Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean: Global South Issues in Media, Culture and Technology 3030541681, 9783030541682

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Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean Global South Issues in Media, Culture and Technology Edited by Hopeton S. Dunn · Dumisani Moyo William O. Lesitaokana Shanade Bianca Barnabas

Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean

Hopeton S. Dunn Dumisani Moyo William O. Lesitaokana Shanade Bianca Barnabas Editors

Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean Global South Issues in Media, Culture and Technology

Editors Hopeton S. Dunn Department of Media Studies University of Botswana Gaborone, Botswana William O. Lesitaokana Department of Media Studies University of Botswana Gaborone, Botswana

Dumisani Moyo Faculty of Humanities University of Johannesburg Johannesburg, South Africa Shanade Bianca Barnabas Department of Communication Studies University of Johannesburg Johannesburg, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-54168-2    ISBN 978-3-030-54169-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

This book benefits from the goodwill of many who supported and encouraged its publication. In response to the call for chapter proposals, we received over 60 submissions from media, culture and communication scholars in some 15 countries in Africa and the Caribbean. They enthusiastically encouraged the publication of this book to fill an important gap in the resources available in their institutions. While the work of some of these contributors did not eventually find an outlet in this publication, their initial and continued active support of the project is highly appreciated. For those whose work is published in this book, we are grateful for the confidence you placed in the process of completing it, and for your scholarly inputs and attention to detail, in ensuring its highest quality. The editors also wish to thank the leadership of our universities for their supportive inputs and our use of resources. We also offer special thanks to colleagues in our faculties and departments for their consistent collegial support. In particular, we thank Mrs Tanneice Ellis from CARIMAC at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mrs Boammaaruri Pheto from the Media Studies Department at the University of Botswana (UB), and Naseeba Gaibie, Kgothatso Komane, Gontse Lebakeng, Silindile Mbokazi, Naledi Modise and Sinakhokonke Ncongwane from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) for their helpful inputs, whether in administrative, proofreading, transcription or formatting support. We are grateful for the trust, encouragement and active support of our Commissioning Editors from Palgrave Macmillan publishers, Lucy Batrouney and Camille Davis, who ensured that each and every input v

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was at the required standard. We are also grateful to Jenny De Wet for indexing services. As editors who spent long hours in the preparation of this book, we thank our families in no small measure for their patience, understanding and inputs to help bring this publication to fruition. To all who contributed in any way, we extend our profound thanks, and at the same time, as the editors, we assume full responsibility for any weaknesses, errors or omissions in the preparation and presentation of this book.

Contents

1 Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean: ‘Releasing the Psychic Inheritance’  1 Hopeton S. Dunn, Dumisani Moyo, William O. Lesitaokana, and Shanade Bianca Barnabas Part I Contextualizing Research and Technology  17 2 New Optics on Digital Media Cultures in Africa 19 Herman Wasserman 3 Globalisation from Within: Enhancing Digital Productivity and Technology Transformation in the South 33 Hopeton S. Dunn 4 Towards an Integrated Caribbean Paradigm in Communication Thought: Confronting Academic Dependence in Media Research 51 Nova Gordon Bell 5 Tracking Two Waves: Transnational Influencers in Africa’s ICT Policy Formulation 75 Musonda Kapatamoyo

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Part II Digital Strategies and Transitions  95 6 Decolonising in the Gaps: Community Networks and the Identity of African Innovation 97 Nicola J. Bidwell 7 The Commodification of Mobile Communications in Cuba: Tracking Political and Economic Change117 Carol Muñoz Nieves 8 From Global to National: Mapping the Trajectory of the South African Video Game Industry137 Rachel Lara van der Merwe 9 Indigenous Hip-Hop: Digital Media Practices Among Youth of the South African San People157 Shanade Bianca Barnabas and Itunu Bodunrin 10 Creating a Home Community Online During Carnival: Trinidad’s Diaspora and Social Media Use175 Daina Nathaniel Part III Reforming Media Practices 191 11 Philanthropy-Funded Journalism: Implications for Media Independence and Editorial Credibility in South Africa193 Dumisani Moyo 12 Business News Making Practices in Zimbabwe217 Collen Chambwera 13 Displacement and Substitutability Effects of Online Newspapers on Traditional Media: A Zambian Perspective235 Parkie Mbozi

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14 Diversity in Broadcast Television in Botswana: Prospects and Challenges255 William O. Lesitaokana and Seamogano Mosanako 15 Back to the Village: Integrating Folk Media into Rural Food Security Communication in Ethiopia273 Hagos Nigussie Part IV Challenging States and Corporations 293 16 Popular Culture as Alternative Media: Reggae Music, Culture and Politics in Malawi’s Democracy295 Anthony M. Gunde and Victor Chikaipa 17 Ruling Minds: The Media and State Propaganda in British-­Ruled Nyasaland, 1945–1964309 Paul Chiudza Banda 18 Communicating Politics in Small States: Preferred Sources of Political Knowledge in the Jamaican Society327 Lloyd G. Waller and Nicola D. Satchell 19 Dancehall Music’s Resistance: Upstaging Diageo’s Prescriptive Marketing Rules in Jamaica347 Melville Cooke Index363

Notes on Contributors

Paul Chiudza Banda  PhD, is Assistant Professor of History at Tarleton State University, based at Stephenville, Texas, USA. He has published several book chapters and journal articles. His journal articles were published in The Journal of Public Administration and Development Alternatives; The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, African Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Eastern African Studies and The Society of Malawi Journal. He is a columnist for The Diplomatist Magazine. His current research interests include British imperialism, the colonial and post-colonial state in Africa, the history of development in Africa and the global Cold War. Shanade  Bianca  Barnabas,  PhD, is a senior lecturer and Head of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Situated within the ambit of cultural studies, key foci of her research include culture, identity, media and representation. Since 2008, she has conducted research together with the!Xun and Khwe San communities of South Africa’s Northern Cape province, publishing book chapters and journal articles on issues of heritage, indigeneity and marginality as experienced by these communities. In teaching courses on communication and media, she is engaged in offering a localised pedagogy within a global context. Nova Gordon Bell,  PhD, is a lecturer at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in communication theories and development. She was previously the Programme Chair of the Communications Arts and xi

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Technology (BCAT) degree at University of Technology Jamaica (UTECH). Her work focuses on communication and media theory, culture and media representation. She has been extensively involved in academic programme development and design for media and communication education. As a creative writer, she has also published award-winning fiction and poetry in several journals and magazines. Nicola J. Bidwell  PhD, is an adjunct professor at Namibia’s International University of Management. She is an affiliate researcher with the Digital Ethnography Group, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Australia, and also serves as Gender and Social Impact Facilitator for the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Local Access Project. For the past 22  years, she has lectured and researched in a range of universities in Namibia, South Africa, Australia and the UK. Itunu Bodunrin,  PhD, is a postdoctoral research fellow and member of the Rethinking Indigeneity research team at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research work is focused on popular culture and urban indigeneity amongst the!Xun and Khwe indigenous population in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Collen Chambwera  is an experienced information and public relations specialist and senior tutor at the University of Johannesburg, where he is pursuing a PhD at the School of Communication, Department of Communication Studies. He holds a Master’s degree in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. His research interests include news production analysis, the impact of social media on journalism, and media freedom and regulation. Victor  Chikaipa  is a PhD graduate from Stellenbosch University. He holds a MA degree in Applied Linguistics and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of Malawi, Chancellor College. His research interests are in the fields of digital media, sociolinguistics, popular culture and media, environmental communication and critical discourse analysis. He has published in refereed international journals including the Nordic Journal of African Studies. Melville Cooke  is an assistant lecturer at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTECH), where he teaches classes in the Communications Arts

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and Technology (BCAT) degree programme. He worked previously as a print journalist, specialising in entertainment. His observations of the music sector have significantly informed his MPhil thesis, Sell Off or Sell Out? Experiential Marketing Using the Massive Jamaican Dancehall Market, 2005–2015 which he completed at University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in 2018. Cooke maintains his research interest in the use of Jamaican popular music as a means of broad-based communication. Hopeton  S.  Dunn  PhD, is Professor of Communications Policy and Digital Media based at University of Botswana. He served for several years as Professor and Director at the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC), The University of the West Indies, Jamaica, where he was founding Director of the Mona ICT Policy Centre. He is also a senior research associate in the School of Communication, University of Johannesburg. Dunn is a former Chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica, and a former Secretary General of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He chairs IAMCR’s international panel for the biennial award of the Stuart Hall Prize. His work is published widely on issues of culture, globalisation, broadcasting, telecommunications policies and emerging media. Anthony  M.  Gunde, PhD, is a research fellow at the Journalism Department, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is also Senior Lecturer of Media, Communication and Cultural studies at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College. Gunde has overarching interests in the political economy of mass communications, communicating masculinities and the intersection of religion, media and culture. Musonda  Kapatamoyo, PhD, is Chair of the Mass Communication Department at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. As Chair, he leads the Department in implementing its vision and strategy to improve student outcomes. His research interests lie in big data, focusing on algorithms, data collection, storage, manipulation and dissemination. He is a board member of the Edwardsville, Illinois Rotary Club, where he serves as the Youth Exchange Officer (YEO) and Director of Vocational Service. He is also a board member of Lynne F. Solon Foundation, a group focused on helping children with disabilities and diabetes. William  O.  Lesitaokana,  PhD, is a senior lecturer and Head of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Botswana. He teaches

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theoretical and practical courses in media studies, specialising in new media. His research focuses on media audiences, consumption of media technology, cultural sociology and media in Botswana. Recently, he published a co-edited book titled New Media and Mediatization of Religion: An African Perspective. He has written extensively in the area of mobile media, mobile communication and youth and society. Some of his works are published in leading journals such as Journal of African Media Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies and New Media and Society. Parkie Mbozi  is a research fellow at the Institute of Economic and Social Research (INESOR), University of Zambia. He is a PhD candidate in Media and Communication Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research focuses on access and readership of online newspapers, their perceived credibility and relevance to audiences and their impact on the established media ecosystems. He has worked for several regional and international organisations and published extensively on issues of communication, HIV and AIDS, and climate change. Rachel Lara van der Merwe  is an assistant professor in the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, she received a PhD in Media Research and Practice from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she remains a Research Fellow at the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture. Seamogano  Mosanako, PhD, is the Head of Communications and Information Services at the Bank of Botswana. Prior to this, she was a lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Botswana where she taught theoretical and practical courses in media studies, specialising in broadcasting. Her research interests are in the areas of broadcasting, media policy, development communication and the media in Botswana. Dumisani Moyo  PhD, is an associate professor and vice dean, academic, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg. His research interests include media policy and regulation in Africa, new and alternative media, political engagement through media in Africa, journalism in the digital era and media and elections. Among his major works are two co-authored

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books: Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities and Media Policy in a Changing Southern Africa: Critical Reflections on Media Reforms in the Global Age. Daina Nathaniel  PhD, is an associate professor in the Knight School of Communication at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. She teaches a wide range of courses including Global Communication and Culture, Communication and Culture in a Networked Society and Communication, Culture and Food. Her research interests include the postcolonial experience in the Caribbean, the impact of tourism, identity construction using digital media, the spread of digital literacy, cultural representation and creolisation of marginalised communities in the Caribbean. She is a national of Trinidad and Tobago. Carol Muñoz Nieves  is a researcher in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Her master’s thesis engages with the political economy of mobile and internet communications in her home country, Cuba. She has conducted research on digital and data rights in the platform economy; citizen data audits; human capital in digital industries; public dimensions of faculty’s work in the review, promotion and tenure process; open access research; and history of communication research in Cuba. She has also worked as a press analyst, journalist, lecturer and communications specialist for organisations in Cuba and Canada. Hagos Nigussie,  PhD, is a lecturer at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Mekelle University, Ethiopia. He holds a PhD in Communication for Development and Media Studies from the University of Queensland, Australia. Nigussie has participated in various research projects related to Communication for Development and Media Studies. He teaches courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and serves as coordinator for Postgraduate Programmes at the College of Social Sciences and Languages, Mekelle University. Nicola D. Satchell  is a lecturer in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies (Mona Campus). She was the Principal Investigator for the ‘Equal Rights and Justice for All’ project carried out by the UWI. Her research interests include political sociology, crime management, youth and development and development studies.

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Lloyd G. Waller  PhD, is Professor of Digital Transformation Policy and Governance at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. He is Head of the University’s Department of Government, and serves on several Boards and Committee in Jamaica’s public sector. His research interests include digital transformation, governance, youth and development, advanced research methods and tourism resilience. Herman Wasserman  PhD, is Professor of Media Studies and Director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has published widely on media, conflict, ethics and democratisation in Africa. His latest book is Media, Geopolitics and Power: A View from the Global South. He is editor-in-chief of the journal African Journalism Studies and of the journal ‘Annals of the International Communication Association’.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

4IR ADCS ADSL AI APC BDC BEST BOCRA BTA Btv CACR CADECA CANA CARICOM CARIMAC CD CN CNBC COMESA COVID 19 CSV DAW DIY DMC GATT GBC GDP

Fourth Industrial Revolution Adigrat Diocesan Catholic Secretariat Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines Artificial Intelligence Association for Progressive Communications Botswana Development Corporation Black Entertainment Satellite Television Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority Botswana Telecommunications Authority Botswana Television Caribbean Association for Communication Research Casa de Cambio Caribbean News Agency Caribbean Community and Common Market Caribbean School of Media and Communication Compact Disc Community Networks Consumer News and Business Channel Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Coronavirus Disease of 2019 Comma Separated Values Digital Audio Workstation Do It Yourself Diageo Marketing Code General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gaborone Broadcasting Channel Gross Domestic Product xvii

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Abbreviations and Acronyms

GNI Gross National Income GSM Global System for Mobile GTV Gaborone Television IA Internet Access IAMCR International Association of Media and Cultural Research ICA International Communication Association ICT Information Communication Technologies IDRC International Development Research Centre ILO International Labour Organization IMF International Monetary Fund IoT Internet of things ITA Information Technology Agreement ITU International Telecommunications Union LDC Least Developed Countries M&G Mail & Guardian MABC Munhumutape African Broadcasting Corporation MDG Millennium Development Goals MFN Most Favored Nation MMORPG Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games MNC Multinational Corporation MTV Music Television NEPAD New Partnership for African Development NGO Non-Government Organizations NPOs Non-Profit Organization NSP National Strategic Plan OAU Organization for African Unity QCF Quarter Circle Forward SABC South African Broadcasting Corporation SADC Southern Africa Development Community SAP Structural Adjustment Programmes SASI South African San Institute SIDS Small Island Developing States SONA State of the Nation Addresses STA Swaziland Television Authority TB Tuberculosis TV Television UDF United Democratic Front UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Program UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization US United States

  Abbreviations and Acronyms 

WACC WB WEF WSIS WTO ZICTA ZNCB

World Association of Christian Communication World Bank World Economic Forum World Summit for Information Society World Trade Organization Zambia Information Communication and Technology Authority Zambia National Commercial Bank

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List of Figures

Fig. 9.1

A post from the Blood Eye Gang’s Facebook page. https:// www.facebook.com/2012874865611029/photos/ a.2012875482277634/2132496483648866166 Fig. 13.1 Comparative displacement effect on the three traditional mass media: print, television and radio. (Source: Author) [‘Agree’ represents displacement effect and ‘Disagree’ represents the ‘pushback’ to displacement] 247 Fig. 18.1 Trust in information on selected political issues. (Source: Authors)338 Fig. 18.2 Trust in sources of political information. (Source: Authors) 338

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List of Tables

Table 5.1 Table 18.1

Drivers of first wave policies (post-independence until 1990s) 77 Sources of political information 337

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CHAPTER 1

Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean: ‘Releasing the Psychic Inheritance’ Hopeton S. Dunn, Dumisani Moyo, William O. Lesitaokana, and Shanade Bianca Barnabas

Introduction Media, culture and technology, as sub-themes of this book, are inter-­ related fields of emerging scholarship globally. They are also sites of rapid transformation in the manner in which they are consumed by all demographic groups. The face of media has been revolutionised by the rise of the internet, mobile technology and the deconstruction of the once vaunted role of gate-keeping as an essential control on content H. S. Dunn (*) • W. O. Lesitaokana Department of Media Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana D. Moyo Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] S. B. Barnabas Department of Communication Studies, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_1

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dissemination. Cultural norms are now under renewed scrutiny as old traditions of knowledge accumulation, social behaviour and professional practice in media undergo their own transformation and reformulation. Colonial inheritances are being questioned and hegemony resisted even in the face of global upheavals. The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to new thinking on the environment, the emergency remote delivery of education, and the provision of housing and healthcare services for the poorest, all over the world. Major deficits in internet access for such services, especially in the Global South, and in minority and ethnic communities in the North, are cause for renewed data gathering, advocacy and action to preserve human rights and an acceptable quality of life for all. This volume turns the spotlight on two historically and culturally connected regions—Africa and the Caribbean—that are affected by these global developments. Like other developing regions, these two dynamic areas are in constant search of their own solutions, their own voices and their own analytical tools to better understand the contemporary roles of technology, culture and communication in their societies. Africa and the Caribbean, deliberately selected to be the focus of this volume, are important components of the wider grouping of countries referred to as the Global South. The sub-categories or alternative descriptors to this term include ‘developing countries’, ‘emerging economies’, ‘least developed countries (LDC)’, ‘small island developing states (SIDS)’ and ‘lower to middle income countries’, among others. And while each term has its own special focus, the countries and regions encompassed have been subjected to colonial oppression, economic and political hegemony and exploitation of their natural resources. Nevertheless, they reflect resilience, display economic and cultural diversity, operate differing political systems and deploy available global technologies to varying degrees. Migrants from many of these post colonies constitute part of the diaspora resident in the North. Economic and social conditions among these demographic and especially ethnic groups living in the Global North often approximate some of the adverse conditions that are to be found in some countries of the South, and these have been exacerbated by the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In these respects, Africa and the Caribbean share a great deal in common with other parts of the Global South and many ethnic communities in the Global North. There is much to learn from these two developing regions and for each from the other. At the

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same time, these lessons will also likely be instructive to scholars and policy-­makers in the Global North. While we focus in this volume on contributions from Africa and the Caribbean, it is our expectation that subsequent volumes will similarly analyse issues of media, culture and technology in Asia, the wider Latin America, the Pacific and the Middle East, and their intersections with other developing regions.

Africa and the Caribbean Africa is one of the most generously endowed regions of the world in creative human populations and diverse natural resources. Its countries, ethnicities and regions have a long history of self-rule and achievements in science, technology, agriculture and art. It is home to some of the world’s great forests and wildlife and perhaps the greatest aggregation of indigenous languages. It also has a history of conflicts, drought and unresolved political challenges for which it has established institutional responses such as the African Union and its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, working in association with international counterparts. Being a large continent, Africa has distinct regions, with varied cultures, religions and shifting demographics. While chapters on Africa  in this volume are drawn predominantly from Southern Africa, given responses to the call for inputs, the scope of the book also encompasses other parts of the continent, including East and West Africa. The Caribbean is one of the most beautiful regions of the world, with tourism and cultural products that are in demand globally. Its economies feature the mining of bauxite and petrochemicals, production of agricultural goods and the global marketing of music, fashion, cuisine and other cultural products. Most countries in the Caribbean region have a youthful, educated and tech savvy population, and a workforce that is largely open to global employment and travel. The region produces some of the fastest athletes in the world as well as scholars of global repute. At the same time, some of its countries are beset by high rates of crime and violence, poverty and unemployment, reflecting slow economic growth rates and faltering productivity levels. The human history of the Caribbean dates back thousands of years, with migrant indigenous civilisations which were mostly decimated by European colonial conquests. Most parts of Africa and the Caribbean share a history of colonialism and European hegemony lasting over centuries. The two regions were

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polar sites for the abhorrent human trafficking activities in a slave trade that demeaned all its key actors and victims at various stages of the process: those who facilitated human capture in Africa, the prime enforcers and economic beneficiaries in Europe and the vast number of enslaved Africans whose destinations included not only colonised regions of the Caribbean but also the Americas. Centuries of the slave trade sought to reduce the proud offspring of Africa to mere human chattel, transported through the so-called ‘middle passage’ and encamped on hostile plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas where they fought incessantly for their freedom. The labour migration system called indentureship, with key similarities to enslavement, saw the later arrival in the Caribbean region of waves of Indian and, to a lesser extent, Chinese labourers, who now make up an important part of the region’s population, in independence. In parts of Southern Africa, a depraved European colonial system of repression and disempowerment eventually spawned the despicable racist ideology of apartheid. That this appalling repression of the majority black population operated as state policy in South Africa well into the last decade of the twentieth century is a measure of the tenacity of racism and its international capitalist economic support systems. Despite the indignity, brutality and genocide of British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Belgian, German, Italian and Dutch colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean, the peoples of these regions have survived. They won hard-fought anti-colonial struggles, some emerging to establish vibrant renewed societies, with diverse cultural and ethnic communities. In the present era, Africa and the Caribbean enjoy numerous affinities and a modern political history of people-to-people solidarity. As an example of this pan-African solidarity, the great South African novelist, Peter Abrahams, made Jamaica his home for decades. Speaking in an interview in 2004, he remarked, ‘There are places in South Africa where you think you are in Jamaica, and there are other parts of Africa that are like that. Jamaica is Africa to me’ (in Dunn 2011, p.  512). When anti-­ apartheid hero and South Africa’s first black President visited Jamaica in July 1991, the incumbent Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley, spoke for the entire Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region and perhaps wider afield when he declared of Mandela, ‘When you set foot on our soil, we are welcoming one of the greatest symbols of courage and heroism in our time’ (Gleaner Archives 2017).

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Caribbean cultural exponents such as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear campaigned for the liberation of Zimbabwe and South Africa, and heralded African liberation in general, in the tradition of legendary antecedent pan-Africans such as Marcus Garvey of Jamaica, George Padmore of Trinidad and Tobago, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, among others. New shoots of this historical, political and cultural interaction have been emerging in recent decades, with prospects of societal renewal, and economic and technological transformation. At the same time, ongoing surges in cross-border migration and human trafficking have added complexity to a human process of becoming, that is forever in flux in Africa and the Caribbean. It is akin to an era described by Mbembe as the ‘postcolony’: ‘a period of embedding, a space for proliferation that is not only solely disorder, chance, and madness but emerges from a sort of violent gust, with its languages, its beauty and ugliness, its ways of summing up the world’ (2001, p.  242). Whatever form that African and Caribbean existence takes, the story must be told mainly by those who live these experiences, who observe the unfolding episodes first-hand and who must critically evaluate the journeys of the continent, regions and associated communities. This is what this book is about. Eminent Caribbean scholar and late Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Rex Nettleford (2007), urged the people of both the Caribbean and Africa to build on the lessons learned in the cauldron of mutual oppression and hegemony. For him, the central lesson for institutions as well as individuals is, ‘the on-going need to facilitate the release of the population from a psychic inheritance of self-doubt’, so that new generations emerging from these regions can ‘shape a civil society based on free will, individual rights, mutual respect, equity and social justice’ (Nettleford 2007, p. 13). It is also to this mission of anti-colonial re-construction, education and liberation that humanist scholar and Brazilian educational theorist, Paulo Freire, expressed commitment and resolve. He argued that in order to transcend chattel slavery and neo-colonial oppression, there must by a process of self-discovery, knowledge building and of conscious educational development. He explained: ‘Just as the oppressor, in order to oppress, needs a theory of oppressive action, so the oppressed, in order to become free, also needs a theory of action’ (Freire 1972, p. 150). In discussing what he calls cultural invasion, Freire postulates that:

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Whether urbane or harsh, cultural invasion is thus always an act of violence against the persons of the invaded culture, who lose their originality or face the threat of losing it. In cultural invasion, the invaders are the authors of, and actors in, the process; those they invade are the objects. The invaders mould; those they invade are moulded. The invaders choose, those they invade follow that choice, or are expected to follow it. The invaders act, those they invade have only the illusion of acting, through the actions of the invaders. (Freire 1972, p. 121)

This volume is about taking responsibility to be narrators of our own stories, to be theorists of our own lived experiences and to empower a new generation of scholars willing and able to help mould the present and future of education, culture, media and technology in countries of the Global South, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean.

The Challenge of Change In these regions, many of the indigenous cultural processes and overarching global technologies have not been adequately analysed, researched and documented from the perspective of the South. The ongoing impacts of digital eco-systems, new social networks and machine learning on the culture, language, lifestyles, human rights, audiences, governance systems, intellectual property, ethical norms and civic responsibilities in Africa and the Caribbean remain in urgent need of deeper  interdisciplinary study, theorising and renewed critical, contextual analysis. How are popular or folk cultures in these varied countries being impacted by such developments? How can local media be re-imagined in this constantly changing global context? Can home-grown innovation and cultural resilience be stimulated to resist hegemonic, global constructs and help ‘release the psychic inheritance’? Can these regions generate more indigenous content and devices for popular consumption as part of the post-colonial enterprise? And can the Global South enhance its cultural influence and information counterflow to the North and not simply become recipient societies, mere markets or testing grounds for industrialised countries? The book does not aim to answer all these questions comprehensively. But it seeks to renew dialogue on these possibilities and to make a modest contribution to addressing some of the gaps. Original work by the contributing authors analyse single countries or span regions, with some

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analyses encompassing both Africa and the Caribbean in their scope and implications. The book includes chapters on the challenges and opportunities facing cultural environments and media systems, and examines the roles being played by civic actors, media practitioners, academics, cultural exponents, governments, regulators, audiences and external players in the transformation of societies in these two regions. While it claims no more than a limited contribution to the global debate on vital communication issues, it seeks to evaluate many of the assumptions that govern the often too uncritical adoption of externally generated theoretical constructs and media content. In this respect, it joins a range of other recent critical contributions on key related issues in the Global South, including Ragnedda and Gladkova (2020), Mutsvairo (2018), Wasserman (2018), and Iqani (2015), among others.

Structure and Contributions The content of this book is presented in four parts, covering chapters on: Conceptualising Research and Technology; Digital Strategies and Transitions; Reforming Media Practices; and Challenging States and Corporations. It captures a combination of theoretical ideas, empirical studies and critical analyses of policies and practices in the countries and regions under study. The 18 other chapters speak of communication and cultural issues across parts of the African continent and Caribbean region, with contributions emanating from the experiences of some 12 of these countries. Sub-regional concerns, media and indigenous populations and the struggles of disadvantaged groups are among the diverse range of issues highlighted. Although there are historical patterns of gender discrimination in the two regions, women continue to play significant roles in the political, social and economic sectors, as they do in contributions to this book. What the chapters have in common is a search for new meaning and alternative approaches to understanding and re-imagining communication and culture in Africa and the Caribbean, with implications for the wider Global South. We now offer a closer look at the inter-related chapter contributions contained in the four parts of the book.

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Part I: Conceptualising Research and Technology The opening part consists of four chapters reflecting some key conceptual and development issues that pervade the entire volume. A chapter by Herman Wasserman of South Africa concerns itself with the quest for alternative theoretical lenses suited for analysing communication and culture in Africa and the wider Global South. Wasserman urges scholars in Africa and elsewhere to respond to the ethical and epistemological questions raised by digital media ‘in ways that are informed by a deep, textured knowledge of context and social relations’. He calls on a new generation of researchers to resist the uncritical adoption of scholarly agendas and frameworks from elsewhere, and to engage in more critical reflections that extend beyond the machinic, while avoiding a lapse into what he calls “a nativist romanticism”’. Hopeton S. Dunn offers new thinking on the conceptual deficits relating to technology and productivity in Africa, the Caribbean and wider South. He argues that in an era of smart technology, emerging robotics, machine learning and neural networks, countries of the South must reevaluate how creative processes, economic outputs and education are to be managed in order to achieve greater digital productivity and human well-­being. He suggests that at the heart of a needed transformational process for many developing countries is a lack of strategic policy-making. He recommends  a deliberate development strategy proposed as ‘Globalisation from Within’. Writing in the same vein, Gordon Bell exposes the negative impacts of over-dependence on imported communication scholarship, a challenge that ‘has hindered the evolution of a distinctive Caribbean paradigm in communication thought’. As exceptions, she identifies certain Caribbean scholars who ‘have distinguished themselves in the area of media and communication research’. However, her well-placed concern is the need for a more integrated Caribbean paradigm in communication research, analysis and theory building, to counter the still dominant imported European and North American content and ideas. To this end, the chapter calls for a ‘review of the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions of European and North American media and communication approaches to theory’. Pointing to ‘the rich institutional and creative potential that exists in the region’, Gordon Bell’s chapter seeks to move Caribbean and other peoples from being mere recipients of knowledge ‘to

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being active creators of another perspective for understanding human communication and media’. Taking decolonisation as a point of departure, Musonda Kapatamoyo offers new insights, especially drawn from Southern Africa, into new ways of tackling technology capitalism and unsuitable transnational strategies at the community and global levels. Kapatamoyo’s chapter makes the cogent argument that imitative and pre-packaged telecommunication policies adopted from global power brokers and transnational agencies served mainly to undermine domestic social and economic development in Africa. He contends that these external ‘influencers’ exerted power in two principal waves that prevented the deployment of appropriate policies fit for the domestic or local contexts. ‘After independence’, he notes, ‘many African countries prioritised legacy telecommunication systems using borrowed pathways from developed countries, with limited success’. Kapatamoyo attributes the embrace of these policies by African governments to the force of what he calls ‘persuaded obligation’, a concept with nuances that go well beyond the associated ideas of ‘soft power’. He concludes that ‘communication technologies are more effective when used in processes that engage stakeholders in the selection of the objectives, key issues and relevant channels’ within a society. Such recommended measures of stakeholder consultation,  technological self-determination and indigenous telecoms  policy-making seem a far cry from the  top-down policy-making and technological dependence that characterised much of what was adopted, often unaltered, by uncritical political leaders and willing bureaucrats in the South.

Part II: Digital Strategies and Transitions The second part of the book consists of five chapters, carefully selected for their geographical diversity and yet their commonality in demonstrating the value of alternative approaches in the developmental use of media technology. The section traverses four countries across two global regions in critically examining past and present technology deployments and their  potential uses in national development. Ranging in scope from tech  innovations and  community networks in Africa, to the politically unorthodox policies governing mobile commodification in Cuba, and the challenges of digital gaming technologies in fostering national identity in South Africa, these and other inputs bring original and keenly argued

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research  work to bear on how developing countries can make better choices in technology use and in national policy-making. To begin, Nicola J. Bidwell who is based in Namibia offers a textured analysis of community information and communications technology (ICT) networks and their role in building local technology alliances to resist transnational and corporate dominance. In her chapter, ‘Decolonising in the Gaps: Community Networks and Identity in African Innovation’, she argues that these local network alliances fill gaps created by telecommunications capitalism, and foster powerful alternative identities in African innovation. It is a message that goes wider than the African continental scope of her chapter. The contribution by Carol Muñoz Nieves describes the commodification of mobile communications in socialist Cuba as a state-led strategy to capture hard currency. A motivating factor is that Cuba is dependent on external technological transfers, thus having to pay for these technologies at global rates. Largely, the chapter warns that the exorbitant pricing of mobile communication services in Cuba fuels the social divide between the local ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. This commodification shows a shift in policy, initiated by the Raul Castro administration, to prioritise economic advancement over social gains. It is a commentary on the contradictions faced by a developing Caribbean country with controversial internal policies and confronting hegemonic threats by the decades-old economic blockade unleashed by neighbouring superpower, the United States. Rachel Lara van der Merwe maps the trajectory of the video gaming sector in South Africa. The chapter focuses on the small but growing video gaming community and analyses whether national identity building was yet evident or consciously projected as part of the creative process. She discovers that the quest for financial viability by the individual gaming projects drove a more global than national approach to character development and storyline. However, she notes that the rudiments of more ‘expressly South African games’ are emerging. The struggle by San youth of South Africa to produce cultural adaptations of American hip-hop music is the focus of the chapter by Shanade Bianca Barnabas and Itunu Bodunrin. They provide insights into the innovative use of digital media for music production and dissemination, in the face of challenges such as high data charges and limited access to music technologies and to the internet. Adding to growing work on the evolution of low-income digital media production practices, the chapter explores the tactics adopted by these first nation community youth, living on the

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peri-urban edge of a city in South Africa’s Northern Cape. Their counter-­ hegemonic hustle is presented as one way to ‘connect’ globally, against the odds, in the ever-increasing digital divide. In the Caribbean, where the fun and games of the annual Carnival take place at around Easter-time, there is no doubting its explicit historical and cultural association with Trinidad and Tobago. Many Trinidadian nationals who are no longer resident on the island, seek to use social media platforms to experience the annual festivities remotely. Daina Nathaniel captures notions of diasporic citizenship as expressed through online Carnival fora. The ‘almost-there-ness’ of social media and live streaming of the festive events allows for a more direct engagement by ‘Trinbagonians’ with their homeland than experienced by previous generations in the diaspora. The chapter discusses how social media tools are marshalled by the diaspora in tandem with the home-based Mas bands in Port of Spain, to enable the creation of a virtual community and a reaffirmation of belonging. Through social media relationships and the online communities that result, Nathaniel asserts that there is a new sense of place for the diaspora, a place that is not bound by time or distance.

Part III: Reforming Media Practices There is no doubt that traditional media institutions all over the world, including those in the Global South, have been profoundly affected by the rise of new media and user-driven digital platforms. The five chapters in this section address many of the old and new struggles intended to ensure free and fair access to information by citizens, through whatever media they engage. The section discusses issues of media credibility, displacement, capture and coverage quality, related to governments, corporate enterprises and to media houses themselves. In the first chapter of the section, Dumisani Moyo investigates the little researched area of philanthropy-funded journalism. Focusing on a South African weekly newspaper and its two off-shoots, he questions the interests and motivations of the philanthropic organisations associated with these media outlets,  and the impact on the practice of journalism. The chapter notes the risk that philanthropy funding poses, often skewing the type of reporting done and topics covered, and potentially hampering journalistic independence. The situation, the author argues, warrants that news organisations strictly adhere to ethical codes and to internal systems of accountability to safeguard their journalistic integrity.

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Similar challenges are posed for journalists operating in Zimbabwe, under conditions of acute financial stringency and overarching national economic collapse. Collen Chambwera seeks answers to how practitioners must face the practical and ethical tasks of business journalism in this context. His chapter focuses on shifting journalistic cultures and sometimes unsavoury media practices in a country caught up for decades in a myriad of political and economic crises. Discussing business news production, Chambwera sketches the contours of a survival strategy for journalists operating in such complicated and personally challenging environments. His findings show that government over-reach has caused self-censorship on the part of state-employed journalists who often risk their jobs and freedom to report the truth of the country’s economic crisis. Still within the newsgathering environment, a chapter by Parkie Mbozie provides detailed research on the impact of online newspapers on traditional print, radio and television media audiences in Zambia. The chapter indicates that traditional print media were the most affected, while television was displaced to a far lesser degree. The impact on radio was indicated as somewhere in between. The chapter speaks to the reasons for the variable levels of displacement and discusses the response of audiences as they interact with emerging online news sources. In Botswana, television also faced challenges in the context of national policies seeking diversity in the sector. In their chapter, William O. Lesitaokana and Seamogano Mosanako interrogate the attempts to diversify the broadcast television market through new forms of ownership and varied content. They indicate that this policy goal was far from being met because of weak private sector take-up and limited government incentives. In the meantime, public sector television was increasingly dominated by government. The need for new and viable spaces such as community channels, was being acutely felt in Botswana. The chapter argues for decreased government control of the national television service, and for new policies authorising lower import duties on media equipment used by private investors. It advocates the use of shared facilities by government and independent broadcasters where under-utilised government-owned production resources can help to generate increased local content production and diversity. Hagos Nigussie’s chapter shows how public-private partnerships can be fruitful. Its focus on integrating folk media into rural food security education in Ethiopia showcases the adaptability of folk media as forms of effective public communication. The chapter demonstrates that Aa’dar (oral

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poetry) and Goila (folk songs) have the highest potential to convey rural food security messages due to their traditional, entertainment and educational values. The author calls on the Ethiopian government and development organisations to better tap into this rich vein of indigenous knowledge, in order to design media campaigns on food security with messages that people will readily understand and likely adopt.

Part IV: Challenging States and Corporations This final section, Part IV, presents four chapters, largely reflecting the challenge that media, culture and history can pose to dominant domains of power, whether these be colonial states, post-colonial governments or multinational corporations. It also speaks to how creative youth, whether as political actors or cultural creators, can influence national decision-­ making. This closing section also highlights cross-cultural influences and inter-regional engagements as exemplified by political actors in East Africa effectively using forms of protest music originating in the Caribbean. In this vein, Part IV begins with a chapter by Anthony M. Gunde and Victor Chikaipa on the influence of reggae music on politics in Malawi’s struggle for democracy. The chapter sheds light on the restrictive Malawian media landscape and shows how, using the platform of their reggae resistance beats, certain Malawian musicians are able to speak truth to power, inspiring mass action against political corruption. The authors argue that the use of reggae music, which originated in Jamaica, can be viewed as alternative media in Malawi, in that it provides a significant and necessary critique that challenges dominant narratives. Paul Chiudza Banda’s chapter highlights how the British colonial regime used media institutions, notably state radio and newspapers, as tools of propaganda in support of repression in pre-Independence Malawi, then known as Nyasaland. However, this media initiative did not succeed in forestalling Malawi’s independence. Banda makes the argument that although colonial appropriation of state media did not prevent the march of political independence, similar elitist and politically controlling practices have persisted since Independence. New thinking is advocated, to enable a more diverse and development-oriented media in this East African country. Lloyd G. Waller and Nicola D. Satchell explore the sources of political information and perceptions of trust in Jamaican politics. While their study suggests that social media sources were more trusted for political

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information originating outside of the country, it also showed that there was greater reliance on local sources for internal politics. The authors call for more diversity of internal information flow and more balanced internal media coverage, as Jamaica’s youthful population weigh its trust in online sources. The final chapter, by Melville Cooke, discusses a feud between performers of Jamaican dancehall music and the corporate brand managers of the UK-based alcoholic beverage company Diageo, a one-time  major sponsor of dancehall concerts. Cooke makes the argument that a period of contestation between the multinational company and leading local performers represented an example of the soft power of a music community against the hard power of an international corporation. It is a contest over what is considered unacceptable by some in the lyrical content of dancehall music, as well as a battle over who really controls the Jamaican dancehall space.

