This article is about the political communication strategies of the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), a political party in Cameroon which fought for the independence of the country. We parti ...

Ugandan women have made tremendous strides in public life, and hold strategic positions in politics and policy-making. This increased participation in public life is attributed to Uganda’s focused pro-women constitution and affirmative action policy. In spite of this progress, women’s visibility and voice remain limited in public affairs programming in Uganda. The article examines how mass media reproduce

This article, by partly adopting a historical perspective, examines the introduction of new media in a Kenyan rural village, Kapkoi, and how it changes the communication ecology in the village. Fur ...

Although invisibility has historically provided a degree of protection, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-, Trans-, Queer and Intersexuals need to materialize publicly as a group to successfully advocate for their ...

Pan-Africanism, a concept that attempts to capture the essence of being an African, needs to be reconsidered in the age of social media. In this article, we examine how Twitter users negotiate the ...

This article draws upon research done as part of a formative evaluation of a radio project on children’s rights in Tanzania. Fieldwork was conducted between January and June 2016 followed by a long ...

Labels shape and define public discourse. As condensational symbols, they can serve as political tools and instruments of policy due to the media’s tendency to use labels to create meaning and knowledge about political and social reality. This study examines the politics of labelling through a case study of the representation of Boko Haram in a selection of Nigerian national newspapers. Boko Haram

Previous studies on the use of social media to facilitate participation in protest have examined established democracies or authoritarian regimes. Participation via social media in nascent democracies has been less well documented, e.g. in those countries that democratized between the 1970s and the 1990s, including those that recently returned to democracy from military dictatorship such as Nigeria

This study aims at showing the impoliteness strategies employed during some radio interactions. The data used here are mainly recordings of the morning shows of some private radio stations in Ghana. We establish that all the recorded utterances have some features that correspond with at least one of Culpeper’s (1996, 2005) impoliteness strategies, which are bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness

This article draws attention to the current sensational modernist conceptualization of news as conflict and prominence to argue that news among the poor be understood as activities happening in a village.

This article outlines the development of mobile telephony in the nascent Republic of South Sudan (ROSS). We focus specifically on Juba, during turbulent times from the end of the second Sudanese Civil War in 2005 to just after independence in 2011. We highlight the complicated political relations behind the establishment of mobile networks and the main functions and importance of the mobile phone throughout

How do African cultures transform when they appropriate new media? This introduction to the following five articles raises and reflects basic questions related to the many transformations that African societies currently go through when they are faced with new media. It situates the concept of mediality in the social practice of those who deal with and experience media. As instances of the in-between

Generally, images in art forms occupy a controversial position in the Islamic world. The Sunni branch of Islam, considered more conservative and strict does not approve or condone representational art of the human form for fear that it would eventually turn into an object of worship. The Shi’ite branch of Islam, however, has a radically opposing perspective and consequently allows figurative representation

Several important critical perspectives on media coverage of the Pistorius trial emerge in comparison to the most famous murder trial in South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. In both cases, a well-known sports star shoots a young woman under circumstances that cause speculation and conjecture. The trials led to huge public interest and crowded courtrooms. While there are many points

Publication by Mr Oswelled Ureke, Lecturer in the Department of Media and Society Studies, Midlands State University