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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Twin Births: African Nationalism and Government Information Management in the Bechuanaland, 1957-1966 |
Author: | Zaffiro, James J. |
Year: | 1989 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 22 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 51-77 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Botswana Great Britain |
Subjects: | propaganda colonialism mass communication History and Exploration nationalism |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/219224 |
Abstract: | This article argues that growing British fears of African political activity in Bechuanaland (Botswana), combined with escalating violence and unrest in South Africa and Rhodesia, convinced Protectorate administrators to formulate a comprehensive strategy to check the effects of anticipated regional armed struggle, popular unrest, communist subversion and nationalist agitation. One important tool of policy was the use of mass media to present the government's case to the people of the region through a carefully designed strategy of political information management. This was centred around the creation of an Information Branch within the Protectorate government by 1962. Through press, radio, film and other media, colonial authorities hoped better to guide the Protectorate from empire to cooperative partner with Britain. Essential aspects of what may have been perceived as an appropriate organizational strategy for managing nationalist pressures in the Protectorate were carried along into independence in 1966. Notes, ref. |