Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa

Communication and Democratic Reform in South Africa
Author: Robert B. Horwitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2001-04-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139428691

The book examines the reform of the communication sector in South Africa as a detailed and extended case study in political transformation - the transition from apartheid to democracy. The reform of broadcasting, telecommunications, the state information agency and the print press from apartheid-aligned apparatuses to accountable democratic institutions took place via a complex political process in which civil society activism, embodying a post-social democratic ideal, largely won out over the powerful forces of formal market capitalism and older models of state control. In the cautious acceptance of the market, the civil society organizations sought to use the dynamism of the market while thwarting its inevitable inequities. Forged in the crucible of a difficult transition to democracy, communication reform in South Africa was navigated between the National Party's embrace of the market and the African National Congress leadership's default statist orientation.

New Media Influence on Social and Political Change in Africa

New Media Influence on Social and Political Change in Africa
Author: Olorunnisola, Anthony A.
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 518
Release: 2013-06-30
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1466641983

While transitioning from autocracy to democracy, media in Africa has always played an important role in democratic and non-democratic states; focusing on politicians, diplomats, activists, and others who work towards political transformations. New Media Influence on Social and Political Change in Africa addresses the development of new mass media and communication tools and its influence on social and political change. While analyzing democratic transitions and cultures with a theoretical perspective, this book also presents case studies and national experiences for media, new media, and democracy scholars and practitioners.

Political Parties in South Africa

Political Parties in South Africa
Author: Thuynsma, Heather
Publisher: Africa Institute of South Africa
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2017-11-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0798305142

Political parties and the party system that underpins South Africa’s democracy have the potential to build a cohesive and prosperous nation. But in the past few years the ANC’s dominance has strained the system and tested it and its institutions’ fortitude. There are deeper issues of accountability that often spurn the Constitution and there is also a clear need to foster meaningful public participation and transparency. This volume offers a different and detailed assessment of the health of South Africa’s political system. This study intends to unravel the condition of the party system in South Africa and culminates in the question: Do South African parties promote or hinder democracy in the country? The areas of the party system that are known to require continued work are the weakness of democratic structures within parties, the perceived lack of responsibility of elected parliamentarians towards voters, non-transparent private partner financing structures and a lack of attractiveness of party-political commitment, especially for women. Experts in the respective fields address all of these areas in this book.

Perspectives on Political Communication in Africa

Perspectives on Political Communication in Africa
Author: Bruce Mutsvairo
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2018-02-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319620576

This edited collection is a cutting-edge volume that reframes political communication from an African perspective. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa and occasionally drawing comparisons with other regions of the world, this book critically addresses the development of the field focusing on the current opportunities and challenges within the African context. By using a wide variety of case studies that include Mozambique, Zambia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, the collection gives space to previously understudied regions of sub-Saharan Africa and challenges the over-reliance of western scholarship on political communication on the continent.

South Africa and the Logic of Regional Cooperation

South Africa and the Logic of Regional Cooperation
Author: James J. Hentz
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2005-07-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780253111364

In South Africa and the Logic of Regional Cooperation, James J. Hentz addresses changes in South Africa's strategies for regional cooperation and economic development since its transition from apartheid to democracy. Hentz focuses on why the new South African government continues to make regional cooperation a priority and what methods this dominant state uses to pursue its neighborly goals. While providing a synthetic overview of the history of regional cooperation in southern Africa, Hentz considers the logic of cooperation more generally. An extensive discussion of South African politics provides the context for Hentz's exploration of the more widely felt effects of domestic change. Readers interested in the international organization of the politics and economy of southern Africa will find thought-provoking material in this important book.

Political Communication and Democracy

Political Communication and Democracy
Author: G. Rawnsley
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 023055489X

Political Communication and Democracy provides a wide-ranging and inclusive study of political communications that uses current political events and debates to illustrate its arguments. Looking beyond the narrow view that political communication concerns only the media and spin doctors, Gary Rawnsley examines the subject in its myriad forms: political parties and pressure groups as a way by which people join together, referendums, public opinion and how communications contribute to the process of democratization around the world.

Democracy under scrutiny

Democracy under scrutiny
Author: Ursula J. van Beek
Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2010-05-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3866497024

Values – elites and ordinary people This book reveals the diverse worlds of history, civic culture and values of South Africa, South Korea, Chile, Poland, Turkey, Germany and Sweden. It explores the similarities and contrasts between the values of the elites and the ordinary people. Written from various disciplinary perspectives and offering both empirical evidence and insiders’ knowledge, this book is bound to interest a wide variety of readers. The study on which the book reports was in the main based on analyses of value orientations of the parliamentary and media elites and those of the ordinary citizens. The data for the elites were obtained from surveys conducted for the purposes of the study; the data for the general population were drawn from the latest World Values Surveys. The volume is divided into two parts. The first part, entitled Theory and history, considers the quality of democracy in the context of the historical and cultural heritage of the seven countries, their civic culture and notions of citizenship, and their constitutions as foundations of the democratic political order. The second part of the book, entitled Theory and empiricism, assesses the quality of democracy by means of comparative analyses of the convergence and divergence in value orientations of the elites and the masses, both within each case and across all the seven cases.

Kill the Messenger

Kill the Messenger
Author: Maria Armoudian
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2011-08-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1616143886

This wide-ranging, insightful book will make readers keenly aware of the media’s power, while underscoring the role that we all play in fostering a media climate that cultivates a greater sense of humanity, cooperation, and fulfillment of human potential. What role do the media have in creating the conditions for atrocities such as occurred in Rwanda? Conversely, can the media be used to preserve democracy and safeguard the human rights of all citizens in a diverse society? How will the media, now global in scope, affect the fate of the planet itself? The author explores these intriguing questions and more in this in-depth examination of the media’s power to either help or harm. She begins by documenting how the media were used to spread a contagion of hate in three deadly conflicts: Rwanda, Nazi Germany, and the former Yugoslavia. She then turns to areas of the world where the media acted constructively—by aiding the peace process in Northern Ireland, rebuilding democracy in Chile, bridging ethnic divides in South Africa, improving the lot of women in Senegal, and boosting transparency and democratization in Mexico and Taiwan. Finally, she explains how the media interact with psychological and cultural forces to impact perceptions, fears, peer-pressure, "groupthink," and the creation of heroes and villains.

Strategies for Media Reform

Strategies for Media Reform
Author: Jonathan A. Obar
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 2016-08-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0823271668

Media reform plays an increasingly important role in the struggle for social justice. As battles are fought over the future of investigative journalism, media ownership, spectrum management, speech rights, broadband access, network neutrality, the surveillance apparatus, and digital literacy, what effective strategies can be used in the pursuit of effective media reform? Prepared by thirty-three scholars and activists from more than twenty-five countries, Strategies for Media Reform focuses on theorizing media democratization and evaluating specific projects for media reform. This edited collection of articles offers readers the opportunity to reflect on the prospects for and challenges facing campaigns for media reform and gathers significant examples of theory, advocacy, and activism from multinational perspectives.

Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa

Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa
Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2015-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9956763004

Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.