Myanmar: Outline of Rules Affecting Freedom of Expression Opinion and Expression, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media, the Organization of American States (OAS) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information – focused entirely on media diversity, stressing its importance as an aspect of freedom of expression and as an underpinning of democracy.13 The Joint Declaration identified three distinct aspects of media pluralism or diversity: content, outlet and source.14 Diversity of content, in the sense of the provision of a wide range of content that serves the needs and interests of different members of society, is the most obvious and ultimately the most important form of diversity. Diversity of content, one aspect of which is giving voice to all groups in society, depends, among other things, on the existence of a plurality of types of media, or outlet diversity. Specifically, States should create an enabling environment for different types of broadcasters – including public service, commercial and community broadcasters – each of which bring varying perspectives, programming and speakers/audiences. The absence of source diversity, reflected in the growing phenomenon of concentration of media ownership, can impact media content in important ways , as well as independence and quality. A number of authoritative statements support the idea that the right to freedom of expression obligates States to promote all three types of diversity, namely those of source, outlet and content. It has, however, always been recognised that there is a need to distinguish between how the print and broadcast sectors are regulated. In many States, only diversity of source is regulated in the print media sector. At the same time, some States provide for subsidies for the print media as a means of promoting diversity of content in that sector. The growth the Internet has led to new commercial challenges for the media industry, which has lost sources of revenue, and especially advertising, with the advent of digital communications. Specifically, large online actors, most notably Facebook and Google but also others, have, through their own revenues from advertising, successfully monetised thirdparty news content by linking to and creating fora for engaging with news content. In this context, the challenges to journalistic revenue models wrought by digitisation have drawn increasing international concern,15 and several States have begun to explore different models for supporting news media. Adopted 12 December 2007, http://www.osce.org/fom/66176. See also Thomas Gibbons, “Concentrations of Ownership and Control in a Converging Media Industry”, in Chris Marsden & Stefaan Verhulst, eds., Convergence in European Digital TV Regulation (London, Blackstone Press Ltd., 1999), pp. 155-173, p. 157. 15 For example, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers called for revenues derived from online news content to be “equitably shared and, if necessary, redistributed from online platforms to news content providers, ensuring a balancing effect of such monetisation on the economics of the media industry.” Declaration by the Committee of Ministers on the financial sustainability of quality journalism in the 13 14 The Centre for Law and Democracy is a non-profit human rights organisation working internationally to provide legal expertise on foundational rights for democracy. 13