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1. The mass media systems of Kenya and Tanzania

Description:
The article is a comparative study of the mass media systems of Kenya and Tanzania. The author examines the historical, geographical, political, economic, social and cultural factors which shape the mass media systems in the two countries. The article concludes that the factors of literacy and politico-economic system are destined to have significant impact on the future growth and shape of the mass media in Kenya and Tanzania.
Date Issued:
1986-06-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:
Africa Media Review

2. Law and the mass media in Kenya

Description:
This article describes and analyses the law affecting the mass media in Kenya. It poses and attempts to answer the questions: (a) who should define the role of the press? (b) how much control may the state exercise over the press? and (c) what accepted methods and instruments of control should the state adopt? It argues that state interest in the control of the press has been achieved through (a) determining how the press is to perform its role, and (b) by becoming part of the press (through ownership) and participating in defining its role. In Kenya, several legal and administrative instruments exist for controlling the press, which are to be found in public, private, criminal, commercial, and administrative legal processes. This state of affairs has not always permitted of smooth government-press relations irrespective of the legitimacy and justifiability of state action against the media. It suggests the establishment of a representative institution for canvassing various interests bearing on the performance and conduct of the press, granting and guaranteeing the right to a hearing before a tribunal before any curbs on the press are imposed, and the right of the press to appeal in the event of state action against it.
Date Issued:
1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:
Africa Media Review

3. The media as civil society and its role in democratic transition in Kenya

Description:
This paper discusses the contribution of the mass media to the transition from single to multi-party democracy in Kenya. Considering the media as part and parcel of civil society, the author argues that access to the mass media is critical to actors involved in the politics of transition from single to multiparty democracy. However, it is postulated that the role of the media in this enterprise can be greatly enhanced by the support of other democratic social forces in society. Both institutions need each other as they try to influence the direction, pattern and issues of democratic transition. The paper also discusses the problems encountered by the media in the process of promoting democratic politics. These include the legal and political environment in which the media operate, the absence of an effective media organization to protect the interests of journalists and the tendency to disregard professionalism by the media practitioners themselves.
Date Issued:
1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:
Africa Media Review

4. A return to basics

Description:
This paper presents a challenging and radical contribution to the debate about media laws and politics in Kenya. The internationalist universalist dimension is critical and eye-opening. It is a lampoonery of the dichotomised 'them' against 'us' axis upon which the discourse on media legislation reforms revolves. Instead, the author recommends that the debaters should embrace an important trilogy: the state, the media and the citizen. This, the author argues, will help in removing the debate away from the infrastructure of a free media as the only bone of contention, to include the 'spirit" of the media laws. The interest of the argument, therefore is to create a people-centered and responsive media. The people are integral stakeholders in the media industry, and as is, it is argued, must be as protected by the constitution as the media rights. The foregoing premise logically lends itself to the conclusion that media rights are human rights. If so then the author insist that the debate about media reforms is ill-informed if it doesn't include constitutional reform. But he goes past this to embrace a universalistic approach to the review of media laws. This is consistent with the paradigm shift in the development and application of the modern human rights laws and international politics, which started with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Genocide Convention (1948), the Geneva Convention of 1949, the Convention of Refugees (1951), the International Government on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). Within these internationally binding legal instruments, the author says, the media can find supportive articles for their demand for the inclusion of media rights as human rights. In this new internationalist thinking, the nationalistic or territorial approach to human rights issues have been found to be wanting as concerned governments have repeatedly violated national laws with impunity. There is no guarantee that national media laws will not be derogated by the despotic regimes again. Having traced the origins of the universalisation of human rights to the wartime atrocities of Nazi regime, the paper contends that the media today is an important international diplomatic player in conflict prevention, management and resolution to be left at the mercy of the draconian whims of an authoritarian government. The author declares that freedom of expression is the first freedom. Therefore it ought not to be negotiable. The paper laments mistreatment of the Kenyan journalists and their institutions by the powers that be.
Date Issued:
1997-01-01T00:00:00Z
Data Provider:
Michigan State University. Libraries
Collection:
Africa Media Review