Dr Hazrat Bahar was a faculty member in a journalism school at Shaikh Zayed University in Afghanistan. He has a Ph.D. in media and communication and MA in international relations. Dr. Bahar is now a postdoc research fellow at Leipzig University. His fellowship is partially supported by the Institute of International Education (IIE). He has written about media and its effects in Afghanistan, and some of his works have been published in academic journals and media outlets. His interest includes the effects of media, media systems, media in Afghanistan, and political communication.
Topic: The Media System of Afghanistan: A Model for Fragile States
After the collapse of the Taliban and the establishment of a new government in late 2001, Afghanistan once again became a buzzword that attracted the international community’s attention. A new constitution was introduced and ratified in 2004, paving the way for media law, which was developed under a broader liberalism paradigm. In addition, the international community also ‘generously’ supported the media (Barker, 2008). As a result, hundreds of media outlets were established, and new media institutions were founded, which, in turn, trained media practitioners and promoted free speech. Consequently, this led to Afghanistan establishing a relatively more liberal media system compared to its neighboring and regional countries.
It was ranked 120th out of 180 countries by Reporters Without Borders (RSF, 2021). Nevertheless, the country constantly remained fragile in terms of security, politics, and economy. Such fragility, though fluctuating, continued to deteriorate until an agreement between the United States and the Taliban was reached and signed in late February 2020 in Doha, Qatar. Following the agreement, the country experienced a drastic increase in insecurity, and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapsed in mid-August 2021. During these two decades (2001-2021), the study of the media system of the country remained unexplored, though essential. Therefore, Dr. Bahar’s study attempts to examine what the system was and how it developed.
Beyond the established dimensions of media systems such as media market structure, professionalism, political parallelism, and state intervention, the unique context of Afghanistan necessitates the exploration and examination of new themes. This study has identified these dimensions, namely state fragility, media fragmentation, and insurgent media. The research is currently in its final stages and will be published soon.