Synopsis The issues covered in this book will find common cause in many parts of the world, North and South, East and West. The challenges and opportunities of media and culture discussed here pervade all regions, affecting people of diverse backgrounds the world over. Yet it is in the communities of the Global South that the chapters and their conclusions are likely to be most keenly reflected. It is a message of recognition that scholarly contributions, whether theoretical or empirical, must come from all parts of the world and not just from the privileged North that has dominated the conversation in print since the emergence of modern communication as a discipline nearly seven decades ago. Cultural conquest, or invasion, in Paulo Freire’s words, must be resisted, in non-essentialist ways, in order to help displace any ‘psychic inheritance of self-doubt’ (Nettleford 2007, p. 13) in the Global South. All scholarly ideas and research outputs must contend and be encouraged, regardless of their geographical or social sources of origin. Such a scenario of analytical diversity can only enrich the global growth of Media and Communication as a discipline. We trust that this contribution to the dialogue will also empower societies and audiences everywhere, while contributing to a better understanding of the South.

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References Dunn, H. (2011). An interview with Peter Abrahams: Custodian and conscience of the Pan-African Movement. Critical Arts, 25(4), 500–513. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin Books. Gleaner Archives Jamaica. (2017, July 19). Amandla! Nelson Mandela’s epic Jamaica visit of 1991. Gleaner Company. Retrieved from http://digjamaica. com/m/blog/amandla-nelson-mandelas-epic-jamaica-visit/ Iqani, M. (2015). Consumption, media and the Global South: Aspiration contested. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mbembe, A. (2001). On the postcolony. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mutsvairo, B. (Ed.). (2018). The Palgrave handbook of media and communication research in Africa. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nettleford, R. (2007). Emancipation, the lessons and the legacy. In H. Dunn (Ed.), Emancipation (pp. 1–17). Kingston: Arawak Publications. Ragnedda, M., & Gladkova, A. (Eds). (2020). Digital inequalities in the Global South. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Wasserman, H. (2018). Media, geopolitics, and power: A view from the Global South. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

PART I

Contextualizing Research and Technology

CHAPTER 2

New Optics on Digital Media Cultures in Africa Herman Wasserman

Introduction The increasing centrality of digital media as an area of concern in media and communication scholarship globally has shaped the field in ways that are still becoming clear. The concern with digital media as the central disruptive force in media scholarship and practice has brought implications not only for the research agenda of the broad field of media and communications in general, but also for the ongoing imperative of de-­Westernising the field and for the ways in which perspectives from the Global South are inscribed into the mainstream of research. Taken together, these two dimensions bring us to a crossroads in the study of media in the Global South, which can be formulated in the shape of a question: How should we approach the study of digital media in Africa? In his critique of current approaches to the study of digital media, Appadurai (2016, p.  6) laments the rise of an ‘abstract, machinic and device-driven idea of sociality’. For him, the ‘obsession with big data’ and

H. Wasserman (*) University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_2

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the ‘screenification’ of social processes have led to a splitting between media studies, where emphasis is placed on devices, archives, platforms, algorithms and the like, and communication studies, where historically the focus has fallen on longer-standing concerns of the social, the political and the anthropological. What makes Appadurai’s critique relevant for the central question of this chapter as noted above is the academic divide that he sees developing between scholars from the Global North and those in the Global South. He sees the emphasis on big data as a continuation of the media effects tradition, converting media consumers into effects, with a diminished need to study their sociality (Appadurai 2016, p. 6). For Appadurai (2016, p.  5), the development of new media theory allows a direct dialogue between digital humanities and science and technology studies, which ignores the need for empirical studies of communication in particular settings in favour of a focus on technology, devices and machines: ‘Who needs a survey of clock use in Lebanon, or of microscope use in India, if we can go straight to the high-end analysis of instruments, tools, technologies and their assumptions?’ (Appadurai 2016, p. 5). Appadurai’s concerns about the privileging of technology at the expense of social relations resonate with the ways in which Africa has often appeared on the global agenda when it comes to the study of digital technologies. Underpinned by an earlier developmentalist orientation that has its roots in Western modernity and ideas of progress, scholarly and industrial interests in African digital cultures have often been focused on ways in which the continent could ‘catch up’ with the North or ‘leapfrog’ stages on a presumed universal technological development trajectory. According to this logic, Africans need to be ‘empowered’ through digital technologies, and Africa then provides an object of study to establish the success of such ‘empowerments’, or a laboratory where theories could be applied, tested and illustrated. This means that as is the case in other areas of media studies in Africa, for instance media industry research or journalistic ethics and professionalism, the study of digital media on the continent is often also informed by an assumed lack. This is even more broadly the case with the study of Africa and the Global South, as Comaroff and Comaroff (2012, p. 113) argue, geographical regions that have become ‘synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife’. Studies of digital media in Africa consequently tend to foreground questions of access, development

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and democratic ‘deepening’, in other words, positioning digital technologies in the first instance as solutions to problems. The assumption is that the internet and ICTs in general are ‘passively received in African countries and act as a force for development’ (Gagliardone 2016, p. 3). This orientation towards the study of the digital has the result of again constructing regions of the Global South such as Africa as the recipient of expertise and knowledge produced in or by the North, in a replication of colonial discourses of Northern superiority or beneficence. Moreover, the concerns about the effects of big data on the privacy and sovereignty of individuals that currently dominates scholarly agendas (what Couldry and Mejias (2018) refer to as being ‘colonised by data’) assume conditions of technology saturation that may narrow the applicability of technology’s desire for control to the Global North and ignores parallel processes in the South where questions of access and use of technology are currently still largely couched in positive terms but may have similar effects in the long run. The challenge for scholars of digital media in Africa is to frame such research not only in terms of lacks, problems and challenges but also in terms of emerging digital cultures, social formations and creative appropriations. In other words, instead of taking technology as the starting point, suggesting an a priori hierarchy between Global North and South based on notions of modernity and progress, a study of digital media in Africa that foregrounds the social as the point of departure is likely to yield more interesting and rich findings that could contribute to a better understanding not only of digital media on the continent but also on human– technology relations more generally. Instead of being used as an object for research or a case study for the application of Northern theories and agendas, more careful attention to African societies (where notions of the ‘local’ and the ‘global’, ‘North’ and ‘South’ intermingle in complex ways that denote economic, gendered and ethnic relations of inclusion and exclusion rather than geographic designations) could provide a way out of the impasse noted by Appadurai. When the lived experience of Africans within digital cultures is used as an optic (Kraidy 2016, p. 1) through which to view global questions of data colonisation (Couldry and Mejias 2018) against a larger historical backdrop, the ethical dimension moves into clearer view. It is then that African experiences can bring the social, the political and the anthropological back into the study of digital technology, with global relevance. Then, the way Africans appropriate, abrogate or adapt technology becomes not merely

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an oddity or interesting deviation from Northern practices, but an indispensable lens through which to view questions of domination and subjection, inclusion or exclusion, centrality or marginality (Nyamnjoh and Brudvig 2016) as they manifest globally. For Appadurai (2016, p. 6) the privileging of the technological and the ‘obsession with big data’ holds a ‘double danger’, epistemological and ethical in nature: The epistemological danger is the risk that we mistake patterns in machine-­ mediated behavior for the deep logic of society and sociality. The ethical danger is that users themselves are coming to believe that it is easier, quicker and more effective to use screens and apps to communicate with one another than conversation of communication in older formats.

This chapter will engage with the dual problematic introduced by Appadurai, namely the ethical and the epistemological questions raised by the current dominant global scholarly agenda of digital media studies. However, instead of treating them as separate domains, I will argue that they are inextricably linked. Questions of epistemology have an undeniably ethical dimension, given the asymmetries in the global production of knowledge tied to long histories of colonialism and cultural imperialism. The need to move beyond the assumption of Western Enlightenment universality is by now a familiar concern not only in digital studies but also in media and communication studies generally. Appadurai’s concern about the ethical dimensions of a data-driven approach to digital media is not entirely new; for instance, the notion of ‘weak ties’ underlying group dynamics in social media spaces has been recognised as a factor mitigating the optimism about mobile and digital media’s potential for activism (Gladwell 2010). The question about the preference of technologically mediated interaction—the ‘use of screens and apps to communicate with one another’—in turn resonates with concerns raised by scholars like Sherry Turkle (2015, p. 5) about the erosion of conversation and empathy as a result of technological mediation of for instance mobile phones. There is the danger, of course, that Appadurai’s objections against digitally mediated forms of conversation may be taken as a rejection of technology altogether, or an appeal to turn from modernity and return to tradition. This would be an unhelpful response. Instead, when the concern about the loss of sociality is extended beyond the interpersonal to the terrain of global media studies, Appadurai’s coupling of ethical and

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epistemological concerns invites us to consider how an approach to digital media on the continent which is premised on technological questions pertaining to access, infrastructure and datafication may further entrench the North’s dominance over research agendas and lead us to overlook potentially rich contributions that scholarship about African digital cultures could make to the field. The epistemological challenge for scholars of African digital studies is therefore also an ethical demand, and vice versa— the task to de-colonise global media studies scholarship requires an inclusion of Africa into the research agenda that takes seriously local context and cultures in relation to global concepts and theories (an epistemological issue) while resisting the exploitation of African media users and scholars through datafication and technologisation, and by acknowledging their agency and dignity (an ethical issue). The interlinking of epistemology and ethics in the study of African digital media cultures is important not only for the development and decolonisation of the field of media studies itself, but also offers an approach to the study of digital media that may assist us in broader societal goals. Underpinning the epistemological questions of this research agenda are, in other words, deeply ethical concerns, such as: • How should we relate to each other in and through digital media? • In what ways can digital media enhance or impede the realisation of human capabilities? • How do we use digital media in ways that restore or uphold human dignity? • How can digital media help develop regimes of truth, freedom and social progress? These questions are fundamentally ethical in nature, but they require an epistemological reorientation of the field of digital media studies. I would argue for three key dimensions to the study of digital media in Africa, without which the significance of digital media in African societies runs the risk of reducing subjects to units of data rather than agents, and digitally mediated human interactions to decontextualised, disembodied online connections. This three-dimensional lens of culture, identity and sociality may offer insights that go beyond geographically-bounded notions of ‘African media’ or even ‘The Global South’, towards an understanding of the human–technology relationship more generally. The argument here

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should therefore not be misunderstood as a plea for special treatment of Africa, or for an epistemological benevolence exercised through more intensive area studies. On the contrary, by linking the epistemological and the ethical in the way outlined above, a study of African digital media cultures can become an optic through which to view the global issues in the field. Let us look at each of these three proposed dimensions in turn.

Culture How do we think of digital media in terms of dynamic cultures where boundaries are transgressed rather than static platforms onto which knowledge is projected or vehicles where information is transmitted? Viewing digital media through the lens of culture should not be mistaken for an apolitical stance, or a return to nativism that uncritically celebrates an essentialist ‘African culture’ while rejecting epistemologies developed elsewhere wholesale. Instead, it implies an understanding of digital media within local signifying frameworks, social dynamics and political power relations while simultaneously locating them in broader patterns of global shifts, mobilities and cultural flows. In recent years there has been a proliferation of studies on how social media are shifting political engagement on the continent. Underlying many of these remains the assumption that digital media is a vehicle for the transmission of political information that would ultimately empower users to exercise a better rational choice. The spectacular rise of mobile phones on the continent as the primary means of mobile communication is often celebrated as indicative of the ability to transmit information across distances, time and space. Yet less attention tends to be paid to the ways in which these technologies are appropriated and domesticated by African audiences in ways that enable them to transgress the boundaries imposed by the state, their culture, the formal economy or, even—as we see in the informal economy of mobile phone booths and computer repair shops, computers in the markets and alleys of African cities—the political economic constraints imposed by the technology–capitalism complex itself (Wasserman 2011). Seeing digital media in Africa as part of culture therefore resists technological deterministic assumptions that the mere introduction of digital media is inherently democratising or empowering. The transmission of data itself might not necessarily be beneficial, but could amplify existing power imbalances, political conflicts or social polarisations. Ample

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evidence already exists, for instance, of how digital media are also used by African governments to exercise surveillance of political opponents and activists, impose impediments such as the blocking of chat software like WhatsApp as happened in Zimbabwe during Mugabe’s final years (Kataneksza 2018) or shut down the internet completely, as has happened in Uganda, Ethiopia, Cameroon and Togo in recent years (Dahir 2017). Viewing the digital through the lens of culture means acknowledging that these platforms could also amplify negative cultural dynamics, such as ethnic tensions, misogyny, racism and other forms of ‘extreme speech’ (Pohjonen and Udupa 2017). Developing an epistemology for digital media in Africa that has culture as one of its central dimensions would however be oriented in the first instance not to the surfaces of data, information transfer and technology for its own sake, but to the textures of the everyday—the lived experience of Africans at the intersections of technology, belonging and social change. Digital media did not drop from the sky into African societies, but maps onto older oral networks and cultures of conviviality manifesting in humour, ‘playful engagement’ (Tully and Ekdale 2014), gossip and satire that now take place increasingly online, but remain deeply political. Examples of these forms of expression abound, from the Facebook character of Baba Jukwa in Zimbabwe (see for instance Mutsvairo and Sirks 2015) to the #someonetellcnn hashtag in Kenya (see for instance Nyabola 2017). The deeper textures of these types of creative engagement with politics may be lost from sight when the epistemology of digital media studies is narrowed down to what can be analysed through a content analysis of online behaviour, for instance data scraping of social media, alone. What is needed, epistemologically and ethically, is an openness and receptivity towards the experiences of online media in everyday life. It should be made clear that a cultural approach to digital media in Africa is not a nativist appeal for the return to tradition against the march of modernity. Culture in this sense is not intended to be viewed as static, essentialist or geo-spatially bound. African digital cultures are dynamic, contested and hybrid and bound up in the political.

Identity When digital media are predominantly studied from the perspective of platforms, algorithms and devices, people are studied predominantly as data, and interactions between them as electronic exchanges on screens.

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While macro-studies can be immensely valuable (an instance of the political potential of such analyses can be found in recent investigations into the use of Twitterbots for ‘state capture’ in South Africa, see Findlay (2016)), they run the risk of reductionism. While the spectacle of big numbers might provide persuasive accounts of macro-patterns of online engagement, the individual subjectivity of African digital media users cannot be captured in this way. This individual engagement with digital media is important for the way it may demonstrate the creative appropriations of digital media and domestication of technology to fit individual needs in everyday contexts. The way digital media constructs identity is important not only in terms of rendering old identity boundaries more fluid or mobile, but also for how these technologies may solidify or amplify extant ethnic or racial subjectivities. Given the colonial histories of African societies, social identities are often articulated in ethnic terms and give rise to conflicts where antagonists avail themselves of the colonial language of race and ethnicity, often exacerbated by hierarchies of gender and class. This raises the ethical imperative for scholars of African digital media to pay close attention to the ways in which digital media contributes to the articulation of identities that may lie at the heart of conflicts. It has become commonplace in digital media studies to lament the tendency for social media’s capacity for creating ‘filter bubbles’ and ‘echo chambers’ that confirm ingrained biases and solidify polarising identities. Social media offers the facility for users to engage in extreme speech, and to not only build connections but also enable increasing disconnection between sections of society and the weaponising of difference. How exactly these identity politics play out in specific contests should be the subject of empirical social science research. African researchers located in specific contexts are well placed to embed themselves in communities where ethnographic research into online identity formation can be conducted. The danger of conceiving of social media studies primarily or even exclusively in terms of analyses of ‘data’, however, is that the need for such studies of embedded and embodied sociality might not be recognised, or underestimated. Appadurai (2016, p. 6) offers a critical comment in this regard: ‘(S)ince big data has converted consumers into media effects, there is no longer any need to study their sociality directly’. The need for embedded, ethnographic research of the sociality of digital media in Africa is partly also necessitated by the architecture of technology itself. The digital platform WhatsApp is the biggest messaging platform

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across Africa and has been a central factor in increasing internet uptake across the continent (Dahir 2018). The platform has been noted to play an important role in political contests, protests and conflicts in Africa (and the Global South more generally). Despite its clear importance for social and political relations in Africa and the Global South more generally (see e.g. Goel (2018) for the role WhatsApp is playing in Indian electoral politics and Udupa (2017) for its role in religious riots in that country), WhatsApp is more difficult to track and analyse than platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Much of the exchanges on WhatsApp happens away from the public eye, in chat groups that require invitation and are user-to-user encrypted. The platform has sought to combat the circulation of rumours by adding an indication on messages that are forwarded, yet it remains a platform where incendiary messages abound. These conflicts, fuelled by encrypted messages on WhatsApp, are often predicated on the re-assertion of essentialist identities. There are many examples of this: for instance, in conflicts around housing in the Cape Town township of Siqalo, WhatsApp voice notes containing threats of violence were circulated. This conflict emphasised apartheid racial divisions between ‘Africans’ and ‘Coloureds’ and was mapped onto the history of apartheid’s spatial geography (see Jacobs and Wasserman 2018). In another land-related conflict in South Africa’s Soweto township, residents of a middle-class neighbourhood used WhatsApp to mobilise against shack dwellers who wanted to set up homes on a nearby piece of vacant land (Peter 2018). In Kenya, WhatsApp group administrators have been arrested on charges of sharing ethnic hate messages on the platform (Muendo 2017). The irony is that, despite claims to the contrary, the new digital technologies have often led to greater levels of disconnection between scholars and their subjects (and journalists and their publics, see Tolsi 2018). The ethical imperative for scholars of digital media in Africa is to design epistemologies for the study of digital media in a way that is more, rather than less, responsive to the expressions of identity in these societies. Not only expressions that conform to Habermasian notions of rationality and measured engagements in the public sphere are worthy of study, but also those expressions of identity that are seemingly irrational, emotional or couched in the performance of outrage. If such expressions are not brought into the open and engaged with in scholarship and in the media, they risk being driven underground, with potentially catastrophic consequences for democracy. As Mouffe warns:

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Extreme forms of individualism have become widespread which threaten the very social fabric. On the other side, deprived of the possibility of identifying with valuable conceptions of citizenship, many people are increasingly searching for other forms of collective identification, which can very often put into jeopardy the civic bond that should unite a democratic political association. The growth of various religious, moral and ethnic fundamentalisms is, in my view, the direct consequence of the democratic deficit which characterizes most liberal-democratic societies. (2005, p. 96)

The ethical challenge for scholarship is therefore to study not only the broad patterns of big data and generalisable statistics, but also the ‘small data’ of specific identities and articulations of subjectivity so that expressions of identity may be heard clearly. As far as epistemological considerations are concerned, the fetishisation of ‘big data’ in the study of African digital media cultures also poses the danger of reducing the identities of African media scholars to mere fieldworkers and collectors of data. When interactions between African media consumers are conceived of as digital data to be ‘mined’, African researchers may again be called upon to be the ones to do the manual labour down in the South, their role limited to providing the raw commodity for the production of shiny theories by the engineers located in the Global North (Comaroff and Comaroff 2012, p. 114). It is therefore important to construct epistemologies and design methodologies in such a way as to draw on the strengths of African scholars’ particular positioning and embeddedness in  local cultures where they can use this advantage to explore the particularities of identity as it is constructed in and through digital media.

Sociality Appadurai (2016, p. 5) criticises digital media studies for its tendency to obliterate the fabric of social relations in favour of the generalisable, the aggregated and the mass: (F)or much media theory, social research has become “screen” research, and the study of mass, aggregated collective formations has become largely translated into the study of eyes, heads, users, and other mass formations which are not in fact social except in the sense that they are effects of big data (…) If you have little idea of what happens in basic social interaction, what are you going to do with these masses of data on these patterns of screen effects, user effects that are not about social interaction?

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Appadurai’s critique is not so much a rejection of big data studies as it is a plea for scholars to develop the ability to contextualise such data within a textured understanding of society. In the African context, not only the ‘aggregated collective formations’ yielded by big data studies are important, but perhaps especially the sociality and conviviality that characterise such formations. The ethical orientation of African societies towards communality has been put forward by several scholars (Christians 2004; Kasoma 1994, 1996; Metz 2015) as a more suitable foundation to understand the lived realities of African audiences than Western liberal individualism. Epistemologies of digital media in Africa which rely on highly sophisticated tools for ‘scraping’ data from social media platforms in order to conduct textual analyses run the risk of reducing social interactions to their online manifestations alone. Unless those analyses are embedded within understandings of how digital media are integrated and appropriated into the textures of everyday life, how they facilitate (or undermine) cultures of conviviality, sociality and sharing, they will inevitably be one-dimensional. How, for instance, do WhatsApp groups build social capital among marginal, displaced and migrant communities in Africa? How do social media create a sense of social mobility and the construction of aspirational identities in users’ romantic lives, leisure activities and domains of play (Udupa 2017, p.  197)? How can digital networks amplify practices of sociality and community on various levels, from the familial, the local, the regional to the global-diasporic? In their ethnographic work in Mali, Cameroon and Angola, De Bruijn and Brinkman (2018, pp.  232–233) emphasise the importance of studying these phenomena on the level of the ‘near to parochial level’, where digital (and mobile) practices shape daily life outside of the ‘large development schemes, macro-politics of democratisation or human rights’ and people ‘creatively appropriate new technologies and make them fit into their lives, rather than the other way around’. These are the kind of questions that shape epistemological approaches to digital media in ways that are also deeply ethical in the way that they recognise the agency of media users to the extent that they resist the superficiality of numbers, data and statistics in favour of depth and cultural specificity.

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Conclusion This chapter has used Appadurai’s dual critique of digital media studies from an epistemological and ethical point of view to argue for an approach to African digital media cultures that would resist easy generalisation and datafication in favour of contextuality, specificity and ethnography. It argued that by combining the three lenses of culture, identity and sociality, the study of African digital media could deepen our understanding of the ways in which such media feature in the everyday lives of ordinary Africans. While not rejecting ‘big data’ studies in their totality, this chapter attempted to show that datafication as an epistemological approach is not sufficient to grasp the complexity of digital media in African societies. This approach, it was shown, also has ethical implications. By resisting the reduction of African digital media users into mere data without an accompanying in-depth study of their culture, identity and sociality, the suggested epistemology would assert their agency and dignity against long histories of data extraction. In this way, African digital media scholars would also have their agency acknowledged—they will not merely be providing the raw material to support theories developed elsewhere, but contribute to theory-building in their own right, from the bottom up, rooted in the locales of their experience and expertise.

References Appadurai, A. (2016). The academic digital divide and uneven global development. Paper presented at the Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication Press (4). Philadelphia: Annenberg School for Communication. Retrieved from https://www.asc.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/documents/0106_15_ PARGC_Paper4_FINAL.pdf Christians, C. G. (2004). Ubuntu and communitarianism in media ethics. Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies, 25(2), 235–256. Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (2012). Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is evolving toward Africa. Boulder: Paradigm. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2018). Data colonialism: Rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject. Television & New Media, 20(4), 336–349. Dahir, A. L. (2017, September 28). Internet shutdowns are costing African governments more than we thought. Quartz Africa. Retrieved from https://qz. com/1089749/internet-shutdowns-are-increasingly-taking-atoll-on-africas-economies/

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Dahir, A. L. (2018, February 14). WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in Africa. Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/africa/1206935/ whatsapp-­is-­the-­most-­popular-­messaging-­app-­in-­africa/ De Bruijn, M., & Brinkman, I. (2018). Mobile communication in the mobile margins of Africa: The ‘communication revolution’ evaluated from below. In B. Mutsvairo (Ed.), Palgrave handbook for media and communication research in Africa (pp. 225–241). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Findlay, K. (2016). Running interference: The fake ‘white monopoly capital’ propaganda community on Twitter [Blog post]. Superlinear. Retrieved from http:// www.superlinear.co.za/running-­i nterference-­t he-­f ake-­w hite-­m onopoly-­ capital-­propaganda-­community-­on-­twitter/ Gagliardone, I. (2016). The politics of technology in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted. The New  Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/ reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell Goel, V. (2018, May 14). In India, Facebook’s WhatsApp plays central role in elections. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes. com/2018/05/14/technology/whatsapp-­india-­elections.html?emc=edit_ th_180515&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=482637160515 Jacobs, S., & Wasserman, H. (2018, May 11). Siqalo showed how social media is reshaping protest narratives. News24. Retrieved from https://www.news24. com/Analysis/siqalo-showed-how-social-media-is-reshaping-protestnarratives-20180511 Kasoma, F. P. (Ed.). (1994). Journalism ethics in Africa. Nairobi: ACCE. Kasoma, F. P. (1996). The foundations of African ethics (Afriethics) and the professional practice of journalism. The case for society-centred media morality. Africa Media Review, 10(3), 93–116. Kataneksza, J. (2018). Zimbabwean Twitter is shifting politics. Africa is a Country. Retrieved from https://africasacountry.com/2018/10/social-­media-­and-­ politics-­in-­zimbabwe Kraidy, M. (2016). Foreword to Appadurai, A.  The academic digital divide and uneven global development.  Paper presented at the  Project for Advanced Research in Global Communication Press (4). Philadelphia: Annenberg School for Communication. Retrieved from https://www.asc.upenn.edu/sites/ default/files/documents/0106_15_PARGC_Paper4_FINAL.pdf Metz, T. (2015). Ubuntu and the value of self-expression in the media. Communicatio, 41(3), 388–403. Mouffe, C. (2005). The democratic paradox. London: Verso. Muendo, M. (2017, August 31). Kenya targets WhatsApp administrators in its fight against hate speech. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/kenya-targets-whatsapp-administrators-in-its-fight-against-hatespeech-82767

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Mutsvairo, B., & Sirks, L. (2015). Examining the contribution of social media in reinforcing political participation in Zimbabwe. Journal of African Media Studies, 7(3), 329–344. Nyabola, H.  N. (2017). Media perspectives: Social media and new narratives: Kenyans tweet back. In M.  Bunce, S.  Franks & C.  Paterson (Eds.), Africa’s media image in the 21st Century: From the ‘Heart of Darkness’ to ‘Africa Rising’ (pp. 113–15). London: Routledge. Nyamnjoh, F., & Brudvig, I. (Eds.). (2016). Mobilities, ICTs and marginality in Africa: Comparative perspectives. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Peter, Z. (2018, May 14). Soweto’s middle class rises up. City Press. Retrieved from https://city-­press.news24.com/News/sowetos-­middle-­class-­rises­up-­20180514 Pohjonen, M., & Udupa, S. (2017). Extreme speech online: An anthropological critique of hate speech debates. International Journal of Communication 11, 1173–1191. Tolsi, N. (2018, October 18). Starting the fire. Ruth First memorial lecture, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Retrieved from http://journalism.co.za/2018-ruth-first-memorial-lecture-delivered-by-niren-tolsi-fullpaper/. Tully, M., & Ekdale, B. (2014). Sites of playful engagement: Twitter hashtags as spaces of leisure and development in Kenya. Information Technologies & International Development, 10(3), 67–82. Turkle, S. (2015). Reclaiming conversation: The power of talk in a digital age. New York: Penguin. Udupa, S. (2017). Viral video: Mobile media, riot and religious politics. In S.  Udupa & S.  D. McDowell (Eds.), Media as politics in South Asia (pp. 190–205). Abingdon: Routledge. Wasserman, H. (2011). Mobile phones, popular media and everyday African democracy: Transmissions and transgressions. Popular Communication, 9(2), 146–158.

CHAPTER 3

Globalisation from Within: Enhancing Digital Productivity and Technology Transformation in the South Hopeton S. Dunn

Introduction The ongoing impact of technology and innovation on the nature of work, on economic growth and on development is profound, and is already transforming practices in all regions of the world. This impact, however, is variable, based on national resources, internet access and corporate and national leadership. It is taking place primarily in a capitalist and neo-­liberal environment of traditional ‘Globalisation from Above’. Most countries in the Global South have  often been recipients of external innovation,  and are subject to the marketing thrusts of big conglomerates. They assimilate most of their policy ideas from outside. ‘Globalisation from Above’ facilitates and privileges large external conglomerates, often at the expense of indigenous innovations, grassroots ideas and local start-ups. Yet residing in these developing countries are exceptional enterprises and innovators of immense talent, operating as part of large literate and

H. S. Dunn (*) Department of Media Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_3

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creative populations that can spark accelerated development through enhanced digital productivity. However, new approaches to drive this process are warranted, including what I have described as ‘Globalisation from Within’ (GFW). It aims to ‘create and expand cultural productivity, build new creative capacities and improve economic coordination and innovation among local entrepreneurs and other national or regional stakeholders’ (Dunn 2020, p. 14). The challenges and opportunities involved in generating greater productivity by innovators in the Global South and the projection of this creative output globally, can be better understood by a closer reading of the concept of digital productivity, the evolving nature of international trade, and the opportunities and challenges of globalisation. This chapter will therefore be organised around these themes, including five  interrelated areas, each integral to the implementation of a strategy of ‘Globalisation from Within’ (Dunn 2020). These areas are: re-visioning trade and development; engaging in digital productivity; understanding the Knowledge Economy; grasping the present and future of work; and re-equipping people through deliberate educational reforms. These five pillars must be among the priorities included in the national strategic plans of developing countries, in order for them to begin to come to terms with the challenges and opportunities for their local economy, society and culture in this era. We begin with an analysis of pertinent issues relating to trade and development in the Global South.

Trade and Development The issue of trade and economic development has been a controversial one. Multilateral financing organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have actively promoted trade liberalisation, postulating that exposure of developing economies to competition and external capital is a key route to economic growth. According to the IMF, ‘(P)olicies that make an economy open to trade and investment with the rest of the world are needed for sustained economic growth’ (IMF 2001). In defending the wholescale elimination of trade barriers, the Fund argues that ‘opening up their economies to the global economy has been essential in enabling many developing countries to develop competitive advantages in the manufacture of certain products’ (IMF 2001). Yet a study by Szirmai, examining the role of manufacturing as a driver of

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growth in the developing countries in the period 1950–2005 found that manufacturing was becoming a more difficult route to economic growth in these countries. This is related to the effects of education, technology and income gaps on modern manufacturing (Szirmai 2015). World Trade Organization (WTO) rules have forced most countries to open their markets to external conglomerates. These big global enterprises are often actively supported and resourced by their own government agencies, especially under US and European Union policies. The provision of subsidies to their agricultural producers and tax breaks to some of the most dominant social media platform operators and online marketing companies enable these countries to operate with undeclared advantages globally. Their multinational conglomerates are, in any case, far more resource-endowed than start-ups from the South, to drive marketing and delivery of their products and services into every corner of the world. In presenting alternative research findings on trade liberalisation to those advocated by the IMF, World Bank and WTO, Zahonogo employed a dynamic growth model using data from 42 sub-Saharan African countries, covering the period 1980–2012. She concluded that the relation between trade globalisation and economic growth was not linear for sub-­ Saharan Africa. ‘Particularly for developing countries, the lack of investment in human capital and of a well-functioning financial system may hamper the growth expected from trade liberalisation through technological innovation’ (Zahonogo 2016: 1). While trade liberalisation has often been implemented with the expectation of growth stimulation, Zahonogo observes that due to technological or financial constraints, ‘less developed countries may lack the social capability required to adopt certain  technologies developed in more advanced economies. Thus, the growth effect of trade may differ according to the level of economic development’ (Zahonogo 2016). She says that despite its potential positive effect on growth, some theoretical studies find that trade openness may in fact hamper growth. Writing from the Caribbean perspective, development economist Norman Girvan points to imbalances evident in such trade and economic relations for underdeveloped countries. He regards North–South trade relations as involving deep ‘power imbalances’, which may be exercised by the use of superior force, or by economic means, or by control over knowledge and information (Girvan 2007: 6). In his analysis, the forces responsible for such power imbalances are often resistant to change:

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Power imbalances in the economy are embedded in the operation of global markets and in the ownership and governance of international institutions. Hence the institutions of international development become sites of interaction of North South relations in certain matters concerning trade, finance and technology. Here, power imbalances are manifested, mediated and sometimes renegotiated. But these interactions always take place within a wider system of power that conditions the possibilities, limits and consequences of change. (Girvan 2007: 7)

Trade relations and liberalisation can therefore be seen as sites of struggle in the quest for economic development in the South. They constitute a traditional scenario of ‘Globalisation from Above’, that does not favour the developing countries. New thinking and alternative constructs are needed to alter this imbalance and set the southern economies on a better path to sustainable development, not relying just  on the often too elusive economic growth promised by the IMF. In emerging knowledge-based economies, countries of the South must count on their internal networks of innovation, digital productivity and endogenous development potential. While such knowledge-based local innovations are also not without constraints and competitive disadvantages, new ways can and must be found to innovate, grow and compete, despite historical and global challenges. Girvan reminds us of the power imbalance that also exists in knowledge construction, reproduction and dissemination, that must be overcome. ‘Historically, knowledge domination has been an integral part of North South relations. Religious and racial doctrines were used to justify conquest and enslavement. Later, notions of “civilizing missions” were used to justify colonialism. Today, neo-liberal theory is used to justify market-­ led and corporate-dominated globalization. Domination of higher education and of the global media is the means by which a particular view of history and world affairs is reproduced and disseminated’ (Girvan 2007, p. 6). Consistent with this analysis, digital products and knowledge-based services from the South are often traded with the North at great disadvantage. For example, the Trump-era US government policy of eliminating the Obama-era internet protocol called Net Neutrality provided vast advantages in speed of service delivery of internet-based content for companies like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus and Hulu, coming mainly from the North. These global content providers have been able to pay for

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the fast lane in an emerging two-track internet highway whose justification is claimed as promoting free market principles. However, Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, argued for retaining the founding principle of Net Neutrality and equity of access, to protect the internet from discrimination against any ‘hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data’ (Berners-­Lee 2015). The US policy of discontinuing Net Neutrality was nevertheless implemented in June 2018. This adversely affected the ability of the majority of developing countries to compete globally in cost-effective marketing of their telecommunication services and digital media content. Such limitations affected the streaming of broadcast programming and film products  intended for global consumers via the internet. In the face of this, countries of the South have to devise their own means of continued digital trade by creating opportunities for South–South marketing and by devising reciprocal trade strategies. In addressing the threat posed by the adverse US policy of eroding Net Neutrality, and in line with ideas of internal strategic thinking from the South, de Lany suggests that South Africa, for example, should implement its own Net Neutrality regulations as done by other large developing countries such as Brazil and Chile. The broader goal, she argues, is that such an action ‘may cause other developing countries to examine their views on the net neutrality issue as it affects them now, or how it could affect them in the future’ (de Lany 2016, p. 350). While well-established conglomerates and multinational corporations in the North receive such forms of government support and protections, governments in most developing countries often do little to support the productivity and export strategies of their own enterprises and creative producers. Yet the future of their economies may well rest on the benefits conferred by trade in services and cultural products. For many of these countries, economic growth and development depend not only on traditional trade, but also on using a base of local innovation and cultural savvy to launch their products and services on a global scale. This is a path being pursued by Botswana, for example, as it tries to supplement its traditional mining economy with new visions of a people-centred ‘knowledge-based economy’ (Government of Botswana 2016). Enterprises and projects in the South must look, not just to the global arena, but also to their local strategic vision, including their indigenous knowledge and local innovations. They will quickly recognise that there is a receptive local market for home-grown high-quality products and services. But local markets can be small or underdeveloped and so there will be the eventual gaze on the prospects of the global market. In this respect,

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the strategic approach of ‘Globalisation from Within’ is offered as ‘a process of transforming or re-purposing individual ideas, local innovations or viable regional initiatives into global level enterprises using [state support, local  cultural enterprise and] existing or emerging technologies’ (Dunn 2020, p. 13). Governments and enterprises in developing countries, through private– public partnerships, deliberate product promotions, subsidies and South– South trade, must empower local businesses within their jurisdictions to enable them to become more globally competitive. By helping their start-­ ups innovate locally and grow globally, such countries can contribute to expanding wealth creation and digital productivity, led by visionary individuals and adaptive enterprises originating within their borders.

Digital Productivity In many developing countries, inter-generational poverty, low levels of productivity and limited access to advanced technologies are important impediments to economic self-fulfilment, national economic development and enterprise competitiveness. Weaknesses in both digital and traditional productivity are major hindrances to development. According to the World Bank: Productivity accounts for half of the differences in GDP per capita across countries. Identifying policies to stimulate it is thus critical to alleviating poverty and fulfilling the rising aspirations of global citizens. Yet, productivity growth has slowed globally over recent decades, and the lagging productivity performance in developing countries constitutes a major barrier to convergence with advanced-country levels of income. (World Bank Productivity Project 2019: 1)

For Peter Drucker, productivity is the balance between all factors of production that will give the greatest output for the smallest effort. He postulates that ‘business enterprise (or any other institution) has only one true resource: people. It performs by making human resources productive. It accomplishes its performance through work. To make work productive is therefore, an essential function’ (Drucker 1974, p. 38). In agreement, Akrani argues that other major elements influencing productivity include technical resources, and the production factors: organisation, finance, management, government policies and location. He

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concludes that productivity in the modern era ‘largely depends on technology’ (Akrani 2011, p.  2). Discussing productivity on the basis of research conducted in a service institution, Ali et  al. (2017) argue that productivity is related to technical and human skills which play vital roles in enhancing job performance. In this context, and in an era of smart technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving robotics, the countries of the Global South must constantly re-evaluate how people’s creative inputs and technical resources are to be combined and managed towards enhanced digital productivity. This kind of productivity may be regarded as thriving online with knowledge work in a data-dense, yet security challenged eco-system. This perspective is in line with Bridges who identifies digital productivity as work which focuses on how well we use the technologies that we have access to, in the most efficient way possible. It begins when we turn on a device and is measured by the amount of effort and time it takes to complete any given task (Bridges 2019). For his part, Forte (2019) considers digital productivity as akin to building a virtual ‘second brain’ using modern tools that can enhance creativity and job performance. It is this kind of productivity that many developing countries lack, thereby contributing to an inability to compete globally and respond to the changing nature of work and the job market. In this era, it appears that countries of the Global South have an opportunity to fast track their development by leveraging their creative cultures, as well as employing their own forms of appropriate technologies, whether as indigenous competences, appropriate tools or other local productivity devices. These countries must also more actively appropriate and adapt global knowledge systems and technologies to their own contexts and development goals. In contemplating digital or data-driven industrial productivity, it is appropriate to differentiate here between the related but often misunderstood concepts of ‘technology’ and ‘innovation’. Technology involves the tools and systems invented and used by humans, sometimes in the most basic or, at other times, in the most advanced applications, in order to cope with one’s environment. The term innovation, in contrast, is about translating an invention or technology into a marketable good or service that creates value for which customers will pay. Although related, innovations are not the same as technologies. Innovators often re-purpose technological or other inventions into marketable products and services. As with raw materials and primary resources, valuable ideas originating in the Global South or among cultural

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minorities in the North are often appropriated by global corporate providers, and transformed into lucrative innovations in the value-chain of these multinational companies. This is sometimes done without reward to the originators or even suitable acknowledgement. The countries of the South must not re-live in the digital era, the subordinate role to which they were relegated in a colonial economy that mined their primary products and raw materials into gems, for little material reward to the sources. The recognition of this distinction between technological invention and business innovation is important. Local inventors everywhere must seek to convert their inventions, local remedies and indigenous technologies into patented marketable innovations, or sell their copyright-­protected creative designs to accrue larger benefits from their own ingenuity. In this way, local inventions sometimes described as appropriate technology, can disrupt the old order by replacing less effective ones from the North. The contemporary notion of ‘disruptive technologies’ denotes innovations and new digital technologies and business models that diminish or wipe out the value proposition of existing production processes, old business models, goods or services. Embracing disruption can give rise to new market opportunities. Innovations that anticipate or generate  consumer demands, as well as those that embed agility, portability, multi-function features and new business applications, are often among those that survive and dominate, to enhance national and corporate productivity and profitability. These are among the approaches advocated within the framework of ‘Globalisation from Within’.

