mediadev library

Digital Disinformation in Africa: Hashtag Politics, Power and Propaganda

Tony Roberts, George Hamandishe Karekwaivanane (ed.)

London: Zed Books (2024), xiv, 242 pp.

"In an era when hashtag campaigns like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter capture global attention for victims of injustice, politicians and corporations are now spending billions employing Cambridge Analytica-type consultancies to manufacture disinformation - employing trolls, cyborgs and bots to disrupt ... more

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Digital authoritarianism: A systematic literature review

Tony Roberts, Marjoke Oosterom

Information Technology for Developpment (2024), 25 pp.

"Authoritarianism is in the ascendancy across the globe, with digital technologies being used by both governments and non-state actors to repress rights and freedoms. Competing terms have emerged to conceptualize such use of digital technologies, including the term digital authoritarianism and a ran ... more

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Digital Citizenship in Africa: Technologies of Agency and Repression

Tony Roberts, Tanja Bosch (eds.)

London et al.: Zed Books (2023), xxi, 234 pp.

"With contributions from scholars across the continent, Digital Citizenship in Africa illustrates how citizens have been using VPNs, encryption, and privacy-protecting browsers to resist limits on their rights to privacy and political speech. This book dramatically expands our understanding of the v ... more

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Mapping the supply of surveillance technologies to Africa: Case studies from Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Malawi, and Zambia

Tony Roberts, Judy Gitahi, Patrick Allam et al.

Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (2023), 167 pp.

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Digital Rights in Closing Civic Space: Lessons from Ten African Countries

Tony Roberts (ed.)

Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (2021), 251 pp.

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Predictive Analytics in Humanitarian Action: A Preliminary Mapping and Analysis

Kevin Hernandez, Tony Roberts

Brighton (UK): Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (2020), 47 pp.

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Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change
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Jan Servaes (ed.)

Singapore: Springer (2020), 2 vols.

"The book contains 85 chapters written by persons who have been on those frontlines of communication and development [...] A variety of case studies appear in the book. For example, Kriss Barker and Fatou Jah – in a chapter titled “Entertainment-Education in Radio: Three Case Studies from Africa ... ” – explore in detail projects in Nigeria, Burundi and Burkina Faso that used a communication intervention approach advanced by the Population Media Center. Other chapters in the Handbook take the reader to Spain, Kenya, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and beyond. Song Shi examines “ICTs and Modernization in China,” revealing that assumptions and theories of the modernization paradigm have significantly influenced the policies and projects on ICT4D in contemporary China. And, Song Shi writes, discussion on the potential of other approaches in ICT4D in China has also emerged among scholars. Hina Ayaz discusses the “Multiplicity Approach in Participatory Communication” in Pakistan – wherein the country adopted the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – only to run into negative perceptions and banning of polio vaccinations. However, a shift to a more successful approach, grounded in UNICEF’s social mobilization and communityinvolvement communication strategy, brought significant success. While many of the Handbook case studies incorporate participation as a significant development factor, they also address a wide range of social and political issues including, for example, civic engagement, sexual harassment, empowerment, and community voices. In addition to an abundance of case studies from around the world, the Handbook delves into various research methods that are being used to understand and design communication for development and social change interventions [...] Handbook editor Jan Servaes' own chapter (with Rico Lie), “Key Concepts, Disciplines, and Fields in Communication for Development and Social Change ” identifies five clusters of concepts and practices that are evident in the field today and which determine the activities and approaches in communication for sustainable development and social change interventions: The clusters are (1) a normative cluster of concepts; (2) a cluster of concepts that sets an important context for communication activities for development; (3) a cluster of strategic and methodological concepts; (4) a cluster of concepts that relate to methods, techniques, and tools; and (5) a cluster of concepts that addresses the practices of advocacy, (participatory) monitoring and evaluation, and impact assessment. The authors extend their discussion into three subdivisions: (1) health communication, (2) agricultural extension and rural communication, and (3) environmental communication (including climate change communication). This leads the reader into issues related to (1) right to communicate; (2) education and learning; (3) innovation, science, and technology; (4) natural resource management; (5) food security; (6) poverty reduction; (7) peace and conflict; (8) children and youth, women, and senior citizens; and (9) tourism. Some of the forerunners of development communication have not been forgotten. In “Daniel Lerner and the Origins of Development Communication”, Hemant Shah links Lerner’s 1958 book Passing of Traditional Society to today’s modernization and faith in technology to solve social problems. Also contributing to the foundation of this field is Paulo Freire who contributed much to idea that participation should be a vital part of the development dialogue. Ana Fernández-Aballí Altamirano’s chapter on "The Importance of Paulo Freire to Communication for Development and Social Change" highlights his main work Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a "before-and-after" in the fields of education, research, and communication, initially in Latin America and later in both North and South. Particularly in the case of development communication and communication for social change, the author stresses, Freire’s work had a definitive impact ..." (Review by Royal Donald Colle, Journal of Development Communication, vol. 30 (2), page 92-94) more

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Fifty Years of Practice and Innovation Participatory Video (PV)

Tony Roberts, Soledad Muñiz

In: Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change

Jan Servaes (ed.)

Singapore: Springer (2018), 17 pp.

"Benefiting from more than 50 years of practice and innovation, participatory video (PV) is a firmly established approach in the field of communications for development. The term “participatory video” is used to refer to a very wide range of practices that involve nonprofessionals in making thei ... more

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From Simple Fixes to Systemic Enablers: The Future of Digital Development

Ben Ramalingam, Becky Faith, Kevin Hernandez, Pedro Prieto Martin, Tony Roberts

Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (2018), 16 pp.

"Far too often the implicit theory of change in digital developments, as with technology for development more generally, is that importing technologies can fix development. This does not acknowledge the political and social transformations that are needed to address and overcome economic and power a ... more

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Assessing the Role of Social Media and Digital Technology in Violence Reporting

Tony Roberts, Gauthier Marchais

Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS) (2017), 33 pp.

"This paper assesses the role of social media and digital technologies (SMDTs) in the reporting of violent events, and evaluates their relative strengths and weaknesses as compared to other means available. It seeks to understand how SMDT data are collated, how reliable the data are, and what practi ... more

Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change Top Insights

Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change
Top Insights