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Media Penetration in Africa

Radio and Development in Africa, A Concept Paper. Prepared for the International DevelopmentResearch Centre (IDRC) of Canada by Mary Myers. August 2008 (revised March 2009). Available from http://www.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/12581214041Radio_and_Development_in_Africa,_concept_paper.pdf 

Mobile Technology

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What is Development Communication

Development communication is the process of intervening in a systematic or strategic manner with either media (print, radio, telephony, video, and the Internet), or education (training, literacy, schooling) for the purpose of positive social change. The change could be economic, personal, as in spiritual, social, cultural, or political. (McPhail, 2009)

Aims of Development Communication

• Raise awareness

• Prompt behavioural change and change attitudes

• Social Mobilisation

• Advocacy and Fundraising

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Communication and Development • Daniel Lerner (1958): role of media in conveying actions and models needed

to allow economic gain. Media: helps agrarian communities learn new ideas and practices

• Everett Rogers, The Diffusion of Innovations (1962): examined radio, literacy and the role of opinion leaders in influencing the adoption of new work habits among farmers

• Lucien Pye, Communication and Political Development (1963): importance of communication process and the media in the establishment of a democratic society

• Wilbur Schramm, Mass Media and National Development (1964): mass media leads to economic growth by disseminating the knowledge needed to replace traditional agricultural methods with modern and more effective ones

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Want = Get

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Low level of expectation +

High degree of achievement

= Happiness

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High expectation combined with low

achievement=

instability

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Cash + Literacy + Motivation = Development

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Motivation

• Motivation is considered as the main force behind social mobility and change

• In order to promote consistent development, individuals are supposed to have the knowledge and the willingness to change their life standards

• Motivation, along with the right social, economic and political scenarios is the ultimate driver of social mobility

Biases of Development Communication

• Mass-Media and Literacy: Based on Lerner and Schramm’s approach. The bullet theory of communication will be enough to get people to move away from traditional forms of living and into development.

• Psychological constrains: Rogers (1969) coined the term subculture of peasantry that argued that the problem needed to address a change in mind-set

• External socio-economic constraints: lack of knowledge and skills, lack of people’s involvement, lack of financial and material inputs, inadequate market development, lack of infrastructure, lack of employment (Ascroft, 1973) 17

Participatory Communication• Surge as a response to modernisation and cultural imperialism theories

• Concerned with the effects of individuals on mass communication

• Grassroots communication: community media, community leaders, opinion makers

• Emic perspective: understanding the communication process from the communities’ point of view

• Considering culture and issues of importance to people. With this it breaks away from the prescriptive approach of the modernisation theories

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Participatory Communication

• Rights of people to be heard: the VOICE

• Participation of native populations in their own development

• Communication process is based on a horizontal exchange of information as opposed to a vertical dissemination of knowledge

• Changes the approach of technical assistance and aid to capacity building and training: from “I do it for you” to “I show you how to do it yourself”. Aid support approach changes to the provision of facilitators, trainers or consultants.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty (Hirshcham, 1970)

• In organisations and firms, citizens have the option to exit or raise their voice

• Customers perceive a decline in the quality of products or services

• Customers’ options are either to find another provider (company, firm) or raise their voices to prompt changes in the services

• Voice is a bottom up response• Do institutions/firms understand these options and do

anything to retain customers?

Freedom of speechArticle 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. UN

agreement based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, accepted by most Democratic countries. Outlines that:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

Freedom of the Press

• Based on the article 19, Press must be free from Government intervention or censorship

• Monitors censorship as well as violence against journalists worldwide.

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Media: Common Knowledge

Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

“Only a newspaper can put the same thought at the same time before a thousand readers... A newspaper is not only able to suggest a common plan to many men; it provides them with the means of carrying out in common the plans that they have thought for themselves.”

Media and Good Governance• Monitors and checks governments’ performance and political abuse

• Transparency of the democratic process

• Accountability of bureaucracy and expenditure

• A tool to prompt changes in behaviours and attitudes in the public: Participation in the electoral process and education of the electorate

• Maximises awareness about wrong-doing in government

• Coordination enhancing: simultaneity and repetition of messages ensures coordinated civil responses

Check on Governments

Amartya Sen. Development as Freedom, 1999

Active political opposition (in democratic systems) and a FREE PRESS is the only mechanism to prevent famines (1999:181)

Politically competitive environment:

• Opposition has the incentive to communicate the threat of famine to the public.

• Free and independent media is the main means to communicating this to the masses.

Coordination problem

Coyne and Leeson, Media, Development and Institutional change, 2009

•Citizens establishing limitations on government involves a coordination problem

•Agreement on what needs to be limited. What and How?

Political scientist Barry Weingast: “a central step in the creation of limited government is that citizens... construct a mechanism that solves the coordination problem” (1995: 17)

Alberto Fujimori, Former President of Peru 1990-2000

The Vladivideos

• Vladimiro Montesinos was Chief of Intelligence Service for the President since 1990

• He recorded over 1,000 videos bribing opposition members of parliament, judges and media companies

• September 2000: One video bribing a member of parliament, was leaked to a small private TV not in his payroll.

• National backlash that lead to the end of Fujimori’s mandate in Peru in 2000 when he escaped to Japan

Vladivideos: the evidence

• The videos initiated a public backlash against the corruption of the government. Before this, lack of evidence discredited any attempts to uncover the widespread corruption

• Repeated public airing created common knowledge of the corruption, leading to a concerted response against it

• Media worked as a coordination mechanism for the population

• Economists McMillan and Zoido (2004) analysed the bribes and found that owners of Media companies were paid over 100 times more than judges or members of parliament

KENYA: Joshua Arap Sang on Kenya TVThe Hague Justice Portal profile of Joshua arap Sang says:“the material presented to them by the Prosecutor provided grounds to believe that Sang placed Kass FM at the disposal of the network, advertising the organisation’s meetings and using his on-air position to spread hate messages and incite violence by broadcasting false news regarding alleged murders of Kalenjins.”

Kenya: Post-Election violence in 2007

Some take-away messages

• Social Media: Quick and relatively unregulated media

• Evidence of abuse is posted as YouTube videos and broadcasted on global media generating international support

• Unless backed by solid evidence, social media is a source of mostly not trustworthy material which can cause confusion rather than coordinated response

• Western media compiles information from tweets and blogs using them as a trusted reference creating distorted international public opinion

• Media as a stakeholder in Governance