Download How can civil society driven media and communication

The history and development
of
participatory communication
in Tanzania
Thomas Tufte
Roskilde University, Denmark
[email protected]
Presentation given at IAMCR Conference 18-22 July 2010,
Braga, Portugal
Presentation
• The Research Project
• Entry Points: Governance and Citizenship,
Public Sphere and Human (In)Security
• Case: The history of participatory
communication
Research Question
• How can civil society driven media and
communication initiatives- in the digital
era - enhance processes of
empowerment and ultimately good
governance?
People Speaking Back? Media, empowerment and
democracy in East Africa
• 2009-2013
• Collaborative Research: 6 interlinked
research projects (3 universities: Univ.of
Dar es Salaam, Univ. of Nairobi and
Roskilde University)
• My project:
Entry points
• Civil society – gaining visibilty, articulating
change and obtaining political influence
(Porto Alegre Partic.budget + Social For.)
• Citizens – (dis)connections with orgs and
movements
• Stakeholders: government, decisionmakers
• Media and communication contents and
outlets: visibility, networking and pol.action
Analytical Perspectives
• human security: relates to both material and immaterial
conditions of existence. Is deeply connected to questions
of identity, community and subjectivity
• Mediapolis: a mediated public sphere, a space which
hosts both possibilities and limitations for the cultivation
of civic action and participation. It includes the flows of
media and communication practices
• Citizenship: a multi-dimensional concept which includes
the agencies, identities and actions of people
themselves
Enacting citizenship
Social Movements and Insurgent Politics
• ‘in a world marked by the rise of mass selfcommunication, social movements and
insurgent politics have a the chance to enter
the public space from multiple sources. By
using both horizontal communication networks
and mainstream media to convey their images
and messages, they increase their chances of
enacting social and political change – even if
they start from a subordinate position in
institutional power, financial resources, or
symbolic legitimacy’ (Castells 2009. 302)
Disjunctions of Citizenship
perspectives for my analysis
• Exploring political projects versus reality of lived
lives, and the role of media and communication
herein
• A ’humanity’ perspective (raised human
integration to the level of humanity (Bauman
2010)
• The social cost of globalisation: ’Locals by fate
rather than choice’ (Bauman 2000)
• Glocal agency in contexts of ’failed states’. A
global ’social state’ (NGOs rather that states
engaging)
Disjunctions of Citizenship
- the ménage of exclusion
• ‘the state is today unable, and/or unwilling,
to promise its subjects existential security
(‘freedom from fear’, as Franklin D.
Roosevelt famously phrased it) (Bauman
2010: 65)’. When the state acts in this
way, the individual citizen is left to his own,
unable to obtain existential security, that
is unable to obtain and retain ‘a legitimate
and dignified place in human society and
avoiding the ménage of exclusion’
Mediápolis
- a mediated space of appearance
• The polis, properly speaking, is not the
city-state in its physical location: it is the
organisation of the people as it arises out
of acting and speaking together, and its
true space lies between people living
together for this purpose, no matter where
they happen to be… (Arendt 1958; 198)
Mediápolis
- a global civil space
• a new cosmopolitan critical theory of the
emerging global civil society and its
contradictions
• Embryonic and imperfect, but a necessary
starting point for the creation of a more
effective global civil space
Mediápolis
– a communication practice
• A comunication practice based on:
a) A mutuality of responsibility between
producer and receiver;
b) A degree of reflexivity by all participants
in the communication and;
c) A recognition of cultural difference
A dialogic space of potential and possibility..
emerging questions..
• What reality is created in this mediated
space of appearance?
• What kind of publicness is this, and where
is it enacted?
• What relation exists between online and
offline media and comm practices?
How do ordinary citizens engage as
participants in the mediated public sphere
of mediápolis?
Human Security
• Human security as freedom from fear describes a
condition of existence in which human dignity is realized,
embracing not only physical safety but going beyond that
to include meaningful participation in the life of the
community, control over one’s life and so forth (…)Thus,
while material sufficiency lies at the core of human
security, in addition the concept encompasses nonmaterial dimensions to form a qualitative whole. In other
words, human security embraces the whole gamut of
rights, civil and political, economic and social, and
cultural (Thomas 2007: 108-109)
Human (In)Security
aims with this concept
• The subjective position from which people speak
and act
• Conditions of existence fundamental of agency
and communiction
• Helps us understand the social reality citizens
live in, and the socio-physic situation this reality
produces
• Helps produce a parameter for the quality and
scope of civil society driven media and
communication initiatives
Research Question
once again
• How can civil society driven media and
communication initiatives- in the digital
era - enhance processes of
empowerment and ultimately good
governance?
• Explored in the intersection of mediápolis,
citizenship and human (in)security
Research Project: MEDIeA
(Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa)
• Kenya + Tanzania, 2009-2013, team of 6
researchers, including two media
ethnographic PhD-students, urban + rural
fieldwork sites
Tanzania Case:
• Femina HIP
• Health Info for youth
• Reach: 25% of all Tanzanians
Case: Femina HIP
Objectives
To build supportive environments
in Tanzania where:
• Young people in their
communities enjoy their right to
access information & services
and are empowered to make
positive informed choices
around sexuality and lead
healthy lifestyles in order to
reduce the negative impact of
HIV/AIDS.
Case: Femina HIP
Objectives
To build supportive
environments in Tanzania
where:
• Communities exercise
their right to express
themselves, participate in
public debate & engage
in civil society. (Femina
HIP Logical Framework,
2007)
Tanzanian Context
• Stil low – but now
growing- levels of
participation in public life
and decision-making
• Weak civil society – but is
changing
• Low/weak media
infrastructure
• Femina HIP became a
visible NGO early on
FEMA
• FEMA. A glossy
magazine, 64 pages,
150.000 copies (rising to
170.000 by end of 2008).
Published 4 x a year.
Targets youth aged 15-24
especially secondary
school students in every
region of the country
SiMchezo
• Si Mchezo! 32 pages,
140.000 copies.
• 6 x a year. Targets
out of school youth
and their communities
particularly in rural
areas.
• Will rise to 250.000 by
end of 2008.
Other Media Outlets
• Pilika Pilika. A radio soap opera. Carries messages from Femina as
well as two other organisations. Airs on national radio 4 times a
week.
• FEMA Tv Talk Show. Half ½ hour talk show. Broadcasts on
national TV 4 times a week. Mobile phones are used for feedback
and voting, particularly around the TV.
• ChezaSalama (‘play safe’). Interactive website with a series of
activities and information in English and Swahili. First of its kind in
Tanzania.
• A Facebook site – recently created
• Blogging - a Femina Club is doing it, but not explored yet..
• Individual Publications: Range of specialist publications produced
on for example HIV-testing.
Challenges
• To apply this conceptual framework in the
empirical analysis (exploring media uses
in/for the articulation of (deliberative?)
spaces of everyday life
• Studying ’agency’, space and feelings of
’human insecurity’ in practice
• Identifying the relation between on-line
and off-line practices