SECTOR 2 The media landscape, including new media, is characterised by diversity, independence and sustainability 2.1 A wide range of sources of information (print, broadcasting, internet) is accessible and affordable to citizens. Algerians have “indisputably” access to a wide and varied range of sources of information whether print, broadcast or the internet in Arabic, Tamazight and French. With over 320 publications as identifies the 31 January 2009 by the Department of State for Communications including 65 dailies (see Le Livre de la Communication: Modernisation d’Abord, Professionalisme Toujours The Book of Communications: Modernization First, Professionalism Always published on 3 May 2009 in celebration of the World Press Freedom day) and a total of 2,500,000 print runs, the Algerian media is one of the most plural in Africa and even in the Arab world. For instance, the daily newspaper El Khabar is, with an average of 500,000 copies a day, the most widely circulated paper on the African continent. Overall, 57 daily newspapers (some of which such as Al Watan and Al Khabar also have a weekend edition) are published and circulated countrywide in Arabic and in French. “It is like thermal baths, the more there are in the world, the fewer people have bathrooms at home” The Algerian press is also very diverse. There are several specialized periodicals and reviews in areas, such as sports (5), economic affairs (3), culture, science, etc... Other than the general public, some publications target children (Ech-Chater, Laabstore), women (Ech-Chimaa, El Djamila, Dziriet, El Djamila Taslia, El Kafas Ed-Dahabi) or other social or professional categories. This profusion of publications is considered a strategy put in place by the government authorities to submerge the more professional publications in an artificially flooded market and to display a semblance of media pluralism that barely conceals the government’s stranglehold on the sector. Contrary to the print media, broadcasting is the weak link in the Algerian media environment. Despite the introduction of broadcasting pluralism as stipulated in the Information Act and the transformation – by an executive order dated 20 April 1991 – of national radio and television companies into industrial and commercial 28 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER ALGERIA 2009