Understanding media effects on public policy is an increasingly important issue for the World Bank. The media’s effect on governance, how this translates into public sector accountability, and how this in turn affects economic markets warrants attention to an area that until now has benefited from scant research. How does regulation of the media enhance or constrain government accountability, especially when governments are a repository of information relevant to public policy? This event, held in the Washington, DC, offices of the World Bank on April 12–13, 2007, aimed to explore media ownership, news reporting, access to information, the effects on economic markets, and what issues are at stake for political participation and the public interest.
Roumeen Islam Manager in the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network of the World Bank Institute, introduced the speaker for this session. Joseph Stiglitz, Professor of Economics at Columbia University in the School of International Affairs and former Chief Economist for the World Bank, reviewed his interest in the subject, including his previous work on the economics and political processes of information.
Stiglitz discussed his viewpoints on the relationship between power and information, noting that creating a scarcity of information gives policy makers a level of power that an abundance of publicly available information would serve to limit. He discussed the concept of agency as a critical determinant of creating or preventing corruption and also what he called “gift exchange,” a form of corruption in wealthy Western countries that often takes the form of campaign contributions, or giving information to the press in exchange for positive coverage.
Stiglitz examined distortions of information in the private sector, including in the tobacco, pharmaceutical, and petroleum industries, and how the media’s search for advertising dollars may lead to significant corruption as well. He argued that a diversity of independent media can create incentives for some outlets to uncover the distortions of others, leading to a plurality of viewpoints and an expanded base of publicly available information.
Questions from the audience included how to examine different perspectives from independent media, defining what factors go into creating a well-functioning democracy, the role of government in supporting media, and what the World Bank’s role is in disseminating information to the public.
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