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- Description:
- This paper critically reviews the history of journalism education in Africa, and the controversies surrounding it. The authors reckon that dependency theorists have argued about the inappropriateness of Western models and professional standards for Third World journalism. However, in spite of this rhetoric, many Third World schools of journalism and practitioners tend to follow the Western approaches. Of these approaches, the American practical orientation seems to appeal most to those who teach, sponsor, or practice journalism in the Third World.
- Date Issued:
- 1987-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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
- Description:
- This is an incisive scientific evaluation of the existing curricula in journalism and communication training institutions in East Africa. The study pays close attention to most of the crucial elements of a good curricula, including the aims and objectives of the courses, the teaching methods adopted, the assessment methods of the courses and the flexibility of the courses to accomodate community, national, regional, continental and international needs. The aims of the study were five-fold: To provide emphirical evidence on the orientations, objectives and scope of the existing curricula in journalism and communication training in East Africa; to suggest variousways of re-modelling the curricula; to access the quality of training offered to journalists so as to find out if they are being adequately funded and teachers well remunerated and; to generate fresh data on journalism and communication training in the region which can be used by policy makers and implementors in shaping future training needs. Field survey research design was used to collect data from stations, newspapers, training institutions and governmental departments. A total of 19, 21 and 22 respondents from Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya respectively were interviewed. The study raises concern over two pertinent issues: the fact that the training institutions have less teaching staff and that the curricula used are relatively old with the newest having been drawn in 1994. The author suggests that there ought to be regular review of the curricula to make them responsive to the ever-changing media demands. Three track approach to the review of the curricula are recommended. They invite Unesco and other stakeholders to commission further studies aimed at a comprehensive improvement of the curricula so that the beneficiaries may be able to face the various complex communication challenges facing their communities and countries; the region, continent and the world.
- Date Issued:
- 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This article is a response to the quest for more relevant strategies for communication training in Africa. It reviews the liberal social theories upon which Third World studies have been anchored and rejects them for having led to the current crisis of theory in communication training. Opting for a Marxian political economy approach, it suggests, inter alia, the study of imperialism in all its manifestations as a way of understanding the current reality in Africa; the need to relate theory and practice (through field work) in communication training; and the incorporation of sufficient social science theories and applications thereof into communication syllabi of African training institutions.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The impact of the information superhighway on journalism education in Africa is addressed by the author. The theme of this paper is that the communal approach should be used in solving moral problems in journalism. The individualism and divisionism that permeate the practise of journalism in Africa today should be discarded since they are not only unAfrican but also professionally unhealthy. The article asserts that African journalism would have an inbuilt self-correcting mechanism that facilitates journalists counselling one another. It is submitted herein that world journalism, equally beset with divisionist and selfish approaches to the practice of ethical journalism, could learn from Africa the value of journalistic solidarity and common problem-solving. The article ends with a note that the world needs journalism with a human face.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper highlights the need fora new ideology of professionalism in the face of the social and political realities of the Third World. It calls for a reassessment of the role of journalists, and the function of journalism and journalism education in Africa. It argues that proficiency in the receptive and expressive language skills should be made an integral part of journalism education and neither relegated to the syllabuses of other departments which have a variety of objectives of their own, nor left to develop by chance. Language, the vital tool of journalists, has to be utilized in newer and subtler ways in contemporary communication environments.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper examines the role communication and education can play in the crusade against the spread of AIDS in Africa. It appreciates the 'technical' nature of the information to be disseminated and recognizes the need for audience, channel and message segmentation. The paper suggests specific aspects of the AIDS problem at which communication and educational efforts should be directed. It advocates the use of multiple but mutually reinforcing channels of communication mass media and interpersonal networks. It recommends that communication and educational efforts against the spread of AIDS should be community-based, encouraging the active support, involvement and participation of local communities. Finally, the paper recognizes the need for a team-effort approach involving communicators, instructional material designers, health personnel, and the public at large.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper critically evaluates the various conceptions of self-reliance in Black Africa. It identifies some factors that may promote or hinder the realization of self-reliance in mass communication training. Observing that much of the educational philosophy and many curricula used in Black Africa's mass communication training are a colonical legacy, the author recommends that training should not just revamp such philosophies and curricula, but initiate a new, development-oriented outlook.
- Date Issued:
- 1987-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper critically reviews the current status of African communication educational resources and needs in the context of the development of the post colonial state and its institutions. In calling for an indigenized philosophy of communication, the paper argues that the current patterns of communication education are too foreign-oriented and have very little or no indigenous component. As a result, media practitioners are institutionally incapable of interpreting dynamically complex socio-economic and development problems facing Africa today.
- Date Issued:
- 1992-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- This paper discusses the lineage of British cultural studies in relation to its historical antecedents in Britain and Germany, and with regard to developments in the USA, South America and Africa. Cultural and media studies are contrasted with American administrative research and the 'mass society' thesis. Cultural studies seek emancipation; administrative research contributes to social control. The paper ends with a discussion of African cultural theorists and their application of Marxism in anti-colonial struggles on the continent. Some of the problems evident in such scholars and activists as Cabral, Fanon and Ngugi wa Thiong'o are examined. The paper argues that the history of cultural studies during the 20th Century is a history of the ideological mobilisation of the term 'culture*
- Date Issued:
- 1995-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review