"The volume examines the risks and opportunities of a digital society characterized by the increasing importance of knowledge and by the incessant rise and pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICTs). At a global level, the pivotal role of ICTs has made it necessary to rethink
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ways to avoid forms of digital exclusion or digital discrimination. This edited collection comprises of chapters written by respected scholars from a variety of countries, and brings together new scholarship addressing what the process of digital inclusion means for individuals and places in the countries analyzed. Each country has its own strategy to guarantee that people can access and enjoy the benefits of the information society. While this book does not presume to map all the countries in the world, it does shed light into these strategies, underlining what each country is doing in order to reduce digital inequalities and to guarantee that socially disadvantaged people (in terms of disabilities, availability of resources, age, geographic location, lack of education, or ethnicity) are digitally included." (Publisher description)
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"This volume explores how societies are addressing challenging questions about the relationship between expression, traditional and societal values, and the transformations introduced by new information communications technologies. It seeks to identify alternative approaches to the role of speech an
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d expression in the organization of societies as well as efforts to shape the broader global information society. How have different societies or communities drawn on the ideas of philosophers, religious leaders or politicians, both historical and contemporary, that addressed questions of speech, government, order or freedoms and applied them, with particular attention to applications in the digital age? The essays include a wide variety of cultural and geographic contexts to identify different modes of thinking. The goal is to both unpack the 'normative' internet and free expression debate and to deepen understanding about why certain internet policies and models are being pursued in very different local or national contexts as well as on a global level." (Publisher description)
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"We found that knowledge around digital security amongst women in Kampala is quite low. A high proportion of women have been victims of cyberbullying without any obvious routes to seeking justice against perpetrators. There is an urgency for law enforcement and government to hand down stricter penal
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ties for offenders and to provide measures that protect women from online gender-based violence. Furthermore, there is a large role for service providers and civil society to play in building the capacity of women to take precautionary steps to protect their online identities as well as to advocate for regulations and policies that can readily address the growing and changing threats to digital safety and security. As more women continue to access the internet, we must focus on keeping the internet a safe space where these women can benefit rather than become victims of violence and fraud." (Conclusions)
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"Grameen Foundation, Farm Radio International and other partners implemented the project “Achieving Impact at Scale” from 2015 to 2018 18. The objective of the project is to test the scale up of AgroTech, an ICT platform, in the delivery of agricultural extension and agribusiness advisory servic
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es to smallholders, through private sector value chain players. AgroTech combines interactive radio broadcast and customized field coaching by an agent, bring together information, inputs and markets through private businesses. The goal of the project is to contribute to policy reform of the agricultural extension system with the view of improving responsiveness, accountability and operational sustainability. The project has been implemented through six community radio stations and 260 individuals and entities, including market aggregators, nucleus farmers, individually owned outgrower businesses, small-scale enterprises, credit cooperatives and farmer-based organizations/association. Geographically six regions were covered, involving some 83 districts. Interactive radio broadcast reached and estimated 300,000 smallholders, majority of whom implemented what they heard and gained yield increase more than those not exposed to interactive radio. The agent component emrolled over 14,000 smallholders who also gained in a similar way. Our experience indicate that digital platforms in agricultural extension and agribusiness services delivery can be successful at scale, but requires policy change and support." (Executive summary)
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"Perhaps the most exciting headline in this year’s reports is that global internet users have now passed the 4 billion mark. Well over half of the world’s population now uses the internet, and a quarter of a billion new users came online for the first time during the past 12 months. People are s
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pending more time online too: the average user now spends around 6 hours each day using the internet. If we add this together for all 4 billion of the world’s internet users, people will spend a massive 1 billion years online in 2018. Much of this growth in internet users has been driven by more affordable smartphones and mobile data plans. More than 200 million people got their first mobile device in 2017, and two-thirds of the world’s 7.6 billion inhabitants now have a mobile phone." (Page 3)
