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- 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:
- Interest in the concept of civil society received a boost from the demise of communism in Eastern Europe, as more attention became focused on nongovernmental actors. It is not surprising that the concept has engaged the minds of many social scientists. Among the various interpretations are civil society as an "external or inferior state" as "bourgeois state", and as "state per se". In Africa, the concept is a useful tool in explaining some of the development problems that have persisted through the years, especially in the areas of democracy and political communication. In the illustrative case of Cameroon, it is argued that poor professionalization among journalists is a major factor in the media's failure to promote democracy and civil society. The prospects for civil society are dim in Cameroon and many other African countries.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- 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:
- Review of: Keyan Tomaselli, Ruth Tomaselli, Johan Muller (eds.). Narrating the crisis: hegemony and the South African Press. London: Currey, 1987
- Date Issued:
- 1992-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Critical Arts
- Description:
- This article hypothesizes that the extent of democratization of the mass media in any society is a function of two factors: accessibility to information and the patterns of media ownership in the society. It holds that these two factors determine the extent to which there is free flow of information, the extent to which the citizens have access to information, the degree of mobilization and participation, and the extent to which the society can be described as democratized. It points out, however, that these two factors are not mutually exclusive because accessibility can be a function of ownership; but some factors which come under accessibility are not traceable to patterns of ownership. The articles also notes that mere guarantee of free press or free speech does not ensure that every citizen has access to information and to the channels through which he can express himself.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Date Issued:
- 1981-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Critical Arts
- Description:
- This paper is an extension of a rural communication project by Unesco/IPDC and the Finnish International Development Agency FINNIDA, focusing on nine villages in northern Tanzania. The project was given the name Commedia, an abbreviation of "Community Media for Rural Development". Its aim was to promote grassroots communication and dialogue between the village and nation-level media. It was originally envisioned as a pilot experiment for a huge programme, finally covering all the 8,000 villages in Tanzania and shifting the urban bias in Tanzanian mass communication. The project did not work out quite in the way it was planned. The Commedia story includes the ups and downs of an exercise seeking a balance between idealism and a cruel and capricious reality, not always responding to set objectives in the way planned in the project document (Kivikuru et al, forthcoming).
- Date Issued:
- 1994-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The issues of how the media affect people, and what people do with the media have presented perennial and perplexing questions for communication scholars. Some of the research results in these areas are more controversial than useful. Uses and gratification studies straddle the two domains of media effects and people's employment of the media. The field of gratifications research holds great promise in the continual search for comprehensive knowledge on how and why we use the media. Drawing from a wide range of local and international literature, this unit presents copious evidence to show that gratifications research has universal application in many contexts, including development communication.
- Date Issued:
- 1995-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The paper looks at the diversity of perception among the people working in media education in different countries and considers whether there is any common ground among them, or any consensus on basic objectives. This paper attempts to answer this question before moving on to consider two pressing issues which confront media educators both now and in the foreseeable future: the place of the value question in media education and how media educators should respond to the development of the Information Superhighway.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- Review of: Belinda Bozzoli. The political nature of a ruling class: capital and ideology in South Africa, 1890-1933. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981
- Date Issued:
- 1981-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Critical Arts