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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 identifies the inalienable features which characterize the truly indigenous African film. It argues that the pre-eminence of the USA and India in the international movie marketplace translates into the colonization of both the medium and the industry in the importing country. It works out the rubrics for an African aesthetic of the film with examples from the works of leading African film makers.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This article sketches a broad overview of the problems and prospects of Africa communication. Beginning with Africa's economic handicaps which limit its potential to fully exploit the new array of modern communication technologies, it argues that it is class politics which excludes the mass of the African people from communication channels that constitutes the major impediment to communication in Africa. The remedy to this problem is, therefore, to be found in a communication strategy that accords due respect to African cultural traditions in which respect for truth, equality, social justice and the supernatural are the cardinal principles.
- Date Issued:
- 1989-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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:
- The present relations of dependency of Third World countries on the industrilizcd countries are sustained by the well-known inequalities in technological resources between the North and the South. This article presents two levels for analysing the role of media technology in perpetuating this dependency syndrome: (1) the role of technology in the information and communications sectors; and (2) the impact of multinational corporations in news coverage, and, hence, on local culture, through their news agencies and other cultural products. It posits three questions to guide technology choice in Africa: (1) Why choose a particular technology? (2) To what end? (3) Which social group(s) will benefit from the technology economically, politically, and culturally?
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The concepts of media as the fourth estate and the society's watchdog are popular among communication scholars. However, a consideration of the actualization of this concept is indicative of the media's failing in playing these roles. Very often, the media marginalise and disempower the masses whose causes they ought to promote. If the media were to truly play the watchdog role as the fourth estate, then both the structure and ownership of the media must be reviewed with a view to redressing the imbalances that make them tools for the disempowerment of civil society in Africa.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- African nations are at the crossroads. Some of their economies are tottering, and on the brink of collapse while social, cultural and political structures are becoming weaker by the day. There is need for better management of Africa's resources. The article advances an argument that communication is critical in the empowerment of civil society. It points out that communication is a doubleedged blade that can either empower or disempower a civil society. The paper highlights key areas in which communication can empower a society. These are in the economic, cultural and political spheres. The effects of modern communication technology especially the internet and e-mail among others, which have radically transformed information dissemination system are discussed. It includes that African countries must take cognisance of the role of communication and harness it for their benefit.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- This paper uses the Marxist postulatethat it is those segments of society which monopolize the production of knowledge and information which determine the general ideas and opinions that pervade society to analyse media coverage of Africa from the early days of explorers to the present time. It links the most salient images evoked by the mass media with the prevailing socioeconomic and political climates that have given impetus to current processes of ideological reproduction. Comparison of early reportage of Africa by European explorers and journalists (e.g. Stanley, Lugard) with contemporary media coverage of the continent reveals a persistent reference to Africans as barbaric, noble savages, communists and terrorists. Such references (images) have powerful ideological implications for the maintenance of the hegemony of a particular socioeconomic system over others. Just as they justified slavery and colonialism in the last century, such images now justify imperialism and military adventurism in Africa.
- Date Issued:
- 1991-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Africa Media Review
- Description:
- The paper discusses the themes of press responsibility and public opinion and their relevance within the current socio-political economic frameworks of African nations. It stresses the pertinent role of a democratized press in democratic political systems, and the role that the press can play within the democracies if they are conscious of the great responsibility that the current transition programmes of African nations places on them. In view of the rise of so many elites in Africa (those who almost always make headline news) and their great influence in mass media output as well as the economic considerations of many media organisations in news judgement, the paper reasserts the deep ethical and professional commitment of the mass media to protecting the underprivileged in society, interpreting their points of view and acting as the voice of the voiceless in society. The paper concludes that a holistic transition programme that recognises less government presence in mass media management and output is ideal for African nations. It also calls for more professional running of the press in Africa to ensure that they fit properly as society's watchdog, the fourth estate of the realm.
- Date Issued:
- 1994-01-01T00:00:00Z
- 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