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"This study critically examines how the private press in Zimbabwe survived during periods of economic and political crises. In year 2010, the Zimbabwe media fraternity saw the re-opening of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) after closure in 2003 and the emergence of the NewsDay, published by t
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he Alpha Media Holdings (AMH). The study examines how these publishers survive the economic challenges in Zimbabwe, especially during the prolonged period of the Zimbabwe Crisis from 2010 to 2018. It critically investigates how these two publications have remained operational despite the limited advertising revenue – owing to company closures – and the adversarial relations with the government – a critical source of huge advertising revenue. Given that copy sales of newspapers hardly sustain business entities, this article explores the alternative sources of income and the impact of vested interests on alternative revenue for privately owned newspapers. It is a qualitative research based on findings from thirteen semi-structured in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of ANZ and AMH officials and journalists. Publishers have relied on two main survival strategies, namely, internal cost-cutting strategies and building good business relations with the ruling political elites. Internal cost-cutting strategies have included newsroom convergences, retrenchments, salary reductions and freezes, reduction of newspaper pages and shutting down national newspaper bureaus. External survival methods, on the other hand, have been seeking donor funding, attracting political investments and embracing the new political order for government protection in the event of failure to pay statutory obligations such as taxes and pensions." (Abstract)
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"This article considers the impact of online distribution on the long-term availability and preservation of African cinema. It examines the case of Electronic Media Network’s (M-Net) African Film Library (AFL), a video-on-demand (VOD) library of classic African films that was launched in 2012, but
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taken offline by 2013. The article argues that this short-lived project represents a pivotal moment in the way we think about African film archiving and distribution, in which new technologies and consequently disintermediated business models promised to facilitate the circulation of African films in a manner that was socially beneficial, but which in reality resulted in monopolistic control of the content that presented a serious threat to its long-term preservation. The article goes on to argue that the AFL case encapsulates the entire discourse surrounding the shift to online distribution, in which a ‘cybertopian’ narrative of a disintermediated and thus democratized film culture quickly gives way to a reality in which content is more tightly controlled by an increasingly narrow and powerful set of private stakeholders, ultimately threatening the preservation of any content that is vulnerable to the shifting demands of the market." (Abstract)
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"Effective campaigns require careful planning and execution. And drawing on the experiences and knowledge of others can help overcome some common stumbling blocks and improve the chances of success. To this end, this booklet profiles eight public awareness campaigns conducted in African countries. I
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t gives an overview of how the campaigns were designed and implemented, and outlines the lessons learned [...] We looked for campaigns with strong links to Africa – that is, they are either run by organizations or individuals in Africa, or they target African countries. We also specifically sought insight from people working on campaigns that were diverse in the way they were created, organized and funded – from large organizations with considerable resources and formal structures to volunteer-led coalitions with limited funding. Despite their different models, however, the campaigns had much in common in that the challenges they faced and the lessons learned were strikingly similar." (Introduction)
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"Dans ces quatre pays africains (Bénin, Kenya, Sénégal, Tunisie) où l’étude a été réalisée, il apparaît qu’à l’origine des civic tech se trouvent le plus souvent des citoyens et des citoyennes engagés, désireux de traduire leur frustration, et parfois leur colère, devant le déca
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lage observé entre l’affirmation officielle de principes démocratiques et une réalité de terrain assez éloignée des discours. Pour la grande majorité d’entre eux, les initiateurs de ces actions ont suivi des parcours universitaires exigeants et connu des expériences à l’étranger. Les hommes sont très largement majoritaires, à l’exception du Kenya où les femmes sont presque aussi nombreuses que les hommes. Elles considèrent toutefois qu’elles ne se trouvent pas sur un pied d’égalité, notamment lorsqu’il s’agit pour elles de prendre la parole publiquement ou de se lancer dans l’entrepreneuriat. Les difficultés d’une mobilisation à grande échelle Les jeunes adultes (20-25 ans) qui s’investissent dans les civic tech s’engagent généralement pour exprimer une forme d’irritation face aux dérives liées à la corruption ou au manque de prise en compte de l’avis des citoyens dans les décisions politiques. De l’avis général des « doyens » (activistes des civic tech ayant plus de 6 ou 7 ans d’expérience) que nous avons interrogés, la jeune génération est très prometteuse, car mieux formée sur les nouvelles technologies et très mobilisée sur les objectifs