Media Policy of the Royal Government of Bhutan
Department of Information and Media
Ministry of Information and Communication
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Contents
1.
Rationale/ Purpose/Objective: ......................................................................................... 3
2.
Definitions .......................................................................................................................... 4
3.
Policy Statements .............................................................................................................. 4
3.1 GNH ............................................................................................................................... 4
3.2 Governance ................................................................................................................... 5
3.3 Media’s Role ................................................................................................................. 6
3.4 BICMA .......................................................................................................................... 7
3.5 Education in Media Literacy ....................................................................................... 8
3.6 Sustainable Development of the Media Industry ..................................................... 9
3. 7 Preservation of Culture ........................................................................................... 10
3.8
Professionalism of Media ........................................................................................ 10
3.9
Reach the Unreached ............................................................................................... 11
3.10 Other Policy Recommendations……………………………………………………12
3.11 Other Legislation…………………………………………………………………...13
4.
Legislative Compliance. ................................................................................................ 13
5.
Implementation Procedure .......................................................................................... 13
6.
Monitoring and Evaluation. .......................................................................................... 13
7.
Approval Dates ............................................................................................................... 13
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1. Rationale/ Purpose/Objective:
Unlike any other country, Bhutan has taken a deliberate path to development using the notion
of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Perhaps Bhutan’s best known intellectual gift to the rest
of the world, GNH is also the best example of how the country sees the purpose of
development—not merely an economic pursuit, but more a self- actualization of individuals
in the collective. The premise is that the ultimate aspiration of every human being is
happiness.
Taking GNH seriously means that media development has to be viewed through the
perspective of GNH principles. This is unique in the world. On the one hand, it offers
exciting possibilities of “thinking out of the box” and exploring alternative paths of
developing the media. On the other hand, as a unique case, such a notion is as challenging as
it is trail-blazing; there is no example to follow. The path of media development therefore has
to be trod cautiously with continuous monitoring and analysis, as the situation develops to be
sure that Bhutan remains on the right track.
The media laws and policies that were instituted in 2006 have had several years to work
themselves out and it is now timely to review them. It is important that Bhutan learns from its
own media experience of the past five years as the Bhutanese media attempted to play a
significant contributory role in the pioneering years of the democratic process.
This report is intended to provide a policy vision to guide media development for the next
few years. The report builds on the various studies, assessments, seminars and meetings
conducted on the role of the Bhutanese media. Among the more important of these sources of
information on the media are: the Information and Media Policy of the Royal Government of
Bhutan and Institutional Plan for Department of Information and Media (approved by the
246th CCM Session, 23 November 2004), Bhutan Media Impact Study (2008), Media
Development Assessment 2010. Underlying this report is the continuing refinement of GNH
as an operating concept in the governance of Bhutan. Documents and material representing
the discourse on GNH were important in providing the context as well as direction for this
report.
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2. Definitions
Technical jargon has been deliberately kept to a minimum in this report in order to enable wider
access. The following are terms that require some special attention:
•
•
•
Cross media ownership: refers to the ownership by of multiple media platforms. A
newspaper company that owns a TV and a radio station is a cross media owner. Such an
owner should reap economies of scale and this should help profitability. On the other hand,
there is the potential for the owner’s views and stance on issues to crowd out other positions.
Media literacy: refers to the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media messages of
all kinds.
Self- and co-regulation: Self-regulation is the regulation of an industry by the industry. In
pure self-regulation, no government law or agency is involved in passing, monitoring or
enforcing the rules. Historically speaking, self-regulation included government enforcement
of the rules even though that may be limited to cases where the offender is recalcitrant and
refuses to abide by the sanction of the industry body doing the self-regulation. Today, where
government is involved in any aspect of self-regulation, it is termed co-regulation. Because
there is a government “back stop” that can discipline the offender in the worst case, coregulation is a more effective mode of industry self-regulation.
3. Policy Statements
3.1 GNH
Action By
3.1.1 The GNH pillars of Sustainable Development, Preservation of
Culture, Conservation of Environment and Good Governance
and the expansion of these pillars into nine domains shall be
the foundation of the media policy of the country.
