"This book investigates the role of citizen journalism in railroading social and political changes in sub-Saharan Africa. Case studies are drawn from research conducted by leading scholars from the fields of media studies, journalism, anthropology and history, who uniquely probe the real impact of t
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echnologies in driving change in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Over the past decade there has been a growing interest in participatory video, but accounts have often been celebratory and uncritical. At the same time there has been an ever-increasing multiplicity of interpretations, thus making participatory video seem ‘nebulous’ and ‘perplexing’. This
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special section seeks to develop some of the critiques developed over the past five years, by bringing together a series of provocative thought pieces. Through this special section we seek to continue to develop a critique of participatory video as both a methodology and method." (Page 401)
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"Here we discuss a unique and innovative radio-based approach to improving mental health literacy and creating a demand for mental health services—part of a larger project called 'An Integrated Approach to Addressing the Issue of Youth Depression in Malawi and Tanzania'. Grounded in theories of so
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cial and behavior change communication and edutainment, and leveraging participatory methodologies, Farm Radio International and partners Teen Mental Health and Farm Radio Trust in Malawi worked with local radio broadcasters in Malawi and Tanzania to design and deliver weekly, interactive youth radio shows about mental health. Ongoing engagement with the content, and deliberation over the messages, was facilitated through SMS feedback mechanisms, and mobile polls and quizzes delivered through the radio stations, along with school-based radio listening clubs that met weekly to listen to the programs and discuss the themes in a group. Over the course of the 45-month project, the radio shows gained immense popularity, in large part because they talked about issues that are important to youth, and incorporated the language youth use and music they prefer. The programs attracted an average of 500,000 listeners each week, and received tens of thousands of text messages and Facebook posts by young people giving feedback, telling the radio hosts about what topics they would like to hear about, and asking questions about mental health or requesting to be connected with a mental health expert. The impact of the radio was measured according to whether and to what extent the interactive media programs play a role in triggering or facilitating drivers of the process of change. These drivers include bringing about improvements in knowledge and attitudes, mobilizing a social movement, and facilitating greater social and public support to put mental health on the agenda as a topic of conversation, grounded in new understandings and new knowledge. Our findings demonstrate that an interactive radio campaign can have a marked effect on improving knowledge, decreasing stigma, and increasing demand for mental health services among youth in sub-Saharan Africa. Youth who listened to the radio programs fare better than their peers in understanding the signs and symptoms of mental health disorders and in knowing where to go if they or someone they know needs help. Further, interactive radio programs can have a direct impact on reducing stigmatizing attitudes, frequently recognized as a crucial element in promoting improved access to care." (Executive summary)
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"In 2014, South Africa’s democracy turned 20. Just like the young democracy is learning to find its feet, young citizens are negotiating the unknown territory of full citizenship rights while confronting a ‘totally different world than that of their parents’. Whether their parents were black a
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nd not entitled to full citizenship or whether their parents were white and therefore implicated in a system that withheld full citizenship from the majority of the population, young people do not have a template to draw on for meaning and form of citizenship in a new and liberated South Africa. This article examines political participation amongst young South Africans and their negotiated participation in both political and civic activities within the context of media use and consumption. Their paradoxical relationship with both politics and the media is detailed in an attempt to understand how to deepen a culture of meaningful citizenship amongst South African youth." (Abstract)
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"This book advances new understandings of how technologies have been harnessed to improve the health of populations; whether the technologies really empower those who use information by providing them with a choice of information; how they shape health policy discourses; how the health information r
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elates to traditional belief systems and local philosophies; the implications for health communicators; how certain forms of silence are produced when media articulates and problematizes only a few health issues and sidelines others; and much more." (Publisher description)
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"The book aims to situate the cultural, social and, in some cases, transnational context of ICT appropriation and virtual connectivity so as to reposition Africans from various countries and contexts as active agents of social change. The intricacies of local ICT use and the dynamics of mobility in
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the African context enables us to better understand material cultures, relationships between people, new media and social networking. Equally explored in relation to ICTs are the social and spatial dynamics of communication, association and belonging across spaces – particularly physical borders, social boundaries and confines and possibilities informed by the habitus of bodies and practices." (Publisher description)
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"Given that the nature of civil society in different countries is different, and also often shifting in response to political changes, examining the relationship between civil society and media production (mainstream and alternative) in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa involves being sensitive
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to both specificity and commonality. The types of civil society organisation across these country contexts are diverse, challenging the construction of a simple definition, with different types of activism emerging across time. Even as countries make shifts towards democracy, gains can be easily lost and recouped, as Egypt has shown in recent years. Unpacking the relationship between media and political activism is also complex, given that there are a range of activisms including social and political activism which also sometimes overlap. The terrain is currently extremely dynamic: while the mainstream media may follow old routines of news gathering, and may be subjected to both state and self-censorship, the new media terrains open to possibility for dialogue and exchange, but also for the spread of dissent. New forms of activism also challenge the mainstream media routines, such that, for example, the media workers also monitor social media for story leads." (Conclusion)