The Knowledge Economy The global information-rich  context in which many countries operate is often described as the knowledge economy, with education and data at its core. It will be virtually impossible to transform developing economies and generate digital productivity without building networks of advanced applied knowledge. Central to knowledge-creation and disruption, is the intensity and pace at which new innovations enter the global marketplace, especially in the developed capitalist economies of the early to mid twenty-­first century. UNESCO makes the distinction between knowledge societies and the information society. It explains that ‘while the information society is based on technological breakthroughs, knowledge societies encompass broader social, ethical and political dimensions’ (UNESCO 2005, p. 17). In an era when knowledge and data are critical to productivity, UNESCO’s

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designation of the knowledge society remains of relevance to new strategies for internally emerging globalisation. At the same time, UNESCO’s characterisation of the present global era is but one of numerous taxonomies or historical ‘periodisations’ in the lengthy historical  interface between humans and machine technology. Introducing his own concept of the era he called ‘Technopoly’, Neil Postman identified a worrying process which he dubbed ‘The Surrender of Culture to Technology’. As one of the most valued social and economic attributes of the Global South is cultural expression, Postman’s analysis is of special interest and appeal. Technology thoughtlessly adopted could place at risk the cultural activities, local languages, human skills and artefacts emanating from our creative imaginations. Our unique cultures could easily be made obsolete by the burgeoning technology revolution coming from above. Postman’s cautionary note, both implied and explicit, was also sounded by other social and scientific analysts. The nineteenth-century American essayist and social critic, Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), observed disapprovingly, during the heights of the British ‘Industrial Revolution’, that ‘men have become the tool of their tools’ (Thoreau 1854, p. 29). In more recent times, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned that although the emergent technology of artificial intelligence can confer immense benefits to humans, it also carries incalculable risks (Callen-Jones 2014). He cautioned that if not carefully managed and controlled, the advent of AI could become the ‘worst event in the history of our civilization’ (Kharpal 2017, para 1). Hawking was speaking in an interview with the US television network CNBC in November 2017, a few months before his death in March 2018. Similarly, in an earlier commentary, made in January 2015, Hawking led a group of other scientists and innovators in detailing the shared concerns. These ranged from the potential development of lethal, intelligent autonomous weapons, to other profound concerns. They argue that the risk increases dramatically as AI becomes more able to interpret large surveillance datasets. (Strange 2015). The long-term dystopic predictions of this group are even more ominous: ‘We could one day lose control of AI systems via the rise of superintelligences that do not act in accordance with human wishes, and that such powerful systems would threaten humanity’ (2015: 1). Perhaps the antidotes to this potentially catastrophic technological outcome is not only global-level AI  regulation, but also the more people-based cultural and humane pursuits and innovations of a Global South not yet consumed by Postman’s conception of a ‘Technopoly’ in which technology rules. The

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appeal is for systematic public policy interventions, to create ethical boundaries and oversight institutions, possibly within a more proactive United Nations. These would help to monitor and restrict some of the more alarming consequences of technology globalisation imposed by mega-corporations and their state hegemons. In his 2016 book, titled The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), German businessman Klaus Schwab celebrated what he called a ‘staggering confluence of emerging technology breakthroughs, covering wide ranging fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the internet of things (IoT), autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nano-technology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage and quantum computing’ (Schwab 2016, p. 1). These major technological innovations, he argues, are on the brink of fuelling momentous change throughout the world, ‘unlike anything humankind has experienced before’ (Schwab 2016, p. 1). Schwab, as the  Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), anticipates the prospect and reality of ‘profound shifts across all industries, marked by the emergence of new business models, the disruption of incumbents and the re-shaping of production, consumption, transportation and delivery systems’. On the societal front, he envisages a paradigm shift in how we work and communicate, as well as how we express, inform and entertain ourselves. He asserts that, ‘governments and institutions are being reshaped, as are systems of education, healthcare and transportation’. Further, he assesses these changes as ‘historic in terms of their size, speed and scope’ (Schwab 2016, pp. 6–13). Schwab’s 4IR projections, rooted in the capitalist accumulation strategies of the World Economic Forum and in ideas of technological determinism, will likely have large corporations and their global branch plants as the main financial beneficiaries. The primary focus on high-end digital infrastructure, applications and services is far from home grown in the South and not likely to achieve the desired outcomes in digital productivity in these economies, unless they are co-opted and re-purposed locally. But this deft packaging of advanced technologies, a literal descriptor of Globalisation from Above, cannot be ignored as businesses retrench workers and deploy new devices and AI strategies to attain the most cost-­ effective routes to profitability and other financial rewards in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic. National strategic planning that adapts and integrates these global innovations into local environments is warranted in order to meet people’s needs. With such structured adaptations, these tools can contribute immensely to a positive economic and social outcome

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in the South. In this respect, re-purposed universities, technical training institutions and policy-making institutions have central roles to play in the profound reforms required in the global south. China and Japan have been among the countries to have taken the route of appropriating, adapting and deploying digital global technology for their own national strategic development over decades. This approach by China, in particular, is often deplored and admired in equal measure, because of its transformational impact on the growth trends and development  trajectory of that country. Feigenbaum, writing  in 2019 for the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described this approach somewhat disparagingly as ‘techno-nationalism’, which he explained as ‘taking a nationalist view of industry and technology’. That approach, interestingly, is also prevalent in the United States, evidenced by its attitude to the Chinese technology firms Huawei and Tic Toc and its ban on the export of certain technologies to global rivals. Adherents to the so-called ‘techno-nationalism’, such as China, Feigenbaum argues, view technology as fundamental to national security and economic competitiveness, and therefore incorporate it as a part of the ‘strategic underpinnings of their economic policies’. How ironic, as this has been a key route to economic dominance by the West. He concedes, however, that ‘Beijing is not the only government that takes an increasingly integrated view of technology’. At the same time, he worries that ‘technonationalism everywhere threatens to disrupt flows of technology and talent that have enabled decades of innovation’ (Feigenbaum 2019). The apposite question, of course, is: enabled decades of innovation for whom? While unrestrained Globalisation from Above can threaten cultures and the future of vulnerable societies, a managed process of Globalisation from Within can play a positive role in helping to transform society and raise large communities of people out of poverty. Whether as techno-­nationalism in China or ‘technology adaptation’ in Japan, concentrating on globalisation through internal strategic planning and technological indigenisation can yield lasting benefits. As can devising simple smart applications to meet local popular needs. The cellular phone, for example, has already become the most pervasive piece of technology in modern human history. By being as prevalent as the smart phone is, it has created opportunities for low-cost networking, small enterprise tele-working and more widespread mobile access by people to the internet. Its capacity to provide a ‘digital wallet’ to the unbanked, and to serve as a marketing device to rural traders in parts of the world such as Kenya and India, constitutes a prime example of Globalisation from Within and is already making a major contribution to the South’s economic and social development.

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A 2018 research study by Gatwiri Kirimi showed that Mpesa’s mobile wallet, implemented in Kenya ‘had reduced the overall transaction costs of sending and receiving money, thus increasing freedom, flexibility and privacy of mobile banking as well as access to affordable financial services. It has helped individuals in overcoming poverty and increasing economic growth’ (Kirimi 2018, p. iv). The study concluded that the Mpesa system also helped users manage their risks and diversify resources away from patriarchal structures of power and dependency. It is said to have ‘provided women especially with partial financial autonomy, allowing them to make financial decisions without asking their husbands’ (Kirimi 2018, p. iv). In Africa, the Caribbean and many other parts of the world, access to similar smart  information and communications technology (ICT) devices has helped to create new tools for education and agricultural extension work, as well as enhanced e-government effectiveness. While the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have far more ambitious transformational and disruptive objectives, the human benefits and gains achieved by mobile telephony in the South cannot be underestimated and are already being built upon as part of a people-based, data-driven revolution, in what Manuel Castells describes as the global ‘network society’ (Castells 1996). However, one of the biggest constraints to digital productivity tools in Africa and the Caribbean, as in other developing regions, is the cost of meaningful internet access and of  the associated hardware devices. An International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 2013 global study found that subscribers in developing countries paid a much higher proportion of their Gross National Income (GNI) per capita than did subscribers in developed countries. Users in some developing countries were paying 30.1% of GNI per capita for fixed broadband, while those in counterpart developed countries paid 1.7% of GNI per capita (ITU 2013, p.  4). In January 2018, the United Nations Broadband Commission adopted a new, more ambitious affordability target for entry-level internet access at 2% or less of GNI per capita. This was an important policy step in the right direction of affordability, though not eliminating the global disparity. The lowering of access costs should help drive internet penetration and economic development. Economists have sought to establish a correlation between low internet penetration rates and low annual per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates. While no direct causality has been established, one study indicated that GDP growth was following the growth of internet penetration, ‘with two- or three-years’ delay’ (Imansyah 2018 p. 36). The study, conducted in Indonesia, concluded that for the maximum positive effect of internet penetration on GDP growth, many

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governments must establish and manage internet access cost and other policies in a systematic and improved manner. Policies that promote development  must continue to consider the potential adverse impact of costly and restricted internet access on poverty and income inequality, which are two major challenges facing growth and prosperity in the entire global community.

Present and Future of Work One of the major pre-occupations about digital productivity in the era of rapid technological transformation is the impact of robots and other digital and electronic gadgets on work. Many industrial and other workers all over the world are genuinely concerned about whether their jobs will be taken over by machines. There is also concern about how they will personally re-tool their careers in order to survive the anticipated challenges of artificial intelligence and robotics. Certain occupations that involve repetitive actions, scheduling, programming or basic mechanical services, such as some secretarial tasks, travel agency scheduling and transportation bookings are already being performed by devices controlled by AI algorithms or by simple robots. But increasingly, professionals with more complex jobs, such as lawyers and architects, are finding that substantial parts of their career roles can also be performed by a programmed machine. And some human services, such as elderly assistance, household cleaning, security and domestic task scheduling can also be taken over by in-home robots with tactile and domesticated attributes. These robots work side by side with humans in mega-factories, retail operations, and in e-commerce and technical departments of government. They help control national electricity grids and traffic management systems. Robotics has become much more pervasive as knowledge in machine learning, algorithms and big data advances. Both mechanical robots, cobots and ‘smart apps’ are continuing to change how people work and deliver services. This is part of the future that is already evident in developed and many developing countries or that will show up in most emerging societies. The question is how prepared are developing countries to address these changes, to invent their own devices or to adapt and incorporate imported ones into daily life or professional activities. Hundreds of thousands of workers, like Uber and Lyft taxi drivers, Airbnb, direct-sales workers, delivery and repair workers, freelancers and

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others have been engaged in service delivery using corporate apps as offline intermediaries in temporary flexible jobs. Such ‘gig workers’ are part of the new digital economy that is disrupting traditional providers of these services. Workers are hired as independent contractors and freelancers capable of doing temporary, flexible jobs, often by enterprises seeking to eliminate costs associated with full-time employees, such as pensions or health insurance coverage. In the United States by 2019, some 16.5 million people had such contingency work arrangements. An estimated 4% of workers (approximately 6.5 million people) held contingent jobs and another 12 million people worked as independent contractors, on-call workers and temporary help agency workers. ILO statistics suggest that more people are seeking contingency work, freelancing and on-demand apps to make ends meet (see McGovern 2017). But many operators of enterprises in the gig economy appear to fall short of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda. The International Labour Organization (ILO) notes that people will need help in navigating the increasingly difficult terrain of gaining decent, productive and rewarding work. The 2019 Report of the ILO’s Global Commission on the Future of Work, chaired by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, stated, among other things, that there is a special need to assist young people to make the transition from school to work. It also recognised that older workers will need expanded choices that enable them to remain economically active for as long as they choose to, while helping to create a culture of a lifelong active worker. The Report noted that ‘all workers will need support through the increasing number of labour market transitions that will occur over the course of their lives’ (ILO 2019, p. 11). The ILO Report calls for a ‘human-centred agenda’ for the future of work that strengthens the social contract by placing people and the work they do at the centre of economic and social policy and business practice. The three pillars of the ILO agenda are: increased investment in people’s capabilities, increased investment in the institutions of work and increased investment in decent and sustainable work. Regarding the interface of humans and machines, the Report recommends what it calls a ‘human-in-­command’ strategy: This means workers and managers negotiating the design of work. It also means adopting a ‘human-in-command’ approach to artificial intelligence that ensures that the final decisions affecting work are taken by human beings. An international governance system for digital labour platforms should be established to require platforms (and their clients) to respect certain minimum rights and protections. Technological advances also demand

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regulation of data use and algorithmic accountability in the world of work. (ILO 2019, p. 13)

For its part, the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Report on the Future of Jobs Survey advocates tracking the evolution of job-relevant skills while noting the need for investment in re-training, upskilling and workforce transformation. It recommends ongoing calculation of the scale of occupational change, documenting emerging and declining job types, and identifying opportunities to adopt new technologies that can augment and upgrade human skills and job quality (World Economic Forum 2018). These recommendations are key to the formulation of occupational and workplace strategies for developed and developing countries alike. But it is people in the developing countries who stand the most to gain, given their lower levels of national preparedness to transition from traditional work to more advanced occupational and workplace arrangements. It is a transition that is essential to their capacity to ‘globalise’ their productivity and creativity.

Education and Training If countries the world over are to take advantage of the positive effects of rapid technology innovation, while protecting their cultures and the environment, then new strategies in education and training must play a central role. The educational delivery required by this era cannot be the same as experienced in preceding eras, when the omniscient lector was at the front of all institutional learning environments. According to Ferguson, ‘Power is changing hands from dying hierarchies to living networks’ (1987, p. 5). This is nowhere more evident than in educational institutions, where it is quite possible that some students who are ‘digital natives’, with access and exposure to new tools and data, could be more informed than some of their teachers and lecturers who are ‘digital migrants’, struggling with both the technology and new digital curriculum content needed for emergency remote teaching and learning. Whether we call it Industry 5.0, ‘Technopoly’ or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the 21st century demands new and innovative ways of delivering education and training appropriate to humanising our outlook while responding to converging global and local demands (see Fitzgerald 2014). The process of preparing students and the wider society for this new disruptive environment must begin at the basic and primary stages of schooling. It should involve an introduction to such fields as: data analytics, local culture, environmental protection, a second language, digital and media literacy, communication fundamentals, basic computer programming and rudimentary science experimentation.

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A larger proportion of graduates in the Global South will enter the services sector or start their own businesses, for which they will need a dynamic, multi-disciplinary education. Educational institutions should be re-structuring themselves and integrating once disparate departments and faculties while also preparing lecturers and trainers to meet the rapidly changing needs of society.

Conclusion The five interlocking pillars discussed here, of transforming trade, encouraging digital productivity, building a knowledge economy, understanding the new nature of work, and facilitating far-reaching reforms in education and training, are crucial elements of the construct of Globalisation from Within. As argued more extensively in Dunn 2020, the concept involves actively building on local innovations to create world-class products and services. Enterprise projects can emanate from creative and savvy individuals, from local partnerships or from regional groupings, with a commitment to eventually break into the global market, enabled by indigenous or adapted technologies. The process can be assisted or expedited by some facilitation by government. The overarching idea is to move from grassroots to global, through local ingenuity, acumen and available technology. It is evident that globalisation adopted from outside is really imitation or dependency. In contrast, Globalisation from Within seeks to enrich the world with new ideas that can benefit a wide cross section of people, especially in the South. The concept is about ‘uploading’ ideas, innovations and enterprise projects, rather than taking the beaten path of dependency and ‘downloading’ from the Global North. We live in an era of extraordinary techno-industrial transformation and we must make this opportunity work for the people of the Global South. Their political leaders, captains of industry and budding entrepreneurs must re-invent themselves, re-­ evaluate how trade works, and lead in creating new processes and outputs. Information technology  should be a priority and digital access must  be better managed, in order to enhance citizen awareness, literacy and digital productivity. At the heart of this process is a ‘grassroots to global’ strategy called Globalisation from Within. It is designed to assist in transforming economies and communities, through new visions of digital productivity and updated public policy-making strategies. In approaching required internal reforms, countries of the Global South must regard digital technologies not as ‘ends’ in themselves but as adaptable

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resources to help  liberate people from poverty and ignorance, and to empower new generations to higher levels of education and achievement that can be projected into global markets and new digital platforms.

References Akrani, G. (2011, August 31). Factors affecting or influencing decentralization [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://kalyan-­city.blogspot.com/2011/08/ factors-­affecting-­or-­influencing.html Ali, F., Mumtaz, M., Tunio, R., & Mahar, P. (2017). Assessing job productivity of employees in higher education institutions: A case study of Jamshoro Education City, Sindh, Pakistan. International Journal of Economic, Commerce and Management, 5(1), 351–375. Berners-Lee, T. (2015). Berners-Lee on net neutrality. WIRED. Retrieved from  https://www.wired.com/2006/05/berners-lee-on-net-neutrality/ accessed November 2019 Bridges, T. (2019). Digital productivity. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin. com/in/tracey-­bridges accessed September 2019. Callen-Jones, R. (2014, December 2). Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/ news/technology-­30290540, retrieved August 4, 2019. Castells, M. (1996). The rise of the network society. London: Wiley Blackwell.  de Lany, N. (2016). From a developing country’s perspective: Is net neutrality a non-issue for South Africa? University of the Pacific Law Review, 47(2), pp. 347–370. Retrieved from https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uoplawreview/vol47/iss2/17 Drucker, P. (1974). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. London: Routledge. Dunn, H. S. (2020). Creative resilience and globalization from within: Evolving constructs for analysing culture, innovation and enterprise in the Global South. Annals of the International Communication Association,  44(1),  pp. 4–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2018.1547121 Ferguson, M. (1987). The Aquarian conspiracy: Personal and social transformation in our time. Minnesota: JP Tarcher Publications. Feigenbaum, E. (2019, November 13). In Asia, disruptive technonationalism returns. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retreived from https:// carnegieendowment.org/2019/11/13/in-­asia-­disruptive-­technonationalism-­returns-­ pub-­80331 Fitzgerald, D. (2014, April 30). At MIT, the Humanities are just as important as STEM. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/ opinion/2014/04/30/mit-­h umanities-­a r e-­j ust-­i mpor tant-­s tem/ ZOArg1PgEFy2wm4ptue56I/story.html Forte, T. (2019). The definitive guide to digital productivity [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0GuWDXLizU

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Girvan, N. (2007). Power imbalances and development knowledge. Paper prepared for the Project: Southern Perspectives on Reform of the International Development Architecture, North South Institute, Ottawa, Canada. Government of Botswana. (2016). Botswana vision 2036: Achieving prosperity for all. Gaborone: Vision Co-ordinating Agency. Retrieved from https:// vision2036.org.bw/ Imansyah, R. (2018). Impact of internet penetration for the economic growth of Indonesia. Evergreen, 5(2), 36–43. International Labour Organization. (2019). Global commission on the future of work. Geneva: ILO Publications. International Monetary Fund. (2001). Global trade, liberalization and developing countries. Retrieved from  https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/ ib/2001/110801.htm International Telecommunications Union. (2013). ICT Facts and Figures: The World in 2013. Geneva: ITU.  Retrieved from  https://www.itu.int/en/ ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2013-e.pdf  Kharpal, A. (2017, November 6). Stephen Hawking says AI could be ‘worst event in the history of our civilization’. CNBC Newsletter. New York: CNBC. Kirimi, G. (2018). The effect of Mpesa money transfer service on the socio-economic status of the Mpesa agents: A case of Nairobi County (Unpublished Master’s dissertation). Kenya: United States International University Africa. McGovern, M. (2017). Thriving in the gig economy: How to capitalize and compete in the new world of work. New Jersey: Career Press. Schwab, K. (2016). The fourth industrial revolution. London: Penguin Random House. Strange, A. (2015, January, 14). Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking warn of artificial intelligence dangers. Mashable. Retrieved from h ­ ttps://mashable. com/2015/01/13/elon-musk-stephen-hawking-artificial-intelligence/ Szirmai, A. (2015). Manufacturing and economic growth in developing countries, 1950–2005. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 34, 46–59. Thoreau, H. (1854). Walden, or life in the woods. Boston: Ticnor and Fields. UNESCO. (2005). Towards knowledge societies. Paris: UNESCO Digital Library. World Bank. (2019). World Bank productivity project. Retrieved from https:// www.worldbank.org/en/topic/competitiveness/brief/the-world-bankproductivity-project World Economic Forum. (2018). The future of jobs report. Retrieved from https:// www.weforum.org/reports/the-­future-­of-­jobs-­report-­2018 Zahonogo, P. (2016). Trade and economic growth in developing countries: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of African Trade, 3(1/2), 41–56.

CHAPTER 4

Towards an Integrated Caribbean Paradigm in Communication Thought: Confronting Academic Dependence in Media Research Nova Gordon Bell

Introduction Every year in the Anglophone Caribbean, university students seeking a path to practice as journalists, public relations practitioners, advertising creative writers and digital media production personnel venture into a theoretical space still dominated by North American and European frameworks. This chapter proposes that Caribbean researchers have laid a foundation from which a Caribbean perspective on media and communication theory can evolve. This chapter’s pursuit of a Caribbean paradigm in communication thought is supported by a rich pool of perspectives on decolonisation, de-westernisation and indigenisation. Freire (1970) proposed a critical pedagogy as the means of escape from dependence. Illich (1973) proffered the concept as de-schooling. Prakash (1990, 1992) and Chakrabarty (1992) submit the concept of post-colonising knowledge and decolonisation and nationalisation of the social sciences. Indigenisation

N. G. Bell (*) University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_4

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of the social sciences (Fahim 1979; Fahim and Helmer 1980), endogenous intellectual creativity (Alatas 1978) and an autonomous social science tradition (Alatas 1979) all collectively represent conceptual frameworks for de-westernisation (Alatas 2000a). With Global South studies and the vast diversity represented by this field informing these efforts, fears of insularity and ‘nativism’ should be allayed. As a loosely configured field lacking the core theories of a discipline (Berger 1991), communication and media theory is open to pioneering efforts in ‘indigenisation’ (Fahim 1979; Fahim and Helmer 1980) or at least to attempts to critically assess the extent to which mainstream theories and concepts in the field are relevant to Anglophone Caribbean needs. Westernisation for the purposes of this chapter denotes ‘…a geographical dimension referring to the academic traditions of the US, Britain and Western Europe…’ (Lee 2011, p.  80) and the geopolitical and institutional hegemony of British and US schools in communication and media studies (Alatas 2003; Berger 1991). The dominance of western concepts and approaches in communication and media studies is not only a concern for small Caribbean nation states. Scholars from other societies and cultures identified the cultural and historical assumptions of western theories. ‘Modernity’ was considered to be possible only through British and American theorising and the west’s one-­ dimensional approach to modernisation based on advances in science and technology (Deng 2009; Hu and Ji 2013). Efforts like these contribute to the evolution of a process of meaningful de-westernisation of communication and media theory. Western focus on persuasion and the commodification of human relations for specific commercial and ideological interests (Asante 2011) has resulted in the ‘balkanisation’ of the field (Berger 1991). Communication and media research and theory typically serves the contextual needs of highly specialised areas, for example, political communication, advertising, journalism. Individualistic and militaristic approaches that objectify human beings (Lee 2011) served to fix the academe’s role in the west’s larger political and imperial agenda (Alatas 2003) facilitating the colonisation of knowledge (Fanon 1961) and academic dependency (Alatas 2000a; Altbach 1977). Emphases on indigenous themes, values and cultural relevance in Africa and Asia have begun to yield studies that focus on the collective instead of the individual, and on cohesion rather than persuasion, social harmony over competition (Lee 2011). Anyone with more than a passing

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knowledge of mainstream communication and media theories and models will recognise how, immediately, the earth shifts when we reconsider assumptions about ‘Sender’ ‘Receiver’ and ‘Message/Meaning/ Information’ and begin to take on board variables of power and communication with communication as a collective/group process. Critiques of US and British universalism and dominance in media and communication studies (Deng 2009; Hu and Ji 2013; Wang 2011) and the evolution of non-western models and theories of communication (Wang 2011) have not displaced western hegemony in the field. Mainstream logic suggests that if a framework can be identified with a culture it loses universality and is disqualified for the processes of creating theory (Alatas 2000a). Critics fear that de-westernisation defeats the purpose of theory. If we locate the social sciences within the ‘specific socio-­ historical processes of the West’ (Sankatsing 2003, p. 7), then dominant prescriptions for theory become re-framed as products of mainstream North American and European culture and we receive them as one cultural contribution to scholarship (Asante 2011; Chao 2011; Sankatsing 2003).

Communication and Media Studies: Rationale for Inclusivity Since the emergence of communication and media studies as a field of in universities, communication and media departments are often treated as utilitarian spaces for the training and education of media practitioners, not spaces for ‘serious’ scholarship. With scholars from traditional social science disciplines doing much of the research into communication and media (Berger 1991), the hybrid nature of communication and media theorising—its reliance on the theories, concepts and methods from traditional disciplines in the social sciences—remains the defining characteristic of the field. While specific theories have been generated within the field, Berger suggests that the growth of the field rests on communication researchers being able to advance ideas and theories that are regarded by researchers in other disciplines (Berger 1991, p. 102). As the field is still on a journey for recognition and acceptance, it would do well to embrace inclusive new paradigms and approaches from previously peripheral spaces. This should drive a highly balkanised field to finally identify common concerns even as it seeks knowledge in specific professional and institutional

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contexts. Communication is a product of culture and the inextricable link should be reflected in the landscape of options for study available to the field. Objections to ‘indigenising’ theory make the fact of western imperialism of knowledge the rationale for not seeking to indigenise. These efforts have been described as ‘political’ rather than ‘epistemological’ as though the latter has no connection to the former and makes a case for the futility of the effort because of the historical interconnectedness of the world (Khiabany and Sreberny 2013, pp. 476–477). De-westernisation does not ignore historical interconnectedness. It recognises that the interconnectedness is constituted in and through systems of inequality and power. The fact of academic imperialism presents us with two challenging questions: From what platform do we de-westernise? How do we begin reversing academic dependency where we have no other immediately accessible tradition of knowledge or epistemological foundations (Chakrabarty 2000, p. 6; Wang 2011)? Even the terms we attempt to use to locate an opposition to Eurocentrism—Asia, Africa and Caribbean for example—are European constructs imposed on these parts of the world. A whole-scale abandonment of western theorising is not the way forward (Asante 2011). Asante calls, instead, for a detachment that frees us from a colonising ideology. The west must not be the model, but must be a part of the solution to the conditions created by its aggressive imperialism of knowledge creation (Asante 2011, p.  23). Guided by three approaches to de-­ westernisation and indigenisation (Chang 2005), a Caribbean perspective could determine its own problematics based on its own concepts and be able to determine methods of analysis beyond simple empiricism. Developments in Global South studies also expand our access to new non-western perspectives not restricted to the Caribbean. The main contribution of this emerging field is the framework it provides for analysis of capitalism in this its third phase of global exploitation. The first phase, the age of European mercantilism created global political and economic empires served largely by slave labour. The second presented in systems of foreign direct investment by which economic interests of the north were maintained in the south. The third phase, driven by ICT systems and networks, allows the north to more efficiently manage its global economic empire. Researchers from the Global South help us locate media as the technology of this third phase of globalisation (Wasserman and deBeer 2009). Wasserman (2006) links the globalisation of media with the globalisation of western views of media, media’s role in western democracy

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and western media ethics. The resulting tensions with other societies and cultures call attention to the need to reckon with concepts of universally applicable western frameworks of media. Ultimately, the main reason for de-westernisation is to enrich, rather than to deny and reject Western methods and theories (Goonasekera and Kuo 2000; Miike 2006). Western contributions must be subject to the same process of critical assessment that emerging thought receives. True academic freedom allows us to represent and reframe our realities instead of blindly prolonging our incorporation into the west’s external project (Sankatsing 2003).

The Caribbean: Early Reflections The notion of a universal definition and experience of communication served by the models and theories of the west is problematic in societies where the majority of people only ‘became people’ less than two hundred years ago. Understandings of what it means to ‘be human’ in the context of a former slave society must undoubtedly have an impact on shared meanings (Brown 1978). The majority of Caribbean people have roots outside the west, and these non-western, non-European cultures, contexts and worldviews have been systematically devalued and delegitimised by our own institutions. The Caribbean is still involved in a complicated process of negotiation with ‘self’ as ‘other’ (Hall 2001). The call for a Caribbean perspective does not suggest that this perspective is completely independent of global cross-fertilisation. John Lent’s work on Caribbean media and the features of imperial control and influence was required reading for students of media and communication in nascent Caribbean media and communication curricula (Lent 1975, 1977, 1990, 1993a, b). Hamelink’s (1994, 1997) critiques of mainstream assumptions about globalisation and development, his delineation of the dialectic between the global and the local in global communication also made significant contributions to the pool of thought in the region.

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Contributions of International and Regional Associations International research organisations like the IAMCR recognised the need for culturally appropriate intellectual resources in media and communication education. Developing national and regional textbooks for college and university curricula in media and communication was identified as one early strategy to counter the preponderance of American texts (Nordenstreng et al. 1998). As the Caribbean researcher on the IAMCR ‘textbook project’, Dunn (1998) identified a number of issues faced by lecturers in Caribbean media and communication programmes: the paucity of texts on issues in Caribbean communication studies and analytical texts on Caribbean media. Dunn described the project as one that foregrounded respect for cultural and national differences. Caribbean researchers in media and communication recognise the significant role of the IAMCR in providing a platform for Caribbean researchers like the late Aggrey Brown and current leading analyst Hopeton S. Dunn and for an emerging new generation of Caribbean researchers and writers in the field.

Caribbean Association for Communication Research A founding member and the first president of the Caribbean Association for Communication Research (CACR), Dunn together with Paul Martin and other regional scholars and media practitioners worked to establish communication research as a priority. Founded in 1993 and based in Kingston, Jamaica, the CACR had the following among its first objectives: the encouragement and promotion of all forms of research on Caribbean communication themes and on global issues as they affect media and communication in the region. It will also serve as a catalyst in the process of popular communications education and as a networking institution for communications researchers throughout the Caribbean. (UWI Notebook: Communication association formed 1993)

The association sought to work closely on shared objectives with what was the main media and communication education institute in the English-­ speaking Caribbean, the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication, now the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC). The launch of the CACR reflected a clear need for Caribbean

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communication and media scholarship. However, it appears that industry emphases in the region during those years prioritised professional skills and training for industry and market research. As a means of creating a context for Caribbean indigenous thinking and communication research, the CACR represented a pioneering effort to find new avenues of regional collaboration and output. Within a decade of its launch, it had given way to an expanded graduate research and academic programme at CARIMAC. Working out of CARIMAC, UWI, Mona, and supported by Aggrey Brown who was at that time the Institute’s Director, Dunn spearheaded the Caribbean’s first graduate degree in communication studies which enrolled its first cohort in 1995. CARIMAC thereafter, through its growing number of graduate degrees, provides a space for sustained Caribbean scholarship and enquiry into media and communication.

Contributors to a Caribbean Paradigm in Communication Thought As the Anglophone Caribbean’s foremost researcher in communications policy Dunn provides a special focus on the telecommunication industry (Dunn 1994, 1995, 2009; Dunn and Boafo 2010) and new media technologies (Dunn 2002, 2005). His work also covers theories of globalisation (Dunn and Lewis 2011) and the political economy of media in the Anglophone Caribbean (Dunn 2012a, b). His critical research examines the imperial foundations of communication systems in the region (Dunn 2014) and provides insight into how these evolved into the region’s current media landscape. Dunn’s (1995) work illustrates how dependence represents as a critical feature of Caribbean economy and society and dominates telecommunication development. His focus on media and telecommunications provides relevant illustrations and evidence of the historical factors that drive this dependence. Referencing the Cable and Wireless monopoly which characterised Anglophone Caribbean telecommunication arrangements for decades, Dunn deplores of the ‘institutionalised dependency on external expertise which tethered Caribbean societies and their governments’ to unreasonable demands (Dunn 2014, p. 955). The region’s massive and worsening foreign debt and the tension of monopoly vs. the national interest facilitate this tethering (Dunn 1994). National agency, our ability to negotiate strategies that serve our interests in a globalised landscape,

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must provide appropriately responsive and proactive policies and regulations. Such responsiveness, however, relies on new paradigms of thought in the Caribbean academe. As discussions of dependence tend to locate the region as victims, Hopeton S. Dunn’s examination of technology flows from the north to the Global South (Dunn 2002) advocates agency, the need for our societies—and individuals—to carefully select, adapt and apply technologies to our primary needs. These technologies, he warns, are not ‘sufficient conditions for strategic transformation of the ICT sector and are not in themselves panaceas to economic development and personal growth’ (Dunn 2012b, p. 1). Dunn reframes technology as practical applications for solving problems. Caribbean governments must move beyond seeing development as the mere acquisition of specific technologies. Consistently Dunn points to considerations of culture, history and context in Caribbean processes for policymaking and regulation. He locates patterns of media ownership and control in the English-speaking Caribbean within the context of the region’s colonial history and underscores political economy—power relations—as central to the processes for production, distribution and consumption of media. Dunn’s analysis maintains focus on the context of economic vulnerability to external interests, and the diasporic nature of Caribbean societies. His analyses consider retentions from cultures of origin and the importance of people groups defined by linguistic categories. His work ensures that considerations of media and communication technologies do not overlook the persistent role played by language and oral culture in the shaping of Caribbean identities, identity being a persistent problematic in Caribbean experience. The tremendous potential for agency—for resistance—survival and adaptation among Caribbean people is balanced with an understanding of the threats and historical vulnerabilities (Dunn 2005, 2009). Dunn (2018) provides a new construct that reframes colonialism and hegemony as development challenges which societies and individuals in the Global South confront through a process of Creative Resilience. Rather than foregrounding the disadvantages clearly suffered under colonialism, he points to the resilience that has preserved individuals and collectives in the Global South. He offers the concept of Globalisation from Within. His characteristic emphasis on policy as one meaningful objective for theoretical and academic enquiry points to the empowering of local actors in the development of local capacity and resilience towards creating global digital enterprises (Dunn 2018).

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The creativity and resilience of the Caribbean ‘individual’ must be met by a comparable creativity and resilience of the collective: As we have demonstrated it often starts with strategic individual ideas supported by national or regional internal resources. But it must be sustained by available programmes of research and development, updated legislative and policy frameworks and extensive training programmes in digital literacy and innovation. (Dunn 2018, p. 14)

The elements of a ‘re-theorising’ for Caribbean experience and reality are already evident in this discourse. Dunn also acknowledges the contributions and interventions of the late Professor W. Aggrey Brown, political scientist and journalist whose contribution to media education since 1974 interrogated accepted media and communication theories in the light of the Caribbean experience (Dunn 2012b). Brown’s students in the 1970s through to 2011 learnt early to distinguish communication from mere information transmission and critiqued Brown’s premise that communication was more accurately an interactive transference of meaning among intelligences (Brown 1999). In his publication, Colour, Class and Politics in Jamaica, Brown (1978) redefined the concept of class providing a new framework for observing how human class-group operates in his native Jamaica post-independence. Classes are to be distinguished from all other groups on the basis of the problem to which their energies are directed. A class then is any group which is concerned with translating human consciousness…into any of three types of historical action: (1) action to preserve society, (2) action to destroy society, or (3) action to transform society. That is to say, in any society there are and can be only three classes: a conservative class, a rebellious (or destructive) class, and a transforming class. (Brown 1978, pp. 8–9)

We can use Brown’s redefinition of class as a useful conceptual prism for studying power and class action in a region historically and persistently ‘inscribed by questions of power’ (Hall 2001, p. 28). We understand that the powerful both define knowledge and construct reality for the powerless and define even the powerless themselves (Foucault 1979; Freire 1999). For our own Caribbean philosopher, C.L.R. James, it is this that adds to the policy challenges of the kind that Dunn describes, in the negotiations with local and international power brokers.

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While Dunn and Brown are highlighted in this chapter for the framework their scholarship can provide in the effort to shape an integrated Caribbean paradigm in communication thought, through the operations of CARIMAC they facilitated a ferment of Caribbean thought together with other scholars. The late Roderick Sanatan and Marlene Cuthbert were two notable members of the CARIMAC community of teachers and researchers. Roderick Sanatan as writer and lecturer contributed to the emphasis on decolonisation of knowledge and the rethinking of assumptions received from the north about the dynamically unfolding ICT and media industries (Brown and Sanatan 1987; Sanatan 2005). Caribbean governments should resist the northern demands for ‘system orderliness’ and compliance. Caribbean societies should, instead, use strategic policymaking to ensure that their own needs and priorities were met (Sanatan 2003). The experience of the Caribbean in the face of northern exploitation has typically been increased social dysfunction and inequality. Sanatan wrote: There is a risk of growing inequality between the minority trained to manage the future and the majority who are excluded from the dynamic progress of modernity. An emphasis needs to be given to social integration, compensation for the underprivileged and policies aimed at checking the tendencies of the market that lead to segmentation of the population. (Sanatan 2003, p. 182)

Sanatan was a founding member of WACC-Caribe (World Association of Christian Communication-Caribbean), an organisation dedicated to the pursuit of communication rights and the democratisation of communication with a focus on uniquely Caribbean experiences of media, media ownership, cultural diversity and gender among others. Marlene Cuthbert, a native of Canada and a naturalised Jamaican, is among a limited but influential number of women who have made significant contributions to Caribbean communication thought. Others would include Alma Mock Yen and Marjan DeBruin. Both, at varying times, provided insights into the regional media and communication practice. Cuthbert, like Mock Yen and DeBruin, taught for several years at CARIMAC and contributed to the discussion about the importance of a regional ethos in journalism. Her work on the need for and development of the Caribbean News Agency and the critical need for appropriate policies for Caribbean media and communication formed part of the

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tributaries of thought in early Caribbean media and communication scholarship (Cuthbert 1981a, b). Cuthbert also paid keen attention to the emerging cadre of female professionals in Caribbean electronic media, gender being one of the sensitive areas marked by persistent inequality in the industry (Cuthbert 1982). It is clear that in positing the insufficiency of Caribbean contribution to mainstream communication and to the generation of media research and theory, cautious exceptions have to be made.