de bonne gouvernance et de participation citoyenne. En termes d’audience et de développement, l’étude montre que, dans les quatre pays concernés, les acteurs des civic tech rencontrent le plus souvent des difficultés à mobiliser de larges communautés de citoyens. Ils peinent à faire entendre leur message dans des pays où l’illettrisme au sens littéral et au sens numérique sont importants. Il en résulte des actions qui mobilisent essentiellement un petit nombre de citoyens, à la fois très engagés et très motivés. En général, le système d’organisation des initiatives civic tech varie selon les projets : le degré de structuration est plus ou moins formel et dépend surtout de l’ancienneté des initiatives, de l’ampleur des financements collectés et, in fine, du nombre de participants actifs impliqués à temps plein. Lorsqu’une forme de professionnalisation de l’action est évoquée, beaucoup de nos interlocuteurs mentionnent la difficulté à recruter et à fidéliser des profils combinant sensibilité aux questions de redevabilité et de transparence, savoir-faire en matière de gestion de projet, capacités technologiques et maîtrise des techniques de communication, notamment sur les réseaux sociaux." (Résumé analytique)
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"Countries emerging from violent conflict face difficult challenges about what the role of media should be in political transitions, particularly when attempting to build a new state and balance a difficult legacy. Media, Conflict, and the State in Africa discusses how ideas, institutions and intere
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sts have shaped media systems in some of Africa's most complex state and nation-building projects. This timely book comes at a turbulent moment in global politics as waves of populist protests gain traction, and concerns continue to grow about fake news, social media echo chambers, and the increasing role of both traditional and new media in waging wars or influencing elections. Focusing on comparative cases from a historical perspective and the choices and ideas that informed the approaches of some of Africa's leaders, including guerrilla commanders Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Nicole Stremlau offers a unique political insight into the development of contemporary media systems in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Trust is a societal value that is difficult to gain and easy to lose. This article deals with the levels of trust that journalists working in eight post-authoritarian and post-totalitarian countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Latvia, South Africa and Tanzania) have i
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n various social institutions using data from the present Worlds of Journalism Study. In each country, results showed the level of trust in journalists’ own institution—the media—is higher than the level of trust in both political and regulative institutions. The expression of low trust, particularly in regulative institutions, in the sampled countries represents significantly different results from previous studies about journalists’ trust in countries with longer democratic traditions." (Abstract)
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"While scholarly inquiries into the coverage of climate change in Africa are growing, there appears to be a dearth of studies focusing on how the political economy shapes the coverage. This qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring how vested interests, corruption and declining advertising r
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evenue among other factors affect climate change news in Nigeria. The findings of this study - which draws on interviews with journalism professionals undertaken in Lagos in 2013 - suggest that media owners, editors and even climate change reporters have different interests to protect, all of which influence climate change reportage. The study concludes that in order to get their stories published, ethical climate change reporters might need to find creative ways of making their stories meaningful without hurting the interests that appear to frustrate the reporting of the phenomenon. The issues examined in this study provide a research-based framework for the analysis of the political economy of climate change reporting in Nigeria." (Abstract)
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"This paper presents the results of a comprehensive scoping review of empirical research into US and UK media representations of Africa published between 1990 and 2014. The results show that existing research has a remarkably narrow focus on a specific number of countries, events, media and texts. R
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esearch into representations of North Africa, Francophone Africa, non-news genres, non-elite media and radio content, is particularly scarce. This, I contend, provides an insufficient basis for reaching any firm, generalisable conclusions about the nature of media coverage of Africa. The common assumption that representations are dominated by Afro-pessimism, for example, may be accurate – but it is not currently substantiated by the existing evidence. In short, the widespread belief that we know how Africa is represented in the US and UK media is shown to be a myth. This paper also discusses how this myth has been maintained through certain citation practices and interpretations of evidence as well as the implications of these findings for the many corporations, governments, non-governmental organisations and researchers whose activities depend upon, or have helped to preserve, this myth." (Abstract)
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"This chapter focuses on gender dynamics in media safety in Nigeria. It critically examines the safety challenges journalists in Nigeria face in executing their duties in a country that has experienced different forms of conflicts, ranging from political instability, organized crime, terrorism, and