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"While acknowledging the significant contributions of the public service broadcasting heritage in the Global North in efforts to establish such provision in the Global South, the contributors explain why simple imitation is unlikely to ever work well enough across such a diverse range of countries a
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nd regions with crucial differences in their histories, languages, cultures and experiences." (Publisher description)
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"Instead of seeking to provide an objective definition of hate speech, the paper’s empirical approach highlights that context matters. More specifically, analysis of the political and socio-economic context in which the speech act occurs and consideration of the nature of the speaker and audience
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– including their impact and transmission – allows for a nuanced and informed approach to evaluate hate speech, and how this impacts democratisation processes. The paper presents: a general discussion of freedom of speech and its relationship with hate speech; a brief discussion on the definitions of hate speech and international legislation; a short discussion of hate speech in the four country contexts of the MeCoDEM project: Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa." (Executive summary)
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"This report provides an overview of core comparative findings from MeCoDEM interviews with journalists in Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa. It investigates the role of journalistic actors in transitional societies across a set of comparable democratisation conflicts and themes of inquiry: jour
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nalistic work practices, role perceptions, and ethical principles and dilemmas. Empirically, the study builds on qualitative semi-structured face-to face in-depth interviews with 100 professional journalists working for local news organisations in the four countries." (Executive summary)
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"Structural conditions are to be understood as the totality of (formal and informal) orders and structures that characterise media and journalism in a certain space, most commonly, a country. Eleven interrelated and interdependent dimensions of structural conditions relevant to media and journalism
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have been extracted and adapted from existing literature, guiding structured and comprehensive analysis within specific (country) contexts: (1) historical development, (2) political system, (3) political culture, (4) media freedom, (5) level of state control and regulation of media by the state, (6) media ownership and financing, (7) structure of media markets and patterns of information distribution, (8) orientation of media, (9) political/societal activity and parallelism of media, (10) journalism culture, and (11) journalistic professionalism. Country reports feature a unique set and combination of structural factors shaping media and journalism in the four countries, demonstrating the importance of conflict communication as a case study with regard to structural conditions. For example, different degrees of democratisation regarding media structures become evident in varying levels of media freedom and state interference in the media sector. Moreover, there are significant differences in media landscapes and the structure of media markets, reflecting the different size, economic situation, infrastructure and cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity of the four countries, as well as the differing degrees of literacy and spending power of inhabitants." (Executive summary)
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"Voters need and deserve to hear a full range of voices as they decide their future and 'The Post' has played a vital role in providing an alternative to government-dominated mass media in Zambia. Unshackling that voice is critical if Zambians are to vote in an atmosphere that can be deemed free and
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fair. The ZRA has refused to work with The Post to reconcile its disputed debts and allow payment, making the seizure appear to be an effort by President Lungu to silence a persistent critic in order to hold on to power. IPI and the AMI are concerned that, if allowed to stand, the effort could have an extremely negative impact on democracy in the region, insofar as other leaders might take note and seek to misuse state power to similar ends." (Conclusion)
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"This study focuses on the unprecedented ways in which newspaper journalism helped the cause of democratisation at the height of the economic and political governance crisis, also known as the ‘Zimbabwe Crisis’, from 1997 to 2010. The research is designed as a qualitative case study of The Daily
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News, an independent private newspaper. It was based on semi-structured interviews with respondents, who were mainly journalists and politicians living in Zimbabwe. The analytical lens of alternative media facilitates a construction of how The Daily News and its journalists experienced, reported, confronted and navigated state authoritarianism in a historical moment of political turmoil. The study discusses the complex relationships between the independent and privately owned press, the political opposition and civil society organisations. The research provides an original analysis of the operations of The Daily News and its journalists in the context of a highly undemocratic political moment. Some journalists crossed the floor to join civic and opposition forces in order to confront the state. The state responded through arrests and physical attacks against the journalists; however, journalists continued to work with opposition forces while the government enacted repressive media and security law to curtail coverage of the crisis." (Abstract)
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"This article challenges the traditional role ascribed by liberal and developmental media theory that journalists should either be watchdogs or developmental journalists but not both at the same time. As part of the South African leg of the Worlds of Journalism (WJS) project this article argues that
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it is indeed possible that the media can fulfil both roles. Utilizing the WJS 2014 questionnaire and based on a provincial face-to-face (n=37) and a national electronic survey (n=371) the results from the WJS South African project show a potential new trend in the way South African journalists see their role. This article reports in the main on the background to the face-to-face survey, while utilizing data from the national survey reported on elsewhere. Data analysis showed when both roles were compared to one another it was apparent that the watchdog and developmental roles were statistically significantly related to one another." (Abstract)
