Media and the Uncertain Fight against Corruption

*Akena Patrick Rolex*

#### **Abstract**

This chapter is an extract of a whole study conducted to examine the role of the media in fighting corruption in Lira city, northern Uganda. The objectives of this chapter are to: establish the reasons for the persistence of corruption in the public administration of Lira City, examine the role of the media as a critical tool used in the fight against corruption in Lira city, examine the limitations of the media in the fight against corruption in Lira city and identify solutions to the challenges that hinder media in fighting corruption in the City's administration. This chapter derives its data from media practitioners, public officials and business people through intervieweradministered questionnaires: A total of (139) respondents and eight key informant interviews (KIIs) from a sample size of 101 respondents out of a study population of 147 inform this work. The author reviewed relevant literature and documents on the role of the media in fighting corruption from various sources.

**Keywords:** media, corruption, role, fight, Lira City

#### **1. Introduction**

The notion of corruption means different things to different people. According to Buckland [1], Transparency International defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption is a global challenge affecting both developed and developing countries such as Uganda. The effects of corruption include: retarding the effectiveness of service delivery, social welfare and general development of the affected area. As postulated by Jain [2], corruption increases the cost of investment and doing business while giving undue advantage to the corrupt who offer bribes leading to unfair competition and unbalanced socio-political and economic growth in the affected area.

In their discussions Flanary and Watt [3], state that in a bid to fight corruption in Uganda, the NRM government, since taking over power in 1986, embarked on among others, enacting several anti-corruption laws and established several anti-corruption agencies including: integrating the civil society, private sector and the media, to help in the fight against corruption. Whereas the media has been brought on board to complement government efforts in the fight against corruption [4], reveals that few studies have investigated the roles and effectiveness of the media in the fight against corruption. Researchers and authors have not extensively reported on possible reasons explaining why corruption has persisted in the public sector and the challenges faced

by the media in the fight against corruption in the country. This chapter, therefore, tries to shed more light on the gray areas in the fight against corruption with the hope that the situation and challenges in Uganda may not be different from other countries where corruption is endemic.

#### **2. The roots of corruption**

Corruption is a global phenomenon whose acts according to Arnold and Lal [5] are embedded in institutional practices and everyday lives and are perceived as fixed and uncontestable. Being a global vice, corruption knows no boundary; it affects high, middle as well as low-income economies alike and all individuals therein irrespective of race, nationality, language spoken or level of education. Corruption such as bribery causes insecurity in the economy by increasing the cost of transactions and impedes both domestic and foreign investments, reallocates talents leading to ineffective economic results. A study by Šumah [6] adds that corruption imposes a regressive tax which ends up burdening both commercial and service activities undertaken by the small entities that drive the economy, and it also destroys the legitimacy of the state. Corruption is classified into two major forms: grand corruption which [7] alternatively refers to as 'Tigers' and state capture, and petty corruption also referred to as 'flies'. Grand corruption involves the manipulation of the state instruments by the politicians to benefit or profiteer from public resources and services. Here, the practitioners distort policies to a point that they own up to the state to pursue their interests. On the other hand, Graycar [7] reveals that petty corruption involves lowerlevel officials who may have the opportunity to do wrong things such as using their position to falsify official records that may lead to a person not paying taxes as the officer gets a kickback or other favors.

However, Šumah [6] believes that the causes of corruption vary from country to country though there are generic causes such as low media freedom, the influence of religion where Protestant countries are argued to have lower levels of corruption, the closed nature of the country's economy, low level of a country's income and low level of education in a country where the perpetrators are not easily identified or exposed.

The influence of a country's political system and adherence to the rule of law is central in the fight against corruption as [8] argues that, in a democratic country where the corrupt are exposed and heavily punished, many would-be practitioners of corruption would shy away from it. He opines that a dictatorship and lassie-fare kind of political system are a breeding ground for high levels of corruption. Treisman reasons that this means a bad political system, lack of political will, weak judicial system and deliberate failure to punish the corrupt are a factor for the increase in corruption.