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communal conflict. It analyses these challenges in relation to gender. To achieve this, the researcher made use of primary data generated from interviews with journalists. The chapter discloses issues of gender-based discrimination, sexual and violent harassment, abuse at work and outside work, murder, and unwarranted arrest and intimidation, showing they are among the challenges journalists face. It identifies some gender-specific safety concerns among the journalists interviewed. Importantly, it finds that safety challenges such as sexual harassment are hardly reported and when reported, they are usually trivialized, most times re-shaming the victim(s) and causing the victim to shy away from reporting future occurrences." (Abstract)
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"In April 2014, Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group, abducted over 200 Nigerian girls from the town of Chibok in Nigeria. The kidnapping caused global outrage and the local community responded by designing an online social media campaign they called "Bring Back Our Girls" that used Facebook and Tw
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itter and quickly went viral. The campaign garnered worldwide attention and as interest grew, celebrity participation increased. In the United States, First Lady Michelle Obama was part of a massive appeal for the terrorist group to return the community's children. Dorothy Njoroge seeks to understand the role of online community activism. Questioning whether such campaigns provide opportunities for global citizenship, her research grapples with the debate over whether social media campaigns should be understood as mere "clicktivism," or if they are able to lead to other forms of political participation and off line involvement. She explores the discursive constructions of the Facebook postings using three action frames drawn from social movement literature-diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational. She concludes that given broad global lack of effective institutionalized leadership, social media campaigns may perhaps speak to the beginnings of a growing people's movement powered by technology." (Introduction to part 8, page 436-437)
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"Makutano Junction is an ‘edutainment’ soap opera made for local TV stations in Kenya and other East African countries. The show is about a fictional peri-urban village and the people who live in it. The program is made in Kenya, but was devised and is produced by Mediae, a UK based company that
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works with the support and collaboration of some major Kenyan and international NGOs. Mediae was founded by the producers David Campbell and Kate Lloyd Morgan. Since it began broadcasting in 2007 Makutano Junction has become one of the most popular shows on Kenyan TV; currently around 8 million viewers watch it every week, which is about 20% of the country’s entire population. Mediae have created a small stable of TV and radio shows mostly for Kenya, but also for Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. They all give rural Africans access to the latest information and discussions about issues that concern them. The themes and plotlines for these shows are informed by extensive and careful research in the field, conducted by themselves or partner organisations.
Some of Mediae’s work is highly innovative. An example of this is the show Shamba Shape Up, which is also a major hit in Kenya and neighbouring countries. Shamba means ‘farm’ in Swahili, and as the title suggests it’s a kind of small farm makeover show. So presenters and experts visit smallholding farmers, and on camera, discuss problems that they might be having, with animal health, crop yield, market strategies etc, and consider solutions and strategies. Then they put a plan into action, and have a follow up show to see the results. Some 10 million viewers across East Africa view this show every week, even more than Makutano Junction. A very important aspect of this show is its associated app; I-Shamba, with which farmers are able to use mobile phones to access a database of up to the minute information and advice. Once remote smallholding farmers are increasingly connecting, interacting and educating themselves through this special show and app." (Page 99-100)
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"This book provides a timely and important summary of tabloid journalism in Africa, which clearly shows how tabloids in the African context play a unique role in the democratization process. Prior to this book, very little was known about how tabloid journalists operate in Africa. The book first exp
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lores the global practice of journalism and then focuses on tabloid journalism - finally situating the discussion within the African context. As well as concentrating on how tabloid journalism can be seen as part of the broader neo-liberal thinking in Africa, in which democracy and freedom of expression is promoted, it also looks at how tabloid journalism practice has been met with resistance from the alliance of forces. Chama draws on examples from across the continent looking at success stories and struggles within the sometime infotainment genre. 'Tabloid Journalism in Africa' concludes that even though challenges exist, there is a strong case to suggest that the practice of tabloid journalism is being readily accepted by many people as part of the unique voices of democracy - even those which might be shocking yet true." (Publisher description)
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