Stuart Hall It is not widely known that it is the Caribbean that gave the world the renowned communication theorist and scholar Stuart Hall. While the central body of Hall’s work emerged out of an immersion in British class politics, the foundations of his scholarship are to be found in Jamaica College and in the wider early experience as a Jamaican growing up in British colonial Caribbean. Hall’s seminal works have clearly influenced mediated communication theory internationally. Through his work Encoding/decoding, Hall (2006) provided a framework for understanding audiences that shifted the balance of power away from the sender in traditional theorising. Hall’s Caribbean experience (Hall 2001) and interest in concerns of culture, identity and power make his work already part of the platform for the crafting of a holistic Caribbean perspective in communication scholarship. While Hall was not extensively engaged in crafting work from a specifically Caribbean perspective, his overall scholarship can be read in the context of his Caribbean origin, cultural critique and developmental worldview.

Internal Mechanisms of Dependence Although located on the northern coast of South America, Guyana is widely regarded as an Anglophone post-colonial integrally and historically linked with the archipelagic Caribbean. The work of Guyanese scholar, Percy Hintzen, explains how the process of dependence operates ‘on the ground’. It is maintained through a process Hintzen describes as ‘elite domination’ (Hintzen 1997, 2000), a product of an ideology he calls Afro-Creole Nationalism. Educated elites in the Anglophone Caribbean who led movements for self-government and independence secured control over the political,

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institutional, symbolic and social resources of their nation states. Caribbean philosopher, C.L.R.  James writing as far back as 1962, envisaged what Hintzen later records. James warned that the concept of democracy, of ‘freedom’ was not one that the politically ambitious members of the middle classes would be anxious to ‘share’ with the wider society. Democracy, as that group was propounding it, was in many ways ‘freedom’ for the middle stratum to exploit the masses using that group’s numerous survival issues as the vehicles for middle-class ‘achievement’. Having been the beneficiaries of the best of British education, training and culture, the Afro-Creole middle-class elites were ‘natural’ proponents of ‘democracy’, understood as their right to rule. If anyone could spread ‘democracy’, it was this group. James rejected this notion. Instead, he suggested that the West Indian experience of Britain had never been ‘democratic’ but an experience of ‘naked power and naked brutality’ and that this was what a middle-class-driven state and the politically ambitious would replicate (James 1962, p.  121). In regard to this framework of power in the Caribbean, significant agreement appears to exist in the theorising of Caribbean scholars (Beckles 2000; Bogues 2002; Brown 1978; Gray 2004; Hintzen 2000; James 1962; Patterson 2000; Richards 2002). This is the context of critical anti-colonial and people-based analysis in which Caribbean communication scholarship has emerged and ought to expand. Hintzen’s work shows how this middle stratum elite would be joined in modern times by a local/regional technocracy deriving its status from institutional systems compliant with the hegemonic dictates of North America and Western Europe. The defence of these systems is at once synonymous with the preservation of their own local status (Bogues 2002; Hintzen 1997, 2000; Kamugisha 2007). Lindahl (2001) refers to the modern technocrat as the new priesthood for colonial control. Modernisation for the Caribbean has not erased the colonial tendency but reaffirmed it through an educated elite engaged in conservative class action. Hintzen’s work points a direction for future analysis into the role of elites in Caribbean media. The work of Surinamese scholar, Glenn Sankatsing, traces the European ‘village’ and the globalisation of its experience (Sankatsing 2003) to generate this conservative class action. Sankatsing points to the compliance of Caribbean scholars and social scientists (Sankatsing 2003) as part of this legacy of dependence. He proffers the concept of envelopment (2003, p.  3) through which we understand how academic dependence

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specifically, and dependence generally, militate against true development and growth in the region. With uncritical acceptance, we apply western theories to Caribbean situations whose historical contexts have not yet been thoroughly understood (Sankatsing 2003). This is reflected in much of what informs policy decisions in the region. Sankatsing’s theory of envelopment with Dunn’s extensive research into the region’s policy and regulation landscape set against Hintzen’s and Brown’s frameworks for observing class action and power operations in the region begin to provide the language, the prisms and the theoretical and conceptual frameworks for articulating what is distinctive about the Caribbean experience and consequently the need for a Caribbean perspective in communication and media theory. Sankatsing’s five discursive entities which he identifies as central to the formation of society can only assist the process of evolving a Caribbean perspective: context, culture, evolution, internal social dynamism and history. Western universalism prevented the consideration of Caribbean contexts and culture in academic enquiry. Our evolution and internal social dynamism were hindered, therefore, without a sense of our own legitimate context and culture from which we understand that we have history outside the boundaries of the European perspective. Our strategic response to centuries of ingrained dependence, then, must be a ‘project of society’ (Sankatsing 2003, p.  1), a concerted and focused response to our own environment. It stands to reason that in a world now driven and defined by information and communication technologies, a region seeking self-definition and direction should be obliged to commit itself to systematic reflection on how we share meaning and information. The project of society to which Sankatsing refers and the obligatory engagement with our five discursive entities—context, culture, evolution, internal social dynamism and history—is predominantly an intellectual and theoretical process. Caribbean leaders in thought must finally recognise the deleterious impact of Afro-Creole Nationalism and begin a true process in society that regards and respects all people groups in our various collectives. We must begin to make sense together of our current existence (Berger and Luckmann 1991; Gramsci 2000). Theoretical reflection is integral to social formation and development but it is often seen as irrelevant to the ‘practical’ needs of Caribbean people. Economic democracy as it unfolded in the Anglophone Caribbean, and in the former British West Indies in particular, was carefully

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constructed as the ‘rights of workers to fair wages’. In Jamaica the organisation of ‘labour’ and the emergence of political parties were joined at the hip. Middle-class aspirants to political power needed mass support through an electoral system. Once that power was secured, the same group used state and institutional resources to limit the access other groups had to power. In the negotiation of ‘workers’ rights’ the middle stratum maintained the location of the majority of citizens as labourers (Richards 2002). The same elite middle stratum, in its role as nationalist leaders, continues to frame education as education for practical work. Beckles (2000) shows how the ideologies that devalued non-white racial groups to facilitate their exploitation as slaves during the colonial period spawned other ideologies that would later demean labouring underclasses (Beckles 2000). The dominant discourse surrounding the working-class non-Anglophone Afro-Caribbean person still today suggests the need for Anglophone middle-­class elite leadership and control (Lewis 2000; Moore and Johnson 2002). The same applies to leadership and historical control of media ownership in the region, dating back to 1837 when the region’s leading newspaper, the Gleaner, was founded by merchants from the elite brown oligarchy. The factors which limit systematic scholarship in communication theory in the region connect with those that are perennial and definitive of the Caribbean experience of dependence. The imperative for ‘practical’ education drives priorities in the region. The ‘theoretical’ has become anathema in this part of the world that has been configured across centuries to provide labourers not thinkers. Many of our graduate students seek higher education primarily for career advancement within the work-a-day media industry. Critical engagement with theory and knowledge generation continues to be limited especially when ‘theoretical’ is often articulated as a negative by industry leaders. Internationally funded development programmes seek to have us learn and apply received knowledge and technologies rather than innovate and create knowledge. Cost effectiveness and economic expediency is the usual justification for imitation and seemingly by reflex, the region receives the knowledge provided from outside as natural and given. This uncritical acceptance of received knowledge in the field of communication and media studies has significant implications for a region characterised by massive consumption of North American communication and media products and the extensive assimilation of imported media

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practices and approaches. The introduction of communication and media technologies and industries in the region constituted little more than the retrofitting of the region for ‘connection’ to a larger, global cultural industry. It is significant that in the 1960s, when the North Americans were relaying their first television pictures via communication satellites from the United States to Britain and France, many small territories in the Caribbean were in the process of securing political independence. This technological achievement in the north would, in a few decades, begin to drive lifestyles, tastes, values and consumption habits of the region, locating the newly independent states as consumers for powerful North American producers (Dupuy 2001; St. Rose 2007). Development through consumerism meant that the region remained firmly locked in a state of economic dependence to the developed world. The domination of a people’s thinking (Alatas 2000b) presents as the main characteristic of dependence and of academic dependence in particular. A people without the theoretical frameworks to make sense of and respond to their realities are locked in envelopment and dependence. What is needed is not envelopment as a retardant to development, but rather a strategy to determine exactly how we recognise and confront academic dependence, how we de-westernise. Sankatsing proposes the ‘extradisciplinary’ approach as central to academic independence. This approach treats the isolating of social phenomena for study as unnatural, and recognises that all social phenomena and processes are interrelated. It seeks to avoid the ‘tyranny’ of academic instruments, the attempt to fit social problems and phenomena into the categories and contexts of academia. Conclusions should only be drawn when parts are ‘reassembled’ to avoid the ‘inverted logic’ of the social sciences which assumes that the ‘anatomy of academia determines the anatomy of society’ (Sankatsing 2003, p. 8). Breaking away from the western academic tradition of beginning from theory, the extra-disciplinary approach suggests that we begin from social reality and context, eliminating the dichotomy between theory and praxis through social reality-based research. Dunn’s persistent and characteristic calls for policies to address the clear inequities and disadvantages in our arrangements with the north represent a practical application of academic re-thinking and re-conceptualising. Through strategic policies, we may be able to find redress from the limitations that go hand in hand with academic and economic dependence. Transformational class action becomes observable and measurable where our lenses are no longer restricted to ‘class’ in socio-economic terms.

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Looking ‘South’ for Options The ‘how’ in regard to de-westernisation presents formidable though not insurmountable challenges for scholars in the Caribbean? Asian researchers have routes and connections to antiquity that allow them access to texts and philosophies from which to begin a process of sourcing alternatives. Yet Dissayanke (2011) points to options that communication theorists in Asia have been unearthing which could be equally valuable for our consideration. What non-written sources and texts could we begin re-­ visiting with a view to identifying new themes and issues in communication not typically considered in received knowledge sources? The rupture with antiquity that Afro-Caribbean people experienced is clearly a challenge but there are other hopeful considerations. Should we not consider revalorising the oral text, in the spirit of Alma Mock Yen’s ‘Library of the Spoken Word’ which she established at the now defunct UWI Radio Education Unit or of the Institute of Jamaica’s Oral History Project? These initiatives captured the memories of distinguished speakers, media scholars and people of all backgrounds—old and young—as not infallible but useful narratives in our inquiry into communication narratives and media. If we revalorise the oral in our inquiry into Caribbean communication, could we, by way of example, really separate the verbal from the non-­ verbal in our scholarly communication work, where so much meaning is carried by non-verbal facial expressions and gestures? What do our past and current indigenous rituals and ceremonies hold for our study of human communication in the Caribbean? This would not be limited to formal rituals and ceremonies if it is to be truly inclusive for it is in the public/formal domain where elite domination is evident in much of the Anglophone Caribbean to the de-limiting of folk, religious and political rituals exemplified by Rastafari or Revivalism. That so much of Caribbean culture has resonated globally with other people groups should suggest that rather than limiting theory, considerations of culture in our theorising could possibly begin to link us across global groups. Of course, the most potentially volatile and contentious area in the Anglophone Caribbean will be the area of language. As a marker of class, status and ethnicity in this part of the world, English has been taken for granted as the language of progress and development (Devonish 2002, 2007). No Caribbean perspective of communication and media could ignore language in Caribbean communication.

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Institutional Commitments and Reorientation Alatas (2003) proposes that the reversal of academic dependency requires a commitment to theoretical and empirical research on the concept of academic dependency itself and this research must become part of the curriculum for students and an issue for discussion via publications and international conferences (Alatas 2003, p.  609). In short, the very methods that the current hegemon prescribes can be used to dismantle it if there is a consciousness that our received knowledge cannot be treated as given or universally applicable. Alatas also proposed that interventions to deal with academic dependency should include the production of textbooks that include non-­ European thinkers and theorists (Alatas 2003, p.  609). Deliberate and conscious interaction among academics in the Global South must become a priority instead of the default gravitation to the west for conferences and research outputs (Alatas 2003, p. 610). This is particularly necessary for Caribbean citizens who need to see how other targets of European imperialism have re-engineered their contexts to take advantage of current opportunities. Regional associations organising conferences and events that bring scholars from all over the world are critical for catalysing interventions into academic dependence (Alatas 2003, p. 610). For the above-mentioned to be achieved, Alatas (2003) suggests, some basic problems must be addressed in developing countries. A broader concept of development—beyond economic growth—and the role of the social sciences in contributing to that development is an important prerequisite. It will be necessary to allocate resources to attract a ‘critical mass of post-doctoral students and researchers’ (Alatas 2003, p. 609) to carry out research into academic dependence. The importance of a mature tertiary education sector is evident. Validation of new approaches and perspectives from our scholars and their work by our institutions and others from the Global South will play an important role in the process. Funding requirements continue to ensure compliance with dominant prescriptions for media and communication scholarship and for knowledge generation in the social sciences generally. None of these conceptual or methodological strategies and approaches will be effective, however, if Caribbean media and communication scholars and researchers do not perceive the inadequacy of existing theories, if the need for a Caribbean paradigm of communication thought is not

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regarded as equally important as the aspiration to progress and be recognised in the field regionally and internationally. The Caribbean experience is replete with examples of ‘resistant’ thought that is subversive of the colonial and elite dominance. Resistant thought has been evident in the hitherto available communication scholarship, as it is in the performing arts and various cultural expressions of social resistance emanating from the region. We must now draw on all such disruptive and creative strands, accompanied by a clear vision of purpose. The ability of the region to participate actively in the too long delayed ‘project of society’ is not in question and there is no more significant sphere in which to intensify the process of knowledge generation and conceptual development than the deepening of our indigenous study of human communication and media in the Caribbean.

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CHAPTER 5

Tracking Two Waves: Transnational Influencers in Africa’s ICT Policy Formulation Musonda Kapatamoyo

Introduction Following independence in the 1950s and 1960s, most African countries joined the world community through multilateral organisations (MOs) such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations, or by forming the Organisation for African Unity (OAU). In all instances, the motives were aimed at either enhancing the stature of these countries or to engender economic development through modernisation. The diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which was mostly state managed, was intended to spread across entire countries to foster economic development. In what is considered the first wave of policies, ICTs were hailed as a remedy to drive the poorest countries out of poverty through economic globalisation and technical change. Scholars point to:

M. Kapatamoyo (*) Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_5

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several optimistic projections that emerged about the potential of these new technologies and global networks to create economic opportunity in developing countries and… give voice and power to the poor, make their governments more responsive and transparent and make the world’s best knowledge on any subject available anytime, anywhere to those who needed it to improve their lives. (Baishakhi 2011, p. 6)

Rapid diffusion of ICTs was considered as a national imperative in what this chapter describes as the ‘first wave’ of policies that began in the 1960s post-independence till the late 1990s. During this time, national plans had quantifiable characteristics of development (Olatokun 2008). Baishakhi (2011) defined development as ‘essentially maximizing the production of goods and services available in a country. Lack of it is defined as underdevelopment’ (p. 2). Governments believed that ICTs fostered economic growth and development via modernisation (Lerner 1958; Melkote and Steeves 2001; Schramm 1964) while other observers believed that ICTs enhanced neo-colonial or dependency dynamisms (Schramm 1979; Sussman and Lent 1991). The core of the policies focused on domestication of technology such as principles of public interest, marketplace of ideas, diversity, universal service and localism (Alasuutari 2011; Helle-Valle and Slettemeås 2008; Silverstone 1994). The official process of policymaking also faced the tension between the dominant and dependent, and centre and periphery institutions. Dominant technologies and driving institutions played an oversized role in ICT formulation in the first wave. These morphed into the ‘second wave’ of ICT policies, which acknowledged the urgency of service delivery to individuals and were preoccupied with technology convergence and affordances on devices such as, cell phones or on policy agendas that focus on data pricing (Jentzsch 2012; Kusamotu 2007; Wakunuma and Masika 2017). The second wave also targeted individual uses and gratifications (Dhir and Chin-Chung 2017). Further, the role of governments in service provision gradually diminished, replaced inter alia, by the priorities of individual customers. The new paradigm, described in this chapter as the ‘second wave’ of policies, was also concerned about universal access (not just service as prior policies emphasised); freedom to communicate through ubiquitous connectivity; vibrant civic engagement; diverse and competitive marketplace; and most especially, user privacy. This chapter analyses the different roles played by external actors in Africa’s ICT policy

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formulation, outlines the two waves of policy influences and identifies new policy approaches that are decentralised from the global systems.

First Wave: Prominence of Trans-organisations and Transnational Interactions According to Motamedi (2012), trans-organisation systems are organisations whose interconnected communications and transactional systems extend beyond the classical views of organisations, environment and inter-­ organisational relations thinking. Table 5.1 lists large organisations whose reach is multinational. In Africa, the trajectory of ICT policies is a multilevel phenomenon that has necessitated interactions between domestic, regional and international policymakers. At independence, most countries lacked resources and expertise and turned to the listed organisations for assistance to formulate ICT policies. These multilateral organisations Table 5.1  Drivers of first wave policies (post-independence until 1990s) Organisation

Year Headquarters founded

Legal status

Type

United Nations

1945

Charter

World Bank

1945

International Monetary Fund African Union (formerly OAU) International Telecommunication Union (ITU) New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)

1945

Health; education; humanitarian Monetary policy; international finance International finance

Source: Author

1963 1865

New York, USA Washington, D.C., U.S. Washington, D.C., U.S. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Geneva, Switzerland

Membership Membership Membership UN Specialised Agency Treaty

2002

Midrand, South Africa

1994

Lusaka, Zambia

Treaty

1992

Gaborone, Botswana

Treaty

International cooperation Intergovernmental

Intergovernmental; economic dev. programme Intergovernmental; free trade area Intergovernmental

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(MOs) played oversized roles in determining the kind of policies that were adopted over the years unlike in developed countries where ICT policies where locally or nationally determined (UNCTD 2004).

Domestic Challenges and the Formation of Structural Adjustment Programmes During the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, many African countries amassed huge debt largely from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), ostensibly aimed at rapid modernisation. Most African countries faced similar economic challenges and adopted similar mitigating strategies during the first wave of policies (post-independence until the 1990s). For example, failure to repay the debt forced many African countries to adopt structural adjustment programmes (SAP). SAPs were economic policies to restructure old loans, induce export-led growth, privatisation of public sector industries and liberalisation of the economy to allow for competition in a free market, as conditions for further assistance (Shah 2013). Privatisation of national state assets was a major measuring point in the emergence of SAPs. SAPs, which dominated the political and economic discourse in Africa, were premised on the World Bank’s 1981 Berg Report entitled Accelerated Development in Sub-­ Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (World Bank 1981). The report stated that the causes of Africa’s economic crisis were to be found in the internal policies of the African states and pointed to domestic misallocating, political obstacles to growth and the over-extended public sector (Gwin and Nelson 1997; Rakner 2003; van de Walle and Johnston 1996). African countries faced a certain vulnerability because the external organisations funded the process of ICT policy formulation beginning from the consultancy stage to the final drafts.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The World Bank (the Bank) and International Monetary Fund (the Fund) were founded in 1945 to assist in the reconstruction of a devastated Europe, to foster development efforts through the transfer of resources and to aid in balance of payments, respectively (Selassie 1984). In the past, the World Bank helped to fund large telecommunications infrastructure in

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developing countries to expand local telephone exchanges, international and long-distance communication facilities, installation of telex facilities and the employment of consultants (Kenny and Lewin 2005; World Bank Projects 2018). The IMF quickly became a source of budgetary assistance to post-independence Africa countries. For example, Zambia’s faltering balance of payments, evidenced by high import prices and low export earnings, forced the country to seek IMF assistance. According to Situmbeko and Zulu (2004), what should have been short-term balance of payments support from the IMF continued for over thirty years with annual aid packages averaging 12–55 million USD. This level of funding to the Zambian government ensured that the IMF possessed leverage over Zambia’s domestic policies. The Fund and the Bank collaborated on several projects. By sticking to programme-based financial assistance, they were able to get several of their own objectives met within the implementation of domestic policies in African countries. For example, in order to be eligible for financial aid, African countries had to satisfy the Bank on certain governance and human rights issues, which became part of the evaluation process (Rakner 2003; Støvring 2004). In case of Zambia, the IMF strongly advised the government to privatise the state electricity company (ZESCO) and state bank, Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZNCB), in return for debt relief. The government initially agreed to implement these measures, but the prospect of these privatisations provoked large-scale public resistance forcing the Zambian Parliament to approve a motion urging the government to rescind their decision to privatise these institutions. Unfazed, the IMF responded immediately by announcing that Zambia risked forfeiting 1 billion USD in debt relief if it did not go ahead with the privatisation. IMF resident representative Mark Ellyne said, ‘If they [the government] don’t sell, they will not get the money’ (Zambia Investment and Business Guide 2016, p. 132). In the end, the government was forced to ignore its own parliament and go back on its decision not to privatise ZNCB (Rakner 2003). The Bank and the Fund managed to influence domestic policy. However, by the 1990s, a common notion developed that adjustments had failed. For example, under Jim Wolfensohn, the Bank softened its conditionalities and emphasised lending focused on addressing social ills and the environment, in part to deflect criticism of structural adjustment (van de Walle 2001, p.  12). Critics of the Bank and the Fund, such as Mkandawrie and Soludo, also assert that African economies were subject

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to dramatic reforms, and these reforms were to be blamed for the region’s ‘exceptionally poor [economic] performance’ during the 1990s (Mkandawire and Soludo 1999, p. 81).

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) The WTO was formed at the end of 1994 during the eighth (Uruguay) round of negotiations to implement a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Nearly all African countries joined the WTO at its inception. Whereas the GATT mainly dealt with trade in goods, the WTO and its agreements also covered trade in services and intellectual property (WTO 2018). According to Taylor and Jusawalla (1998), the WTO determined that telecommunications had become a central concern in international trade negotiations, and as a result telecommunications services were to be treated as necessities. With telecommunications services now classified as tradable, the WTO expanded its role to facilitate the back and forth flow of such services among countries and affirmed to its members that telecommunications policy and regulation in any given country had implications beyond national boundaries. According to Sterling, Bernt and Weiss (2006), the WTO trade negotiations were a major force for privatisation and competition in global telecommunications. They identified underlying principles of the WTO, which asserted that: (1) a free market should govern transactions; (2) all countries should be treated in a non-discriminatory manner; (3) foreign companies should be treated the same as domestic firms; and (4) the rules of doing business are clear and available to all. Sterling et  al. (2006) observed that the creators of this framework realised that telecommunications, owing to its significant role in international commerce, merited special attention through the drafting of specific rules, or annexes. The rules called for non-discriminatory access to public telecommunications, cost-­ based pricing, the ability to lease private lines and to connect them to the public network, and other provisions that, at least in principle, required countries to adhere to the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) to allow a certain level of competitive access to their telecommunications services and infrastructure. In summary, the spirit of the agreements was to facilitate globalisation, a ‘level playing field’, shrinking geography. Oliver (1998) suggested that through the mission of the WTO, countries had created environments that were necessary to encourage local and

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foreign investments, such as the formation of independent regulatory institutions, mostly modelled after the United States’ Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) COMESA is a post-independence African organisation rooted in Pan-­ African solidarity and collective self-reliance in eastern and southern Africa. It was established to facilitate a larger market, to share the region’s common heritage and destiny and to allow greater social and economic cooperation, with the ultimate objective of creating an economic community amongst African nations (COMESA 2006). Currently, ICTs are at the centre of forging these relationships. COMESA was active in the advancement of ICTs by providing resources such as technical assistance and policy drafting conferences to member countries (COMESA 2006). COMESA’s ICT agenda was not original and emulated that of the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Both the 2003 COMESA ICT Model Policy and 2003 COMESA ICT Model Bill resembled that of the WTO’s Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products of 1997 and the Bank’s advocacy for neo-liberal economic management (World Trade Organisation 1996).

Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Like COMESA, SADC is a post-independence African initiative aimed at synergising the potential of various southern African countries, through an awareness of the political economy of apartheid South Africa (SADC 2001). Through the Southern African Transport and Communication Commission (SATCC) subcommittee, SADC facilitated and coordinated efforts towards the transformation of the region into an integrated economy by promoting the provision of adequate, interconnected and efficient regional infrastructure (SADC 2001). Member countries were duty bound to implement aspects of the Telecommunications Policy Framework and Model Bills, Fair Competition Policy, Licensing Policy, Universal Access and Universal Service and the plan for a Regional Frequency Band (Hesselmark et al. 2002; SADC 2001).

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The NEPAD e-Africa Commission The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was an initiative of the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that came into being in 2001 with South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal and Algeria as the founding member countries. NEPAD has since been integrated into the African Union processes and structures resulting in the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) which is based in South Africa. The Agency is also responsible for facilitation and coordination of development programmes across the continent (NEPAD 2019). NEPAD recognised the pivotal role of ICTs in accelerating economic growth and development, particularly in the context of achieving common market and continental integration. NEPAD supported two types of projects, namely, those that related to establishing an adequate ICT infrastructure on the African continent, and those related to establishing ICT skills in the African population. The Commission developed broad strategies and comprehensive action plans for ICT infrastructure and its use for ICT applications and services. The regional multilateral organisations (MOs) were also highly effective in directing the policy outcomes of member countries. Their importance resided in their proximity to African countries and in the high commitment that African countries exhibited in ensuring that the MOs succeeded. These organisations routinely created model bills and encouraged member countries to implement them. The most significant of these proposed guidelines are: • COMESA ICT Model Policy, 2003 • COMESA ICT Model Bill, 2003 • COMESA Guidelines on Licensing, 2003 • SADC Declaration on ICT, August 2001 • SADC ICT Policy Guidelines, November 2000 • SADC Model Policy and Legislation, 1998 • SADC Protocol on Communications, 1996 • SADC Telecommunications Regulators Association of Southern Africa (TRASA) guidelines (Ministry of Communication and Transport 2005). The key tenets contained in the SADC and COMESA proposals were:

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• Increasing market size through integration and cross-border trade with ICTs playing an integral part of the social and economic development of member states, premised on the role of network externalities; • Competition among market players in the ICT sector in member states; • Converging of regulatory authorities in telecommunications and broadcasting; • Implementing independent and technology neutral legal and regulatory frameworks; • Independence of market players, especially in regulatory functions; and • Private sector participation in the development of ICT products and services (Ministry of Communication and Transport 2005). Since developed countries had resource centres where they trained African technocrats, there was a lot of duplication amongst international and regional MOs in the preparation of guidelines for adoption by member countries.

Second Wave: ICT Convergence and Policy Development The second wave policies occasioned commercialisation, privatisation and transnational integration of digital services provision in Africa. Similarly, to the first wave of policies, African policymakers show examples of duplication of recommendations from external agents; adherence to benchmarks from external agents and lastly, obligations in the form of behavioural and resource power by those external agents. However, from a technology standpoint, there is a global shift from public utilities to private provisioning of communications infrastructure. This is seen in the explosion of mobile services across the continent. The World Bank and other multilateral organisations’ modernisation policies still support the correlation between increased access to and use of ICTs and economic development. As a result, the Bank funds projects and programmes, which at one level increase or improve infrastructure, and also seek to extend access to voice and data communications. At another level, the Bank fosters policy changes by supporting market liberalisation, deregulation, competition

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and customer choice. In articulating the World Bank’s official position regarding the future role of ICTs, Jean-Francois Rischard, then Vice President for Finance and Private Sector Development at the Bank, said in 1995: [ICT] probably has a bigger role to play in developing countries than at any time. Poverty can be tackled with the new technologies available in the fields of health care, population planning, basic education, food and agriculture, and infrastructure and basic services. As for growth and competitiveness, the advanced telecommunications and informatics technologies will permit leapfrogging, as will the new distance education methods, production processes and teleporting. (Rischard 1996, p. 100)

By specifically tying ICTs to problem areas in health, agriculture, education and infrastructure, Rischard was able to use soft power to appeal to the consciences of the leadership in developing countries. As Keohane and Nye, Jr. (1998) pointed out, soft power is the ability to obtain the desired outcomes because others want the same things as you do. Rischard further recommended that developing country leaders and their citizens raise their awareness of the imperatives of the new world economy and of the unprecedented opportunities of new technologies. He advised that they needed policy, legal and macroeconomic changes to create an environment that was receptive to new technologies and to innovation. It is, therefore, not a coincidence that, following such a policy emphasis, nearly every developing country has undertaken some form of economic restructuring in the areas articulated by the World Bank official. His remarks still constitute a large foundation for the Bank’s policy on ICT implementation in developing countries. The Bank’s arguments are firmly rooted in the modernisation paradigm. Modernisation theory argues that the transfer of capital goods, technologies, industries and Western norms to developing countries would bring them rapid economic productivity and social development, which were ancient and primitive (Tokunbo 2005, p.  2). For example, Grace, Kenny and Zhen-Wei Qiang (2004) observed that for countries experiencing telecommunications technology deficits, the Bank urged them to construct accessible and reliable telephone service, which removed some of the physical constraints on communication, thereby facilitating increased productivity. This was a plausible argument, which the Bank used throughout the 1990s to support policy reforms within the

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telecommunications sector that emphasised privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation in developing nations. In the 2000s, the Bank was even more specific in its approach to ICT policy implementation in developing countries. Guislain et  al. (2005) noted that the Bank’s Africa Region Development Strategy, adopted in July 2003, identified ICTs as one of the three emerging positive factors for Africa, offering enormous opportunities to leapfrog stages of development, especially by providing rural access. One example of leapfrogging was the rapid diffusion of mobile networks. Benefits of competition, envisaged in the first wave, came to fruition in the second wave because legacy telecommunication companies have been eclipsed by broadband service providers. Competition, leading to reduced prices of data and handheld devices, therefore, is a net benefit to subscribers. However, with Africa being an emerging market, a new paradigm called zero rating has become a significant method for edge providers to work with internet service providers (ISPs) to deliver content. As controversial as zero rating (or Free Basics) may be across the world, companies such as Facebook have been at the forefront of its promotion. Most complaints are about how these services can block start-ups who are trying to innovate, how the system exploits the poor as a form of economic discrimination. Another example of leapfrogging is the ubiquitous understanding by users of how the internet works, through common language or protocols such as transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) that help to elevate the significance of data packet pricing. Data packet transmission charges are imposed on the basis of the quantity of data packets transmitted. Users know that accessing a website with images, transmitting/receiving e-mail with an attached file, and downloading data, will attract more expensive transmission charges. Exceeding their quota may result in a service being suspended or throttled. Their behaviour is therefore modelled around these calculations. A third example of leapfrogging is the shift from ICT infrastructure financing under multilateral organisations and larger bilateral loan agreements to the private sector. African governments have found some flexibility in addressing issues such as social media, personal privacy, user-generated content and social determinism. One common thread has been a clampdown on social media, intrusion into personal privacy and attempts to throttle social determinism of digital services adoption. Leila Green (2002) asserted that social determinism theory concludes that social interactions and constructs alone determine individual behaviour. Governments are increasingly concerned with individuals’ behaviours, especially on

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social networks. Lindsay (2014) posits that by seeing the particular use of a new communication tool—a socio-technical assemblage—‘analysts can learn something new about the motivations of those sitting at the negotiating table’ (p. 720). Lindsay (2014) pointed to Twitter’s impact in negotiations of political power, especially during protests. For example, Twitter was used as a tool for bringing about social change during the 2009 Iranian elections; protests following fraudulent Moldovan elections in 2009 and protests at the 2009 G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (p. 721).

Trans-organisation and Transnational Interactions Depending on their mission, external organisations influenced African countries through several mechanisms. This includes three mechanisms used by different stakeholders to influence ICT policies in various African countries. The first and most obvious was the duplication of recommendations. For example, several governments, being signatories to several regional and global declarations and protocols, adopted ICT policy recommendations that were initiated by external agents. This saved these countries a lot of time and effort but the policies were not domesticated. The second mechanism was through targets and benchmarks, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations Millennium Summit (United Nations Millennium Summit 2000) and World Summit for Information Society’s Declaration of Principles (WSIS 2003). The UN community initiated the MDGs in 2000 with a goal to reduce poverty by fifty percent in developing countries by 2015. As signatories to the MDGs, many African countries adopted the recommendations to focus ICTs towards eradicating hunger, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and achieving universal primary education, among others. The WSIS in 2003, under the auspices of the ITU in Geneva, required countries to integrate the Plan of Action made at the forum into the country’s social and economic agenda before the next summit in 2005. One hundred and seventy-five countries signed the declaration (WSIS 2003). The third oft-criticised mechanism for African countries is what this author termed persuaded obligation. Persuasion is the ability to influence others to think how you think (Cialdini 2016). According to Raphael (1962), political obligation (citing Hobbes) is a moral obligation to abide by the covenant that subjects may have made to obey (with some

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exceptions) the laws laid down by the sovereign. Their obligation to abide by the political covenant depends upon their obligation to obey the laws of nature, one of which prescribes the performance of what is covenanted. The two concepts, once merged, aid to demonstrate that MOs ought to persuade African countries towards their objectives. Subsequently, through participation in treaties, governments must follow through with signed agreements. Persuaded obligation would be meaningless if multilateral organisations did not possess some form of leverage over African countries. Keohane and Nye, Jr. (1998) advanced the view that international relationships depended on perceptions of power. They drew a distinction between behavioural power—the ability to obtain the outcomes you want—and the resource power—the possession of resources that are usually associated with the ability to reach the outcomes you want. Behavioural power, in turn, is divided into hard and soft power. Hard power, they suggest, is the ability to get others to do what they otherwise would not do through threats or rewards. Soft power is the ability to get desired outcomes because others want the same things as you want. Therefore, to produce the desired behaviour one must have the ability to achieve goals through attraction rather than coercion and works by convincing others to follow or getting them to agree to norms and institutional protocols. A lot of famous failed or unhelpful projects litter African countries, purchased or constructed with aid from seemingly empathetic countries or MOs. One such project is an earth station constructed in Ghana for 14 million USD, which was intended to improve its telecommunications system and enhance the nation’s contact with the rest of the world. According to Boafo (1991) the anticipated telecommunications improvements and socio-economic benefits did not materialise because Spar Aerospace of Canada, the main contractor, that worked on the project ‘supplied an international telephone switch that was obsolete, ill designed and incompatible with the specifications of the satellite earth station’ (p. 113). Multilateral organisations also used ‘persuaded obligation’ to either include or exclude a country from their programmes, benefits and networks. For example, by signing the WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services (BTS) (Senunas 1997, p. 9). Even though they had a choice not to sign the BTS agreement, the failure to sign the protocol would have excluded them from all those perceived markets within the network of free market trading countries. As Senunas (1997) asserted, African countries theoretically achieved a global market for their

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services without any chance of their companies achieving market share in developed countries. Being highly indebted was unhelpful either. For example, Rakner (2003) stated Zambia owed 7 billion USD in external debt to donors, mostly to the IMF and World Bank, which they used as resource power to persuade or nudge the Zambian government to enact the 1992 Privatisation Act that led to the sale of 257 parastatal companies over seven years. Similarly, countries were obligated to implement the WTO Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products and to cut customs duties on computer and telecommunications products. Speaking on the occasion of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) announcement, Renato Ruggiero, Director General of the WTO, said: …the impact of these agreements on improved living standards for the world’s citizens should not be underestimated. The… telecom hardwares… that are included in the ITA are the conduit for the delivery of information. By making such products more affordable, we move one-step closer to the vision of a telephone in every village of the world. The ramifications of such an achievement to the health and education of those in the poorest countries are obvious. (WTO News, 27 March, 1997)

Following this declaration, signatories were only allowed a three-year period from July 1, 1997, to December 31, 2000, to work towards complete elimination of customs duties on ITAs. These tariff reductions applied to all WTO members on a Most Favoured Nation (MFN) basis. WTO, a globalisation organisation, takes credit for the rapid diffusion of technology and greater access to capital and world markets that enabled annual growth rates of over seven percent for a subset of developing countries—a previously unfathomable rate of growth that helped lift over 1 billion people out of poverty from 1981 to 2012 (Spence 2011). On the other hand, scholars such as Stichele (1998) argue that the WTO contributed to unequal competition, which led to marginalisatiuon of the least developed countries because it established a highly complex and non-­ transparent competition system involving participation in production and information networks. These networks required technology, capital, training and management that developing countries lacked. Therefore, developing countries were not able to compete fairly in global trade. The transnational companies, were the real beneficiaries of this system.

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Through the various stages of ICT policy formulations, the World Bank, IMF and other donors, including bilateral aid donors, shared a common agenda for African countries. The first wave policies promoted modernisation in which African nations were duty-bound to support transnational companies through the MFN rules to enforce Intellectual Property Rights obligations in the market countries. Due to these types of trade activities Deane and Opoku-Mensah (1997) accused the WTO of making deals to further reinforce ‘rich-world-poor-world’ inequalities. The current programmes continually explore new ways to strengthen support for local ICT applications, that would help create the requisite skills needed to adapt technologies in Africa and enable Africans to create innovative solutions to their own developmental challenges (Guislain et  al. 2005). With the rise of digital services, new language has been adopted that includes buzzwords such as social local mobile, social media, personal privacy, user generated content, data mining, reach and scope and social determinism.

