Search Constraints
« Previous |
1 - 10 of 30
|
Next »
Search Results
- 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 is an analytical appraisal of the making of a vibrant media industry in South Africa. The author commends the government effort to repeal oppressive legal regimes that served the defunct apartheid system in stifling press freedom and fundamental human rights. While extolling the virtues of the new democratic culture in the country, the paper also underscores the centrality of the press, especially the media, in nurturing and safeguarding the new plural political system. The author argues strongly that the formation of a more media friendly communication policy, to create a final and rapid break with the divisive past, is imperative. The paper enjoins the new government of national unity to devise comprehensive communication policy and profound training packages for journalists to strengthen and professionalize the media industry, as an instrument of national development. It contends that democratic growth requires a free and authoritative press to provide a forum for national debate, where people can exchange critical and competitive views, to enable them to make rational or informed choices on various matters critical to national cohesion. This, the author says, is only possible if the new communication policy establishes efficient information feedback mechanisms. The paper also highlights various legislations put in place to ensure that national interest is catered for in programming in a liberalised broadcast media. The issues of ownership and media accessibility to the poor are discussed.
- Date Issued:
- 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This article disaggregates the population information, education and communication (IEC) sector into: population information which includes the technical and statistical information of awareness creation; population education through formal institutions (e.g. schools) and non-formal ones (e.g. adult education programmes); and population communication aimed at fostering interest, creating demand and supporting population programme activities. It describes the typology of population information end-users (information brokers) as including policy/decision makers and implementors, service providers and professionals, NGO administrators, university lecturers and researchers, community leaders, and media workers (journalists and producers). These end-users are characterized by the fact that they are non-demographers and hence the need to put in place a 'brokerage' system for translating specialist material into non-specialist information an important aspect of popularization. The mass media are then to be used to diffuse the information so processed to target condiences. The article surveys the mass media situation in Africa and proposes ways in which they may be used to disseminate population information more effectively and accurately.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This article looks at two models of communication existing in a Nigerian rural environment: the traditional, largely interpersonal and interactive model, and the modem, mass mediated, impersonal system. Drawing from sociological theories of change, it finds that the traditional and modem (mass) communication systems interact in interesting ways as a new socio-economic system evolves within the traditional structures of village life. In spite of the imposed foreign language (English) which is the dominant transmission language of the modem mass media, there are significant and complementary outcomes of the interaction between the two modes of communication. The article argues, however, that the traditional systems of communication will retain their role in the transmission of knowledge and information, cultivation of beliefs, and other socialization processes for quite some time to come.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The thesis of this article is that the national interests of African states make it imperative for them to carefully evaluate, assess and examine the development of their present media structures and ownership patterns. The article identifies some of the new communication media in the African context and offers a detailed review of the national and international ramifications of their selection and adoption as privately-owned enterprises.
- Date Issued:
- 1988-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- 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
- 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 article highlights some structures of social relations which influence the formation of images of women in society in general, and in the mass media in particular. Drawing from examples in Tanzania, it adopts a neo-Marxist analysis of society and suggests that both traditional structures and attitudes and modern socio-economic relations, buttressed by prejudices in dominant religions, subjugate women to subsidiary roles in development. Hence their negative portrayal in the mass media. It suggests major reforms in the socialization of the youth within the family and the wider society as a means of fighting the negative images of women which justify their exploitation by partriachal and capitalist social systems.
- Date Issued:
- 1990-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- 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
- Description:
- This paper makes a case for the study of organizational communication as essential to development communication. It briefly traces the history of development communication and how mass media became synonymous with development communication. The assumptions underlying mass media's pre-eminence is revisited in order to make a case for organizational communication in an African environment. In the later sections, it describes a model for the study of development systems and organizational communication components.
- Date Issued:
- 1995-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review