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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Media and Democracy in Southern Africa
Author:Berger, GuyISNI
Year:1998
Periodical:Review of African Political Economy
Volume:25
Issue:78
Period:December
Pages:599-610
Language:English
Geographic term:Southern Africa
Subjects:democracy
mass communication
Politics and Government
Literature, Mass Media and the Press
External links:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056249808704346
http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=4EAC8412A8C4CFE4B9FD
Abstract:While much has been written about the media's role in development in southern Africa, there has been comparatively little about its democratic significance. In order to analyse the role of the media vis-à-vis democracy, it is useful to look at the paradigms and historical periodization of the media's role vis-à-vis development. Four paradigms for understanding the role of the media in development can be distinguished: 1) modernization (media is seen as incorporating countries into world communications as a mechanism for the spread of the ideas, attitudes and behaviours, as well as the technologies, of developed Western countries); 2) disassociation (this national independence paradigm sees media as part of cultural imperialism and a factor in perpetuating underdevelopment; it looks to the State as a foundation for media that could promote indigenous development and cultural identity); 3) liberatory (in this view, the media is seen as supporting neocolonial elites, and a focus has developed on alternative media as a means to develop subordinate classes); 4) negotiation and integration model (here media is seen as part of the articulation of contradictory social relations, and its role in development is subject to continuous negotiation). The author contends that these paradigms are also of value for understanding the role of media in democracy. Bibliogr., sum.
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