"News consumers have come to expect and demand the unprecedented immediacy of experience and coverage of breaking news offered by photographs, video clips, audio recordings, tweets, commentary: content created by ordinary citizens. The use of user-generated content is a salient aspect of how journal
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ists and news organizations are responding to technological changes in the twenty-first century. Eyewitness Textures examines the far-reaching changes in journalism spurred by the growing importance of user-generated content. Bringing together the voices and experiences of professional journalists and academic researchers from across five continents, this collection explores news production practices, changing skills among editors and journalists, and corporate and newsroom restructuring. Chapters by practitioners collectively reflect the newsroom experiences of major global media organizations, while the academic contributions address issues of industrial transformation, political influence, truth and verification, aesthetics, and ideological implications. Both perspectives combine to deepen our understanding of what constitutes the conditions and creation of good journalism, as well as the implications of how the profession should be taught to future journalists." (Publisher description)
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"Radio is hailed as Africa’s medium of choice in the global communication age. Introduced as a colonial tool of information, education and entertainment in the early 1930s, radio broadcasting was mainly in colonial languages as colonial administrators perceived local language broadcasting a threat
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to their empire building and ‘civilization’ agendas. The fortunes of local language broadcasting did not dramatically change in the independence era when broadcast media were in the firm control of the state. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, mostly resulting from a more liberalized media environment, local language broadcasting has undergone unprecedented growth. Drawing on written archival material, including internal communication among policy-makers, audience letters, key informant interviews and findings from a recent audience study, this article charts the progressive development of local language radio broadcasting in Ghana, and engages with the role played by early audiences and broadcasters in indigenizing broadcast content." (Abstract)
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"This article explores the reception practices of multi-lingual audiences in Ghana, focusing on their views on the different norms and approaches of local language and English language radio newscasts. Using data from a convenience sample of 1000 radio listeners in five Ghanaian cosmopolitan cities
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the study finds that audiences prefer more performative modes of news delivery on their local language stations. It was also evident that radio audiences are discerning and make distinctions between what is acceptable on local language versus English language radio. These results call for a reconsideration of western-influenced standards of news delivery and the development of professional standards more accommodating of the inflections of culture." (Abstract)
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"A sub-text in the discourse on international development assistance is the argument that aid is not necessarily a beneficent, or sustainable, solution to the development needs of African countries. This argument raises a conceptual conundrum with respect to the many training programmes and fellowsh
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ips designed to address the skills deficits of journalists and media in Africa. While the necessity and value of such interventions may be taken for granted, a counterintuitive question arises about the extent to which beneficiaries are able nonetheless to act independently. This study sought to find out the extent to which capacity-building assistance to journalists in Ghana may have fostered or inhibited their independent practice. Individual interviews were conducted with 24 journalists to ascertain their experiences with such programmes and their subsequent dispositions towards the host country or agency. The findings showed that underlying the manifest objectives of building the capacities of beneficiaries was the implicit intent of the aid country of origin to use the media as agents of economic and cultural diplomacy. The consequent prospect of compromising the journalistic autonomy of beneficiaries of training aid brings into question their capacity to contribute to sustainable development in Ghana." (Abstract)
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"The essays in this volume reflect a wide-range of issues and concerns related to children’s media culture in Africa. For example, several address the role of entertainment television in Addis Abba, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia and in the lives of Muslim children. Other essays introduce
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us to children-centered media from Ghana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, and the innovative programs of PLAN-International. In addition to entertainment media and children-centered media, media education and digital media literacy are also discussed." (Publisher description)
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