"The promulgation of the Broadcasting Service Act (BSA), which contains a three-tier model of the broadcasting system, was supposed to revolutionise the broadcasting media sphere in Zimbabwe. It was supposed to change the dynamics of radio broadcasting in Zimbabwe by increasing the opportunity for p
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ublic, commercial and community broadcasting sectors. However, the three-tier model of broadcasting has remained on the paper, creating a strong debate on community radio licensing among media activists, practitioners, academics, the government and other media policy stakeholders on the government’s reluctance in issuing community radio licences. While some studies have focused on the strategies used by community broadcasting activists to communicate with their target audiences in Zimbabwe, this research seeks to contribute to the growing body of literature on community broadcasting policy and the contestations which have resulted in the impasse of the licensing of community radios in Zimbabwe. Based on the Four Theoretical Approach to Community Media, in-depth interviews with Zimbabwean media policy stakeholders as well as documentary analysis, this study explores the contestation of ideas that characterised community broadcasting reform processes in Zimbabwe." (Abstract)
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"The rise of social media in Zimbabwe has brought with it a greater variety of platforms which offer people a means to express themselves. However, the democratisation of information and the increase in digital spaces have also come with greater state restriction and polarisation among Zimbabweans.
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This policy brief intends to discuss the state’s attempts to act as the proctor of social media in order to explore the relations between users of online platforms in terms of political leanings and gender. To this end, it will also discuss the damaging effects of online targeting and how it can exacerbate already existing political divisions between people. The paper will also discuss how the state uses legal instruments to surveil and regulate online activity as a way of maintaining its iron grip on the people." (Abstract)
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"In den 1980er Jahren verstärkte sich das Unbehagen an der Gedenkkultur mit ihren Heldenerzählungen und nationalen Beschränkungen. Mit der größeren Komplexität des Gedenkens und der Hinwendung zu den sozialen Kosten historischer Ereignisse prägte sich eine neue Erinnerungskultur aus. Diese is
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t kein abgeschlossenes Modell. In diesem Prozess wandeln sich die Wahrnehmung der Vergangenheit sowie die zukunftsgerichteten Zwecke des Gedenkens." (Seite 17)
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"This handbook attempts to fill the gap in empirical scholarship of media and communication research in Africa, from an Africanist perspective. The collection draws on expert knowledge of key media and communication scholars in Africa and the diaspora, offering a counter-narrative to existing Wester
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n and Eurocentric discourses of knowledge-production. As the decolonial turn takes centre stage across Africa, this collection further rethinks media and communication research in a post-colonial setting and provides empirical evidence as to why some of the methods conceptualised in Europe will not work in Africa. The result is a thorough appraisal of the current threats, challenges and opportunities facing the discipline on the continent." (Publisher description)
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"This book examines the role played by two popular private newspapers in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe, one case from colonial Rhodesia and the other from the post-colonial era. It argues that, operating under oppressive political regimes and in the dearth of credible opposition political p
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arties or as a platform for opposition political parties, the African Daily News, between 1956-1964, and the Daily News, between 1999-2003, played an essential role in opening up spaces for political freedom in the country. Both newspapers were ultimately shut down by the respective government of the time. The newspapers allowed reading publics the opportunity to participate in politics by providing a daily analytical alternative, to that offered by the government and the state media, in relation to the respective political crises that unfolded in each of these periods. The book further examines both the information policies pursued by the different governments and the way these affected the functioning of private media in their quest to provide an "ideal" public sphere. It explores issues of ownership, funding and editorial policies in reference to each case and how these affected the production of news and issue coverage. It considers issues of class and geography in shaping public response. It also focuses on state reactions to the activities of these newspapers and how these, in turn, affected the activities of private media actors. Finally, it considers the cases together to consider the meanings of the closing down of these newspapers during the two eras under discussion and contributes to the debates about print media vis-à-vis the new forms of media that have come to the fore." (Back cover)
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"The volume digs beneath the standardised and universalised veneer of professionalism to unpack routine practices and normative trends shaped by local factors, including the structural conditions of deprivation, entrenched political instability (and interference), pervasive neo-patrimonial governanc
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e systems, and the influences of technological developments. These varied and complex circumstances are shown to profoundly shape the foundations of journalism in Africa, resulting in routine practices that are both normatively distinct and equally in tune with (imported) Western journalistic cultures. The book thus broadly points to the dialectical nature of news production and the inconsistent and contradictory relationships that characterise news production cultures in Africa." (Publisher description)
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"The study concluded that the media in Zimbabwe falls short of standards of fair and balanced coverage of political actors in the country. ZANU PF and MDC T dominated the media’s coverage and combined for 94% of the space and time dedicated to political parties whilst the remaining 15 parties acco
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unted for 6% of the coverage. This is a reflection of the lack of diversity in the representation of political actors, given that over 100 political parties are contesting the upcoming elections." (Executive summary)
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"Christianity as the predominant religion in Zimbabwe consists of several faith groupings, each of which responds to public events through the mass media. Mainline churches uphold a conventional human rights approach to faith-based political criticism, while Mapostori or Apostolic churches follow an