Conclusion The first wave of ICT policies was certainly technological deterministic in the sense that governments and multilateral organisations believed that changes in technology are the primary source for changes in society. Further, that technology determines the development of social structures and cultural values. The flow of funds (lending and borrowing) was mostly towards technologies aimed at rapid modernisation, which contributed to massive debt in developing countries. The first wave policies did not entirely produce the desired development and faced criticism at the height of the structural development programmes. The second wave policies pivoted to social determinism, characterised by issues of access, consumption, digital inequality, online rights, and overall transformation in skills, health and other social economic indicators. Multilateral organisations have shifted their focus from massive infrastructure development to include user skills. African countries continue to treat ICTs as a major economic driver. To this end, governments participate in the following roles: building physical infrastructure such as telecommunications links; as catalyst and regulator for private investment; and reducing barriers to entry. To achieve these, privatisation has proved to be the most efficient approach (Baishakhi 2011). The MOs are still anchored to the recommendations of the Berg Report that stipulated their approach

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towards Africa. However, a newer phenomenon is the emergence of think tanks within Africa which are largely connected to the MOs. For example, the World Bank is still a dominant institution in ICT policy formulation for developing countries. Nevertheless, the Bank acknowledges that while digital technologies have spread rapidly in much of the world, digital dividends (the broader development benefits from using these technologies) have lagged behind. In many instances digital technologies have boosted growth, expanded opportunities and improved service delivery. Yet their aggregate impact has fallen short and is unevenly distributed. For digital technologies to benefit everyone everywhere, countries must adopt policies that close the digital divide, especially in internet access. So the Bank recommends that in order to get the most out of the digital revolution, countries need to work on the ‘analog complements’ (most of which focus on individuals)—such as strengthening regulations that ensure competition among businesses, by adapting workers’ skills to the demands of the new economy, and by ensuring that institutions are accountable (World Bank 2016, p. 2). Due to what I have described as persuaded obligation caused by international treaties and organisations, African countries participated in globalisation with varied outcomes. The benefits notwithstanding, global interactions undermined domestic social and economic development by exerting power in ways that prevented the adoption of policies fit for the domestic or local context. The global treaties have also often reinforced pre-existing conditions that sustain socially undesirable outcomes (World Development Report 2017, p. 257). Communication technologies are more effective when used within appropriate cultural frameworks and in processes that engage stakeholders in the selection of the objectives, key issues and relevant channels. For example, in the preamble to the 2017 World Development Report, the authors of the report assert that policymaking and policy implementation do not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in complex political and social settings, in which individuals and groups with unequal power interact within changing rules as they pursue conflicting interests (World Bank Human Development Report 2017). The socially and economically marginalised—particularly those at the intersections of class, gender, race or ethnicity—are unable to harness the internet to enhance their social and economic well-being (Gillwald 2017).

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PART II

Digital Strategies and Transitions

CHAPTER 6

Decolonising in the Gaps: Community Networks and the Identity of African Innovation Nicola J. Bidwell

Introduction Frequently defined as self-organised and decentralised telecommunications networks that are built and operated by citizens for citizens (Baig et al. 2015), community networks (CNs) offer alternative sites of technology production in Africa. Our insights about 12 African countries suggest that CNs have a different focus to the trope of Africa Rising, which typically has a universalising view of what technology production is, where it can take place and what type of people innovate. In this chapter I argue that by incorporating local meanings in setting-up, maintaining and using infrastructure, CNs in rural Africa may be decolonising the identity of innovation. Use of the term ‘network’ in this context generally refers to technical infrastructure, such as a locally owned, solar-powered GSM base-station, to provide mobile telephony, or a Wi-Fi mesh, supporting an intranet and sometimes internet connections (see Finlay 2018). Many such

N. J. Bidwell (*) University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_6

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networks are small. For instance, PamojaNet’s Wi-Fi and a public access kiosk provide the population of Idjwi Island, in Lake Kivu Democratic Republic of Congo with free internet during off-peak times. Some CNs, however, provide internet connectivity to large populations, for instance Guifi.net in Spain has over 32,500 nodes over a vast geographic area, while Macha Works has inspired the launch of CNs in nearly all the provinces of Zambia (Mweetwa and Van Stam 2018). CNs were first created by tech enthusiasts before the internet and later adopted by social activists (e.g. Song et al. 2018). In the past decade they have attracted interest as ways to provide communications to people who cannot access or afford alternatives (e.g. Siochrú and Girard 2005). While definitions vary, there is some consensus that a CN must be owned by the local inhabitants of the area where the tech infrastructure is deployed, and actively involve local people in design, development, deployment and management of the network. Thus, a ‘community’ in the sense of a CN is the people who set up, manage, use and decide about the CN and, in principle, reside in its geographic locale.

Tech Production and the Postcolony Technology production in Africa is entangled in a mesh of postcolonial relations (Dourish and Mainwaring 2012; Irani et al. 2010). Asymmetric relationships between ‘centres’ of colonial power and the ‘periphery’ (Chan 2014) govern the movement of people, activities, concepts and things, including technological and socio-technical systems. As explained next, the way colonialism unfolded and integrated African economies into Western capitalism led to excluding people from accessing electricity and telecommunications. Colonialism also imposes a paradigm for technology production that performs in the identity of innovation, by determining how innovation is embodied and enacted.

Geographies of Electric and Telecoms Capitalisms Prevailing narratives typically locate technology production in Africa in places serviced by electricity and telecommunications. Yet just 45% of Africa’s population lives connected to the electricity grid. Meanwhile, only 21% of people in sub-Saharan Africa regularly use the mobile internet— the principal infrastructure available to connect (GSMA 2018). Often the spatial configuration of electricity infrastructures originates in historic

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routes of occupation and imperial expansion. Infrastructures in Namibia, for instance, inherit patterns that served the strategic interests of the nation’s former occupiers whose military built roads and cleared tracts of lands that segregated people and impeded the movements of liberation armies and people who sought to exile (Widlock 2008). After independence, UN troops extended these roads and tracts, and people (re-)established homesteads off the tracts away from the electricity infrastructure in the main trading centres. Today, half of Namibia’s population dwell rurally (World Bank 2016), and 76% of them are without electricity (Government of Namibia 2017). Some commentators attribute difficulties in connecting electricity in Africa to the costs of metering homes without formal addresses and the illegal diversion of electricity to unserved areas by cartels (e.g. Attia 2018). This interpretation assumes that electricity is a commodity, not a public service and, undeniably, the market dictates provision, which excludes low-income customers (McDonald 2009). For instance, commerce and the mining industry consume nearly 60% of electricity in Namibia (Konrad-­ Adenauer-­Stiftung 2012; Office of the President 2013). In fact, over 60% of Africa’s population live ‘under-the-grid’, unable to access power from infrastructures that are nearby (Attia 2018). Namibia also illustrates McDonald’s (2009) claim that electric capitalism connects geographies of exclusion, since the nation imports 60% of its electricity from countries like Zambia, where 70% of the local population cannot access electricity (World Bank 2016). This situation exists across Africa and is largely controlled, through export and capital expansion, by transnational elites that demand liberalisation, and privatisation of historically public sectors. Eskom Enterprises, for instance, is present throughout the continent, and in South Africa provides industry with abundant supplies of cheap power while charging relatively high prices to households with low consumption (Ruiters 2009). The expansion of imperial and neoliberal capitalism also configures telecommunications in Africa. A few companies value-price cellular and broadband services for markets that can afford their tariffs, while excluding economically impoverished and remote areas from affordable, high quality provision (Avila 2009; Bhagwat et al. 2004). Meanwhile, corporate influence on regulation prevents other providers serving those areas. For instance, policies about spectrum prevent using unused bandwidth to extend coverage. Indeed, electric and telecommunications capitalism illustrates that the ‘postcolony now offers’, as Mbembe (2001, p. 67) writes,

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‘a form of private indirect government and novel technologies of domination’.

Sites of Tech Production Prevailing narratives also understand innovation according to a paradigm that originates outside Africa, in places like Silicon Valley (Chan 2014). Over the last decade, this paradigm has been promoted as replicable across Africa (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2018) by investing in ‘tech hubs’, start-ups, and co-working ‘dev labs’; supporting local Google and Facebook developer groups and events; and, teaching and facilitating methods like design thinking and user-centred design. Along with certain design and development methodologies, this paradigm includes certain ways to define, create, know about and evaluate innovation. It involves particular logics to structure problems and solutions, particular literacies, conceptual and linguistic templates and languages, and particular values, such as about novelty, mobility, scale and efficiency. The ‘universal’ paradigm of technology production in the continent continues processes of extraction and making Africa consumers of products of the colonisers. This includes conceptual aspects of the innovation economy, such as harvesting and controlling data about African populations, and organising and mediating transactions in African markets (UNCTAD 2018). Africa also widely imports hardware manufactured elsewhere, including those made from materials extracted from the continent, such as minerals in cell-phones. Simultaneously, extraction directly contributes to economic inequality between Africa and elsewhere, and within African countries (UNDP 2017), which further feeds into differences between places where most Africans live and where technology is produced. Even when technology production is physically within Africa, power relations ensure that former colonisers benefit. Indeed, a survey of people involved in technology development in 26 countries shows that while Africa’s many tech hubs offer local employment and attract extensive foreign investment, Western actors directly or indirectly profit (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2018). It is reported that 90% of disclosed investments in technology in East Africa, in 2015 and 2016, went to start-ups with European or North American founders (Village Capital 2017). Sometimes advocating for the ‘universal’ paradigm deliberately aims to enculturate an ideology, for instance tech hub evangelists assert that hubs

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create human capacities that better engage with international technology innovation (Csikszentmihalyi et  al. 2018). Other times, the role of the ‘universal’ paradigm reflects colonial legacies in education (Aludhilu and Bidwell 2018) and the influence of external business and technical consultants on digital policies (Paterson 2017). The most recognised tech initiatives in Africa lie in more affluent, urban areas (Avle et  al. 2017) and, together with a technology paradigm from beyond Africa, this tends to create products that are mostly used by wealthy urbanites or benefit elites in other ways (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2018). Indeed, tech hubs are critiqued for products that not only mimic those created elsewhere, but are also often regarded as unsuited to African users and cultural settings (Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2018), such as the rural places where most of the people who are unconnected to the electricity grid actually live. The doctrine of the ‘universal’ paradigm limits imagining other sites of innovation, such as in off-grid rural areas. Consider, for instance, the goals of the Konza ‘technological city’ located 60 km from Nairobi. At a cost of $15 billion, it aims to bring innovators together in an ecosystem of high-­ speed internet, reliable electrical supply, cheap labour, onsite transport and tax reprieves. In critiquing the city for being ‘a white elephant for the majority of Kenyans’, a commentator reiterated the ‘universal’ paradigm by suggesting focus should be ‘on delivering other amenities that would then raise the ability of the country to execute projects such as Konza City’ (Mbaka 2018). Even when technology entrepreneurs integrate their local settings into technology design they continue to valorise ‘universal’ design templates (Avle et al. 2017). Further, the failure of the ‘universal’ paradigm to produce locally appropriate solutions (Csikszentmihalyi et  al. 2018) perpetuates a neocolonial, assimilatory rhetoric that African nations cannot develop without assistance (Irani et al. 2010), and African culture cannot contribute to advancement.

Identities in Innovation The geographies of electricity and telecommunications and the ‘universal’ paradigm are significant in the self-identities of people involved in technology production. Access to tech hubs, and other places recognised for technology production, tends to validate technology entrepreneurs as special kinds of people (Avle et al. 2017; Csikszentmihalyi et al. 2018). The identities of these places, and the people who inhabit them, juxtapose with those in places that are excluded from connectivity, which are usually

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thought of as recipients of technologies made elsewhere. The tools people require to engage in the ‘universal’ paradigm, like laptops and smartphones, are not only more accessible to wealthier people (Avle et al. 2017), but also carry meanings that are shaped by corporate power (Irani et al. 2010). They also converge with telecommunications capitalism, such as devices, applications, accounts and services designed for single users and subscribers (Bidwell 2016). The self-identities of people engaging in the ‘universal’ paradigm of technology production in Africa are also affected by a technology culture that is replete with imperialist superiorities and racism (Applewhite 2018) and a certain ‘language of technology’ (Avle et al. 2017). In fact, African technologists are often more proficient in English than their home languages (Aludhilu and Bidwell 2018). This reality shapes their self-identity and, according to Ngũgı ̃ wa Thiong’o (1994, p. 15), will affect their very being, since language mediates ‘between me and my own self; between my own self and other selves’. African technologists do not, of course, passively acquire identities forged by Western interests and technology ‘universals’, but are active in forming transnational networks through virtual and physical mobilities (Avle and Lindtner 2016). Creating self-identity in this way might appeal to Amartya Sen’s (1999) theory about people’s ‘basic capabilities’ to function free of systems of dependencies and varieties of oppression. Capability theory intends to embrace cultural diversity in considering a person’s ability to do ‘valuable acts’, reach valuable ‘states of being’ and obtain the components of a ‘good life’. However, theorists generally link capability to individualised agency and autonomous political, economic and social freedoms (Hartley 2009), which may differ from values in a ‘community of life’ (e.g. Gyekye 1998; Mbembe 2011). Thus, a paradox exists because achieving the ‘good life’ in the neoliberal context of technology production compels engaging with a specific paradigm at specific sites.

Decolonising by Community Networks So far, I have explored some of the ways in which CNs in Africa are sites for innovation with different identities to those wholly constructed by electric and telecommunications capitalisms and universal paradigms. I now reflect on a survey of 37 CNs in 12 African countries (Rey-Moreno 2017), discuss the annual Summits for Community Networks in Africa (ISOC 2018) and analyse participant experience and ethnographic

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research of rural CNs in South Africa, Uganda and Namibia (e.g. Louwe 2016; Rey-Moreno et al. 2014, 2016). I will organise this account around characteristics of these CNs, including using solar and Wi-Fi, owning and sustaining networks, and learning and using technical skills. And, I will consider postcolonial power relations for each characteristic.

Solar and Wi-Fi CNs are agnostic with respect to the technologies used by the network (Baig et al. 2015). Almost all 37 CNs identified in Rey-Moreno’s study (2017) used solar panels and battery banks to power equipment: a third relied almost entirely on solar electricity, a third with some sites only powered by solar, and most of the rest using batteries as a back-up to grid electricity. When CNs relied on grid electricity, its unreliability and instability affected performance or permanently damaged telecommunications equipment. For instance, the original Groot-Aub CN in Namibia frequently required manual rebooting after power-cuts in grid electricity. Similarly, trickle chargers in a CN in South Africa were damaged by surges when electricity was restored after power-cuts. Some CNs focus on solar electricity to power computers and lights, without connecting to telecommunications, while others use solar to power networking technologies especially Wi-Fi. In the remote, rural town of Pabbo in Uganda, small electronics repair, music and dressmaking shops and a pharmacy, prompted by Bosco Uganda’s computer-based businesses training, continue to exist because they maintain a large solar set-up. In rural South Africa, Zenzeleni Network’s decisions in siting and managing Wi-Fi nodes in the homesteads of traditional authority elders were informed by experiences of solar-powered communal cell-phone charging stations (Bidwell et al. 2013). Harnessing solar power, and to an extent Wi-Fi, enables CNs some economic and operational autonomy and can resist the way that colonialism and neoliberal capitalism configure electricity and telecommunications in Africa. Solar and Wi-Fi can be spatially compatible with the communities that CNs serve. For instance, Zenzeleni aligns with local governance structures because the homesteads of the traditional authority, where nodes are installed, lie on their villages’ highest hills, where Wi-Fi lines of sight are also obtained. Of course, using Wi-Fi and solar do not exist beyond postcolonial relations. First, decentralised solar responds to

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exclusion of low-income people from reliable provision by electricity capitalism, and Wi-Fi is the only affordable equipment operating in unlicensed spectrum bands, which responds to control of technology and telecommunications regulation by corporations and monopolies. Second, the spatial and political structures of contemporary settlement often emerged in colonial expansion. African land was reconfigured by slave raiding and trading; wars, genocides and displacements; segregation policies (e.g. homelands); and by local responses to regional and global dynamics (Bagchi 2012; Swanepoel 2008). European governments often indirectly ruled empires using pre-­existing local power structures to control land and exploit labour (Cook and Kothari 2001). For instance, the British regime in South Africa created village ‘locations’, appropriated traditional hierarchies and exploited nativist conceptions of communalism. Thus, Zenzeleni aligns with local habitation and governance structures that are postcolonial hybrids.

Ownership and Enterprise Most of the CNs that Rey-Moreno (2017) surveyed received funding, and were facilitated by people, from beyond Africa, at least initially. Only three, in Nigeria, Namibia and South Africa, were initiated without external funding. However, models to sustain CNs without external support have emerged. For instance, Zenzeleni received research funding for several years but now sells competitively priced bandwidth to medium and large local businesses to subsidise the purchase of very cheap monthly internet tokens by community members. Founded by community elders, Zenzeleni, which in isiXhosa means ‘do it ourselves’, is embedded with local principles about responsibility for the community. Local traditions were manifested in managing communal solar cell-phone charging stations that predated the Wi-Fi (Bidwell et al. 2013), and in using revenue generated by charging to fund microenterprises. In research and media interviews (e.g. DW Global Society 2018), and while hosting the 3rd African Summit for Community Networks (Internet Society), the elders expressed pride in achieving the first Not-for-Profit Internet Service Provider in South Africa. They explained that they were motivated by the benefits of the internet to younger community members more than to themselves. Practices in other African CNs also connect enterprise to sharing or communal obligations. For instance, in Groot-Aub, Namibia, a man learnt from locally shared media to build electrical tools, that he used to repair local children’s

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bicycles, by repurposing parts from broken washing machines and microwaves (Louwe 2016). And a small CN’s originator used the network to share his internet connection, so women could download videos to assist in teaching at a pre-school they set up (Coffin 2018). Connections between enterprise and sharing or communal obligations in CNs extend locally, nationally and increasingly internationally. For example, the small solar-powered electronics repair businesses in Pabbo, northern Uganda, prompted by Bosco’s business training, have various sharing practices. Three separate shop-owners share tools and assist each other with customers’ repair jobs. They also record advertising jingles played by a local community radio for a small fee that helps the radio station sustain itself. The son of one shop-owner inserts adverts about the businesses into Nollywood movies, that he dubs with audio in local language and distributes nationally. Additionally, all the repair businesses routinely use and share information about electronic components with many similar small businesses across Uganda using WhatsApp groups. Founders, coordinators and members, and owners of enterprises, in all three CNs I studied in detail, directly relate their CNs to people’s efforts and community benefits. This suggests that they conceive value as much in terms of people, or what Jane Guyer (1993) considers ‘wealth in people’, as in terms of the things or money that might result from relations with people. ‘Wealth in people’ contrasts with monetary mechanisms ‘that made inimical kinds of value with different cultural roots, at once objectifiable, comparable and negotiable’, which Comaroff and Comaroff (2014, p.  36) argue lies at the heart of all modern colonialisms. Certainly, Zenzeleni’s model of subsidising community access starkly contrasts with telecommunications monopolies’ market-driven, value pricing of internet services. Yet, on the other hand, the CN payment system is individualistic, as each token links to a personal device.

Learning and Knowing Sharing information within and between CNs illustrates an epistemic agency that differs from capitalist structures that commodify learning to sell in a knowledge economy. For instance, the Pabbo shop-owners developed skills to repair electronic hardware by teaching themselves and learning together. This contrasts with my many informal observations of practices in African cities, where technologists are often reluctant to collaborate because of concerns that others might ‘steal’ their ideas. Most

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African CNs focus on developing people’s abilities to set up and/or use technologies and services in social settings. They situate learning in places that are part of, not apart from, everyday rural life. For instance, Zenzeleni runs practical workshops in  local homesteads that teach young and old community members to install networking equipment, and Bosco arranges computers facing inwards on shared tables to encourage people to share skills and experience according to Luo traditions of ‘Wangoo’. Meanwhile, the three Summits on Community Networks in Africa (ISOC) and the related WhatsApp group exhibit an ethos of information sharing between CNs. The emphasis of CNs on locally derived services also affords local epistemic power. All CNs in Rey-Moreno’s (2017) study offered services that do not require an internet connection, like sharing locally generated content over an intranet, while about half also provided access to internet services, and only a few offered solely internet access. Others provide indirect access to selective content such as by using mule systems. In one instance, community members download content on visits to town that they upload to Groot-Aub’s CN. The emphasis on local services and content means CNs can focus on local languages and literacies and permits some information sovereignty, since an intranet is less vulnerable to external surveillance or data extraction. CNs are typically open, because everyone has the right to know how they are built (Baig et al. 2015), and their independence from centrally controlled infrastructures makes it easier for non-technically educated people to learn to set up, maintain, extend and use the networks and their services. Combined with local practices of learning together and information exchange, this approach contrasts with technocratic process which requires external expertise. Nonetheless, postcolonial relations are inherently implicated in setting up and maintaining equipment. All CNs I studied in detail involve volunteers or staff who gained technical skills in special places like universities in cities. Additionally, community members and technicians occasionally echo neocolonial assimilatory discourses that dismiss African aptitudes. In one case, a technician employed by one CN lacked confidence in his country’s technical skills to deploy a new application across specific internet services offered by all mobile providers. Further, the standards and guidelines associated with the technologies that CNs use are embedded with Western languages and paradigms, which undermines true epistemic sovereignty. As an example, only two CNs in

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Rey-Moreno’s (2017) study had considered surveillance, data extraction and cyber-security training.

Decolonising the Meaning of Innovation Our examples illustrate that CNs in Africa are intractably situated in colonial power relations. Solar power and Wi-Fi align with local spatial and political structures that are postcolonial hybrids and are needed because electricity and telecommunications capitalisms constrain and regulate access. The technologies used are also embedded with Western languages and concepts, such as about individual devices. Yet, existing in the shadows cast by postcolonial neoliberalism, CNs are spaces for decolonising innovation in the ways that their members and users create meanings in everyday life. Oppressed people do not generally experience colonialism by reflecting on institutionalised power relations, like those involved in telecommunications and electric capitalisms or a universal paradigm. Rather, colonialism is part of people’s everyday lived experience and action (Ali 2016; Irobi 2008; Thiong’o 1994). Likewise, decolonisation is an embodied phenomenon that people enact and experience in their everyday lives (Fanon 1994b), where acts of what Mignolo calls ‘decolonialism’, place ‘life (in general) first and institutions at the service of the regeneration of life’ (Mignolo 2010, p. 11).

Creating Identities The emphasis on people who build and use CNs for their own purposes within their own locales offers potential for new meanings about innovation. Some of the values embedded in African CNs, such as open sharing of information and learning together, are reported for other types of decentralised production. For example, in the global north, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) cultures value open sharing, learning and creativity over profit, social capital and commercialisation (Kuznetsov and Paulos 2010), and members of hacker communities work together to maintain their tech relationships (Toombs et  al. 2015). However, people involved in rural African CNs have less individual access to technology than DIYers and hackers in the global north and inhabit societies with different social and cultural norms and values. Indeed, when an African champion of Zenzillini first travelled overseas to participate in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) he noted that the meaning of ‘community’ in the global CN

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definition differed from meanings at home. Community, in the global definition, concerned a common interest in technological connectivity, amongst people participating in the CN (Cho 2008), more than existing relationships within social and geographic locales. This is somewhat like Anderson’s (1991) ‘imagined communities’. In contrast, the community in which Zenzeleni was founded already had an identity. Zenzeleni’s identity consists of ancestral and family ties and social and cultural norms and values, like communality and solidarity (Bidwell et  al. 2013; Bidwell 2016), that are ‘structures of living together’ (Deneulin and Stewart 2000). The mundane acts, norms and values that constitute people’s ordinary settings shape the meanings they associate with learning about, setting up, using, maintaining and governing solar set-ups and Wi-Fi. I do not suggest that African CNs are embedded solely with either local meanings, such as about communality or solidarity, or some essentialist African ontology. To the contrary, the technologies and models to sustain African CNs are already embedded with Western logics. Instead, I suggest that what people experience as ‘valuable acts’ and ‘states of being’ (Sen 1999) perform in their own and their CN’s identities. The worth in these acts is ‘wealth in people’, which is both the most important unit of measurement of value and the material infrastructure of human life (Mbembe 2011). In other words, African CNs are situated in structures of living that have a ‘relational ontology’ (Deneulin and Stewart 2000), which puts human relations first and constructs self-identity and status on a person’s ability to develop and maintain relationships with others. Contemporary interpretations of African relational ontologies, such as in the isiXhosa concept of Ubuntu, do not dualise individualism and communalism since being human involves not only others’ opinions about worthiness with respect to society but also personal agency in utilising relationships with others. Recognising self-identity in terms of ‘wealth in people’ resonates with other examples of technological creativity in the so-called ‘innovation periphery’ (Chan 2014). For instance, hip-hop artists in rural South African backyards value personal aspirations for mainstream success alongside connections with each other and their neighbourhoods (Schoon 2017). Meanwhile, beyond Africa, individual repairers in Bangladesh collaborate to enhance local cultures of technical skill and knowledge (Ahmed et al. 2015).

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Innovation Potential in the Gaps A local intranet, or internet access through solar-powered Wi-Fi, may not support the individual agency familiar to people with privileged access to high speed and ubiquitous internet, who are fluent in the languages and literacies dominating certain internet discourses. Rather, these arrangements have potential for creating different identities in innovation through the ‘valuable acts’ and ‘states of being’ that associate with them. Fanon (1994a, b) maintained that Africans must actively construct their own selfidentity to free themselves from the colonising voices that own and gaze on their identity. He emphasised that one’s own self-­identity is a psychic state that entwines with meanings, politics and sociality. Consider, for instance, his analysis of the contribution of radio-listening to anti-imperial politics and liberation. When Africans gathered together to listen to the Voice of Fighting in Algeria, the transitions were ‘obscured by an incessant jamming’ by the colonial rulers, so that ‘a broadcast could hardly ever be heard from beginning to end.’ (Fanon 1994b). Yet, this broken incompleteness invited listeners to actively fill in the gaps and, thereby, Fanon suggests, give life to alternative meanings (also see Baucom 2001). Addressing gaps in internet and electricity connectivity, effectively caused by a few monolithic companies, is precisely why CNs arose in African countries. Operators and users of African CNs actively fill in these gaps by organising and managing their operations and use in ways that embody local meanings. Consider, for instance, the familiar relationships that contextualise interactions between a user who purchases a voucher to access Zenzeleni’s internet and a neighbour with a Wi-Fi router on their home that is managed as part of a local collective. Mbembe (2017) writing about self-identity, observes: ‘There is no relation to oneself that does not also implicate the Other’. Analogously, the identity of other telecommunications networks, including different CNs and centrally controlled, profit-driven networks, is implicated in the identity of each African CN. Articulating differences between the meanings that people associate with CNs, such as the local definitions of community that Zenzillini’s champion mentioned at the IGF, is important. Firstly, the difference illustrates how a comparative study that finds community-based ICT endeavours and categorises them as CNs (e.g. Rey-Moreno 2017) involves the same privileged logics and associations as the postcolonial regime of technology production (see Avle and Lindtner 2016; Taylor 2011). Secondly, the terms under which a person belongs within a

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community matter to their lived reality as much as their independent rights to act or be. Thirdly, proclaiming differences between meanings, such as the terms of belonging to a community or a CN, is as Mbembe (2017) writes often integral to recovering ‘their share in humanity’ for those who ‘have been subjugated to colonial domination’. Finally, recognising various meanings constructed by various communities is significant because agency entwines with recognition (McNay 2008). As a consequence of different meanings voiced by CNs in Africa and elsewhere, the global definition of a CN has been amended to embrace diverse meanings of community. The revised definition better accounts for existing relationships amongst inhabitants that extend beyond people’s interest in technological connectivity and shaped by local structures of living together. This shows that CNs’ collective conversations, about their differences and similarities, generate new contexts for meaning-making about CNs more generally. At the same time a united voice about CNs in Africa has strengthened appeals to government for regulatory changes. Zenzeleni Networks, for instance, has significantly contributed to policy discussions about spectrum licensing in South Africa, and this experience has informed advocacy elsewhere on the continent. Indeed, just recently, in February 2019, Murambinda Works CN submitted a response to Zimbabwe’s governmental consultation on light licensing in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. Thus, I propose that conversations in the gaps, created by electric and telecommunications capitalisms and a ‘universal’ paradigm, subvert the post/neocolonial power relations that control the identities of African innovation. These conversations reflect a relational ontology that, in contrast with extractive monetary mechanisms, conceives value in terms of the worth of people. Acknowledgements  I thank Carlos Rey-Moreno and the Association for Progressive Communications Local Access Project for support. Some of this work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada, as part of the APC project ‘Community access networks: How to connect the next billion to the Internet’. I also thank Achille Mbembe, Chris Csikszentmihalyi and Tigist Shewarega Hussen for comments on preliminary drafts of parts of this chapter. Most especially, my enduring appreciation goes to the many rural people in Africa who patiently helped me to understand local perspectives over the years.

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CHAPTER 7

The Commodification of Mobile Communications in Cuba: Tracking Political and Economic Change Carol Muñoz Nieves

Introduction Mobile communication services in contemporary Cuba are considered significantly expensive bearing in mind the salaries of the state-employed workers, which represent 71% of the country’s employed population. Although a state-owned company in Cuba is the sole provider of mobile services, the price for hiring a cell phone line is more than the median monthly nominal salary of the state-employed population. In theory, a state worker can spend their entire monthly wage with just 88 minutes of mobile calling (ETECSA 2017a, c; ONEI 2017a, pp. 11, 13). The fact that economic gains seem to be determining the state provision of mobile services suggests the existence of processes of commodification. In the field of Critical Political Economy, commodification is defined as the process through which exchange values become the principal means

C. M. Nieves (*) Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_7

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of organising the production and social provision of use values (Fuchs 2012; Harvey 2014; Mosco 2009). Such a process results in contradictory outcomes for various reasons. First, the provission of mobile communication services at high prices when compared to wages diminishes the discretionary income available to labour (Harvey 2014), and so Cuban citizens have expressed discontent with the current pricing in various forums (Abd’Allah-Alvarez 2014; Recio 2014, p.  364). For several years now, prices for Internet and wireless services have been widely discussed in the comments section of the government’s website Cubadebate. This online medium has become the main platform for announcing new services or changes associated with the Cuban telecommunications company ETECSA. In addition, commentators identified as ‘representatives of ETECSA’ reply to the enquiries, suggestions and criticisms of other participants. Secondly, the current situation in the delivery of mobile communication services differs from the state management of fixed telephone services, which are relatively low priced compared to mobile communications (ETECSA 2017b). Meanwhile, the facilitation of mobile communications countrywide is different when compared with the initial transformations that the Cuban telephone system experienced after the triumph of the Revolution led by Fidel Castro in January 1959. Affordable and widely distributed telephony services were among the first social achievements under the emerging state socialist government today (Nichols and Torres 1998; Recio 2014). Thirdly, several scholars highlight that, under the Cuban socialist project, universal access and egalitarian distribution characterise the social provision of health and education, and the delivery of basic food products via the state (Carranza et al. 1996; Green 1996; Pérez Villanueva 2012). These have been described as forms of social provision based on use values in the historical context of the Cuban Revolution (Green 1996). Thus, why is the delivery of mobile communication services different from other state-managed sectors—and even fixed telecommunications services? What are the political and economic logics behind it? This chapter offers answers to these questions by looking at the particular articulation of processes of commodification in Cuba’s mobile services since the 1990s. Overall, I observe that commodification is mostly a state-­led strategy to capture hard currency that enters the domestic economy through various sources: tourism, foreign enterprises established in the island, and, more significantly, in the form of remittances (people-to-­people income transfers sent to Cubans from family or friends living overseas).

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Data Gathering In terms of methodology, the main technique for data collection was documentary research. This involved extensive surveys of books and academic articles of Cuban and foreign scholars (written in English or Spanish), but also of party and government documents, and press reports. It also included extracting data from the official website of the Cuban telecommunications company ETECSA, and consulting official statistics in relation to telecommunications and employment published by ONEI (Cuba’s National Office for Statistics and Information, ‘ONEI’ is its acronym in Spanish).

Political Economy of Commodification In The Political Economy of Communication (2009), Mosco conceives of commodification as one of the three main processes that make up the starting points for political economy research. Thus, Mosco defines commodification as ‘the process of turning use values into exchange values, of transforming products whose value is determined by their ability to meet individual and social needs into products whose value is set by their market price’ (2009, p. 132). As for the commodity in itself, it is the particular form that products take when their production is principally organised through the process of exchange (Mosco 2009, p.  129). Similarly, Christian Fuchs identifies commodity/commodification as an important category for critical political economy studies, and defines commodification as the transformation of a social relationship into an exchange relationship between buyer and seller (2012, p. 401). As per the definitions of use and exchange values in a given context, Fuchs and Mosco establish that the use value of media and media technologies lies primarily in their capacity to provide information, enable communication and advance the creation of culture (2012, p. 133). When the social production and/or provision of use values are determined by their exchange values, the media take on the commodity form. At this point, ‘money is an exchange value in relation to the media’ (Fuchs and Mosco 2012, p. 133). According to these authors, the monetary price of media products represents the exchange value side of information and communication, whereas media and technologies are concrete products representing the use-value side of information and communication.

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The literature on communications industries also indicates that historical forms of social provision leaning towards use values relate to principles of universal access, public interest and public service (Garnham 2012; Mosco 2009). On the other hand, forms of social provision articulated around exchange values emphasise principles of market position and profitability (Garnham 2012; Mosco 2009). This present study seeks to analyse how and why a public telecom and wireless system in Cuba that should exhibit social commitments to public interest and public service has been transformed into a commercial endeavour that provides access and services to only the few who can afford them.

Political and Economic Context of Introducing Mobiles in Cuba The introduction of mobile communications in Cuba occurred in the midst of the economic crisis and restructuring that followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s. For several reasons detailed below, mobile services were managed through a different logic when compared to the state management of fixed telephone communications. At the time of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, U.S. capitalist investors controlled more than one-third of the country’s public utilities. Specifically, they dominated domestic and international telecommunications and controlled 90% of electricity generating capacity (Hoffmann 2004, p. 134; Nichols and Torres 1998, pp. 20–21; Pericás 2014, p. 55). In this context, telephony services exhibited high prices, and consequently were affordable to certain wealthy sectors of the Cuban society (Recio 2014, p.  306). Also, its territorial distribution was highly uneven. In 1958, 73% of installed telephone services were in the capital, Havana, where only 20% of the population resided (Hoffmann 2004, p. 155; Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 22). However, the telephony system was among the first sectors fully nationalised by the new government of Fidel Castro. Revolutionary interventions (also called ‘temporary takeovers’) in the Cuban Telephone Company, a subsidiary of U.S.-based International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), started as early as March 3rd, 1959, with full nationalisation happening on August 6th, 1960 (Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 21; Recio 2014, p. 306). After these events, prices for fixed lines dropped and became affordable for the majority of the population (Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 24; Recio 2014, pp. 308–309).

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Also, the telephony system’s territorial distribution grew to reflect its social use value rather than its commercial value. By 1982, the number of landline telephones nationwide had nearly doubled, with only 56% of new services installed in the capital, and the rest in the provinces (Recio 2014, p. 307; Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 22). Nonetheless, the disappearance of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe resulted in a massive economic crisis where Cuba’s GDP shrank by 34.8% in the four years following 1990 (Eckstein 2007, p. 13; Vidal 2012, p.  40). At the time of the collapse, trade accounted for approximately half of Cuba’s gross national product (GDP), and Soviet allied countries accounted for 85% of that trade (Eckstein 2007, p. 233; Morris 2014, p. 15). This crisis was aggravated by the strengthening of the U.S. blockade and internal factors related to inefficiencies in the state-­ managed economy (Vidal 2012, p. 40). To confront the crisis, the government advanced various strategies, such as attracting new sources of investments, and re-orienting existing capital to the most strategic sectors (Carranza et al. 1996, p. 12; Eckstein 2007, p. 13; Pearson 1996, p. 2). In this context, between 1994 and 1995, the existing Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise (EMTELCUBA, for its acronym in Spanish) was partially privatised through a 1.1 billion USD joint venture agreement with a foreign capitalist partner (Hoffmann 2004, pp. 157–159; Nichols and Torres 1998, pp. 27–28; Recio 2014, p. 311). The joint venture was formed as a Sociedad Anónima (stock company) named ETECSA, a new Spanish acronym for Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise S.A. Through a presidential decree, ETECSA was granted an administrative concession on all national and international telephone services, signals conduction, data transmission and telex communications. At present, ETECSA remains Cuba’s full telecommunications and wireless services provider (Recio 2014, p. 311). Mobile communications were also introduced in Cuba in the 1990s and fell under ETECSA’s complete administration in early 2000 (Hoffmann 2004, pp. 160, 178–179; Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 28; Recio 2014, pp. 301, 321). While privatisations could have influenced the subsequent commodification of mobile and other telecom services after 2000, this explanation alone does not account for the fact that ETECSA became fully state-­ owned again in 2011—at the time, a state financial company, Rafin, bought the remaining 29.29 actions owned by then by Telecom Italy. Domos had sold its holdings to Telecom Italia in late 1990s due to pressures from the U.S. Government (Hoffmann 2004, p. 157; Recio 2014,

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p.  304). Because mobile communication services are still commodified today, one can assume that there should be a political and economic explanation for commodification that does not relate solely to the partial capitalist ownership over the company from the mid-1990s until 2011. This will be explored further in the following sections.