Research also shows that there is a positive relationship between corruption and economic development in China due to a transition to a market economy and that provinces with greater openness, anti-corruption efforts, higher educational attainment, historic influence from the Anglo-American church universities, higher wages to government employees and more media freedom had the lowest levels of corruption, and the reverse was true. Dong and Torgler [9] suggest that this means that the absence or the low levels of the above would end up encouraging and promoting corruption.

Due to its dangers to the economy and social welfare, the fight against corruption has attracted not only the international, regional and national actors but also the CSOs whose prominent actors include the media.

*Media and the Uncertain Fight against Corruption DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107827*

According to Enke and Borchers [10], media is a plural form of medium, and it refers to channels of communication. Traditionally, the media was categorized into major three types.

Print media, electronic and outdoor or out-of-home media. The print media entails newspapers and magazines, broadcast or electronic media which majorly includes radio and television and outdoor or out-of-home media (OOH) where the use of banners, flyers, pinned messages, paintings and writing materials on walls, among others. However, Peterson [11] states that the latest media category to join the rest is the internet-enabled social media. This category has become so significant of late with platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and TikTok, among others. He also stresses that the media plays a critical role in the fight against corruption; each media outlet acts alone or in a unified national, regional or global network depending on the nature of corruption being fought.

Several legal provisions in Uganda lend the media and media practitioners the right to fight corruption, for instance, CAP 4 (41) of the 1995 Constitution and the Access to Information Act (2005) mandate any citizen including media practitioners to access information in the possession of state officials except for the information that [12] believe may jeopardize national security. Whereas the Leadership Code Act (1992) as amended in 2017 sets limits on the financial behavior of public officials, requires them to declare their assets and liabilities, which [13] believes is an enabler for the media to demand such accountability lawfully. Walyemera [14] argues that the Uganda Communication Commission was set out in the year 2013 as a regulator and to develop the media in Uganda, including mandating the media to take a lead in advocating for development in the communities. All these and the international protocols and declarations to which Uganda is a signatory such as the Universal Declaration of human rights Assembly [15] which mandates individuals to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.

Therefore, as guided by Schauseil [16] and Stapenhurst [17], the role of the media in fighting corruption anywhere can be both tangible and intangible. It is tangible when some sort of visible outcome can be attributed to a particular news story or series of stories – for instance, the launching of the investigation by authorities, the scrapping of a law or policy, the impeachment or forced resignation of a crooked politician, the firing of an official, the launching of judicial proceedings, the issuing of public recommendations by a watchdog body and so on.

A study by UNODC also observes that the media helps in empowering citizens of any given country to monitor and question the actions and inactions of elected or appointed officials in instances of corruption. This is the reason media reports on corruption have taken centre stage at the global level since there are even online platforms as an example of media that allow citizens in many countries to report instances of corruption by mail, phone, text message and other channels. Arnold and Lal [5] cite India, for instance, where an online platform dabbed ipaidabribe.com aggregates citizen reports to show which departments and institutions are most vulnerable to corruption. The platform also publishes reports of corruption, expert advice and links to news stories about corruption. A study by Enikolopov et al. [18] provides evidence that social media can influence the market and trigger accountability mechanisms in large and state-controlled companies even in a country with limited political competition and censorship of traditional media.

The broadcast media is equally critical in promoting good governance and controlling corruption: Ayoola [19] believes it not only raises public awareness about

corruption, its causes, consequences and possible remedies but also investigates and reports the incidents of corruption. By drawing attention to behaviors that are generally perceived as unacceptable and exposing such behaviors as corruption, Ackerman et al. [20] declares that the media can raise public awareness, activate anticorruption values and generate outside pressure from the public against corruption. Alluding to the role of the media, Kuznik et al. [21] states that fighting corruption is meticulous and broad-based and should be embraced by all echelons of a society with the media serving as a conduit of information and education.

