Media Scenarios in Southern Africa

Patrick Mohlalefi Bereng

This article deals with the concept of pluralism in relation to the Lesotho government’s new media policy. It points out that privatisation of the media has been influenced by global economic and political factors and goes on to discuss the issue of print media that has all along existed under private ownership. It addresses the new policy of electronic media (radio and television) since independence, arguing that the multiplicity of radio stations and the privatisation process do little to advance national identity and survival.

Teresa Grøtan and Njord V. Svendsen

As South Africa has shifted into a neo-liberal gear after apartheid and opened up to foreign capital, the media face new structures of ownership, financing and allocative control. Seen in the light of the authoritarian past, this development has certainly brought some positive changes in the breaking up of apartheid-linked conglomerates and infusion of new capital. But media influenced, or even controlled by, global economic forces could pose negative effects on the country as well. Instead of government controlled media, we might face a situation where the market rather than the state threatens the public sphere. The following article sets out to identify the challenges and possible negative and positive effects of globalisation.

Susan Manhando-Makore

Issues of regulation and de-regulation in Southern Africa are explored in the following article, with a particular focus on Zimbabwe. It is motivated by the need to analyse why there is such reluctance on the part of Zimbabwean policy makers to liberalise public media when other countries in the sub-region are making great strides towards doing so. The author takes the position that as markets increasingly open up, the need for regulation increases in order to ensure a fair competitive environment for all who want to become players.

Matt Mogekwu

In the politics of press freedom, media practitioners would argue that unrestricted gathering and dissemination of information is fundamental to the development of the interactive citizen. Dialogue is an essential element of democracy; that people need to talk to the government, among themselves and be free to express whatever opinion they may hold about any aspect of national life. Press freedom should be specifically provided for in the constitution for the practitioners to be able to carry out their responsibilities without fear of intimidation. Government, on its part, would argue that the security of the nation is paramount and supersedes the right of the public to know. Freedom of the press comes with responsibility and no special constitutional provision for press freedom is necessary as it must be subsumed in a general provision for freedom of expression provision.

The aim of this article is to examine the extent to which the issue of press freedom has become a variable in the factional scheming for power and status within the Swazi nation and what this means for the economic development of the country.

Tim M. Nyahunzvi

Zimbabwe the former British self-governing colony of Rhodesia, is among the last three member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to achieve independence (April 18, 1980).1 The other two are Namibia (March 1990) and South Africa (April 1994). Independence was achieved after nearly 90 years of colonial and settler rule and a 15-year bloody war in which some 25,000 people, most of them black, died in what turned out to be a racial (black versus white) conflict.

Though a latecomer to the league of independent African states, Zimbabwe had a number of advantages over other countries, which achieved independence much earlier. It was one of Africa’s most developed countries, with an economy and infrastructure that was the envy of many – except South Africa.

Unfortunately for President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party colleagues, this also created peculiar problems in changing old institutions and forming new ones in line with ‘the new order’. An immediate focus for the new rulers was the ‘restructuring and reorientation’ of the mass media which had been part and parcel of the oppressive colonial system and was foreign-owned, mainly by business interests in neighbouring then white-ruled, apartheid South Africa.

Bright Phiri and Deanna Powers

In deconstructing the concept of pluralism in Zambian broadcasting the following article structures its discussion around the key elements of the definition of pluralism laid out in the Windhoek Declaration (1991). Essentially, these elements are the end of monopolies, a diversity of channels and a diversity of opinions. In relation to television and radio, the authors critically examine each of these points and demonstrate that Zambian broadcasting policies and operating principles fall short of achieving conditions for pluralism and thus fail in contributing to the democratic ambitions of the country. They conclude by giving an overall summary of how pluralism and power relations are related and played out in Zambian media.

Keyan Tomaselli and Hopeton Dunn

The decade of the 1990s has seen significant shifts in the political economy of Southern African media. These have been led by dramatic changes in South Africa following the demise of state-sponsored apartheid and the re-structuring of its supporting media apparatus throughout the region. More broadly, however, media in other member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have also been affected by political events and by global technology and policy changes. The ownership, content, delivery systems, users and audiences for a range of media services are under review.

Charles Manga Fombad

The advent of the digital information age and the phenomenal advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has raised a complex series of legal questions impinging on the fundamental and constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and communication. Legal principles and rules that were essentially designed to regulate information communicated in oral or printed forms have been strenuously extended to deal with the ever-increasing volume of information that is now communicated electronically to millions of people at the push of a few computer keys. As technology has continuously galloped far ahead of the law, this has left in its wake, legal gaps and areas bristling with uncertainty. Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of the new digital environment is that it has exposed ordinary citizens and many service providers to hazards that were not previously there. Governments, legislatures, regulatory agencies and courts confronted with these problems have either done nothing or tended to follow historic patterns of creating analogies to earlier technologies. This article looks at current attempts to adjust and adapt the law of defamation to the complexities of the digital age.

John A. Lent

To resist, to revolt, to reconcile can conceivably be steps in the democratization process; likewise, these three R infinitives can comfortably be applied to a job description for cartooning. A wide angle perspective, historically and geographically, reveals many examples of cartoonists opposing and bringing about radical change to unfair, unequal, and oppressive practices and regimes, and working to establish friendship and peace where hatred and conflict previously dwelled.

Andy Mason

Cartoonists from seven African countries gathered at the University of Botswana, 8-10 November 2000, to discuss common issues, share the secrets of their profession and talk about the possibility of setting up an association of African cartoonists. The first of its kind in the region, the ‘Cartoon Journalism’ workshop was organised by the Department of Sociology of the University of Botswana, and jointly sponsored by the University of Botswana and WACC.