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Contributions from
the Column
Books and Media
The power of the media in time of war
Taking stock of the HIPC initiative
Media and Democracy in Africa
Diversity in Development
05/2005 |
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Media: A diversified journey
Gören Hydén, Michael Leslie, Folu F. Ogundimu (Eds.):
Media and Democracy in Africa.
Uppsala, Nordic Africa Institute 2002,
260 pages, Euro 24.00, ISBN 91-7106-495-8
How do the media contribute to the democratisation processes? Is there any direct impact or link between the media and democratic development? The question of the media’s effect on society and on public opinion is a difficult one. Scholars as well as media experts have been debating this long and endlessly. Avoiding futile levels of discussion, the book “Media and Democracy in Africa” helps to clarify the issue.
All throughout the 20th century, African media have been serving mainly as means of propaganda being the mouthpiece of the “chiefs”. At the end of the 1980s, a second wave of democracy in Africa changed media laws opening up another process: the mushrooming of private newspapers and the emergence of hundreds of free radio stations offering space for public debate and individual expression. The growth of communication opportunities, however, benefits “urban-based elites” while the rural majority of the African population still stays out of media development as well as out of public debate.
The ten contributors to “Media and Democracy in Africa” share a common vision: “The media are significant institutions for sustaining democracy”, but “open media or open communications alone are not sufficient conditions for sustaining democracy”. They base their analysis of African media on a multidisciplinary approach of the interrelationship between democratisation and communication. They propose to consider the interface between media and democratisation processes from multiple perspectives: the political, technological, economic and cultural ones, but also paying attention to the informal side of media and communication.
A very inspiring chapter written by Debra Spitulnik deals with “alternative media” like graffiti, leaflets, cartoons, jokes, underground cassettes but also web-pages, Internet mailing lists et cetera. Spitulnik reminds us that these “alternative small media” are “powerful means of establishing communicative space in repressive media environments”. In conjunction with community radios and an independent press they are signs of open public debate, but also an expression of political opinion, critique and mobilisation, bridging high-tech and popular traditional ways of communication in Africa.
The book proposes a well documented and diversified journey into the contemporary Africa media scene, without neglecting to look backwards where necessary. The main part of the book focuses on law, broadcasting, Internet, economy, politics, alternative media. All summed up, African media are important for democratisation. They struggle to open communicative spaces that may serve as “enclaves” from which further efforts for democratisation may grow. But neither in Africa nor in any other part of the world Media are “making democracy” by themselves.
Michel Philippart
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