According to Tangri and Mwenda [22], the press is the main instrument for news gathering and investigation of public officials' abuses and illegalities, uncovering scandals and 'misdeeds of the increasingly corrupt executive'.

To Sharma et al. [23], gathering available open-source information is the first and most approachable step of the data collection process on corruption, which is done by the media. While agenda-setting is a classic role of the mass media, ICT is very effective as a watchdog and a public forum in the fight against corruption. As such, a crucial element of a country's anti-corruption programme according to Stapenhurst [17] is electronic media, especially broadcast media. The media does this by setting the agenda for public discussion on corruption cases, enhancing and energizing public debate and by heightening a sense of accountability among politicians through their news and programmes. Thus, Adeyemi [24] observes that the press serves as an agent of change and, as the watchdog of society, is expected to play a part in ensuring transparency and accountability in government as well as contribute to the efforts of crime-fighting institutions to curb corruption in the country.

In the circumstances, there are three mechanisms through which the media influence our perceptions and norms: media act as a watchdog, agenda setters and public forum for a diverse set of voices. Arnold and Lal [5] state that in their function as a watchdog, the media act as monitors of government behavior and guard the public interest by highlighting cases of maladministration, abuse of power and corruption. Thus, Nnaane [25] believes it is indisputable that the media have been quite pivotal in the fight against corruption.

In Uganda, since the 1990s, there has been a proliferation of media houses due to the liberalization of the media sector by the NRM government which [26] maintain enacted a national constitution in 1995 with provisions like Article 29 (a) which entails freedom of speech and that of the media and press. This was further strengthened by other legal provisions such as the UCC Act (2013), Uganda Journalist Statute (1995) and Electronic Media Act (1996). The media houses are owned by the state, private individuals and organizations and are all mandated by law to fight corruption.

Sanyu FM and Capital FM are among the oldest Frequency Modulation (FM) radio stations in Uganda after Uganda Broadcasting Corporation radio which is owned by the state. In the year 2013, ACME [27] revealed that there were over 100 FM stations but by December 2020, there were 309 stations in the country's 14 broadcasting regions, covering over 130 districts. However, in December 2020, the Uganda Communication Commission-UCC [28], which regulates the media in Uganda, published a list of only 199 radio stations as the approved ones. This has been a great leap in the media considering the few numbers in the 1990s.

Lango Sub-region and Lira City where the author focused much of his attention have witnessed a transformative media development trend from the year 1998 when Radio Lira went on air, followed by Radio Apac 92.9 FM in the year 1999, later radio

*Media and the Uncertain Fight against Corruption DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107827*

Rhino FM in 2000, Radio WA FM in 2001, Unity FM in 2001, and now Lango has a total of 15 radio stations in operation with seven broadcasting from Lira City. These radio stations, just as observed by Nogara [4], play a role in informing, educating and entertaining their audiences. Within key elements of their work, some of them have built a name in setting the agenda for the communities they serve, reporting about corruption, investigating corruption allegations and advocating against the vice. However, little has been documented through empirical studies on their fight against corruption. This chapter has therefore delved into several pieces of literature that collaboratively confirm the centrality of the media in fighting corruption not only in Lira City but throughout Uganda and globally in societies where media enjoy some degree of independence.

#### **3. Uganda's corruption perception index (CPI)**

Corruption is a global phenomenon whose practices [5] maintain are often embedded in institutional practices and everyday lives and are perceived as fixed and uncontestable. Corruption in Uganda is deep-rooted, occurring in all sectors – public and private, and several forms including grand and petty corruption. It has continued unabated, despite the numerous anti-corruption efforts and commitments that [29] claims the state and non-state actors have undertaken. In the global corruption perception index of 2021, Uganda was ranked 144th least corrupt country out of 180 countries or territories ranked, where Uganda scored only 27 points out of 100 on a scale of '0' as being the most corrupt to '100' is the cleanest. The report indicates that from the year 2013 to 2021, Uganda's best performance in reducing the level of corruption was only 28 points achieved in 2019 according to Bosman and Clifford [30], meaning that corruption in the country is persistent!