Mobile Services from 1993 to 2008: Commodification in Tourism and Trade As noted in the previous sections, the early 1990s was a period of reorientation of the Cuban economy towards looking for new sources of capital through the allowance of higher levels of foreign direct investments (Carranza et al. 1996, p. 12; Gómez et al. 2006, p. 247). The partial privatisation of the state-owned telephone system in the hands of foreign capitalist partners (first, Grupo Domos of Mexico, and later, Telecom Italy) was not the only action in the telecoms field. Mobile telephony was introduced in this period also through a joint venture agreement with other Mexican investors. The Cellular Telephone Company of Cuba (CUBACEL) was established in 1992 and Telecomunicaciones de Mexico S.A. (TIMSA) paid 8 million USD for a 50% stake in it (Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 28; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 2). Though initially separated from ETECSA, the national telecom carrier, CUBACEL too was institutionally subordinated to the Ministry of Communications, until it became a division of ETECSA in 2003 (Hoffmann 2004, p. 160; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 4; Recio 2014, p. 321). The network started operations in February 1993 in Havana, and in 1995 it spread to the tourist beach resort of Varadero, a two-hour-drive east of the capital (Hoffmann 2004, p. 160; Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 28). By the 2000s, the mobile network was available in all provincial capitals (Hoffmann 2004, p. 161; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 3–4). Mobile communication services were commodified early on, and had foreign residents and tourists, as well as foreign businesses, organisations or diplomatic missions on the Island, as exclusive consumers. Only foreigners had the legal capability of hiring mobile services as individual/ natural persons (Hoffmann 2004, pp.  160–161; Recio 2014, p.  312). Cuban citizens with residency on the island were not lawfully allowed to hire a cell phone line until 2008, while these communication devices were

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not sold in the country’s stores until the same year (ETECSA 2008; Pérez Villanueva 2012, p. 27; Recio 2014, p. 312). Furthermore, in an expression of broader transformations occurring in the national economy to confront the crisis, prices were established in hard currency (Hoffmann 2004, p. 160; Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 28; Recio 2014, p. 312). The U.S. dollar was introduced as a legal currency for domestic transactions in early 1990s (Carranza et  al. 1996, p.  19; Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 16; Vidal 2012, p. 39). However, dollarisation was partial, because the Cuban or ‘national’ peso (CUP) was still used for the payment of salaries and storage of value in many areas of the economy whereas the U.S. dollar began to be used in emerging areas such as tourism, foreign investments and remittances (people-to-people cross-border income transfers sent to Cubans from family or friends living overseas) (Carranza et al. 1996, p. 19; Eckstein 2007, p. 233; Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 16; Vidal 2012, pp. 39, 41). Further, the government allowed its people to keep bank accounts in U.S. dollars, State stores made retail sales in dollars, and the number of enterprises that operated and paid taxes in dollars also increased (Vidal 2012, p.  41). Dollarisation extended until 2003 and 2004, when the ‘convertible’ Cuban peso, or CUC (another domestic currency that had first been issued in 1994) began to replace the U.S. dollar in  local transactions (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 16; Vidal 2012, p. 39). Since then, although the economy had no longer been formally dollarised, the CUC started to circulate as the internal equivalent to the dollar. It is worthwhile to state that the relationship between commodification and dollarisation is crucial to understand the commodification, not only of mobile services but also of other sectors of the Cuban economy. In 1994, within just eight months of operation of the domestic mobile network, over 400 subscribers were paying 40 USD monthly to hire a line plus 30–40 cents per min for the service (Nichols and Torres 1998, p. 28). By the time mobile services became available to Cuban citizens in 2008, prices had escalated to 111 CUC per line (at the time, this was equivalent to 120 USD), and 65 cents per minute of service (Del Valle 2014, para. 16; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 6). This represents a clear example of the commodification of telecommunications services in Cuba by a state-­ owned enterprise. The commodification of mobile services as a means of capturing hard currency relates to an increase in foreign endeavours on the island, the circulation of hard currency and the growth of international tourism as a

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key economic activity since early 1990s. Tourism was the state-managed sector that maintained the most stable growth levels from 1990 to 1995 (Carranza et  al. 1996, p.  13). Foreign direct investments were initially concentrated in this sector alone, and then expanded to other areas (Gómez et al. 2006, p. 249). In 1996, Cuba started receiving more than a million tourists per year; however, the net income from these was shared with foreign investors (Carranza et  al. 1996, pp.  11, 13; Gómez et  al. 2006, p. 234). It was not long before mobile services were installed in government offices as well, in what Nichols and Torres called ‘a stop-gap measure until the wired system could be overhauled’ (1998: 28). With time, the provision of these services increased, depending on state priorities and institutional hierarchies (Hoffmann 2004, pp.  160–161). According to Hoffmann, in 2002, the most important clientele were still foreigners residing on the island, but the percentage of subscribers who were representatives of Cuban institutions and companies—‘leading functionaries or managers of important joint-ventures or state companies’—had grown (2004, p. 160). Moreover, the provision of these services was mostly subsidised for state enterprises. Recio (2014, pp.  348–349) mentions that, under the economic restructuring advanced by Raul Castro’s government since 2008, ETECSA started charging other state institutions considering real costs in hard currency, implying that this was not the contractual basis established before. In 2003, the two existing cell phone operators by then, Cubacel and CCom, were unified into a division of ETECSA (Recio 2014, p. 321). A significant growth in investments for mobile telephony for 2004–2008 was projected, which would account for no less than one third of total investments in telecommunications (Hoffmann 2004, pp. 161–162; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 5). However, this expansion was at the cost of slowing down the extension of the main line network (Hoffmann 2004, pp. 161–162). Furthermore, Hoffmann observed that this projected rise was not directed towards achieving universal services, but rather it was concentrated in the dollarised sectors of the economy and among the personnel of political and social institutions deemed most important by state authorities (2004, pp. 161–162). In his view, this turn confirmed that the main priority in Cuba’s telecommunications policy was to improve the technological facilities for those that either promised hard currency earnings or that were closely linked to the official structures of the socialist state (Hoffmann 2004, pp. 161–162). To some extent, the increases in

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prices from the mid-1990s to 2008 (from 40 to 120 USD for hiring a cell phone line) confirm Hoffmann’s argument that the main reason to commodify mobile services was to capture hard currency. But other non-commodified forms of social provision also started in this period, with emphasis on reducing regional inequalities in access to telephony. In 2005, a new service known as alternative fixed telephony (TFA for its acronym in Spanish) was introduced in various rural areas that did not have access to the fixed telephone network (Del Valle 2010; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 7–8). TFA uses cellular infrastructure to support a fixed-end device (Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 7–8). According to a press report published on the Government’s website Cubadebate, 132,000 TFAs were in service by the end of 2007 with 128,000 as residential phones, and 4000 as public phones in service centres (Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 7–8). In 2007 alone, 547 TFAs were installed in 171 settlements with more than 300 inhabitants, accounting for an overall reach of 88,480 people (Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 7–8). Moreover, TFA’s tariffs were not similar to regular mobile lines but were established in national currency and at the considerably lower prices than fixed-line telephony (ETECSA 2017b; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 7–8). In general, from 1994 to 2008, mobile communication amenities were not a commodity that could be bought by Cuban citizens. Access and use depended on social priorities or the economic or political role of an individual, always evaluated by state authorities. At the same time, cellular services were commodified with the specific purpose of capturing hard currency from tourists and foreign residents and businesses in the island. So, as indicated in many sections above, from the start of mobile telecommunications in Cuba in 1993 until 2008, there was a period of ongoing commodification of services. Nevertheless, these were not envisioned as services that would profit from Cuban workers or the general population. However, this situation changed in 2008, when the government authorised access to mobile telephony by Cuban citizens with residency on the island. Prices were maintained in hard currency, and as such, the government had entered into an extractive relationship with its citizens (Del Valle 2014; Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 57; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 6; Recio 2014, p. 312).

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From 2008 to 2017: Commodification of Mobile Services and New Government Priorities In 2008, a generalised process of commodification of mobile services that took place positioned individual Cuban citizens as consumers. These transformations related to the election of Raúl Castro as Head of State and the advancement of a major project of administrative and structural changes known as ‘actualización’ (updating) of the economic model (Recio 2014, p. 347). On July 31st, 2006, Fidel Castro resigned from his position as President of the Council of State and Government and temporarily appointed the First Vice-President (also his brother), Raúl Castro (Castro 2006). On July 26th, 2007, Raúl gave a speech in which he discussed the serious economic situation facing the nation and the imperatives to undertake ‘structural and conceptual changes’ (Castro 2007, para. 83). These economic transformations started in 2007 with a focus on urgent problems such as putting uncultivated land into production and adjusting imports to deal with the current account crisis, combined with a first round of elimination of ‘an excess of prohibitions and regulations’ (Castro 2008, para. 74). The initial prohibitions that were dismantled at that time included legalising the sale of cellular telephones and computers and allowing Cuban residents to hire mobile lines (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 57; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 6; Triana 2014, p. 229). According to Raúl, many of these prohibitions have had ‘the sole objective of avoiding the emergence of new inequalities, at a time of widespread shortages, even at the cost of not receiving certain income’ (Castro 2008, para. 74). Raúl’s leadership was consolidated when he was officially elected president of the Council of State and Government in 2008. The main bases for updating the economic model were outlined in ‘Los Lineamientos’, a set of policy guidelines discussed in neighbourhoods, workplaces and party branches between 2010 and 2011, and officially approved during the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in April 2011 (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 1; Resolution on the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution 2011; Triana 2014, p. 229). Overall, the economic and social policy of Raul’s Government started to be characterised by an increased emphasis on economic efficiency and the elimination of free services and subsidies that prevailed in previous epochs (Mesa-Lago & Pérez-López 2013, pp.  23–24; Recio 2014,

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p. 347). This new approach had important implications for the management of the Cuban telecom company, ETECSA. The enterprise started to charge actual costs in hard currency to other state institutions that had previously been subsidised, and profitability became a guiding principle for service implementation (Recio 2014, pp. 348–349). Furthermore, at the same time that the Government dismantled prohibitions associated with individual access to wireless, telecom and ICT services, Los Lineamientos did not contain any mention to the potential role of tele and/or wireless communications as a factor of development (Recio 2014, p. 349). These major policy guidelines already suggested that, under the new government, tele and wireless communications were positioned as sources of profit that resulted from the commodification of services, rather than as strategic investments for social development. In April 2008, when the government authorised access to mobile telephony by Cuban citizens with residency on the island (along with the sale of these devices and computers in the country’s hard currency stores), and prices for these were established (again) in hard currency: 111 Cuban Convertibles (CUC) for hiring a cell phone line, and 0.65 CUC per minute of service for both senders and receivers (Del Valle 2014, para. 16; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 6). At the time, the cost of hiring mobile services was approximately six times the median monthly nominal salary of the state employed population in 2008 was 415 Cuban Pesos (CUP), equivalent to 17.3 CUC (ONEI 2011). A press note of ETECSA published in the official diary of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma, on March 27th, 2008, justified why the prices were offered in hard currency as follows: This service [mobile telephony] will be offered in CUC [the internal currency equivalent to the US dollar], which will allow the development of wired connectivity that has an important role in the informatization of society, as well as the introduction of new telephone services in national currency. (ETECSA 2008, para. 6; original in Spanish)

In other words, the official explanation for prices in hard currency was that revenues would be channelled to the development of wired connections which were considered essential for the expansion of fixed lines (paid for in Cuban Peso, at relatively affordable prices), and for the overarching project of ‘Informatization of Society’ (ETECSA 2008, para. 6). However, it is difficult to assess this argument because there is no data publicly

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available about the specific allocations and redistributions of ETECSA’s investments and profits (Recio 2014, p. 311). In June 2010, the tariff per minute was reduced to 0.45 cents CUC between 7 a.m. and 10:59 p.m., and to 0.10 CUC between 11  p.m. and 6:59  a.m. (Del Valle 2010, para. 4). At that time, ETECSA also implemented the ‘caller pays’ modality. Until then, the company had appropriated, in a prepaid model, twice the cost of calls (Recio 2014, p. 312). In 2013, the regular tariff reached 0.35 CUC, and this remained the case until the end of 2017 (Del Valle 2014, para. 16; ETECSA 2017a, c; Recio 2014, p. 312). Moreover, from 2010 to 2013, several promotions occasionally lowered the prices for hiring cell phone lines and, by the end of 2013, the current tariff of 30 CUC plus a mandatory initial credit of 10 CUC were already established (Del Valle 2014, para. 16; ETECSA 2017a, c; Pérez Salomón 2015, para. 6). In general, mobile services delivered by state-run ETECSA were highly expensive when compared to the median monthly nominal salary of the state-employed population, which in 2016 represented 71% of the overall employed population (ONEI 2017a, p. 11). In the same year, the average monthly nominal salary in this significant sector was 740 Cuban pesos (CUP) (an equivalent of 30.8 CUC) (ONEI 2017a, p. 13). The price for hiring a cell phone line plus the mandatory credit was just less than the entire monthly wage, while 30.8 CUC would only buy 88  minutes for mobile calling (ETECSA 2017a). Nonetheless, in spite of high prices, the number of mobile subscribers increased significantly after the Government allowed Cubans to access these services. Mobile lines rose from 223,000 in April 2008, when restrictions were dismantled, to 4.2 million in May 2017 (for an overall population of 11.3 million inhabitants in 2016) (Figueredo Reinaldo 2017; ITU 2016; ONEI 2017b). Just between 2006 and 2010, the number of cellular lines increased by six and a half times, from 153,000 to 1 million (Mesa-Lago & Pérez-López 2013, p. 57).

Commodification as Hard Currency Capture How is it possible for the Cuban population to afford mobile communication services? Various sectors of society receive an extra income via legal channels, including work in the emerging private sector, or even illegal activities, through which Cubans ‘complete’ the state salary (Eckstein 2007, p. 240; Recio 2014, pp. 313–314). But in particular, mobile services seem to be paid for through remittances, which are people-to-people cross-border income transfers sent to Cubans from family or friends living

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overseas (Eckstein 2007, p. 240). These movements of value have greatly infused domestic circulation with hard currency since the early 1990s, also associated with the processes of dollarisation of Cuba’s formal and informal economy (Eckstein 2007, p. 240; Vidal 2012, p. 40). Remittances sent to Cubans from relatives and other networks living abroad surged in early 1990 to the point of infusing more hard currency into the island’s economy than any single island export (Eckstein 2007, p.  240). They approximately doubled the amount foreign businesses invested in Cuba in 2000, and multiplied by 20 the investments gained since 2001 (Eckstein 2007). Remittances are now the main support of the dollarised retail sector of the island, and their value exceeds that of six of the most important export commodities and services of the Cuban economy. By 2015, Cuba’s receipt of remittances in cash and merchandise totalled 6.85 billion USD, while the combined value of exports of nickel, sugar, drugs, tobacco and fresh and frozen seafood, and of tourism sales, amounted to about 5 billion USD (Morales 2017, para. 8). Since the emergence of this phenomenon, the Cuban Government introduced a number of measures that enabled the state to capture this hard currency. State-run foreign-currency stores (popularly known as TRD, the Spanish acronym for tiendas recaudadoras de divisas) were created in the mid-1990s with the purpose of selling goods to the population able to pay in hard currencies, as well as to foreigners visiting or residing on the Island (Eckstein 2007, p. 242; Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p.  16). This was accompanied by the emergence of state-run currency exchange agencies known as CADECA (the Spanish acronym for Casa de Cambio), the only ones legally authorised to pursue currency exchanges (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p.  16). Meanwhile, goods sold through the rationing system in Cuban pesos at prices comparable to state salaries progressively diminished in quantity and quality (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 16; Vidal 2012, p. 42). Cuban authorities justified an ideal mark-up of 240% above cost at these hard currency stores on equity grounds (Eckstein 2007, p. 242). The official argument was that high prices served as a de facto luxury tax that financed the free health and education system and other social accomplishments (Eckstein 2007, p. 242; Hoffmann 2004, p. 175). However, Eckstein (2007) argues that the authorities instituted no guarantee that profits would be channelled to such distributive justice, and that there is no evidence that the profits were so earmarked. Although my position is not so suspicious of the motives of this particular state policy, this research confirms that there is no

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information publicly available about profits redistribution springing from this 240% tax above cost at TRD stores. Since cellular telephones and services, as well as Internet access, became available to Cuban citizens in 2008 and 2012, respectively, they have been sold as any other TRD commodity—in commercial offices of ETECSA or in traditional TRD stores (ETECSA 2017a, c; Mesa-Lago and Pérez-­ López 2013, p. 16). Their exchange values are expressed in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), the internal equivalent to the dollar (Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López 2013, p. 16; Recio 2014, p. 323). Therefore, the broader strategy of the Cuban Government to extract hard currency from the remittances seems to be also configuring mobile communications. They have become another significant state-managed domain in which hard currency is captured from the sphere of circulation as it is significantly infused by remittances. Probably, the clearest indicator of this character is the international payments services, or ‘top-up from abroad’ (recarga desde el exterior), that ETECSA has strongly promoted in the last years (ETECSA 2017d). From its very name, it can be noticed that this service is conceived as a form of ‘remittances in kind’. Through this service, payments of cellular lines, calling credit, Internet accounts and international fixed lines administered by ETECSA could be facilitated via hard currency transactions either online or personally, in agencies of five foreign countries (ETECSA 2017d). In a press interview, ETECSA’s President Mayra Arevich Marín explicitly mentioned the backbone role of the ‘top-ups from abroad’ and international voice and roaming services in the development of the sector: It is important that we continue with our exportable services—international top-ups, with international voice and roaming services—which guarantee the necessary finances to buy the equipment that allows the development of the infrastructure. (Rubio 2015, para. 35; original in Spanish)

The relationship between the remittances, the TRD scheme and the further commodification of mobile and Internet services is an example of how commodification processes at work in the society as a whole penetrate communication processes and institutions, so that improvements and contradictions in the societal commodification process influence communication as a social practice (Mosco 2009, p. 130). Interestingly though, it was not until Raul Castro’s administration in 2008 that commodification was fully generalised in the state delivery of mobile services. This confirms the

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economistic turn in the social policies advanced by the new government in the context of the actualización (updating) of the economic model, which emphasises economic efficiency and the progressive elimination of some of the free services and subsidies that prevailed in previous epochs (Mesa-­ Lago and Pérez-López 2013; Recio 2014; Resolution on the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution 2011).

Conclusion This chapter argues that, on the side of the Cuban state, the current commodification of mobile communications is a strategy for capturing hard currency that enters domestic circulation mostly in the form of remittances (but also through tourism, and foreign enterprises established on the island). However, this is not the only factor in this regard. This is primarily because, as highlighted above, the processes of commodification of Cuba’s mobile communications system also reflect the fact that Cuba is dependent on technological transfer for developing its mobile communication sector, thus the state-managed ETECSA has to afford technologies and infrastructure at global market prices (Rubio 2015, para. 34–36). Meanwhile, the U.S. boycott of the Cuban socialist project has affected the development of the economy and all political decision-making processes since 1959 (Green 1996; Gómez et al. 2006; Guerra and Loyola 2011). Only in the telecom sector, Cuban authorities have calculated losses of 2000 million USD since 1962 due to the U.S. financial and commercial blockade (Recio 2014, p. 305). Moreover, the partial dollarisation of an economy shows the disciplinary effects that spring from global regimes of financial imperialism. Although dollarisation was presented as a government decision in mid-­1990s, Cuba had little options at that time. According to Cuban economist Pavel Vidal (2012), partial dollarisation was an aspect of the economic policy adopted to confront the crisis and its associated fiscal and monetary disequilibria. This is because, in order to ensure economic recovery, Cuba had to provide a currency that was more stable than the Cuban peso to be used in the economic activities that would drive the recovery process (Vidal 2012, p. 41). In this sense, state-led strategies to capture hard currency appear as justified if the state manages to redistribute these values. However, information about investments and redistributions of ETECSA’s revenues, and of the whole TRD scheme, should be made publicly available to better assess these state policies. Taking these

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factors into account, this article provides empirical evidence about the complex processes through which the delivery of mobile services in Cuba has become a commercial endeavour where access and services are provided to those who can afford them. In spite of the country’s constraints, the state provision of mobile services at high prices when compared to the wages is a worrisome situation. The fact that prices for mobile communications are the same for all Cubans—those who receive remittances and those who do not; those who work in areas of the economy engaged with foreign capital and those who do not—fuels the growth of social inequalities. With careful observation of the economic and political constraints in which Cuba has developed its wireless and telecom system, policy changes that aim to transform these inequalities in access and uses of mobile communications in Cuba should be brought to the table.

References Abd’Allah-Alvarez Ramírez, S. (2014, June 21). Se intensifica el debate sobre el acceso a Internet en Cuba [blog post]. Retrieved from https://es.globalvoices.org/2014/06/21/se-intensifica-el-debatesobre-el-acceso-a-internet-en-cuba/ Carranza Valdés, J., Gutiérrez Urdaneta, L., & Monreal González, P. (1996). Cuba: Restructuring of the economy—a contribution to the debate. Translation and Foreword by R.  Pearson. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London. Castro Ruz, F. (2006). Proclamation by the Commander in Chief to the people of Cuba. Retrieved from http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2006/ing/ f310706i.html Castro Ruz, R. (2007). Discurso pronunciado por el Primer Vicepresidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, General de Ejército Raúl Castro Ruz, en el acto central con motivo del aniversario 54 del asalto a los cuarteles Moncada y Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, en la Plaza de la Revolución Mayor General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz de la ciudad de Camagüey, el 26 de julio del 2007, “Año 49 de la Revolución”. In Granma. Retrieved from http://www.granma. cu/granmad/secciones/raul26/ Castro Ruz, R. (2008). Discurso pronunciado por el compañero Raúl Castro Ruz, Presidente de los Consejos de Estado y de Ministros, en las conclusiones de la sesión constitutiva de la VII Legislatura de la Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular. Palacio de las Convenciones, La Habana, 24 de febrero de 2008, “Año 50 de la Revolución”. Retrieved from http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/ rauldiscursos/2008/esp/r240208e.html

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Del Valle, A. E. (2010, April 21). Rebajarán tarifas para llamadas de telefonía móvil en Cuba [Press article]. Juventud Rebelde. Retrieved from http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2014-03-11/ensanchar-la-linea-al-cliente Del Valle, A.  E. (2014, March 11). Ensanchar la línea al cliente [Press article]. Juventud Rebelde. Retrieved from http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/ cuba/2014-03-11/ensanchar-la-linea-al-cliente Eckstein, S. (2007). Transnational ties and transformation of Cuban socialism. In D. Lane (Ed.), The transformations of state socialism: System change, capitalism or something else (pp. 233–249). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba) (2008, March 27). Ampliación de los servicios de telecomunicaciones en Cuba [Press note]. Granma. Retrieved from http://www.granma.cu/granmad/2008/03/28/ nacional/artic05.html ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba) (2017a). Tarifas/Telefonía Móvil. Retrieved from http://www.etecsa.cu/telefonia_movil/tarifas/ ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba) (2017b). Tarifas/Telefonía Fija. Retrieved from http://www.etecsa.cu/telefonia_fija/tarifas/ ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba) (2017c). Contratación y activación. Retrieved from http://www.etecsa.cu/telefonia_movil/ contratacion_y_activacion/ ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba) (2017d). Recargas. Retrieved from http://www.etecsa.cu/telefonia_movil/recargas/ Figueredo Reinaldo, O. (2017, May 11). ETECSA tiene la palabra (+ Infografías y Video) [Press article]. Retrieved from http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2017/05/11/etecsa-tiene-la-palabra-infografia-y-video/#.WfuSjNCnFaS Fuchs, C. (2012). Towards Marxian Internet Studies. tripleC, 10(2), 392–412. Fuchs, C., & Mosco, V. (2012). Introduction: Marx is back—The importance of Marxist theory and research for Critical Communication Studies today. tripleC, 10(2), 127–140. Garnham, N. (2012) [1986]. Contributions to a Political Economy of Mass-­ Communication. In M.G. Durham & D.M. Kellner (Eds.), (2012) Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks (pp. 166–185). UK: John Wiley and Sons. Gómez Moreno, G., Pérez García, J. A., & García Valdés, C. M. (2006) [2002]. El período especial: posibilidades de la estrategia y la política. In Colectivo de autores (2006) Economía Política de la Construcción del Socialismo: Fundamentos Generales (pp. 231–262). La Habana: Félix Varela. Green, B. (1996). Capital and class in Cuban development: Restructuring the socialist economy (Unpublished Master’s dissertation). British Columbia: Simon Fraser University. Retrieved from http://summit.sfu.ca/item/7187 Guerra Vilaboy, S., & Loyola Vega, O. (2011). Cuba. Una historia. Bogotá: Ocean Sur.

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Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen contradictions and the end of capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoffmann, B. (2004). The politics of the internet in third world development. Challenges in contrasting regimes with case studies of Costa Rica and Cuba. New York: Routledge. ITU (International Telecommunications Union). (2016). Mobile-cellular subscriptions 2000–2016 [Excel spreadsheet] Retrieved from http://www.itu. int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx Mesa-Lago, C., & Pérez-López, J. F. (2013). Cuba under Raul Castro: assessing the reforms. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Morales, E. (2017, April 27). Analysis: Cuba remittances and the shifting pattern of Cuban emigration. Cuba Trade Magazine. Retrieved from http://www. cubatrademagazine.com/analysis-cuba-remittances-shifting-patterncuban-emigration/ Morris, E. (2014). Unexpected Cuba. New Left Review, 88, 5–45. Mosco, V. (2009). The political economy of communication: Rethinking and renewal (2nd ed.). London: Sage. Nichols, J. S., & Torres, A. M. (1998). Cuba. In E. M. Noam (Ed.), Telecommunications in Latin America (pp. 17–35). New York: Oxford University Press. ONEI (Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información) (2011). Capítulo 7: Empleo y salarios. In Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2010. Retrieved from http:// www.one.cu/aec2010/esp/07_tabla_cuadro.htm ONEI (Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información) (2017a). Capítulo 7: Empleo y salarios. In Anuario Estadístico de Cuba 2015. Retrieved from http:// www.one.cu/aec2016/07%20Empleo%20y%20Salarios.pdf ONEI (Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información) (2017b). Capítulo I: Población. In Anuario Demográfico de Cuba 2016. Retrieved from http:// www.one.cu/publicaciones/cepde/anuario_2016/7_Tablas_Capitulo_I.pdf Pearson, R. (1996). Foreword. In Carranza Valdés, J., Gutiérrez Urdaneta, L. & P. Monreal González (Eds.), Cuba: Restructuring of the economy—a contribution to the debate. Translation and Foreword by R. Pearson. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London. Pérez Villanueva, O. E. (2012). The Cuban economy: An evaluation and proposals for necessary policy changes. In J. I. Domínguez, O. E. Pérez Villanueva, M. Espina Prieto & L. Barbería (Eds.), Cuban economic and social development. Policy reforms and challenges in the 21st Century (pp. 21–38). Cambridge: David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies. Pérez Salomón, O. (2015, February 11). La telefonía móvil en Cuba [Press article] Retrieved from http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2015/02/11/latelefonia-movil-en-cuba/#.Wft7udCnFaS

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Pericás, L.B. (2014). Che Guevara y el debate económico en Cuba. La Habana: Fondo Editorial Casa de las Américas. Recio Silva, M. (2014). La Hora de los Desconectados. Evaluación del Diseño de la Política de “Acceso Social” a Internet en Cuba en un Contexto de Cambios. Crítica y Emancipación, 11, 291–378. Resolution on the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution. (2011). Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. Retrieved from http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/documentos/2011/ing/ l160711i.html Rubio, V. (2015, December 24). Exclusiva con la Presidenta de ETECSA: Crece penetración de internet en Cuba. CubaSí. Retrieved from http://cubasi.cu/ cubasi-noticias-cuba-mundo-ultima-hora/item/46405-exclusiva-con-la-presidenta-de-etecsa-crece-penetracion-de-internet-en-cuba Triana Cordoví, J. (2014). Moving from reacting to an external shock toward shaping a new conception of Cuban socialism. In C. Brundenius & R. Torres Pérez (Eds.), No more free lunch: Reflections on the Cuban economic reform process and challenges for transformation (pp. 229–234). New York: Springer. Vidal Alejandro, P. (2012). Monetary duality in Cuba: Initial stages and future prospects. In J. I. Domínguez, O. E. Pérez Villanueva, M. Espina Prieto & L. Barbería (Eds.), Cuban economic and social development. Policy Rrforms and challenges in the 21st Century (pp. 39–54). Cambridge: David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies.

CHAPTER 8

From Global to National: Mapping the Trajectory of the South African Video Game Industry Rachel Lara van der Merwe

Introduction More often than not, video games elicit for the general public ideas about passivity, escapist entertainment, anti-social behaviour, or senseless violence. The video game is not often considered as a valuable asset to society, let alone as a medium that might provide communities with a voice. However, with the successful release and reception of both mainstream and indie games such as Detroit: Become Human (Quantic Dream, 2018); Gone Home (The Fullbright Company, 2013) and Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment, 2015), game developers have been demonstrating that the video game can indeed be an expressive medium—that it can have a voice. As video games play an increasingly significant role in the construction and performance of various cultural identities, the video game will join the

R. L. van der Merwe (*) Research Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_8

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likes of the novel and the film in playing a role in the development and communication of the voice of a nation. The video game can be instrumental in expressing and exploring national identity, both internally to a national community and externally to foreign nationals. For post-colonial nations of the Global South, the project of developing a national imaginary is particularly significant. The perceptions held of an emerging nation, by citizens and foreigners alike, can impact a country’s economic and political standing on the global stage. Furthermore, national imaginaries of the Global South must directly challenge and supplant the vestiges of the colonial and imperial imaginary, a difficult endeavour when the very borders of the nation were likely devised through the process of colonisation. This chapter examines the existing research on the relationship between video games and national identity before turning to analyse whether video games are being used as a productive tool for national identity building within South Africa, to develop a coherent, post-apartheid identity, representative of the people and not simply of the state (Butler 2009; Hart 2014; Shoup and Holmes 2014). The data suggest that while South African game developers are up-and-coming on a global stage, they are currently not designing games with content that reflects or references the South African nation in any direct way. Using critical media industry studies as a framework, the chapter suggests that the model in operation is one that seeks to exist on a global scale before venturing to produce nationally specific content.

Analysing the Literature The concepts of national print culture and national cinema have long been established in academia (Anderson 2006; Brennan 1990; Said 1994), but searching for the terms ‘national’ or ‘national identity’ and ‘video game’ or ‘national video game culture’ in most academic databases turns up a scant number of responses. Currently in the literature, most research focuses on the development of national video game industries or the relationship between video games and civic engagement, while research addressing the relationship between video games and national identity remains minimal. But what is meant by the relation between national identity and video games? Building upon the well-established body of work around the concepts of the nation, national print culture, and

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national cinema I explore the applicability of these concepts to the video industry. Benedict Anderson famously defines the nation as an ‘imagined political community… conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’ (2006, p. 6). National identity is fundamentally a social and political production, one that is not identified by its geographic borders or the etchings on a map but rather by its intangible consciousness. Anderson traces the formation of national consciousness back to the emergence of print capitalism, while other writers have pushed this statement further and asserted that it wasn’t simply any narrative or print medium but specifically the novel that advanced the notion of national consciousness. Timothy Brennan states that: Nations, then, are imaginary constructs that depend for their existence on an apparatus of cultural fictions in which imaginative literature plays a decisive role. And the rise of European nationalism coincides especially with one form of literature—the novel. (1990, p. 49)

With the advent of the twentieth century, however, the novel lost some of its unifying power to the newly developed media of cinema and even television. As Stuart Hall observes, cinema is a space in which cultural identity can be constructed and not simply reflected (2000, p.  714). Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, echoes similar thoughts when he posits that cinema and television play an active role in ‘re-programming popular memory’: ‘People are shown not what they were, but what they must remember having been’ (in Cahiers du Cinéma 1975, p.  25). Recalling Ernest Renan’s suggestion that the nation includes ‘possession in common of a rich legacy of memories’ (1990, p. 19), it follows that cinema therefore can play a significant role in the development of national memory and consciousness. National cinema furthermore becomes a space to think about the contestation of ideas regarding national identity and a space within which to consider questions of production, distribution, discourse and publics. Video games, unlike the novel and cinema, do not appeal to the same type of mass audience, but the video game industry outperforms many other media entertainment sectors, and video games increase in popularity, year after year. Simultaneously the available types of games continue to diversify, inspiring interest and engagement from wider demographics. Popular video games are adapted into films, such as the Tomb Raider

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franchise (various developers) and the recent World of Warcraft movie Warcraft (2016). Video game characters also show up in other public spaces, such as the Pokemon characters that have been used to promote businesses in conjunction with the popular smartphone AR game Pokemon Go (Niantic, 2016). Due to the mechanical distinctions in how the forms of video games, cinema and literature convey narrative, video games may foster national identity formation in fundamentally different ways to how fictional literature and cinema have contributed to such cultural development. But if we consider how rapidly the video game industry is growing and its larger impact on society, it is paramount that we begin to investigate how and in what ways video games may play a role in the process of shaping national identity. We can begin to address this question by considering the different types of communities and cultures that form around video games. Martin Hand and Karenza Moore write: Digital gaming may be seen as both embedded within existing socio-cultural frameworks (as ‘cultural artefacts’), and as enabling novel articulations of community and identity to emerge (as forms of ‘culture’). Digital gaming represents a distinct cultural form, which at once problematizes current understandings of community and identity, and allows us to explore emerging patterns of community and identity formation. (2006, p. 11)

They suggest three types of gaming communities, which in turn give rise to different cultural formations: (1) communities of presence, that is, inperson gatherings at conventions and events centred on gaming; (2) imagined communities, ‘the ways in which gamers actively construct images of community through the use of material artefacts and symbolic devices, especially where the members of the community never actually meet’ (p. 4); and (3) virtual communities, that is, communities developed within specific virtual spaces. Their concept of the imagined game community is a helpful means by which to consider how games can actively construct culture. However, we should not think that such games only operate within specific gaming communities. Adrienne Shaw points out that a focus on gaming culture obscures the many ways that games influence culture at large. She writes: Defining gaming culture as something distinct and separate from a constructed mainstream culture encourages us to only study those who identify as gamers, rather than more dispersed gaming. That is, we should look at

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video games in culture rather than games as culture. Video games permeate education, mobile technologies, museum displays, social functions, family interactions, and workplaces. They are played by many if not all ages, genders, sexualities, races, religions, and nationalities. (2010, p.  416, ­ emphasis added)

Recognising the ways in which video games permeate mainstream culture, game developers have begun to use the simulative nature of gaming to build games that introduce players to particular cultural formations or communities. For instance, Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna; Upper One Games, 2014) is a popular collaboration between game developers and Alaskan Native storytellers that immerses players in Iñupiaq lore. Australian Aboriginal communities have taken a similar approach using video games (Wyeld et  al. 2009), and several Middle Eastern game developers have been crafting games for cultivating Islamic and/or Arab identity—a focus on internal community building rather than external outreach (Šisler 2016). On the continent of Africa, Cameroonian developer Kiro’o released Aurion: Legend of the Kori-Odan (2016), which has been described as the first action-oriented game based on African mythology (Matroos 2016). However, there are also a number of Kenyan game developers who have developed more rudimentary games drawing on African mythology (Callus and Potter 2017). In addition to these more culturally oriented forms of identity development, there are specific cases in which video games are being utilised in correlation with national identity. Several game developers within Kenya have also developed more nationally oriented role playing games (RPGs) and first-person shooters. These are set in rural Kenyan villages or within a version of the capital Nairobi, and these games directly engage local concerns (Callus and Potter 2017). Perhaps the most well-known nationally oriented video game is the Polish franchise, The Witcher (CD Projekt), built on Slavic mythology (Ivan n.d.) and Polish Romanticism (Schreiber 2017). There is also a long history of collaboration between the U.S.  Armed Forces and video game developers, throughout which the U.S. military has funded and used first-person shooters for training purposes, culminating in the creation of America’s Army, a game series explicitly produced by the U.S. Army for recruitment. Henry Jenkins (2006) has written about the role that the Chinese ‘Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games’ (MMORPG) Fantasy Westward Journey have played in shaping patriotism within the country.

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Furthermore, in China, during the 1990s and early 2000s, commercial game developers produced a number of games with explicitly anti-­Japanese sentiments and Chinese patriotic values, and after 2005, the state government began sponsoring their own patriotic games (Nie 2013). However, as Iskander Zulkarnain (2014) argues, most games that might shape national identity formation are more likely to function as a form of banal nationalism, a term originally developed by Michael Billig to refer to the small everyday things that all contribute to our sense of national belonging. Zulkarnain uses the Indonesian MMORPG Nusantara Online (2011) as an illustration of a game that uses ‘software mechanism, visual representation, narrative construction, and genre… to create an immersive setting in which a player’s nationalistic experience is both “open-ended” and “programmed”’ (2014, p. 33). Zulkarnain calls this playable nationalism. But, most of the literature concerned with video games and the nation is primarily concerned with the video game industry. Without a functioning, stable video game industry, it is quite difficult to even consider producing or exporting a video game that also functions as a cultural vehicle. In Mark J.P.  Wolf’s introduction to the edited volume Video Games Around the World (2015), he details the three-levelled infrastructure necessary in order to establish a successful video game industry: (1) ‘Basic needs such as access to electrical power, verbal and visual literacy, and lifestyles that include leisure time for gameplay’ (p. 3); (2) ‘A certain amount of technology, technological know-how, and access to a system of game distribution and marketing’ (p. 4); and (3) ‘Game designers, developers, programmers, and other professional staff, corporate structures to stabilize and maintain an industry, the necessary investment capital, and a large enough user base to make larger-scale productions financially feasible’ (p. 5).

Any emerging local video game industry, throughout this process, must contend with other established global video game industries, notably those of the U.S. and Japan. Wolf notes that, ‘In almost all cases, the entry of foreign imports preceded indigenous video game production, establishing conventions and audience expectations that shaped the country’s domestic video game industry and its output’ (2015, p. 6). This resembles the same struggle that emerging national film and television industries have had because ‘the importation of Hollywood cinema and American television programming was cheaper and easier than producing film and television programs domestically’ (Wolf 2015, p.  6). This analysis is

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reflected in such works as those of John Banks and Stuart Cunningham on Australia (2016a, b), Adrienne Shaw in India (2016), James Portnow et al. in Brazil (2016), and Vit Šisler’s work in Syria (2016). Studying the development and struggle of these industries is a complicated endeavour that requires attentiveness to historical context, shifting political dynamics, the flow of transnational and intra-national money and the interests and desires of the various communities involved, among other things. Here the tools of critical media industry studies prove useful. Critical media industry studies ‘emphasizes the complex interplay of economic and cultural forces’ (Havens et al. 2009, p. 235) in the analysis of how media industries operate within society. Being attentive to the intersection between culture and industry allows us to consider how processes of national identity formation may occur through the establishment of national exporting industries without requiring ‘content’ to evaluate. In this study, I emulate the exploratory work of the aforementioned researchers, performing what Havens et al. (2009) describe as a helicopter style study at the industry level.

