Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes to reflect on the media and right to information and the influences exerted by economic groups, as well as the limits of press freedom in post-conflict society, and in the process of democratization.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to reflect from a sociological perspective of how the influences of the economic groups of the Angolan journalism market may constrain their independent and impartial activity. To what extent newspaper editors (one public and two private) comply with these assumptions and what are the limits of press freedom in a post-conflict society, in process of democratization?

The press freedom and the right to free information are two assumptions conquered by the society, and implemented in the constitutional law of 1992. From this perspective, the 1990s were important for the maintenance of this achievement, as the first independent newspapers of the State arise during this period from a press very much oriented by the civil war.

Since the war ended, in 2002, the Angolan press in general is faced with new demands that have much to do with the balance of information, impartiality and professionalism. The constraints observed in this activity, and I am mainly referring to the conformation of press law to the new Constitution, and the decriminalization of journalists that are targets of persecution and political pressures, are still the major concerns of the class divided into various interest groups and associations.

So what we are witnessing today is a transformation of these assumptions derived from the intervention of economic actors associated with the political power, who buy the private newspapers.