However, Krishnan [31] claims that Uganda had been on a steady corruption scale with the year 2012 holding the worst record for the country as a year where corruption was highest in the last 10 years at 29 points perception, followed by the year 2019 where the country hit 28 points. In the year 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a slight reduction of one point, that is, 27 points from the 28 of 2019. The report puts the years 2015 and 2016 as the best years where the corruption perception index for Uganda stood at 25 points, much as in the two subsequent years, it climbed to 26 points before doubling to 28 in 2019. This trend shows that, much as there could be efforts to fighting corruption in Uganda, the vice remains a threat that needs concerted efforts to fight from different stakeholders such as the media, other CSOs, government and international stakeholders.

For the case of Uganda, the author relied on the available data on corruption and the role of the media in the fight against corruption from the Ugandan perspective, right from the inception of the UCC Act (2013) to date. The above legal provision has been emboldened by other legal provisions such as the Access to Information Act (2005), the anti-corruption Act (2009), which sets out specialized anti-corruption courts, Leadership Code Act (2002) as discussed by Gumisiriza and Mukobi [32] and most importantly, the 1995 Press and Journalists Statute discussed by [33] and the 1995 Constitution of Uganda as amended, where the entire Chapter 4 is dedicated to matters of rights and freedom including freedom of speech and that of the media to investigate and report independently on different issues including corruption.

#### **4. Significance of this chapter to the study of corruption**

This write-up offers significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the existing body of knowledge on media and the fight against corruption. In terms of theoretical contributions, while studies on corruption have largely used principal agency theory to investigate the subject of corruption, this chapter combines the principal agency theory by Delreux and Adriaensen [34] and the cultivation theory by Keim et al. [35] to help us understand the phenomenon of corruption because the latter bridges the gaps in the former, and this makes an interesting theoretical contribution to study and understanding of corruption.

The discussions in this piece are relevant to the following stakeholders and in the following ways: to media organizations and practitioners, the study can be useful in identifying media's shortfalls in effectively contributing to the fight against corruption and in resolving the contention or contradicting views on the role of the media in the fight against corruption in Uganda.

It is also significant for various stakeholders to appreciate the nature of corruption, its causes, effects, solutions or strategies for fighting the vice and the choice of partners in the fight. This chapter, therefore, comes in handy to help stakeholders examine the role of the media in fighting against corruption and establish reasons for the persistence of corruption in the public administration of local governments and central governments despite the existence of media, several anti-corruption agencies and actors to fight against it, identify limitations of the media in this war and find solutions to such limitations.

To the academics, this discourse may aid in identifying areas for further research especially new areas that can provide the potential for future research projects.

To the anti-corruption agencies such as parliament and the local governments, it can unearth critical areas that they could not discover or could have ignored in their fight against corruption and come out with policy recommendations on how best the anti-corruption agencies can use the media the fight against corruption.

#### **5. Conceptualizing corruption**

According to Jabareen [36], a conceptual framework is a network, or 'a plane', of interlinked concepts that together provide a comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon or phenomena. The concepts that constitute a conceptual framework support one another, articulate their respective phenomena and establish a framework-specific philosophy. It, therefore, explains the cause-effect relationships between variables, and in this case, the relationship between the independent variables, that is, the role of the media and the dependent variable which is the reduction in corruption prevalence/perception, and this eventually measures the role of the media in fighting corruption as shown below **Figure 1**.

