Politics, religion and the media: The transformation of the public sphere

Senegal is said to be a democratic model for Africa. This reputation was pro-moted by the presidents and leaders of the Socialist Party (SP), Léopold Sédar Senghor (1960–80) and Abdou Diouf (1981–2000), and confirmed through the democratic change to a government led by the Senegalese Democratic Party (SDP) under its leader Abdoulaye Wade in 2000. Ostensibly, the suc-cessful democratization is reflected in the mass media sector. This sector has gone through a dynamic change since the end of the 1970s, which was fur-ther intensified from the beginning of the 1990s. In the course of the process of liberalization, pluralization and popularization, the market was segmented and media usage increased. The public sphere is established by political, reli-gious, economic, media and regulation actors, who compete for influence, control and ownership. One of the main characteristics of Senegalese media culture consists of multiple conflicts between these actors. From a historical point of view, the media had an important stake in the democratization process and the development of civic responsibility, but at the same time these transformations paradoxically contributed to undermining the foundations of democracy over the last 15 years. After a historic retrospect, the present con-tribution describes the conflicting practices of the competing actors in the public sphere, and explains why these practices are responsible for the lack of credibility of mass media among the Senegalese population.1 Historical retrospect The Senegalese media are the oldest in francophone West Africa.2 On th