3.1.2 Policy recommendations should be based on GNH values and
principles that are carefully explicated to avoid ambiguity.
3.1.3 The media should support the values of GNH and its vision of Media
democracy and human wellbeing and not pursue
commercialism only for their own sake. Media should help
develop society, not just themselves.
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3.2 Governance
Action By
3.2.1 Governance of the media should promote the Government
watchdog role of the media in safeguarding and MOIC
promoting democracy. In practice, this means that the BICMA
principles, laws, rules and administrative processes
relating to the media should help promote the
watchdog role
3.2.2 The media can only perform the watchdog role if the MOIC
industry is financially healthy. A viable framework for Media
government advertising should be established for the
financial sustainability of the media in order to help
preserve their independence.
3.2.3 Periodic audits of media should be conducted for purposes BICMA
of confirming circulation, readership, reach and
viewership.
3.2.4 Where possible, self-regulation, which is the regulation of
industry by industry, or its sibling co-regulation, which is
self-regulation backed by law, should be explored as the
preferred modes of regulating the media.
3.2.5 A media council should be formed as a part of the move
to self- or co-regulation.
All media
stakeholders
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3.3 Media’s Role
Action By
3.3.1 Media should play a watchdog role and promote
democracy.
Media
3.3.2 In fulfilling its watchdog role, media should educate and
inform the public and provide the public platform for
discourse that is open and accessible to all.
Media
3.3.3 Commercialism should not be the primary goal of media. Media
The media in turn should support the values of GNH and
its vision of democracy and human wellbeing and not
pursue commercialism only for their own sake. Media are
mandated to help develop society, not just themselves.
3.3.4 The media industry should look to the private sector for Media
advertising revenue growth because of the natural limits of
the government budget.
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3.4 BICMA
Action By
3.4.1 The autonomy and independence BICMA as media Government
regulator should be strengthened. BICMA staff, including
the Director, should be appointed such that they are given
security of tenure and yet independence from the Royal
Civil Service’s strictures. Greater autonomy in terms of
employment conditions and benefits may be necessary in
order for BICMA to hire quality staff with the expertise to
regulate the fast-moving ICT and media industry.
3.4.2 Decisions that impact stakeholders should be made by BICMA
committees rather than individuals.
3.4.3 BICMA should attempt to work with industry through self- BICMA
or co-regulation. That is, it should help establish and then Media
work with the proposed media council to self-regulate
media content as well as advertising.
3.4.4 BICMA should conduct regular audits to determine the BICMA
well-being of the media industry as well as the impact of its
work. It should aim to produce an annual report of the state
of the media by sector. This should inform potential
investors of the state of the markets. The audits should be
undertaken by an independent third party under BICMA’s
supervision.
3.4.5 BICMA needs to develop in-house expertise to regulate BICMA
media competition, including sharing of infrastructure MOIC
facilities is to be encouraged.
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3.5 Education in Media Literacy
Action By
3.5.1 The Government should aim to increase media literacy. Government
This means educating Bhutanese citizens beyond reading Ministry of
and writing to understanding how to access, analyze, Education
evaluate and create media messages of all kinds.
3.5.2 Initiatives in media literacy by government, civil society Government
and the private sector should be encouraged.
Civil Society
Private
Sector
3.5.3 It may be worth considering embedding media literacy Ministry of
into the education curriculum
Education
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3.6 Sustainable Development of the Media Industry
Action By
3.6.1 A code on advertising to ensure that all advertisements are Media
legal, decent, honest and truthful should be adopted by the BICMA
media industry. Such a code will increase the
trustworthiness of advertisements, ensure a level playing
field for the media, and will be help grow the advertising
pie.
3.6.2 The placement of advertisements by the Government Government
should be done in an objective, fair and transparent manner
3.6.3 Media outlets should show their audited circulation and Media
reach figures to their advertisers in order to help them
make more informed choices in their marketing.
3.6.4 Given the emphasis on GNH and quality, advertisements Government
by the Government should be placed on a combination of
factors: using circulation and reach as important criteria,
and perhaps also including quality of the medium as well
as the effort expended. (Elaboration from 3.1.4.)