The conceptual framework hypothesizes that when the media is effectively engaged in the fight against corruption through interventions such as playing a watchdog role, reporting, setting an agenda and advocacy, this may lead to increased awareness about the vice and dangers of corruption and increased collective action against corruption such as protests and demonstration, naming and shaming of the corrupt. This consequently may lead to a reduction in corruption incidences as may be evidenced by the increased unearthing of corruption incidences and improved service delivery. However, the effectiveness of the media in the fight against corruption

*Media and the Uncertain Fight against Corruption DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107827*

depends on the accessibility to the radios by the citizens, the existence of favorable laws and policies, active citizen journalism and supportive anti-corruption institutions. The conceptual framework also assumes that there is a reciprocal relationship between the role of the media and the fight against corruption. This implies that when the media is stronger with good anti-corruption programs, then it leads to better results and a reduction in corruption prevalence, while a weaker media will lead to higher incidences of corruption.

## **5.1 Theorizing the concept of 'corruption'**

This discourse is anchored on the Principal Agency Theory which according to Mitnick [37] was coined by Michael Jensen and William Meckling in the 1970s. The theory postulates that, in the governance mechanism, there are two important partners; the 'principal' whom we can also refer to as the employer, and the other partner (employee) being the 'agent'. In the fight against corruption case, the principal is the citizenry and the agent is the elected leader that forms the government. Their relationship is based on the self-interests of the parties, where the citizens hope to receive social services while the elected and appointed leaders want to satisfy their self-interests such as staying in power and also getting financial gain.

The degree of satisfaction of the citizens' interest is determined by the standard of 'Agency Loss'. Agency loss refers to the difference between the best possible outcome for the principal (citizens) and the effects or consequences of the acts of the government as an agent. When a government consistently acts in the best interest of the citizens, the 'agency loss' is zero, whereas consistent deviations would mean increasing agency loss. Agency loss is therefore reduced if both the citizens and the elected leaders share common interests and when the citizens understand the consequences of the government's actions.

However, Bruce et al. [38] criticize this theory for its inherent weakness where the citizen and leaders/government pursue antagonistic individual interests by maximizing personal economic wealth rendering the theory prone to conflicts. In essence, therefore, the elected leaders should act in the best interest of the electorate so that the citizens achieve their output without competing with the leaders who ought to

represent citizens' interests. The major weakness of the theory is the information asymmetry that exists between the citizens and leaders in the government. The citizens are always kept in the information limbo as leaders in government do not provide them with necessary information, thereby creating a gap between the two parties, hence wanton corruption by government officials, suspicions and mistrust by the citizens of leaders in governments.

Therefore, the researcher employs the cultivation theory to bridge the gaps. This theory was initiated by George Gerbner in the late 1960s. Cultivation theory assumes that media exercises long-term direct, indirect and gradual influence on the public. The theory encompasses many concepts that Keim et al. [35] argues include cultural indicators, symbolic environment, the multidirectional process, the television's symbolic function, the value system cultivation, storytelling, the cultural model and television traits.

The cultivation theory hypothesizes that the whole system of value composes of assumptions, perspectives, images, beliefs and ideologies that are formulated by televisions. This is because television mirrors pervasive and hidden morals, values and rules for what is important, appropriate and right in an invisible way in the social discourse. Mosharafa [39] argues the theory adds that this is achieved through the repetitive abrasions from television from cradle to grave that become a foundation for a person's worldview.

Consequently Laranjo et al. [40], alluding to the Cultivation Theory observes that after long exposure to media, viewers' and/or listeners' social realities will be influenced. Thus, those individuals who are subjected to a higher level of exposure to news media, Laranjo et al. [40] argues, are more likely to be impacted by how the world is structured by the media they are exposed to. This would imply that the potential perpetrators of corruption would refrain from it after getting exposed to media reports regarding reprimand and embarrassment caused to other culprits of the vice. This, therefore, makes the cultivation theory most suitable to bridge the gap uncovered by the principal agency theory. The media, therefore, comes in handy to bridge the information gap between citizens and government by way of investigating, reporting, playing a watchdog role and advocacy. However, the extent to which this has been achieved remains a subject of investigation.