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"Desde a sua criação em 2012, o Programa Para Fortalecimento da MÃdia (MSP) documenta anualmente a cobertura das temáticas relacionadas com Género, Violência Baseada no Género (VBG) e Tráfi co de Pessoas, na mÃdia moçambicana. Os dados colhidos ao longo destes anos mostram que estas questÃ
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µes vêm conquistando cada vez mais espaço na mÃdia. O número de matérias publicadas nos jornais analisados tem-se multiplicado rapidamente. Este avanço refl ecte, não apenas a crescente preocupação dos jornalistas com as temáticas, mas também o comprometimento das organizações com o envolvimento da mÃdia na prevenção e no combate à VBG e questões afins. Se, por um lado, se registam avanços quantitativos, por outro, a qualidade das matérias ainda está aquém do desejável. De acordo com o MCAT, para o ano de 2015, a média global das matérias analisadas situa-se em 70%, 2,35% abaixo da do ano passado. Ao contrário do que testemunhámos nos anos anteriores, houve um declÃnio em 3 das 4 categorias analisadas pelo MCAT, designadamente fontes, estrutura e relevância. Em geral, a mÃdia tem pautado por uma abordagem sensacionalista, que prejudica o combate à VBG." (Apresentação)
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"This piece examines the historical construction of a Lusophone cultural-linguistic media space and market that spans portions of Europe, Africa, and South America. Beginning with the Portuguese colonization of Brazil and Lusophone Africa in the 17th century and continuing to the contemporary moment
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, our discussion examines how a combination of political, ideological, and economic patterns created linkages between Portugal, Brazil, and Portuguese-speaking colonies in Africa (namely Angola, Cape Verde, and Mozambique). After examining how Brazil grew to become the dominant cultural producer in this transnational matrix (most explicitly expressed through the massive exports of telenovelas and music since the late 1970s), we examine how other countries are beginning to carve out distinctive national niches, including the contemporary music scene in Cape Verde and the rise of domestically produced telenovelas in Portugal and Angola that are increasing in circulation in the contemporary transnational Lusophone media space." (Abstract)
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"With the liberalisation of the airwaves and the rising use of mobile phones since the 2000s, call- and text-in shows have become popular and lively features on broadcast media in Eastern Africa. Amidst expanding possibilities for listeners to speak and contribute to live radio broadcasts, new ways
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of imagining the position of the audience emerge. The audience is not simply comprised of passive listeners of publicly broadcast information, but actively engaged in contributing and reacting to what is aired. Yet the nature and political potential of the ‘audience-public’ is not straightforward. Interactive radio and TV shows are not just introducing specific audience members into the discussion, but who they are, what they represent, their influence and contribution to the space are uncertain. As audience members engage, those who manage and shape the broadcast must imagine, interpret and respond. Each participant in the discussion –whether listening, or involved in the station – producing, hosting, etc. – must come to terms with the nature of the interaction, Who is engaged? How should they respond? What are their reasons for being engaged and how might the introduction of this indeterminate audience-public relate to their intentions? Given the plurality of subjectivities, information, roles and intentions of those involved, the audience and why it matters can be imagined in multiple and competing ways. This paper interrogates how different actors involved in the radio broadcast imagine and respond to audience participation, and how these imaginaries become politically significant. This paper draws predominantly on interview and observation data on the perspectives of station hosts, guests and frequent callers of selected media houses and interactive broadcast shows in Zambia and Kenya. It examines the dynamic, plural and conflicting ways in which the audience is being reconstructed as an active ‘public’. In so doing, it shows the centrality of the imagined audience in the construction of the broadcast as a ‘public’, specifically how the indeterminate audience becomes the basis for competing imaginaries about power, authority and belonging. The political significance of the ‘audience-public’, it is argued, lies in the very fact that multiple and competing imaginaries are at play, which are invested in by actors pursuing diverse ends and thereby create tangible political effects." (Abstract)
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"Interactive TV and radio shows are popular phenomena in Kenya and Zambia. Drawing primarily from interview- and observation based research in TV stations in Kenya and Zambia, this paper examines the role of media practitioners in shaping interactive broadcast programmes, and the nature and possibil
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ities of audience participation. Looking at the cases of Muvi TV’s The Assignment in Zambia and Power Breakfast and Cheche on Kenya’s Citizen TV, it considers the agency of the host and presenter of interactive shows. This working paper analyses the various ways that hosts implement ground rules for appropriate behaviour of audience members and seek to create space for different voices. It then turns to analyse the constraining effects of the wider political and regulatory environment in the two countries, for instance, Zambia as a ‘Christian nation’ and a relatively peaceful country, and Kenya as a ‘volatile nation’ due to insecurity, including terrorism-related threats and ethnic tensions. In so doing, this paper finds that despite structural factors and individual limitations, the hosts of these shows see themselves, and have been seen by audiences, guests and political elites, as key drivers and celebrities that shape access and nature of participation." (Abstract)
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"The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research articulates a broader understanding of crisis communication, discussing the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of domestic and transnational crises, featuring the work of global scholars from a range of sub-disciplines
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and related fields. It provides the first integrative international perspective on crisis communication; articulates a broader understanding of crisis communication, which includes work from scholars in journalism, public relations, audience research, psychology, political science, sociology, economics, anthropology, and international communication; explores the topic from cross-national and cross-cultural crisis communication approaches; includes research and scholars from countries around the world and representing all regions; discusses a broad range of crisis types, such as war, terrorism, natural disasters, pandemia, and organizational crises." (Publisher description)
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