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Africanist form of faith and appear to condone some alignment with the authoritarian ruling party. In the sampled media coverage of three online newspapers, the political use of religious strategies or practices from various faith groups by the president and high-ranking party functionaries is reported from either the former government-sanctioned view or an oppositional stance. Moralist reprimand is levied at various politicians from a religious rationale, assuming good and evil, church and state, Christianity and African spirituality, which, however, remain abstract since there is no overall faith-based guidance for political behaviour beyond a secular constitution that still appears utopian. The critical discourse analysis suggests that complex relationships exist among the various faiths, causing diverse religious interpretations of political events. This suspension of Cartesian thinking results in a continuing circular logic of blame and prayer, disaster and prophesy instead of the use of constitutional democratic institutions to hold politicians accountable. Such logic seems sustained by politicized interpretations of spiritual entities, spiritual interpretations of political events and by the perceptions of the Zimbabwean public, who, as believers of one or other faith, is equally at the mercy of opportunistic ‘prophets’ from many denominations as it is targeted by the political powers of the day." (Abstract)
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"This study critically examines how the private press in Zimbabwe survived during periods of economic and political crises. In year 2010, the Zimbabwe media fraternity saw the re-opening of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) after closure in 2003 and the emergence of the NewsDay, published by t
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he Alpha Media Holdings (AMH). The study examines how these publishers survive the economic challenges in Zimbabwe, especially during the prolonged period of the Zimbabwe Crisis from 2010 to 2018. It critically investigates how these two publications have remained operational despite the limited advertising revenue – owing to company closures – and the adversarial relations with the government – a critical source of huge advertising revenue. Given that copy sales of newspapers hardly sustain business entities, this article explores the alternative sources of income and the impact of vested interests on alternative revenue for privately owned newspapers. It is a qualitative research based on findings from thirteen semi-structured in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of ANZ and AMH officials and journalists. Publishers have relied on two main survival strategies, namely, internal cost-cutting strategies and building good business relations with the ruling political elites. Internal cost-cutting strategies have included newsroom convergences, retrenchments, salary reductions and freezes, reduction of newspaper pages and shutting down national newspaper bureaus. External survival methods, on the other hand, have been seeking donor funding, attracting political investments and embracing the new political order for government protection in the event of failure to pay statutory obligations such as taxes and pensions." (Abstract)
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"During the 2018 electoral period in Zimbabwe, Media Monitors monitored mainstream media to assess the nature of election coverage with a focus on three issues: Fair and balanced coverage of political players, the media’s role in informing the public on electoral processes, and professional and et
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hical conduct by the media. In the final assessment, Media Monitors concluded that while the election agenda dominated on all media platforms, continued polarised coverage affected the media’s capacity to be fair and balanced, there was a lack of equitability and gender bias. Professionally, there was lack of objectivity in the journalists’ reporting, which manifested itself in the form of unbalanced coverage, denial of the right of reply, lack of follow up to issues raised and failure to distinguish between government activities and political campaigns." (https://www.mediasupport.org)
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"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 Moza
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mbique, 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." (Publisher description)
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"The purpose of this manual is to familiarise citizen journalists with the core issues of election reporting including ethics, safety and security, fake news, hate speech and the broader issues around the electoral system in Zimbabwe. It also focuses on gender and the media, photography, live-stream
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ing and mobile reporting. The manual will offer useful tips to citizen journalists on how to write an election story for diverse platforms that include SMS, social media, radio, newspapers, newsletters, among others, capturing the essence of a story, facts, and voices and transmit that information on these platforms. It also focuses on how to gather, share, upload, livestream various pieces of information ranging from text, audio, videos and photos." (Preface)
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"These are the background case notes complied for MEMO 2018.1: Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. For details on the methods behind this content analysis please see the methodology section of the report. This document contains data from over 500 s
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ources organized by country. The sources include high quality news articles, academic papers, white papers, and a range of other grey literature. As an annotated bibliography, the country cases here make use of significant passages from these secondary sources, and every effort has been made to preserve full citation details for future researchers. The full list of references can be found in our public Zotero folder, with each reference tagged with a country name." (Page 3)
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"This report maps the current landscape in respect of digital rights and online freedom of expression in East, West and Southern Africa. It looks at the trends regarding law and policy developments, as well as recent litigation, within these regions. The report focuses on 18 countries – 6 per regi
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on – and tracks the recent developments that have taken place in these countries. Part I of the report provides an overview of the litigation before the ACHPR and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court) in respect of freedom of expression. Parts II, III and IV of the report look at the trends generally in East, West and Southern Africa respectively, as well as some of the key legal and civil society actors working on digital rights and online freedom of expression, and include a snapshot of some of the notable developments – both positive and negative – that have occurred in the 18 countries under consideration in this report, as well as reflections on opportunities and challenges for vindicating digital rights within each of the countries. Lastly, Part V considers what the next possible opportunities will be for digital rights and online freedom of expression litigation in the region." (Pages 5-6)
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