Methodology As a helicopter study, this research draws from a number of different types of sources to provide a general overview of the current state of the video game industry in South Africa. First, I obtained general statistical data about the video game industry from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) South Africa’s latest annual Entertainment and Media Outlook for the nation (see Myburgh 2018). Second, I aggregated journalistic coverage of the industry to obtain insights from those who have been researching and analysing the industry as it has developed. With a lack of scholarly work on the South African industry, the research of journalists becomes a valuable resource upon which we as scholars can begin to develop our own, more meticulous work. Third, I investigated whom the main game developers in South Africa are, asking what they are making and what kind of engagement these games have. I gauged who the main game developers are from my research inquiry, taking notes of the games and developers most frequently mentioned in articles, but also from spending time observing South African gaming forums such as S.A. Gamer. Once I had collected a list of games and developers, I did a textual analysis of the related websites, gathering basic descriptive data while also being attentive to the language used by each developer to describe him or herself and the products. I was

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particularly attentive to the presence of any nationally oriented language implemented. Furthermore, I procured data from the gaming platform Steam to evaluate the relative success of the aforementioned games. In addition to noting the numerical data provided by Steam about specific games, I investigated the types of conversations taking place around a selection of these games. For this portion of the study, I built a digital tool to crawl video game forums and extract all posts related to the selected games. For this study, I chose IGN and Gamespot, two of the most popular and widely frequented international video game forums that also use a more standard forum structure, making it simpler to automate the data extraction process. Using Steam’s data, I then narrowed my list of SA games to the most popular games, choosing only one from each developer: Broforce (Freelive Games, 2015), Stasis (The Brotherhood, 2015), Desktop Dungeons (QCF Design, 2010) and Viscera Cleanup Detail (RuneStorm, 2015). Despite its low ratings, I also included Tyd Wag Vir Niemand (Skobbejak Games, 2017) as an example of an Afrikaans game. This approach is a digital research method commonly used within disciplines such as Information Science. Using programming language Python and the Python module Scrapy, I wrote code for a series of what are called ‘spiders’ (because they crawl over the Web and capture data). For each game and for each forum, I constructed a pair of spiders. The first spider crawled over the search results for the designated video game and, for every listed result, extracted the thread title, the author of the post that mentioned the game and the URL for that post into a comma separated values (CSV) file. The second spider, using the data in this CSV file, crawled over all posts at each listed URL and extracted the content of each post, each post’s author and the date and time of each post. These data were also placed within a CSV file. Due to the unique structure and code of each website, the spiders do not automatically work for any website, but rather are carefully designed to read the particular websites in question. The code shows the spider exactly where to look on a page in order to collect the correct data. This process enables a researcher to gather and organise large quantities of qualitative data quickly. Following extraction, I cleaned the data and removed any duplicates using Excel functions. Furthermore, I sorted the data into three categories. The first category of data included posts from threads whose titles mentioned the pertinent video game, which meant the entire thread’s conversation referenced the game. The second category included data from posts that mentioned the video game but were not part of a thread

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directly referencing the game. Most posts from the second set included the quoted material to which the poster was responding, thus maintaining the necessary context for the purpose of coding. When context was not provided in the immediate quote, the linked URL in the data set offered a quick means by which to situate a post. The final category included data with no reference whatsoever to the video game, that is those extraneous posts harvested alongside the useful data. The data in this latter category were removed from the data set. The data from the first two categories were imported into Dedoose, a mixed-method coding software. I then reviewed every post coding for positive and negative value statements about the game, for neutral references to the game, for expressions of curiosity or interest and for any mention of South Africa.

Findings Every year, PricewaterhouseCoopers South Africa releases a substantial report on the creative industries in the country. Their research study on the South African video game industry reveals that traditional gaming revenue (PC/console) in the country continues to be the largest on the continent of Africa (R3.0 billion/roughly US$200 million in 2017). However, in correlation with global patterns, the social/casual gaming market has overtaken the traditional sector though without diverting its revenue due to distinct user demographics. In 2017, R759 million (roughly US$55 million) was spent on console games; R654 million (roughly US$48 million) on PC games and R1,584 million (approximately US$115 million) on social/casual games. The success of the social/casual gaming market is largely attributed to the greater accessibility of smartphones within South Africa and the relatively affordable cost of mobile games. Both traditional and mobile markets continue to grow steadily, with total revenue estimated to double by 2022, though physical sales are dropping and digital sales increasing. Video game revenue remains more lucrative than other media industries in the nation, such as cinema and music, though other sectors such as magazines and TV/video bring in more revenue. Sergey Galyonkin, a game developer, collects and analyses data from Steam as part of the SteamSpy project. He found that in September of 2017, approximately 600,281 South Africans used the platform (0.23% of total users and 0.24% of total games) and that these users, on average, played for 26:55  minutes over two-week time spans. The average user owns 25 Steam games. From August 2017, the top-selling games on

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Steam for South Africans were: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG Corporation, 2017), Company of Heroes 2 (Relic Entertainment, 2013), Magicka (Arrowhead Game Studios, 2011), Portal 2 (Valve Corporation, 2011), Team Fortress Classic (Valve Corporation, 1999) and Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North, 2013) (Staff Writer 2017)—all popular games on the global market. At the moment, the key game developers in South Africa appear to be Free Lives, The Brotherhood, QCF Design, Thoopid, Skobbejak and RuneStorm. Of these six studios, four are based in Cape Town. Skobbejak is based in Johannesburg, and RuneStorm’s specific location is undisclosed. The Free Lives studio employs 11 (mostly young white) individuals and is best known for a game called Broforce (2015; available through Steam, Humble and PS4). Free Lives has won several awards and been featured at prominent gaming festivals worldwide, including SXSW, A MAZE Germany and Minecon. On Steam, Broforce has a Metacritic Score of 83 and is rated ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ because 96% of the 24,710 user reviews for this game are positive. Ironically, the game, which is described as a celebration of 1980s action films, is saturated with patriotic United States paramilitary imagery—not what you would imagine from a South African collective. The second most prominent South African game developer is The Brotherhood, unsurprisingly a partnership between brothers. Though The Brotherhood is much smaller in size than Free Lives, their game Stasis (2015) has also received impressive global recognition. Stasis is a horror adventure game set on a supposedly abandoned spacecraft. Available for PC/Mac, the game has been translated into eight languages and won Game of the Year from AdventurerGamers.com among many other accolades. Both Stasis and their subsequent release Cayne (2017), also set on the creepy spaceship, received strong positive feedback on platforms like Steam. On Steam, Stasis has a Metacritic score of 79 and is rated ‘Mostly Positive’ due to 78% of the 715 user reviews for this game being positive. Another critically acclaimed game studio is QCF Design (QCF stands for Quarter Circle Forward). QCF currently has five individuals on staff and six collaborators. The company is best known for Desktop Dungeons (2010; PC/Mac/iOS/Android), a single-player strategy/puzzler game in which you must fight your way through a series of dungeons. The game won an award for Excellence in Design at the 2011 Independent Games Festival, and it scored an 82 Metacritic Score. It is rated ‘Very Positive’ on Steam with 90% of the 832 user reviews reporting a positive experience.

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Skobbejak Games, based in Johannesburg, is another developer duo. Their first game, Vapour (2015), is experimental horror but unlike The Brotherhood’s games, received mostly negative feedback on platforms like Steam and did not seem to receive critical recognition or acclaim at a national or global level. Following Vapour and another game ‘n Verlore Verstand (Afrikaans for ‘A Lost Mind’), the company proposed on Steam Greenlight an abstract adventure game, Tyd wag vir Niemand (Afrikaans for ‘Time Waits for Nobody’) set in Antarctica. That game was greenlit and released earlier this year (2017) with a better response (rated ‘Mostly Positive’ with 75% of the 20 user reviews as positive) yet with relatively low engagement and no Metacritic score. Beyond console and desktop video games, developer Thoopid focuses on games for mobile devices because, as their website notes, ‘globally mobile is re-shaping the way people connect on the move’. Their Snailboy games, while not award-winning, have received positive recognition from global publications such as IGN, PocketGamer, Adobe and CNN, especially for their beautiful graphics. Another Cape Town software studio, Maxxor, is also mobile focused and, besides its business-oriented mobile applications, runs an independent game studio that has released a multi-­ player online strategy game called Moonbase (2012). The success of this game is unclear due to lack of data. Finally, RuneStorm, a three-person team, began by developing mods for existing games such as Doom (id Software, 1993) and Quake (id Software, 1996), winning awards for their mods at the Unreal Tournaments. Subsequently, they shifted to developing their own games: Rooks Keep (2014), an arena-based, melee combat game, and Viscera Cleanup Detail (2015), where players take on the role of a space-station janitor cleaning up after horror events. Both Viscera Cleanup Detail and Broforce made the top five trending games on SteamSpy (the Steam analytics platform) within weeks of release (Usmani 2016, ‘First Class’, para. 8). None of the aforementioned games are about or reference South Africa in any direct way, beyond utilising SA voice actors. During the data scrape, of the five selected games, queries about Broforce returned the most data. After duplicates were removed, the spider pulled 3783 rows of data, that is, 3783 individual posts, from the IGN forum. The filtered data included 20 posts from threads with titles that explicitly mentioned Broforce and 190 posts mentioning Broforce from non-game specific threads. From Gamespot, the spider extracted 1046 unique rows of data, which I filtered down into 188 posts from thread

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titles explicitly mentioning Broforce and 28 posts mentioning Broforce from general threads. Some 92 of these posts referred to the game with positive value statements or recommended the game. Another 59 of these posts criticised the game in some form, while 51 posts mentioned the game in neutral terms, and 18 posts expressed interest or curiosity about the game. Many of the posts expressing critique were specifically in relation to the PlayStation port of the original game, namely, when the developer converted the game from desktop to PS, players reported a loss in aesthetic quality and time lags. Thus, the critique often addressed a specific technical issue rather than the game itself, though significant critique of the game itself also exists. In addition, through the discussion, I discovered that Broforce had been promoted by popular YouTube blogger PewDiePie, which contributed to its greater visibility compared to the other games in my study. The game that returned the second largest quantity of data was Desktop Dungeons. After duplicates were removed, the spider pulled 7430 rows of data from the IGN forum. The filtered data included 8 posts from threads with titles explicitly mentioning the game and 91 posts mentioning the game within general threads. The spider for Gamespot returned no posts, indicating that the game had not been discussed on these forums. The large disparity between the initial data set and filtered data set can be accounted for by the appearance of posts referencing desktops and dungeons in relation to other games that had to be removed. A total of 17 of the posts referred to the game with positive value statements or recommended the game. One of the posts criticised the game. A further 13 posts mentioned the game in neutral terms, and 1 post expressed interest or curiosity about the game. Viscera Cleanup Detail returned a much lower quantity of data. After duplicates were removed, the spider pulled 11 rows of data from the IGN forum and 6 rows of data from the Gamespot forum. For both forums, the game was not mentioned in any thread title, so all data pertains to posts that mentioned the game within general threads. Overall, three of the posts referred to the game with positive value statements or recommended the game, two of the posts criticised the game, while three posts mentioned the game in neutral terms. Only one post expressed interest or curiosity about the game. The final two games were never mentioned on either forum. Upon initial analysis of posts mentioning ‘Stasis’, it became clear that all references were to the common noun form of ‘stasis’ rather

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than the proper noun—the title of the game. Thus, all extracted data were discarded as irrelevant. Tyd Wag Vir Niemand never returned any data. None of the games were ever mentioned in reference to South Africa in any form. Most of the conversations surrounding these games resembled what one would expect around any popular game. While some people thoroughly enjoyed a game, others would express strong negative feelings towards the game, and others would express indifference. In addition, many of the neutral posts belong to a category of post in which forum participants would post lengthy lists of either all the games in their inventory, or a comprehensive list of games on sale or temporarily free that month.

Discussion From the research findings, it appears that the South African video game industry is following a similar path to other emerging media industries that must compete on the global market. Essentially, what we see, in reality, is not quite a South African video game industry, but a branch of the global market that South Africans are participating within, whether as developers or as players. My initial observation is a speculation based on what little data is available: South Africans aren’t playing ‘South African’ games. Statistics indicate that South Africans are playing video games, and at a higher rate than one might expect from a country where many private residences cannot afford broadband Internet. As the PwC report highlights, many South Africans are spending as much money on video games as they do on other entertainment media, such as movies and music (Myburgh 2018). The sales figures from Steam further support the fact that South Africans are primarily playing foreign games, which isn’t surprising considering the lack of compelling ‘South African’ games and the general prominence of global media in the nation. Second, I suggest that South African game developers are making games largely for an international audience. Of the games mentioned above, none of them utilise a narrative or procedural logic that references South African culture. Usmani writes: Well-known South African games as they exist today, like Broforce, Toxic Bunny and Desktop Dungeons have an understated South African quality that is in contrast to the games developed in Nigeria and Kenya where locally

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created games are so culturally specific they couldn’t exist anywhere else. (2016, ‘The Born-Free Generation’, para. 18)

Rather South African games seem to be constructed to appeal to a broad global demographic. On the SA Gamer forum, one member ‘Wyvern’ wrote of the games Stasis and Cayne, ‘Both have south african voice actors. So it’s for sure made by south africans but I don’t think it has a real south african feel’ (2017a, post #12). In reference to the games Desktop Dungeons and Viscera Cleanup Detail, user Buffel similarly wrote, ‘I can’t really say that they feel South African. I assume they were aimed more at an international audience’ (2017, post #9). Usmani echoes these observations stating that, ‘As of now, games that reflect South African culture are in short supply’ and he quotes Ruan Gates who remarks that ‘I don’t think there’s been a truly South African game yet, a game that everyone here played’ (2016, para. 6). In addition, my review of game discussions on international forums indicates that users are not aware of the games’ origins nor associate the games in any way with SA. On the other hand, the Steam statistics and my review of these discussions do reveal that several South African games have been quite successful in the global market. Though some users expressed strong negative opinions about Broforce (usually related to the PS4 port of the game, not the original desktop version), praise for the game dominated discussions and the Steam reviews indicate the ‘Overwhelming Positive’ reaction that the game has had. Desktop Dungeons received little criticism and primarily praise. Though Stasis was not discussed on IGN or Gamespot, the positive reviews and ratings on Steam indicate its own wide success. When feedback was neither explicitly positive nor negative, these games were still being discussed, expanding their visibility within the global market. Based on the literature, this focus on the international market makes sense considering the current legal and economic context for South African game developers. By focusing on international markets rather than the SA market, these mostly tiny game developers stand a greater chance of success. In order for a truly national industry to emerge, the SA industry must first develop financial stability and economic purchase at the global level because a national audience would unlikely generate sufficient revenue to support the expensive needs of game developers attempting to make high production value games that can compete with mainstream titles. In addition, the industry needs to find support from the SA government. Not only does the government not provide reasonable financial

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support1 to the industry as other nations do (such as the UK and its UK Games Fund), but the existing legal system actually discourages innovation in this area. Nicholas Hall is a SA digital entertainment lawyer, member of the Video Game Bar Association, and the founder of IESA, Interactive Entertainment South Africa, which is a non-profit lobby group for the video game industry. Hall has been instrumental in identifying and publicly addressing several of these concerns, which he partially attributes to the fact that the government has not determined under which department the gaming industry falls (Alfreds 2016). This state of uncertainty and lack of thoughtful government oversight has meant several things for the industry. Some examples include the fact that the gaming industry has no protection under the Copyright Act. In addition, if new games do not undergo the expensive and time-consuming process of classification, game developers face a criminal sanction of imprisonment. This legal implication has caused many game developers to release their games in other nations where they do not need to get classified. Furthermore, if game developers wish to sell their games on platforms like Steam or Google Play, the Exchange Control Regulations require that the developers pay a portion of their revenue to the South African Reserve Bank. This has led some companies to seek incorporation outside of SA. Thus, generally speaking, the country is currently not supportive of its video gaming industry, despite the fact that it is one of the largest growing entertainment industries. So, there are South Africans who want to make fantastic games, including those who have expressed interest in making more ‘South African’ games, and there are South Africans who are spending a significant amount of money purchasing video games. If these two groups could be brought together so that South Africans could be selling to South Africans, then not only would an actual South African national video game industry exist, but the South African gaming community could have a significant role in shaping South African national identity. What could close that gap? First, as I have already noted, significant government deregulation or legal reform needs to occur, and with the establishment of IESA, this might finally be underway. Second, the industry needs to continue to establish itself globally to provide a stable revenue stream to support its more nationally oriented endeavours. Third, funding is a serious concern for players. While smartphones have become more 1

 Apparently, government rebates are available but difficult to obtain (Usmani 2016).

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ubiquitous in South Africa, other gaming technology remains expensive, and even for those who have access to the necessary technology, the cost for high speed internet access subsequently limits access. Game industries and communities can also be fostered in a different context—the academy. Pippa Tshabalala, a game developer and lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand notes that: It’s expensive to develop a game and lack of funding and resources is a major challenge. We also don’t have a huge variety of training opportunities here. There are university courses like the one that’s been running at Wits for a few years, but it’s one of the few and it’s very competitive to get in. (Probyn 2015, para. 3)

The course she is referring to is the first actual game design program at a SA university: the BA in Game Design at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. At the University of Cape Town, it is possible to do a concentration in Computer Game Design as part of a degree in Computer Science, and there is also a technical school in Cape Town, Friends of Design, which offers a one-year Higher Certificate in Game Graphics and Multimedia Entertainment. The programme at Wits is the only one to situate gaming within the larger context of the Humanities, providing the type of thoughtful engagement with gaming that one expects from a liberal arts university as opposed to a vocational school. This unique focus at Wits becomes clearer in dialogue with the students, who view game design as an inherent element in the production of culture. A third-year student, Raheel Hassim, explains, ‘We need games that unite. Even if I don’t sell my games domestically, I still want to make games that are culturally, somehow, South African’ (Usmani 2016, ‘The Born-Free Generation’, para. 2). According to Usmani, this passion for telling locally and culturally relevant stories within SA-produced games ‘is a sticking point that comes up again and again over the course of interviews with the Wits students’ (2016, ‘The Born-Free Generation’, para. 3). The question will be whether these students find jobs within the South African industry, and if they cannot find existing positions, will they have the resolve and resources to carve out new spaces? Finally, it will be valuable for SA gamers and scholars to step back and revisit this question about what, in fact, a South African game is. On the SA Gamer forum thread discussing ‘South African games’, user Wyvern commented, ‘I honestly will rather support a game development that

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makes something that appeals to the international crowd—that shows them we have amazing game developers as well. I know games like Broforce, Stasis did well enough on Steam to attract a cult following’ (2017b, post #26). Wyvern’s comment captures an outward-focused perspective of national identity, one in which the focus is on promoting a certain idea of ‘South African-ness’ to the world. From this perspective, South African games don’t need to necessarily feel South African in content, but their very existence proves that South Africans can participate in the global economy and can provide meaningful value to the global entertainment industry. On the other hand, as expressed by Wits students, there are those who are determined to make games for South Africans to promote and celebrate local culture. This approach reflects a more traditional understanding of nation building. The Brotherhood, developers of Stasis and Cayne, actually recently released a game that might fit into this latter category of SA-oriented game. Beautiful Desolation (2020), a game that feels like a cross between the films District 9 (2009) and Arrival (2016), takes place, at least partially, in Cape Town, SA. The game’s trailer clearly reveals beautiful shots panning over Table Mountain in Cape Town, and the press kit describes a sub-­Saharan African post-apocalyptic landscape. Based on the developer’s previous successes and the high quality of the trailer, it is reasonable to expect that this game may become the first mainstream SA game to overtly integrate some sense of local culture into its narrative and landscape. However, the dystopian aspects of the game do raise questions about its potential to appeal to national pride.

Conclusion Video games, in their increasing significance within society, are the newest counterpart to novels and cinema in their ability to help shape and give voice to national identity, both domestically and internationally. Although video games are not currently being utilised as such within South Africa, the potential exists: game developers and players have expressed a desire to create and consume expressly South African games. And the tools to create such games already exist within the burgeoning South African game industry, which can continue to grow if the government provides the necessary support. With the rising popularity of mobile gaming in SA and the country’s extensive mobile infrastructure (Brown and Czerniewicz 2010), video games could be an immensely significant means by which to engage

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the general public in constructing national identity. The post-apartheid nation is still young, with only a couple of decades since its first democratic national elections, so this project of national formation for South Africa remains pressing and pertinent. There are many questions yet to be asked and answered about the South African video game industry. While I have established that South Africa has a developing national voice within its video games, I have not addressed whom that voice actually represents. Most of the game developers I discovered were young and white, which suggests that the existing developer community only represents a minority of the greater South African population—not South Africa, the rainbow nation, as Nelson Mandela envisioned the post-apartheid republic. Future studies should investigate who are the South Africans participating in this industry and community and should explore the actual lived experience of gaming. Who has access to the technology and resources needed to participate? And how can the industry become more diverse and accessible to more South Africans and thereby perhaps become more reflective of South African identities in their video game productions.

References Alfreds, D. (2016, May 16). SA gaming industry “suffering” under regulation. Fin24. Retrieved from http://www.fin24.com/Tech/News/sa-gamingindustry-suffering-under-regulation-20160516 Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Banks, J., & Cunningham, S. (2016a). Games production in Australia: Adapting to precariousness. In M. Curtin & K. Sanson (Eds.), Precarious Creativity, Global Media, Local Labor (pp. 186–199). Oakland, California: University of California Press. Banks, J., & Cunningham, S. (2016b). Creative destruction in the Australian videogames industry. Media International Australia, 160, 127–139. https://doi. org/10.1177/1329878X16653488 Brennan, T. (1990). The national longing for form. In H. K. Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and narration (pp. 44–70). New York: Routledge. Brown, C., & Czerniewicz, L. (2010). Debunking the ‘digital native’: Beyond digital apartheid, towards digital democracy. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 357–369. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00369.x Buffel. (2017). “South African” games? [Forum post]. SA Gamer. Retrieved from http://sagamer.co.za/forum/showthread.php?186035-quot-South-Africanquot-Games/page2

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Butler, A. (2009). Considerations on the erosion of one-party dominance. Representation, 45, 159–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/00344890902945681 Cahiers du Cinéma (Ed.). (1975). Film and popular memory: An interview with Michel Foucault. Radical Philosophy, 11, 24–29. Callus, P., & Potter, C. (2017). Michezo video: Nairobi’s gamers and the developers who are promoting local content. Critical African Studies, 9, 302–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2017.1371620 Renan, E. (1990). What is a nation? In H. K. Bhabha (Ed.), Nation and narration (pp. 8–22). London: Routledge. Hall, S. (2000). Cultural identity and cinematic representation. In T. Miller & R. Stam (Eds.), Film and theory: An anthology (pp. 704–714). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Hart, G. (2014). Rethinking the South African crisis: Nationalism, populism, hegemony. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Hand, M., & Moore, K. (2006). Community, identity and digital games. In J. Rutter & J. Bryce (Eds.), Understanding digital games (pp. 166–182). London: Sage Publications. Havens, T., Lotz, A. D., & Tinic, S. (2009). Critical media industry studies: A research approach. Communication, Culture & Critique, 2, 234–253. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01037.x Ivan, R. (n.d.). Slavic Mythology behind the popular Witcher series. Slavorum. Retrieved from https://www.slavorum.org/slavic-mythology-behind-thepopular-witcher-series/ Jenkins, H. (2006). National politics within virtual game worlds: The case of China [Blog post]. Confessions of an ACA-Fan. Retrieved from http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2006/08/national_politics_within_virtu_1.html Matroos, J. (2016). Kiro’o Games to release first African-inspired actionRPG. Design Indaba. Retrieved from http://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/kiroo-games-release-first-african-inspired-action-rpg. Myburgh, V. (Ed.). (2018). Entertainment and media outlook: 2018–2022, An African Perspective (Annual report No. 9). South Africa: PricewaterhouseCoopers. Retrieved from https://www.pwc.co.za/en/assets/ pdf/entertainment-and-media-outlook-2018-2022.pdf Nie, H. A. (2013). Gaming, nationalism, and ideological work in contemporary China: Online games based on the War of Resistance against Japan. Journal of Contemporary China, 22, 499–517. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564. 2012.748968 Portnow, J., Protasio, A., & Donaldson, K. (2016). Brazil: Tomorrow’s market. In N. B. Huntemann & B. Aslinger (Eds.), Gaming globally: Production, play, and place (pp. 75–77). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Probyn, J. (2015, September 1). Africa’s gaming industry: Expert shares her thoughts. How We Made It in Africa. Retrieved from https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/africas-gaming-industry-expert-shares-her-thoughts/51494/

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Said, E. W. (1994). Culture and imperialism. New York: Vintage. Schreiber, P. (2017, February 23). How the Witcher plays with Polish romanticism. Culture.pl. Retrieved from http://culture.pl/en/article/how-thewitcher-plays-with-polish-romanticism. Shaw, A. (2010). What is video game culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies. Games and Culture, 5, 403–424. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1555412009360414 Shaw, A. (2016). How do you say gamer in Hindi? Exploratory research on the Indian digital game industry and culture. In N. B. Huntemann & B. Aslinger (Eds.), Gaming globally: Production, play, and place (pp. 183–201). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Shoup, B. D., & Holmes, C. E. (2014). Recrafting the national imaginary and the new “vanguardism”. Democratization, 21, 958–978. https://doi.org/10.108 0/13510347.2013.777431 Šisler, V. (2016). Video game development in the Middle East: Iran, the Arab World, and beyond. In N. B. Huntemann & B. Aslinger (Eds.), Gaming globally: Production, play, and place (pp. 251–271). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Staff Writer. (2017, September 9). Biggest games on Steam in South Africa. MyBroadband. Retrieved from https://mybroadband.co.za/news/gaming/ 228013-biggest-games-on-steam-insouth-africa.html Usmani, B. (2016, February 3). The game industry of South Africa. Polygon. Retrieved from https://www.polygon.com/features/2016/2/3/10781618/ the-game-industry-of-south-africa Wolf, M. J. P. (Ed.). (2015). Video games around the world. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Wyeld, T. G., Leavy, B., & Crogan, P. (2009). The re-presentation of country as virtual artifact in Australian Aboriginal cultural heritage using a game engine. In L. Hjorth & D. Chan (Eds.), Gaming cultures and place in Asia-Pacific (pp. 210–228). New York: Routledge. Wyvern. (2017a). “South African” games? [Forum post]. SA Gamer. Retrieved from http://sagamer.co.za/forum/showthread.php?186035-quot-SouthAfrican-quot-Games/page2 Wyvern. (2017b). “South African” games? [Forum post]. SA Gamer. Retrieved from http://sagamer.co.za/forum/showthread.php?186035-quot-SouthAfrican-quot-Games/page3 Zulkarnain, I. (2014). “Playable” nationalism: “Nusantara Online” and the “Gamic” reconstructions of national history. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 29, 31–62.

CHAPTER 9

Indigenous Hip-Hop: Digital Media Practices Among Youth of the South African San People Shanade Bianca Barnabas and Itunu Bodunrin

Introduction In South Africa, as in most of the developing world, young people who live in rural and peri-urban areas have limited access to digital technology as they are outside media-privileged metropolitan spaces. Not only are these young people potentially excluded from contemporary socio-­ political discourse, they also have limited capacity to voice their experiences (Powell 2014). Young hip-hop artists from the peri-urban Platfontein settlement are stretching these limitations in their negotiations of identity, indigeneity and citizenship in present-day South Africa. They are the

S. B. Barnabas (*) • I. Bodunrin Department of Communication Studies, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_9

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children and grandchildren of !Xun1 and Khwe soldiers from Angola and Namibia who were granted citizenship upon migration into South Africa in the early 1990s. The history of these two groups is one of dispossession, displacement and war.2 Now living in their own settlement on the outskirts of the city of Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province they face many challenges, chief of which is the relegation to not only the spatial but socio-economic outskirts of mainstream society, a common malaise of First Peoples3 across the globe. The !Xun and Khwe identify as San. The San (also called Bushmen)4 of southern Africa were once nomadic hunter gatherers who were displaced and ravaged following the intrusion of Bantu-speaking agro-pastoralists, European colonialists, large-scale infrastructure projects and land concessions to companies. Those who survived genocide assimilated into colonial society and today account for only a small percentage of the populations of Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. They are people with individual clan names and distinct languages and cultures, representing some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised ethnic minorities in southern Africa (see Barnard 1992; Lee 1976; Penn 1996). The discourse surrounding San people in 1  The ! sound is a palatal stop. Much like the sound of a cork popping, it is made by pulling the tip of the tongue sharply away from the front hard palate (see Barnard 1992). 2  The !Xun and Khwe originate from Angola and Namibia respectively, having made their home in South Africa for over two decades. They were recruited by the South African Defence Force (SADF) in the border war between South Africa and the nationalist movements in Namibia in the mid-1970s. Finding themselves on the losing side of that war many of the soldiers took up the offer of the SADF to move to South Africa together with their dependants. They were promised housing and by that time they had lived under the protection of the SADF for some time. Once relocated, they settled in a tented military camp for over a decade. Eventually (through military savings and government funding) they became the owners of three farms, living now on the one called Platfontein, approximately 20 km from the Kimberley city centre (Barnard 1992; Den-Hertog 2013; Robbins 2004; Soskolne 2007). Platfontein is semi-arid and lacks access to the most basic of services. 3  In this chapter, we describe First People as the earliest inhabitants of land. 4  The terms Bushmen and San have pejorative roots, meaning savage and forager (or bandit), respectively (see Barnard 1992; Gordon 1992). Both are externally ascribed colonial constructs (Wilmsen 1996), now reclaimed and redefined by the descendants of hunter gatherers (see Barnabas 2009; Bregin and Kruiper 2004; Francis 2007). In this chapter, we use specific group names where possible. While elsewhere, based on the preference of research participants, we used Bushmen to refer to the larger grouping across southern Africa, we use the more popular San in this chapter as our young respondents gave no consensus regarding their preference and San is the less controversial of the two.

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South Africa is that they are an ancient, ‘perished’ people, as evidenced in former president Thabo Mbeki’s famous ‘I am an African’ speech ­(www. mbeki.org).5 Nevertheless, the South African government does acknowledge the !Xun and Khwe as San peoples. Today these San are South African citizens, having received South African identity documents as part of their relocation. It has been a hard-won citizenship. Yet, in some political circles they are viewed as interlopers, having their roots in other nations. For traditional Khwe Chief Kamama Mkuwa, the community’s status as First People has led to neglect and slow development arising from government, development agencies and other stakeholders abandoning them to self-­ survival in inhumane living conditions (Bodunrin 2014, p. 12). To reach Platfontein from the closest major city (Kimberley), road users must pass a prison, the city’s landfill site, household rubbish littered on the outskirts of the Galeshewe Township and a military shooting range. The settlement consists of over 800 rudimentary government-built houses6 and 120 privately owned houses with external pit-style lavatories and a single tap in each yard (Robbins 2007; Sharp and Douglas 1996). With a growing population, corrugated iron shanties and old military-issued tents now flank the outskirts. Describing the !Xun as deeply disturbed and the Khwe as reclusive, Robbins (c. 2004) asks if Platfontein could ever atone for the sense of dislocation and homelessness that pervades the San soldiers and their families. While initially, many people were happy with the move and were proud of their houses, the impact of the move to South Africa ‘…coming on the heels of centuries of gradual loss [and the brutalities of war], was a frightening burden for the !Xun and Khwe to shoulder’ (c. 2004, p. 20). Community members have been known to lament the loss of space and freedom of movement. One man, Batista Salvadore, described Platfontein as a kind of prison (Ludman 2003). The arid land is difficult to farm and the natural vegetation is sparse. In the dry season, red dust from the dirt roads coats the settlement while in the wet season these roads are often water logged. The limitations of the landscape at Platfontein are a source of anguish for many community members (see Robbins c. 2004; Soskolne 2007; Uys 1993). With an unemployment rate over 90 5   The full speech can be found at https://www.mbeki.org/2016/06/01/i-am-anafrican-speech-by-president-thabo-mbeki-8-may-1996/. 6  Homes in Platfontein form part of the South African Government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme which offers low cost housing, particularly on the outskirts of urban areas where settlements have arisen due to job seekers moving closer to cities.

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percent, no access to public transport to the city, and reliance on social grants, Platfontein is a grim, challenging place to live. Faced with the difficulties of township life—no waste disposal system, inconsistent electrical connections, poverty, unemployment, substance abuse and ill health—the young hip-hop makers of Platfontein use the platform of their music, through digital and new media, to negotiate the intricacies of being ‘San’, ‘indigenous’, ‘migrants’, ‘marginalised’ and ‘citizens’ in a complex late-modern South Africa. This chapter provides a digital ethnography of these hip-hoppers and is based on Bodunrin’s fieldwork conducted between 2013 and 2017 with hip-hop groups DRAP JJ STARS, The Blood Eye Gang, Best Incredible Choir (BIC) and 10 other individuals involved in hip-hop from the Khwe community.7

The Spread of Hip-Hop Originating in the New York Bronx in the mid-1970s (Neal 1999) amid tensions over urban renewal programmes and economic recession (Lipsitz 1994), hip-hop is a street culture that includes Mc-ing (rapping), tagging or bombing (graffiti), DJ-ing (collaging records by using turntables) and breaking (break-dancing) (Hager 1984). It has metamorphosed into a global youth expression and a phenomenon which continues to penetrate into nearly every country, especially resonating with marginalised peoples. Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett (2011) describe the international hip-hop community as an ‘imagined nation’ a-la Benedict Anderson (1983), in that while they may never meet, they ‘hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity’. It is an affinity through which to express themselves and find belonging while also re-creating and making in their own image. According to Morgan (2016, p.  135), ‘[c]itizenship in the Hip-hop Nation is not defined by conventional national, social or racial boundaries, but by a commitment to art that represents the social and political lives of its members’. Inclusion and exclusion are points of great contention in the South African context where the creation of a ‘new’ South Africa has been 7  As aforementioned, the !Xun and Khwe are linguistically and culturally different. They are two communities occupying the same land and as such are often referred to as the Platfontein community. This latter term is entirely predicated on their geographical proximity. While residing together within Platfontein, they occupy two separate sides, with a school at the centre.

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immeasurably complicated by internalised ‘prejudices and discriminations encouraged and enacted under apartheid’ which in turn has had an impact on the degree to which cooperation is possible between different constituencies (Coombes 2004, p. 3). The excluded and marginalised find in hip-­ hop a platform to voice themselves, not only to themselves, but to a larger global constituency who say ‘we see you’ and ‘we are you’. In Africa, for example, hip-hop is used as a tool for developing a powerful and common language of resistance against the legacies of colonialism that continue to haunt the continent (Battersby 2003). One of the most prominent contributors to the global spread of hip-­ hop has been the establishment and growth of the satellite television channel Music Television (MTV) (Omoniyi 2006). MTV’s first African channel, MTV base, led to a boom in local hip-hop across the continent. MTV has played a primary role in forming the musical taste of young people in Platfontein. The fact that it can be reproduced, appropriated and adapted within different national, local, social and linguistic environments makes hip-hop one of the most visible examples of the intersection of global and local youth cultures (McLeod 1999; Perullo and Fenn 2003). Hip-hop grew in popularity in Platfontein with the founding of DRAP JJ Stars in 2009. The group, formed by five friends, Daniel Kapira, Robert Kabuatta, Andre Nthoho, Piet Jonas and James Kazumba, became popular with their first album titled Namibia, Angola en Botswana. Produced in the recording studio of the local community radio (XK FM), the album received a lot of air play on the radio station, further, it was made available to the youth on compact disc (CD) format. The songs on the album were sung entirely in !Xuntali and Khwedam and reflected the difficult history and displacement of the !Xun and Khwe over the last five decades. Their lyrics endeared them to the greater community, even those for whom hip-­ hop was foreign. This, together with their rising fame within Platfontein, inspired other groups to form such as the Blood Eye Gang and BIC.

Music Production in Platfontein In 2011, South African musician Pops Mohamed, spent a week in Platfontein training youth on how to use studio equipment. The equipment was supplied by the Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking. The South African San Institute (SASI), an NGO-cum-gatekeeper working with San communities in the country, was left in charge of the equipment which was to be made available to the community upon Mohammed’s

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departure. Due to logistical reasons, chief of which was a lack of funding, SASI closed its Platfontein office and their presence in the community lessened considerably from 2013 onwards. When chaos ensued concerning rights over the recording equipment, that too was removed. It was not made clear to us who did the removing and what became of the recording equipment. Nevertheless, music production advanced in Platfontein with a !Xun family music group known as UB, headed by Tierie Paulis, who works as a private security guard in Kimberley. Paulis purchased a keyboard, guitar and later a PC, with the aim of teaching himself to produce music. UB with the help of Khwe hip-hoppers created a Do It Yourself (DIY) recording studio in the Paulis home. This was quite an achievement in a settlement where 97 percent of the community live on less than one USD per day (South African San Institute 2010). Before the establishment of the UB studio, hip-hop artists had also used the Platfontein community radio station, XK FM, studio to record their music.8 However, the station discontinued this due to tight schedules and a belief that much of the music had derailed from the cultural norms and ethical standards of XK FM.9 Thus, since 2013, much of the hip-hop music in Platfontein has been produced in the UB bedroom studio. This is a tiny bedroom of a government-built home with bare hollow-­ block walls, cracked cement floors and corrugated iron roofing. The rudimentary equipment includes a mixer, desktop computer and a microphone. The artists use software such as FL Studio, Ableton Live and Mixcraft—Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) for recording, editing and producing their music. The abovementioned pieces of software have free trial versions. Ableton’s is a 30-day trial and FL Studio’s does not have a time restriction. For both these, users are not required to register or create an account in order to download the software. For FL Studio, while the trial version does have certain limitations, users are able to export to WAV and MP3 formats. Cracked (illegally acquired) versions of these and other 8  The community radio station, XK FM, established in Platfontein by the public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), is mandated to preserve and protect the cultures, languages and histories of the !Xun and Khwe people. 9  One of the public broadcaster’s criteria for radio play is that the music not contain explicit language (see http://beta.sabc.co.za/metrofm/music/how-to-submit-music-to-metrofm/). As an SABC-mandated radio station, XK FM would have to follow the same criteria. While their first album reflected their community in its lyrics, DRAPP JJ STARS’ second album was rife with explicit language, possibly fashioned after their favourite MTV rappers.

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programmes are easily accessible, if one knows where to look. The cracked version of Fruity Loops, the earlier version of FL Studio was already widely circulated in the 2000s (Bell 2015). DAWs available today whether trial, cracked or paid-for have opened up music-making to a larger group. While some see this to be a democratised space (see Leyshon 2009), others question whether DAW democracy exists (see Bell 2015). Adam Bell (2015), for example, writing from the Global North, notes that this space is still monopolised by white males. The San youth’s entry into this space, although predominantly male, is thus a welcome dose of diversity. In Alette Schoon’s (2017) experience of conducting ethnographic research with hip-hop artists in the township areas of Grahamstown, South Africa, female hip-hop artists are often missing from bedroom recording studios. She credits this to a policing of their reputations by avoiding primarily male spaces. While the bedroom itself, albeit intimate, is not a male space, the crowding of male bodies in this space turns it into one. Platfontein is not altogether different in that many females are involved in traditional dance groups while there is only one female hip-hop group (BIC). This echoes the male dominance of the global hip-hop community. Nevertheless, BIC, made up of cousins Diana Shiwara, Sartjie Shiwara and Nikkita Shiwara, say they experience no discrimination in the admittedly small hip-hop scene of Platfontein. Instead, they regularly collaborate with their male counterparts. This may be due to Platfontein’s close-knit family relationships. To return to the discussion of bedroom studios, these types of studios are not uncommon among hip-hop artists both local and global (Bennett and Peterson 2004; Pritchard 2011; Schoon 2017; Watson 2014). Further, the space is one of communal learning. The Platfontein hip-hop artists are not fully conversant in recording, arranging, mixing and mastering. They band together, each offering some advice and knowledge in how to use the equipment and software. This communal teaching and learning is a way in which to mitigate the lack of skills that form part of the barriers to digital access plaguing those on the wrong side of the digital divide (see Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) on their typology of barriers to digital access). Worldwide, the digital bedroom is a primary space of youth media practice in which vibrant digital learning occurs (Kral 2010; Livingstone 2002; Sefton-Green 2006). The artists purchase beats from local producers many of whom are artists themselves. These producers sample, rework and synthetise already existing musical sounds and productions available online. They sell beats

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to artists working in different music genres in the community. The beats cost about 150 Rand each (just over 10 USD). This is not cheap for a community of unemployed youth. Most Platfontein households rely on government grants (pension and social) to survive. A few, however, do not. Many of the Blood Eye Gang, for example, are from relatively well-­ off families. Their parents have steady employment and they can afford consistent access to the internet through smart phones, and with their unrestricted access to MTV they are at the forefront of new music and trend acquisition (Bodunrin 2016).

