Jordan Watch : Two important Public Opinion Polls on Reform and Media in Jordan

I will refere here to our dear blogger and expert in Middle East issues Mr Abu Aardvark who has posted about two important public opinion polls on reform and media freedoms in Jordan.

I have written a long post in my Arabic blog about the survey conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) in the University of Jordan to explore the understanding and perspectives of the Jordanian public on the elusive concept of reform. You can download the Arabic poll here

The post from Abu Aardvark provides a summary of the main results in English. The following points represent his opinion

on the 10 point scale (10 the highest) consistently used by the CSS since the early 1990s, the state of 'democracy in Jordan' is currently 5.8, no real difference from most other surveys, a little bit down from 2005 (when it was 6.2)
just under 50% felt that freedom to join political parties or participate in demonstrations is guaranteed in Jordan
around 40% said that democracy is the best system to improve economic conditions - an odd way to phrase the question, I think. Similarly, only 10% said that rule by religious figures would improve economic conditions, again a bizarre way of framing the question - presumably those who want religious government do so because of their religious beliefs, not because of venal material expectations. I don't know if this very poor framing represents sloppy construction of the survey or an intentional way of not asking other more direct questions.
around 60% described the last Parliamentary election as 'fair and just.' That is rather low. Less than 50% think that the current Parliament is doing its job well.
58.8% see the public media as credible. Also very low.

The most important point that I would like to highlight here is that the response shows that the Jordanian public is aware of the main values in reform (democratization, civil rights, freedom of expression, women empowerment, institutionalization of political reform) and they are supportive of it. This is antogonistic to the claim by the conservative political forces in Jordan that reformists and reform does not have a strong public support.

The other poll was conducted and published by IFES and the Arab center for Development of the ruke of law and integrity and was focused on media freedoms in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon (the for most progressive Arab country in the area of press-or shall I say the least restrictive?).

Here are some results with Abu Aardvark's comments:

22% of Jordanians, 31% of Egyptians, 50% of Moroccans, and 77% of Lebanese felt that journalists "enjoy freedom of expression without fear of reprisal." 58% of Jordanians, 48% of Egyptians, 45% of Moroccans, and 16% of Lebanese felt that journalists did not.
25% of Egpytians, 24% of Jordanians, 52% of Moroccans and 68% of Lebanese felt that "the media is able to report openly on all types of issues". 48% of Egyptians, 52% of Jordanians, 21% of Lebanese, and 43% of Moroccans felt they could not.
57% of Egyptians, 58% of Jordanians, 46% of Lebanese, and 54% of Moroccans felt that "the media is influenced/pressured by government to a large degree." It's interesting that the response by Lebanese on the issue of government influence is so much higher than on questions about intimidation.
23% of Egyptians, 26% of Jordanians, 25% of Lebanese, and 41% of Moroccans felt that "the media provides you with impartial and balanced views."
86% of Egyptians, 81% of Jordanians, 91% of Lebanese, and 90% of Moroccans felt that "reforms are needed to enhance the independence of the media."

I think these results are self-explanatory in nature. WE are still a long time away from genuine media freedoms.