3.6.5 Some cost-benefit analysis should be conducted on a BICMA
periodic basis to show the efficacy of the advertising Media
money of the Government. That is, media should cooperate
to show the results of the Government advertisements in
their respective media outlets. This is the only long-term
sustainable practice.
3.6.6 Media should share common infrastructure facilities such Media
as printing plants and broadcast towers.
BICMA
3.6.7 To ensure that there is fair play in the sharing of BICMA
infrastructural facilities, BICMA should build its expertise
in fair competition.
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3.7 Preservation of Culture
Action By
3.7.1 Notwithstanding that it is a challenge, media should Media
produce content that promote GNH values but in a way
that also interests and grabs viewers and readers.
3.7.2 Enhance promotion and development of local content by BICMA
incentivising media organisations to create more local
content.
3.7.3 Archival records should be made of all media and stored in Media/
the National Archives.
National
Archives
3.8 Professionalism of Media
Action By
3.8.1 Training courses are essential to upgrade the professional BICMA
skills of practitioners, particularly among those who do not Journalism
have a background in the media.
institutes
3.8.2 It would be useful to have journalists trained in media Journalism
ethics. The aim of such training is not so much to provide institutes
specific solutions to ethical situations but to sensitise the
journalists to ethics.
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3.9 Reach the Unreached
Action By
3.9.1 Incentives like tax holiday should be given to all media Government
technologies and subsidy should be considered to
encourage media to penetrate the rural areas.
3.9.2 Local content production should be encouraged wherever Government
possible. Such encouragement may be in the direct form of BICMA
grants and subsidies or through mandates such as a quota.
3.9.3 In areas where main stream media like print and television
are not able to reach, encourage community radio to reach
the unreached.
3.9.4 Promote social cohesion and empower women, through
access to timely and accurate information.
3.9.5 Facilitate to enhance equal opportunities to all with access
and right to information.
Media
Government
Media
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3.10
Other Policy Recommendations
Action By
3.10.1 Cross media ownership should be allowed given BICMA
technological convergence to a limited extent while Government
strategically and carefully preventing monopolies. The
precise percentage of cross-ownership and of the content
type (eg, would it be just news, or all content) that should
be allowed will need to be studied by BICMA. Each case
would have to be studied by the regulator on its own
merits. Rules will need to be developed to prevent market
concentration and abuse of market power.
3.10.2 Internet content regulation should be reviewed with a BICMA
view to filtering content for the young.
Ministry of
Education
3.10.3 Online intermediaries should be given limited immunity MOIC
for third-party content. This is necessary to encourage the
growth of the online content space.
3.10.4 It is premature to regulate social media content. But it is MOIC
possible to regulate social media advertising and
marketing with rules based on the advertising code when
it is implemented.
3.10.5 The guidelines on “Media Coverage of Elections” drawn
up by the Election Commission of Bhutan should be
reviewed in the light of the 2013 general elections to
determine if there is a need to fine-tine them.
Election
Commission
of Bhutan
MOIC
BICMA
3.10.6 Digital broadcast migration from analogue to digital will MOIC
be done by 2020 as it is an International obligation..
Although inevitable, the benefits of digital migration are
not immediately apparent for a small media market such
as Bhutan. On the other hand, the costs can be substantial.
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3.11
Other Legislation
Action By
3.11.1 Right to information – has been drafted.
Government
3.11.2 Personal data privacy protection – globally rise of such Government
laws
3.11.3 Defamation law – criminal offence. State involved in what
is often dispute between two individuals and so a matter
that should be settled between them
3.11.4 Copyright law – tendency for rights holder to toughen law.
Need a watching brief.
Government
MoEA
4. Legislative Compliance BICM Act 2006 is the main legislation for media which is
currently being revised. Foreign Direct Investment is legislation where mention of
media has been made.
5. Implementation Procedure: Indicated in the table above
6. Monitoring and Evaluation: Agencies and organizations responsible for monitoring and
evaluation are mentioned in the table above.
7. Approval Dates:
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