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- 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:
- The debate on the form and content of Tanzania's constitution and democracy has been on the agenda throughout the four decades of independence. In the recent process of transition since the 1990s, a series of political reforms such as introducing multi-partyism have been undertaken with the view of widening the space for democracy. This paper addresses several problems surrounding this transition. It argues that democratization is much more than the introduction of multiparty politics and debates the various components of the constitution that are an obstacle to popular participation including the monopoly of political parties in politics. The main stay of democracy is for the people to have a say and power in their own lives and not to depend on the power of political parties.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- 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
- Description:
- This essay addresses an important variable in Nigerian politics, namely, ethnicity and the ways in which it affects the conduct of national affairs. It represents an effort at theorizing the role and place of ethnicity in the transition from authoritarianism in a multi-ethnic setting such as that represented by Nigeria. Drawing on historical evidence on the ways in which ethnicity was constructed in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria as well as the wide literature on the subject, an attempt is made to demonstrate the centrality of the variable to Nigerian politics but without suggestion that it is the sole or most important determinant of political outcomes. Indeed, it is argued that there are other important variables, such as class, which not only affect the political process but also impinge on ethnicity. The ways in which ethnicity influences the different phases of the transition from authoritarianism are discussed drawing on the Nigerian experience.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This paper examines the state of civil-military relations and the prospects for demilitarisation and democratisation in contemporary West Africa. Its underlying thesis is that West Africa poses one of the greatest dilemmas to the prospects for demilitarisation in Africa. At the same time, it offers a potentially useful mechanism for regional peace and security with implications for (de)militarisation in Africa. While the paper recognises the historico-structural dimensions of militarisation as well as the behavioural obstacles to demilitarisation, it captures the challenges and prospects in terms of the complexity of state-civil society relations and suggests a holistic understanding of the concept of security. This, it does with a view to de-emphasising force as the key mechanism for conflict resolution, and promoting an inclusive institutional framework for demilitarisation and development.
- Date Issued:
- 1998-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- 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 essay examines the role which the Nigerian media played in the transition from military rule to elected civilian government. It observes that the immediate political context of the transition was a post-Abacha liberalizing military administration as well as a resurgent civil society. This context meant that the media was able to play a relatively robust role in reporting and influencing the transition although the fact that the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime refused to repeal several "death decrees" targeted at the media remained a key constraining factor on the boldness and imaginativeness of the press in its reporting and monitoring of the transition. Furthermore, while the media, in all its plurality, offered coverage to all of the political parties, it was equally clear that the better financially-endowed People's Democratic Party (PDP) which also emerged as the dominant party was able to win greater advantage over the two other political parties, namely, the All People's Party and the Alliance for Democracy, through the purchase of advertisement space in the print and electronic media. On the whole, the Nigerian media played its role in the transition with credit and whatever weaknesses are observed in its performance and in the skewing of the outcomes of the transition owe more to the shallowness of the transition itself and less to the shortcomings of the media.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- 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
- 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