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- Description:
- This paper analyses the concepts of development and democracy to determine their compatibility within the African situation, and discusses how the mass media could promote them. It demonstrates that, while appropriate models of the concept of democracy are still being sought, it is indisputable that there already exist sufficient elements in the African conception of human rights to provide a base for a press system that tends towards liberalism rather than authoritarianism. It, therefore, approaches the discussion from the perspective of what role the press ought to play in the African society to promote both democracy and development.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper uses a reassessment of the legacy of Paulo Freire as a point of departure to construct analytical frameworks, based upon insights from development and political communication, for use in assessing the significance and potential of alternative media for political change in Africa. The notion of alternative media is understood as incorporating a variety of dimensions (difference, independence, opposition, and representation) whose importance is determined by the parameters of particular struggles. The paper eschews country-specific analysis and is sceptical of the likely trajectories of the democratization processes (transitions) in Africa.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This study looks into the concept of democracy as it is understood within the African context and the role which the mass media could play in promoting and sustaining it. It argues that, given Africa's colonial experience and its history of struggle for human dignity and liberation, the appropriate role for the mass media must be to sustain this struggle. Accordingly, their relevance must be seen in relation to the extent to which they promote the developmental and democratic aspirations of the majority of the people. And, as such, training of African media practitioners must be predicated on the necessity to give them clear orientation for the achievement of these goals. Finally, the professional status of journalists and of the journalism profession must be acknowledged by political authorities and policy makers; journalists must be appropriately renumerated and their profession upgraded within the hierarchy of national priorities.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Date Issued:
- 1996-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Date Issued:
- 2001-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This article offers some reflections on the locus of peoples' stories, or their Sitz im Leben, i.e., leisure time. It explores this concept briefly from the perspectives of social anthropology and mass media studies. It then draws a political typology of peoples' stories which are of some significance to Africa's modern story-tellers, the mass media.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The purpose of this essay is to suggest an empirically based model to be used as a framework for analysis in studying contemporary political transitions in Africa. The discussion is founded on the leading assumption that the factors which catalyse regime transformation are fundamentally the same irrespective of the direction of change: social crisis intersects with structural conditions and particular patterns of human relationships resulting in a type of change which is conditioned by political culture and the weight of history. Democratisation is only one form of regime change. The paper concludes that while there may be ample evidence that significant political liberalisation has taken place, it is not appropriate to celebrate the "flowering of democracy" per se for the process is often in the direction of "pacted democracy" as opposed to "liberal democracy".
- Date Issued:
- 1996-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science