing with mishaps of the media to prevent journalists from legal liability. Though being a professional body, many journalists perceive the JPA as an extended arm of the government. Until 2010 the association was not prepared to deal with private broadcasting and online journalists in the same way as it does with press and state owned media journalists. Most media outlets in Jordan are characterised by a lack of accountability awareness and practices especially when it comes to actor and production transparency. Only recently have some news organisations (mainly net-native) become aware of their duty to be accountable towards their audiences. New comers to the field of online news, in particular, have experimented with citizens’ involvement and have established a high level of responsiveness in their newsrooms. Online versions of the traditional news media have not yet caught up with this development but will be most probably forced to do so for economic reasons. Apart from economic strategies to better involve audiences, another driving force for media accountability practices in Jordan is the lack of media legitimacy mainly rooted in distrusting the media’s independence from the state. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) point towards contempt of press freedom (e.g. Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists), lack of citizen concerned topics (e.g. AmmanNet, 7iber.com) and professional behaviour (e.g. Eye on the Media), or try to deepen the knowledge about the functioning of media (e.g.sahafi.jo). Blogs and social media play only a minor role because media criticism mainly gets louder when wellharboured taboos are tackled. Yet, blogs and social media might become the place to initiate discussion or to negotiate professional rules in the future of a fast changing media field.