Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2010

This article discusses the social history of Radio Freedom, the African National Congress's (ANC) clandestine radio station between 1963 and 1991. The article focuses on the audiences of Radio Freedom, how they listened to the station, which messages they appropriated from it, and the impact of these messages on political mobilization in the country. The article advances arguments about how radio broadcasting became a strategic priority for the ANC and its allies in the aftermath of the violent crushing and the turn to the armed struggle. Radio became one of the key tools used by the liberation movement to counter the apartheid state's propaganda messages and to articulate an alternative political perspective. Through Radio Freedom, the ANC could directly connect with its supporters inside the country and influence political mobilization particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. Despite the illegality of tuning into the station and the jamming techniques used by the state to block signal transmission, individuals from the younger, more politically active generation of black South Africans did find creative but discreet ways of tuning into Radio Freedom. This station was arguably one of the major sources of information on the ANC, shaping political education and understanding of the developments and influencing political activities inside the country.

This article explores how the Zimbabwean station SW Radio Africa operates as an exile radio station in London. In contrast to most diasporic media, SW Radio Africa broadcasts from the diaspora back into the homeland via the shortwave. This article demonstrates how the station's journalists combine old media such as radio with the use of new media technologies like mobile phones and the Internet in order to reach both new and existing audiences in Zimbabwe and in the diaspora. The article highlights the range of constraints that SW Radio Africa staff members face in their daily work, including safety, threats, dependency on donor funding and challenges in consulting official government and opposition sources. It argues that SW Radio Africa journalists describe their own role in the context of the crisis as both journalist and activist. Their personal involvement in the Zimbabwean crisis makes them feel part of an ongoing struggle that they cannot and do not want to abandon until independent media can operate freely from Zimbabwe.

There is a general consensus that media are an essential element of democracy if they fulfil particular quality requirements in their reporting. Abundant literature deals with media quality from a theoretical perspective, but empirical knowledge on journalistic practice with regard to its role in democratization is rare, and this is even more so in the case of African countries. First, this article seeks to assess the quality of radio in Liberia, which is the country's most popular medium. Second, the article tests a specific methodology in order to measure the contribution of radio to democracy. It argues that radio stations in Liberia strongly differ in their quality, each with specific shortcomings. These findings are confirmed by interviews with civil society representatives and by audience research.

War has raged in northern Uganda for the last two decades. The conflict between rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony, and the government of President Yoweri Museveni has left hundreds dead and many more maimed. According to a recent count, nearly two million had been displaced by the insurgency. As a result of this conflict, many inhabitants of northern Uganda were fled their homes to live in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in appalling conditions. Women and children have been at the heart of the suffering. Child abductions were the order of the day in the region. Most children today testify how they were forced by the rebels to fight and commit atrocities. Many girls have been raped and others have been forcefully married to the rebels. However, the reconstruction effort is now underway following a series of peace negotiations between the two warring parties. Government, civil society, donor agencies and media institutions are joining the northern Uganda reconstruction campaign. This visual essay presents images of reconstruction efforts that are normally absent in mainstream media. It is concerned with showing the resilience of the human spirit.

Since the late 1990s, Zimbabwe has been going through a difficult economic and political crisis. Many businesses have shut down or have relocated to South Africa and other countries. The music industry has not been spared the myriad problems that have affected all Zimbabwean sectors. However, the industry endures against all odds and seems to be creating its own stars and hits, while continuing to attract significant media attention. This article demonstrates that due to piracy and poor payment of royalties by recording companies, live performances have become the mainstay of musicians' income and livelihood. In the business environment of live performances, intermediaries such as promoters and venue owners have made attempts to extract as much as they can from proceeds. Nonetheless, the musicians have become inventive and intelligent users of the media in order to maximize publicity. Government policies have either boosted or presented obstacles to the music industry. This article also shows that the star and hit system has only benefited a minority of musicians, whilst many continue to live in distress and have often been forced to subsidize their art through other sources of income. The Zimbabwean star system is created with very little contribution from recording companies, who do not believe in allocating resources to marketing and promotion.

This article focuses on a phenomenon of technical innovation that has spread quickly in Tanzania in the past couple of years: the translation of films in languages such as English or Hindi/Urdu into Swahili, the official language of Tanzania. This article discusses this phenomenon through the life and work of Hemed Musa from Masasi, a young man who acquired his skills in autodidactic ways through experimenting with new technologies and software that he accessed primarily via the Internet. His work is a good example of the decentralization of cultural output in Tanzania, as he does not work for companies that distribute films at national level, but rather works independently and disseminates his films at local level. The demand for films translated into Swahili has grown considerably in recent years, making films without translation increasingly difficult to sell. This reflects an increasing eagerness on the part of Tanzanian audiences to understand and not just to see what is going on in other parts of the world, which has been enabled by the availability of new technologies. The rising popularity of translated films raises the question of how it transforms the film-viewing culture in Tanzania and in what ways it might contribute to the empowerment of especially the younger generation.

This article is an assessment of the trends, opportunities and rationale of public journalism practices in Africa. It is based on an extensive review of pioneering and current literature on public journalism practices on the continent and in other parts of the world. The cases from outside Africa the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia/Pacific are presented with the objective of juxtaposing some good practices that could be emulated by African journalists as ways of reaching out to, and engaging with, the masses of poor Africans in the rural areas. Three key questions motivate this article: What is the trend of public journalism in Africa? What opportunities and rationale exist for public journalism on the continent? And how can the mass media promote democratic development in Africa? The article argues that although public journalism is often linked to the United States, community radio stations in Africa undertook public journalism long before the current public journalism ideology emerged in the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It concludes that there are great opportunities and needs for public journalism in Africa if the mass media are to help the poor Africans attain and sustain self-development, including meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Defiant Images Photography and Apartheid South Africa, Darren Newbury (2009), Pretoria University of South Africa (UNISA), 345 pp., ISBN: 978-1-86888-523-7, (paperback) 21.50 1 May 2010

Media Legislation in Africa: A Comparative Legal Survey, Guy Berger (2007), Grahamstown UNESCO and School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University, 180 pp., ISBN 978-0-86810-442-3, free publication

Africa Umoja. The Spirit of Togetherness DVD. Live at the Nelson Mandela Theatre, A Sting Music Production