Peer Influencers and Challenges to Internet Access The internet and MTV are the primary sources of influence for these artists (Bodunrin 2016). This is unsurprising as the production and consumption of music is increasingly reliant on new and emerging media technologies (Warren and Evitt 2010). In Platfontein, however, there are only a few individuals who have access to the internet via internet-enabled mobile phones and laptops. They are the media-privileged gatekeepers who share information with the majority. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon in peri-urban areas where ubiquitous challenges stand in the way of access for all (see Fuchs and Horak 2008; Odendaal et al. 2008). Even though South Africa has a relatively high ICT development index score in comparison to other African countries (see Ponelis and Holmner 2015), this is mainly due to metropolitan growth with white male users at the forefront (Fuchs and Horak 2008); people at the fringes are largely excluded. For instance, the Khwe of Platfontein consists of approximately 400 households with more than 2000 inhabitants. Of this population, only around 10 households have unrestricted access to digital television, internet-enabled mobile phones and the online world via mobile data, usually due to at least one family member with consistent employment. Young people in these households become opinion leaders and gatekeepers of new music and trends. They are the early adopters of digital products and assimilated cultures and enjoy a certain prestige consistent with the acquisition of knowledge desired by others (see Bodunrin 2016; Ruvio and Shoham 2007). While gatekeeping has changed with the proliferation of digital media, with fewer gates online (Basen 2011), gatekeepers remain significant to assist everyday users to sift through high amounts of media information to find what is useful, credible and important (Keen 2008). In Platfontein,

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these gatekeepers are assisting non-users to access sought-after information. X is a Platfontein hip-hop artist and a fan of American rapper, song writer and record producer Kendrick Lamar. X watches Lamar on MTV base and has begun to dress, act and rap like his idol. Other young people who do not have access to MTV base know that X is ‘tuned in’ to the latest trends and have begun to model their style according to him. Similarly, Belson Kajanga says of one of the DRAP JJ artists, ‘Andre brought me up in the rap game. I look up to him and respect him a lot’ (Bodunrin 2014, p.  126). Jona Marinda states that he learned to produce hip-hop beats when a family member visited from Cape Town (Bodunrin 2014, p. 126).10 When such individuals visit Platfontein, they are expected to bring with them a valuable store of new knowledge. The gatekeepers discussed here are ‘known peer influencers’, closely connected to those in their network and with the greatest impact on their peers due to proximity and depth of relationship (Sheldrake 2011). In traditional gatekeeping theory (Shoemaker and Vos 2009) gatekeepers are in control of a unidirectional flow of information. While the internet changes that (Chin-Fook and Simmonds 2011), access plays a significant role in who becomes a gatekeeper in Platfontein. While the flow of information is no longer unidirectional, ordinary young people who may want to access and contribute to it are only able to when they are afforded access to the net by their access-privileged peers. Many of the artists and those in their network have feature phones that are able to play music in MP3 format and connect to the internet but do not have advanced hardware and capabilities. Many also have social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter but access these only intermittently due to high data charges. Some groups use these social media platforms to market their brand (see Fig. 9.1). Groups also use SoundCloud and (less frequently) YouTube. Berlin-­ based SoundCloud is the world’s largest open audio platform, allowing for users to upload, promote and stream music and podcasts for free. The links to SoundCloud are shared on social media platforms such as Facebook. They have labelled their music ‘San Sounds and Music’, in a bid to gain interest and listenership. Music is also directly recorded onto phones using the voice recorder function and then shared via Bluetooth 10  While unemployment is rife in Platfontein, a few community members have found employment in other cities.

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Fig. 9.1  A post from the Blood Eye Gang’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook. com/2012874865611029/photos/a.2012875482277634/2132496483648866

(where possible) or WhatsApp. The platforms SoundCloud, WhatsApp and YouTube, while they make for ease of access to the music, do so in the face of high data costs. South Africa is ranked 35th out of 49 African countries on Research ICT Africa’s Africa Mobile Pricing (RAMP) Index (Gillwald et al. 2018). Of the leading African economies, it has the highest pricing for data. On Vodacom and MTN, the two biggest mobile companies in South Africa, customers pay R149 (just under 10 USD) for a once-­ off one gigabyte data bundle that is valid for one month.11 This is a hefty fee for the poor, especially households of ten or more people like those in Platfontein where household income is reliant on the government old age 11  Data contracts are cheaper per gigabyte, but without regular employment and good credit, poor individuals are excluded from accessing these.

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pension grant of R1700 (a little over 117 USD) and the child welfare grant, currently R420 a month (just under 30 USD).12 According to Gillwald, Mothobi and Rademan (2018, p.  6), ‘the gap is growing not only between the connected and unconnected, but between those who have the skills and financial resources to use the Internet optimally and those barely online’. While still a major concern, this gap is somewhat mitigated in Platfontein due to a well-established kinship network through which technologically advantaged individuals share what they discover online (often making recordings on their phones and sending via Bluetooth) such that new music, information and trends are widely disseminated.

Resistance and Assimilation Their music sampling and peer-to-peer file sharing while constituting piracy, may be regarded as a rejection of the enclosure of contemporary culture and the information commons by large corporations and thus a form of resistance (Haupt 2010). The piracy as well as the use of free-to-­ use democratising platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube embody specific tactics within their environment, this includes the primary environment of the low-income, peri-urban dwelling space as well as the secondary digital environment with its hurdles of high data costs, limited access and its technologies and necessary technological literacy. We use the word ‘tactics’ as defined by Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life (c1984). This involves everyday people individualising mass culture such that the ‘strategies’ encouraged by governments and corporations, such as the grids of the city, are superseded by tactics such as shortcuts across the grass in lieu of the concrete walkway. These tactics are often counter-hegemonic in nature. They epitomise the hustle, what Schoon describes as ‘a combination of necessity, ingenuity and bravery that is fuelling the digital arts in township communities’ (2014, p. 215). In a study on digital cultural practices of rural Australian Indigenous youth, Inge Kral (2010) notes that new forms of literacy have arisen among the youth. Moreover, the elements and definition of literacy and its practice ‘are now in historical transition’ (Kral 2010, p.  1), with young 12  Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/services/social-benefits-retirement-and-old-age/ old-age-pension and https://www.gov.za/services/child-care-social-benefits/childsupport-grant

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people ‘at the vanguard of the creation of new cultural forms’ (Hull and Zacher 2004, p.  42). Like the remote Australian youth of Kral’s study, Platfontein youth are also ‘plugged in’ to the ‘ubiquitous universalist youth culture’ (Kral 2010, p. 3). With their neck chains, sneakers, head bands, caps and clothing, they emulate their American icons. Yet, they are not merely consumers of this culture, they engage and change it with their own local flair. Uploading their music onto the internet—a music of code switching, local colloquialisms, community and personal struggles—is an act of re-embedding (to use Kral’s term) into ‘a product of globalised sameness’ (Kral 2010, p. 3; Osgerby 2004). This speaks to the fluidity of the global hip-hop community. Most academics exploring the relationship of hip-hop and disenfranchised youth (see Alim et  al. 2009; Mitchell 2002) ‘see it not as exemplifying American cultural dominance, but as [a] quintessentially ‘glocal’ subculture, one which demonstrates the ways global concerns are grounded in local contexts and cultures’ (Morgan and Warren 2011, pp. 926–927). The glocal subculture then, referring to the refracting of the global through a local lens, obfuscates the binary between resistance and assimilation. With reference to the national heritage, Stuart Hall states: ‘[i]t follows that those who cannot see themselves reflected in its mirror cannot properly “belong” (2005, p. 24). The same can be said for the global village created by web 2.0. As a community living on the fringes of the metropolitan, the !Xun and Khwe face unemployment, poor skills development, low income, poor housing and ill health—some of the major elements of social exclusion. These are complex processes of alienation from mainstream society (Tanaka et al. 2010) and the digital divide is one of them. While there is no linear progression from exclusion to inclusion and vice versa, the Platfontein artists’ foray into music-making is an example of a local challenge against the social paralysis often caused by a marginalised minority groups’ isolation and distance from the city. Easy-to-use software and digital sharing platforms allow for social inclusion into a virtual space where glocalised creative expression bolsters self-representation and belonging. When asked what he hopes to achieve with hip-hop, Jason Cheslin said, ‘I just wanna push the Bushman culture forward with my hip-hop music. We want those people out there to know we still exist through our music’ (Bodunrin 2014, p. 123). Although ‘Bushman culture’ is a problematic term, connoting a homogeneity and stasis that does not exist, it appears

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that asserting an unapologetic self-identity to the world ‘out there’ is of utmost importance to Jason. In the past, San peoples have been highly romanticised and (mis)represented as ‘primitives’. Grounded in counter-­ hegemonic protest, hip-hop offers these young people a platform to voice their frustrations against marginality and a society which fails to treat them as equal citizens. Jason, who wrote and produced a song on bucket toilets, dilapidating homes and the inhumane conditions of Platfontein, is using this platform to mobilise others within the township to speak out (personal communication, 16 August 2016). The fact that artists such as Jason wish to perform their work for non-indigenous audiences is a major shift away from the picture of the shy, overwhelmed, victimised youth unable to engage outside of Platfontein (see Le Roux 1999). This confidence is perhaps due to their growing sense of belonging to a global hip-hop community, one not constrained by the perimeters of Platfontein.

Conclusion Living on the periphery, these young people find themselves on the fringes of society and technology at large. Facing limited access to computers, the internet and high mobile data charges, part of the complex processes of alienation from mainstream society, Platfontein hip-hop artists continue to find ways to ‘connect’. The tactics they use through which to make a place for themselves in the digital space include counter-hegemonic hustling and user to non-user dissemination of new information, music and trends. The bedroom studio has become their digital classroom, a space to collectively experience and access technology and its requisite skills. Software and digital sharing platforms have allowed for the global democratisation of music-making. What we are witnessing with hip-hop artists in Platfontein is their entry into this exciting space. It is a space in which they find belonging to the imagined community of hip-hoppers across the globe, a space of a new and evolving literacy, and a platform through which to voice their everyday struggles. Acknowledgements  The authors are indebted to the Platfontein hip-hop artists for their research participation and to our colleagues Varona Sathiyah and Julie Grant for their commentary, especially Dr. Grant for her most insightful review.

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Ponelis, S. R., & Holmner, M. A. (2015). ICT in Africa: Enabling a better life for all. Information Technology for Development, 21(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/02681102.2014.985521. Powell, C. (2014). Rethinking marginality in South Africa: Mobile phones and the concept of belonging in Langa Township. Bamenda: Cameroon Langaa Research & Publishing. Pritchard, G. (2011). Hip-hop heads: The social world of musical performers in post-­ apartheid Cape Town (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Newcastle England: Newcastle University. Retrieved from https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/dspace/ handle/10443/1098. Robbins, D. (2004).  A San journey: The story of the !Xun and Khwe of Platfontein.  Kimberley, South Africa: The Sol Plaaitje Educational Trust.  https://cput.worldcat.org/title/san-journey-the-story-of-thexunand-khwe-of-platfontein/oclc/70188422. Robbins, D. (2007). On the bridge to goodbye: The story of South Africa’s discarded San soldiers. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball. Ruvio, A., & Shoham, A. (2007). Innovativeness, exploratory behavior, market mavenship, and opinion leadership: An empirical examination in the Asian context. Psychology and Marketing, 24(8), 703–722. https://doi.org/10.1002/ mar.20180. Schoon, A. (2014). Digital hustling: ICT practices of hip hop artists in Grahamstown. Technoetic Arts, 12(2/3), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1386/ tear.12.2-­3.207_1. Schoon, A. J. (2017). Remixing the tech: The digital media ecologies of the hip-hop artists from Grahamstown, South Africa (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. Retrieved from https://open. uct.ac.za/handle/11427/27024. Sefton-Green, J. (2006). Youth, technology and media cultures. Review of Research in Education, 30, 279–306. Sharp, J., & Douglas, S. (1996). Prisoners of their reputation? The veterans of the ‘Bushman’ battalions in South Africa. In P. Skotnes (Ed.), Miscast: Negotiating the presence of the Bushmen  (pp. 323–330).  Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Sheldrake, P. (2011). The business of influence: Reframing marketing and PR for the digital age. Cornwall, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Shoemaker, P. J., & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. New York, NY: Routledge. Soskolne, T. (2007). Being San in Platfontein: Poverty, landscape, development and cultural heritage. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. South African San Institute. (2010). Pangakokka Platfontein community development plan. Kimberley: South African San Institute.

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Tanaka, A., Gaye, L., & Richardson, R. (2010). Co-production and co-creation: Creative practice in social inclusion. In R.  Nakatsu, N.  Tosa, F.  Naghdy, K.W.  Wong & P.  Codognet (Eds.), Entertainment computing symposium (pp.  169–178). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. Retrieved from https://link. springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-­3-­642-­15214-­6_17.pdf Uys, I. (1993). Bushman soldiers: Their alpha and omega. Germiston: Fortress. Van Dijk, J., & Hacker, K. (2003). The digital divide as a complex, dynamic phenomenon. The Information Society, 19(4), 315–326. https://doi. org/10.1080/01972240390227895. Warren, A., & Evitt, R. (2010). Indigenous hip-hop: Overcoming marginality, encountering constraints. Australian Geographer, 41(1), 141–158. https:// doi.org/10.1080/00049180903535659. Watson, A. (2014). Cultural production in and beyond the recording studio. London: Routledge. Wilmsen, E.  N. (1996). Decolonising the mind: Steps toward cleansing the Bushman stain from Southern African history. In P.  Skotnes, (Ed.) Miscast: Negotiating the presence of the Bushmen (pp. 185–190). Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.

CHAPTER 10

Creating a Home Community Online During Carnival: Trinidad’s Diaspora and Social Media Use Daina Nathaniel

Introduction Few would disagree that social networking has taken hold in various arenas and across various populations around the world. Now people everywhere can connect with former classmates, old flames, make new friends and network for employment, with the simple click of a mouse and a creative password. This new social phenomenon has also given rise to vocabulary that we are fast starting to take for granted. Hence, we ‘tweet’, ask others to ‘friend’ us and ‘link’ up with those who might facilitate career advancement. While these sites are used on a daily basis for people to connect with friends and family, they also provide a forum for media outlets to connect listeners, viewers and readers. One of the most defining qualities of social media, is the creation of communities of people who may not otherwise be brought together. Lee, Yen, and Hsiao (2014) studied the

D. Nathaniel (*) Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_10

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value of interaction and information sharing on social media and argued that a sense of belonging emerges when people receive likes on Facebook (p. 355). Additionally, Oh, Ozakaya, and LaRose (2014) posit that persons who engage in ‘a certain quality of social media interactivity perceived an enhanced sense of community’ (p.  69). These communities carve out a place in cyberspace where they can occupy, celebrate and contest their various identities. In fact, Fox and Bird (2017) argue that social media offer members of society opportunities to interact in new ways although they bring both challenges and benefits (p.  2). This function, together with the widespread use of social media for marketing and promotion, has completely revolutionised the bringing of people together across time and space, particularly because users search for symbols which could help them express whom they want to be and how they want to be identified (Laroche et al. 2012, p. 2). This research study focuses on how the Trinidadian diaspora have re-­ created a sense of place online by celebrating their Trinidadian and Caribbean identity during pivotal cultural moments, such as during the annual Carnival. This festival is one of the most recognisable aspects of Trinidad culture around the world and will be discussed in more detail later. The first livestream of Trinidad Carnival was interactive, in that the TV channel’s website (ctntworld.com) also linked users via live chat on Facebook, to which patrons could subscribe. These feeds were open access, and one did not have to join the chat to be privy to the conversations, some of which lasted several hours. What became evident was that many of the people chatting did not know each other, yet were able to fall into a comfortable conversational exchange. Arguably, they developed a relationship that created a sense of community, which fostered a spirit of Trinidadian-ness during one of the most beloved events on the Trinidad and Tobago annual calendar. What the online livestream discussion forum has done for the Trinidadian diaspora specifically is made it possible for previously unconnected members to create communities around relevant issues and culture. By including instant chat on websites, subscribers are able to re-create the colloquial exchanges that are typical of face-to-face interactions in Trinidad. In this way, a new application of place is born, whereby the literal and geographical ties are eroded yet people are able to connect to each other in real time. These exchanges are not necessarily idyllic nor always civil, but the interaction that new media technologies have afforded some, is undeniable.

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Performing Citizenship Online One dimension of this study looked specifically at how those who live in the diaspora continue to engage with the issues of their homelands by using social media to express their voices and to interact with those who still live in their native countries. Effectively, the diaspora uses social media access to perform their citizenship, through their engagement with the contemporary issues at ‘home’. The concept of citizenship has traditionally suggested natural ties to a particular place, often assumed by birth, but in other cases comes as a result of naturalisation (Field 2000). Citizenship, however, is much more than a birth right or a legalised status, but a quality that is performed when one feels a sense of place or belonging to a particular nation or state. Moreover, ‘citizenship becomes as lens for understanding not simply who is included in the territory of the state, but also who is excluded’ (Field 2000). Thus, citizenship draws people to rise above their physical locations and instead become actors within the affairs of their nation or state in one way or another. This is not to suggest, however, that citizenship is a static state, nor are citizens a homogenous group of people. Social media have created new avenues for the enactment of citizenship. Digital citizenship specifically, researchers say, increases respect and support in and among online users (Jones and Mitchell 2016, p.  12). Thus, social media provides powerful forums for those in the diaspora to continue to interact with their native homeland in much more meaningful ways than previous media allowed. In fact, some scholars of social media argue that ‘online spaces do not evolve in isolation but from existing social and cultural processes and institutions’ (Orgad 2006, p. 878). Leighninger (2011) contends that the internet, ‘has given people who have some degree of interest and capacity… a much greater ability to find the information, resources, and allies they need to make an impact on issues or public decisions they care about’ (p. 20). He adds that social media are making it much easier to build and maintain interactive networks of people and that they stay involved in these virtual spaces because ‘they are convenient, they allow for interaction, they deepen and complement face-­ to-­face relationships, they are adaptable by the participants, and they give people a powerful sense of membership’ (Leighninger 2011, p.  21). Regarding the Trinidad context specifically, a study of internet use in Trinidad demonstrates that the concept of national borders in Trinidadians’ internet use and online communication is pervasive. The researchers discuss how the participants in their study go to great lengths to make the

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internet a place where they could construct, perform and enact that which distinguishes them as uniquely Trinidadian (Miller and Slater 2000, p. 85). Internet spaces, therefore, ‘offer unique opportunities for diasporic members to facilitate, maintain and intensify their sense of community by reproducing and maintaining cultural elements of the homeland’ (Orgad 2006, p. 880). The concept of citizenship has also been widely explored in scholarly research. Low (2015) describes citizenship as intricately tied to a person’s belonging to a specific nation state. ‘Each individual is assigned to one nation-state, and he or she is either an insider or an outsider’ (p. 719). Field (2000) argues instead, that ‘beyond the traditional emphasis on issues of residency, nationality, and suffrage, citizenship discourse also engages us with issues of identity formation, rights claims, duties, and entitlements’. Isin (2009) agrees, arguing that citizenship is more than simply being a member of a particular national group. Instead, ‘being a citizen almost always means being more than an insider—it also means to be one who has mastered modes and forms of conduct that are appropriate to being an insider’ (pp. 371–2). It is this conducting of oneself that makes the performance of citizenship always a site of struggle. Citizenship performance, then, means that there are new possibilities for keeping members of the diaspora integral parts of the functioning of the nation, as they no longer have to be disconnected from the realities of what is happening on the ground in their native countries. This study considers the ways in which social media are being used by the Trinidad and Tobago diaspora as they engage with resident nationals in these forums, thereby continuing to be citizens invested in the everyday life of their home nation. Coupled with the availability of livestream television, radio stations and online newspapers, the flow of information to the diasporic community feeds the ability for engagement, which is made possible by the immediacy and intimacy of social media platforms. Social media sites, according to Brennan (2018) help bring new voices into discussion and involve users in issues that matter to them (p. 2). This is not to suggest, however, that there are no perimeters around the place created online. In fact, quite like many literal places, there are virtual fences that limit the interaction between people in the diaspora as well as on-the-­ ground in Trinidad. This suggests, then, that the perception of the internet as a democratising space where all voices can be heard is grossly overstated and many scholars have argued that, in fact, the internet can

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provide a range of opportunities for its users including deliberation, hegemony and individualism (Dahlberg 2007, pp. 47–48).

Data Collection This study takes a close look at how the Caribbean diaspora—specifically migrant Trinidadians—create a sense of place online via social media instant live chat during the Carnival season. I believe that the communities which are created as a result of social media, demonstrate a new application of the diasporic presence that is not bound by time and space. While this connection is mediated, it still infuses a sense of identity and citizenship that is linked, not to physical manifestations as traditional diaspora, but to an intangible understanding of what it means to be a proud national of Trinidad and Tobago. The first phase of data collection began in 2011 when it was advertised that there would be a live stream of the various Carnival events including Dimanche Gras, Panorama and the Monday and Tuesday parades of the bands. CTNTworld.com, which is the website that streams channel 3 in Trinidad and Tobago, brought live coverage of several of these Carnival competitions. Given that this was the first attempt at a live stream of this magnitude from a media entity in Trinidad and Tobago, it was satisfying that the site also embraced the social media phenomenon by linking live chat via Facebook, to which patrons could subscribe and join in. These feeds, however, were open on the web, and one did not have to join the chat to be privy to the conversations only to contribute to them. The live chat lasted between five and eight hours during each event as these shows were in progress. Data collection continued each Carnival season in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. What became clear from the first year of data collection was that many of the people chatting did not know each other and yet were able to fall into a comfortable exchange and arguably, carved out a place for the community—a decidedly Trinidadian community—to allow them, and perhaps others who were following the stream, to feel a sense of Trinidadian-ness during the most defining aspect of Trinidad culture: Carnival. It was also obvious that the people online were not physically in Trinidad. Logically, if they were, there would be little need to be taking in the festivities online, they could simply watch on television or attend the various events in person. However, not only did the online subscribers ask each other where they were located, but also spontaneously divulged where they were by

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indicating the time difference with Trinidad, or lamenting the cold weather, for example. What was obvious from the start was that this coming together of like people, albeit online, embodied many of the interpretations of diaspora other scholars have proffered. Braziel and Mannur (2003) claim that diaspora, etymologically derived from the Greek term meaning to sow or scatter seeds, ‘has historically referred to displaced communities of people who have been dislocated from their homeland through the movements of migration, immigration, or exile’ (p. 1). Vertovec (1997) describes diaspora as any population that has been ‘“deterritorialized” or “transnational”—that is, which has originated in a land other than which it currently resides, and whose, social, economic and political networks cross the borders of nation-states or, indeed, span the globe’ (p. 277). Stuart Hall (2006) defines diaspora against that which it is not. ‘The diaspora experience… is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of “identity” which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity. Diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference’ (Hall 2006, p. 438). What this current study uncovered was that people of largely the same national background found each other and their sense of national pride through the ritual of Carnival online, which allowed them to be transported, even mentally to a sense of place that cannot be exactly re-created in a new living environment abroad. Social media has facilitated that sense of reproducing of oneself, as Hall describes, in the way that practical strangers transform the need for physical connection into a virtually real community. Even though there was no indication of how long the subscribers had been away from Trinidad and Tobago, the mood of the ongoing conversation was filled with nostalgia and longing to be there in the midst of the action. Notably, it is a challenge to say exactly where each user is located unless one were to sign up and ‘friend’ each user, thereby gaining access to their profiles which may contain their locations. However, it is relatively safe to assume that many of the people online are Trinidadians and Tobagonians located outside of Trinidad and Tobago given that location is a regular question between users, overwhelmingly, it was revealed that most users are residing in the United States, although there are also users located in

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other parts of the world including Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Data collection for this type of study involved monitoring the livestream for between five and eight hours per event to ascertain the following elements: • The users: are they regular or occasional? Where are they from? Do they seem to know each other, or are relationships being formed in the course of the livestream? • The medium: which of the social media are most used? • The content: what are users saying? How do these comments reflect engagement? Are they truly performing citizenship in the course of catching up with the day’s headlines?

Trinidad Carnival in Context In order to appreciate the significance of Carnival to Trinidadians, it is important to understand how this celebration manifests in Trinidad and Tobago. This will put into better context why members of the diaspora seek out these live feeds and are drawn to tune in to the festivities. What is known as Carnival today has progressed over the years to a grand celebration that is more than the two-day street parade preceding Ash Wednesday. It is, in fact, a season that begins on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and extends until the beginning of the Lenten season. Some authors contend that the roots of Carnival can be traced back to the late 1700s when French-speaking settlers came with their slaves to the island. Others claim that the festival evolved after emancipation, when ‘Carnival became a festival of the urban black underworld (1860s and 1870s) until it was purged and made respectable around the turn of the century’ (Brereton 1981). What is certain, however, is that Carnival became a symbol of freedom for a large section of the population, not just a period of frivolous merriment (Hill 1972). Calypso, one key aspect of Carnival, is native Trinidad music although it can be found in other Caribbean countries. In the early 1900s it developed as an art form out of the ghettos of Port-of-Spain, the capital city. In its formative years, ‘calypso was used to attack injustice and pull down the mighty’ (Brereton 1981). Today it takes many other forms: political and social commentary, soca, humorous and party songs. Calypsos are largely

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seasonal, in that a new crop of tunes is turned out to coincide with the Carnival season. But calypso is not the only music that comes at Carnival time. Steelband is, in fact, the most modern aspect of Carnival, dating back to the 1930s (Mason 1998). Steelband has seen a contentious history but today can be heard in musical arrangements all around the world. ‘Steel pan was the rough diamond of Carnival, harnessing the immense creativity and energy that lay untapped… [and] gave many young men an identity and a purpose to life’ (Mason 1998). Costume design and creation are traditional and significant arts that perhaps require the most time and energy during the Carnival preparation. Known to Trinidadians as mas (short for masquerade), ‘each band has its own fantastical, historical, mythological or topical theme, with various sections in the band depicting aspects of that theme’ (Mason 1998). According to Mason (1998), people get involved for the love of the masquerade, the team spirit and camaraderie and to showcase their artistic talents. Perhaps the most significant element of Carnival, for which the festival has become synonymous, is the parade of the bands, in the form of a massive street parade, which takes place on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Carnival Monday is a vivid precursor to Tuesday, which is when the real judging takes place and masquerade bands are sure to appear in full costume. Spectators come out by the thousands to line the streets to view the costumes as the bands pass by. The height of Monday and Tuesday occurs when the bands cross the stage of the Queens Park Savannah, a large arena that seats thousands, and which accommodates thousands of masqueraders as well. Trinidad Carnival has become one of the defining elements of the Trinidadian identity, although not every Trinidadian takes part in the festival. From its roots in slavery to the expansive street festival it has become, Carnival essentially reveals on the one hand, that Trinidadians, with their various ethnic backgrounds, are able to come together, peaceable and with the sole intent of having a good time. On the other hand, the national festival of the magnitude described above, stands as testament to the possibility of a melting pot society, where differences in creed and race are far less important than gathering together for a celebration. In fact, it is Trinidad’s special mix of peoples and background which gives Carnival and the country their extraordinary spirit and identity (Mason 1998).

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This sense of togetherness can also be witnessed in the numbers of emigrants who have not only re-created the Trinidad Carnival in other parts of the world, but many of whom also return to the island for some or all of the Carnival festivities. Scher (2007) suggests that Carnival organisers in Trinidad attempt to create attractions that would engage not only locals and foreign visitors, but ‘transnational returnees who would play some part in keeping an archaic expressive form alive’ (p. 85). Furthermore, he argues, Carnival holds a special place in the transnational imagination, but not the Carnival as it is celebrated today; ‘a different Carnival that many, especially older Trinidadians remember from their youth’ (p. 91). Trinidadians who live outside of Trinidad yearn not just for the country itself, ‘but also for a place of memory, a place lodged in a particular time’ (p. 91).

Findings Data for this study were collected over the period of five years from 2011 to 2015, focused on the coverage of the Carnival celebrations and competitions. I tuned in to the various Carnival events broadcast online, observed the conversations and recorded the content of the online chats. This involved between five and eight hours of viewing at a time, to get a clear sense of how the conversations evolved through the duration of each event being streamed. Using close textual analysis, what was clear over time is that users became much more familiar with each other and yet, perhaps even those who were not likely to be friends outside of the social media arena on account of geographic location, managed to create a community that came together in a tangible way to celebrate what Trinidadians consider the world’s greatest festival. In examining the live stream chats, it was evident that not only were there mostly Trinidadians contributing to the conversation, but that despite where they were physically in the world, they invoked a sense of Trinidadian-ness that is characteristic of the way that diasporic communities operate.

How the Livestream Chat Evolved During the instant chat, the conversations were rather benign at the start, with users enquiring about when the feed would begin and which performers were expected to appear. There were some random comments about alternative access to the programs and the quality of the feed, but

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overall, seemingly superficial banter in the beginning. Once the competition of the night began, however, the conversation shifted, not only as the subscribers became more accustomed to each other but also because there was actual content on which they could comment. This is where the sense of place truly began to evolve and could be witnessed more powerfully in the second year of data collection. In 2011, the instant chat had been expanded from Facebook to include Twitter, MySpace, Google, LinkedIn and Orkut. Subscribers logged in early and chatted about the performers but this time with strong evaluations of who would win. They joked about the food and drink they had prepared and even enquired about each other’s wellbeing. In the following years, the conversations advanced in the same way with even more familiarity among users, who even enquired about those who were absent whom they may have expected to be part of the online exchange. Considering all of the data collected during Carnival events, several themes emerged, many of which indicate reference points of place and community, which parlay themselves into a constitution of diaspora that has previously been attributed to the gathering of like peoples in new lands to celebrate and remember their former homelands. The users tuning into the Carnival celebrations online created a sense of place by seamlessly injecting emblems of Trinidadian-ness to connect to each other.

Interjecting Trinidad Dialect The first of these themes was the use of the Trinidadian dialect. This was particularly interesting because the dialect is typically spoken and not written. Yet, the users were able to phonetically capture the idiosyncrasies of Trinidadian speech that is derived from standard English. Within this frame, users also engaged in what Trinidadians call picong, a form of humorous jabbing that is intended to be light-hearted repartee. Users joked among themselves and threw harmless verbal shots at each other, in what typifies cultural exchange in Trinidad among persons who are familiar and friendly. They even used abbreviations of Trinidadian version of curse words, e.g. WDMC (what de muddah c**t). Commentary on the women, both competitors and supporting performers was also significant. Users made fun of their costuming, body size and shape, hairstyles, as well as their acting and dancing skills.

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Remembering the Past There was a decided air of nostalgia during the various streamed competition, particularly the calypso shows. Younger users who criticised the datedness of vintage calypsonians were cautioned to respect these cultural elders. In fact, given that calypso competitions were being live streamed, there was a running commentary on the performers. Some users expressed support and delight at seeing some of their favourites from the past, while others naysaid the tactics used by the competitors. Throughout much of this, users reminisced about the past performances of these artists, recalling when they first entered the Carnival arena, as well as the most memorable songs made popular over the years. There was obvious invocation of cultural memory as users even recalled the music arrangers and their notoriety worldwide, as well as practices that are typical when one attends these events live. According to Heinrich and Weyland (2016) ‘cultural memory refers to a canon of past events that are commemorated in a fixed manner and which are defined as well as kept alive by history interpreters or other specialized interpreters’ (p. 28). Thus, the online users of the livestream performed as history interpreters in the way that they reminded each other of the iconic pieces of certain Carnival contexts. One such recollection was the ‘toilet paper posse’, referencing the practice of flying toilet paper during live calypso performances, which the audience find to be particularly boring, or for calypsonians that they simply did not like for one reason or another.

Recreating the Hangout Overall, there was a general feeling of a group of friends liming—the Trinidadian term for hanging out. There was a lot of conversation about food and drink, with users enquiring of each other ‘whey yuh cookin’?’ With seemingly great pride, users shared their preparations of local Trinidadian cuisine as a necessary complement to the festivities they were enjoying online. Not all of the chatter was this superficial, however. Because of the very political nature of calypso as an art form, it came as no surprise that users engaged in heated political repartee. One debate erupted surrounding the politics of the People’s National Movement, the longest standing political party in Trinidad and Tobago history. While some of the users seemed to have only scant knowledge of the political landscape in Trinidad at the time, they had strong arguments concerning

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certain calypsonians as political mouthpieces. These discussions degenerated into comments regarding the current state of Trinidad and Tobago as a country. Users lamented the influence of foreign media, particularly that of the United States. One user summed up this way: ‘Cable have Trinidad in ah overseas mentality’.

Invoking Ethnic Divisions With the abolition of the African slave trade in the 1800s, indentured workers from India were brought to improve the then British colony, Trinidad. The colonial governors strategically pit ethnic communities against each other and from the start, the Africans and Indians formed largely separate communities as the Africans lived closer to the urban town centres, while the Indians settled in the rural areas surrounding the sugarcane fields. What is evident is that the contact between the ethnic communities in Trinidad was destined to be tenuous. Today, the nation enjoys a growing mixed population, yet, recent census data indicates the population of persons of African and East Indian descent being almost equal. It was not surprising to discover that the ethnic make-up of the patrons of the various events differed significantly, in that, during the calypso shows, judging by the online photos, the subscribers appeared to be mostly of mixed race and/or of African descent. During the Chutney Soca Monarch show (which features the music that infuses traditional East Indian music with soca music), the subscribers appeared to be mostly of East Indian descent, again judging by last names and photos. Nevertheless, there was a significant element of racism during the show. It opened with a variety of performances, not all of which were classic Indian culture, but arguably Trinidad culture. These included African dances and calypso performers among others. This incited a wave of sarcastic comments including: ‘Is Best Village now!’, ‘Yeah man, Shango!’, ‘Buh is Lion King!’, ‘Next ting, tamboo bamboo!’ These comments were part of the banter but seemed to denounce the multicultural nature of the show, with specific objection to the artforms of African heritage. That several subscribers quickly joined in, showed a latent aspect of identity that undergirds the belief system of some people in Trinidad, even if they no longer reside there. As the show progressed, this discriminatory tone shifted towards Guyana, as subscribers complained that there were too many Guyanese performers in this Trinidad competition. Derogatory remarks were levelled at Guyana, including its impoverished state. It is well known that

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Guyana has struggled economically for several decades and that its Caribbean partners, including Trinidad and Tobago, have rendered economic assistance over the years. The bitter tone of the comments suggested some deeper resentment towards the country.

Conclusion This research highlighted the way that people invoked their Trinidadian identity on an online forum that was almost exclusively dependent on words written on a screen (while there is the possibility of sharing visual elements such as photos or videos on the platforms discussed, this was not the case in this study, perhaps because users were concentrated on the live stream). The use of social media suggests an important application of the concept of place specifically because of the creation of community among ‘virtual’ strangers. Yet, they have been able to make connections and create a community, even if it is contextually or situationally based. It is unknown whether any of these subscribers have added each other to their social networking contacts as a result of meeting on the live chat or whether those who live in the same vicinity have sought to meet each other in person, but what is clear is that the online community that is created during Carnival time and beyond fills a need that can only be trumped by actually being on the ground in Trinidad, at least for Carnival lovers. What may have begun as connection around pivotal events in Trinidad, morphed into a diasporic conversation facilitated by new media technologies. The kinds of exchanges witnessed online indicate a complex narrative about the role of the citizen. Users seem to feel free in the online forum to express their opinions about issues as well as people. This freedom is at the heart of what citizenship is all about, and diasporic citizenship in particular must be seen as a site of struggle in the way that members of this group occupy a place between the homeland and country of residence. It is important, however, to consider the limitations of the type of online interaction analysed for this study. First of all, while internet access has become more widespread across the globe, there are still millions of people who do not enjoy this luxury. Socioeconomic situations and lack of digital literacy skills prohibit the entering of all voices into the online sphere. These limitations are just as prevalent among the diaspora as they are among residents in Trinidad, even though the 2013 Digital Divide

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Survey reports that some 70% of households in Trinidad have access to a computer and some 45% access to the internet. Furthermore, the collection of data also has its limitations in that only one livestream site was considered as it was the strongest and most reliable feed. In the case of Carnival coverage, CTNTworld.com was the only media house granted official broadcast access for some of the events. There were some other livestream feeds available on the web, some being more reliable than others in terms of connectivity, consistency of the feed, and camera placement, which directly affected the quality of the viewing experience. Conversations in live chats associated with those other platforms may yield different findings. Additionally, since users were connecting on different social media platforms, it was sometimes challenging to follow the flow of the conversation as they were sometimes responding to each other within a single platform, for example, Facebook, not across platforms on the livestream site. Furthermore, while I collected data during Carnival events, the selection was based on convenience, so that I may likely have missed critical exchanges during other times in the livestream. Moreover, conversations around events in Trinidad and Tobago also take place over social media independent of livestream broadcasts of news and events. This introduces a different aspect to the reconstitution of diasporic interface with people on the ground in Trinidad. While the close textual method can be rewarding in terms of the specificity of what can be observed, certain judgements had to be made with regards to users’ ethnicities. The online space provides a level of anonymity in that users may use pseudonyms and avatars of any nature, making it difficult at times to discern demographics. Furthermore, given the significant interracial mixing that typifies Trinidad and Tobago, it is sometimes challenging to identify persons’ ethnic backgrounds simply by their looks or username. Finally, while many users revealed their Trinidadian birth, there are many other Caribbean diaspora that also enjoy Trinidad Carnival and may have been contributors to the online conversation, even if they did not reveal their original homelands. Routinely, people from other parts of the Caribbean and the world travel to Trinidad for Carnival so it is not outside the realm of possibility that there are also non-Trinidadians involved in the web chat during these events, which has direct bearing on the shape of the online space during those times. Nevertheless, this study provides some indication of how one diasporic community is using the online space to recreate its place as Trinidadians

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who continue to have a vested interest in their country. The use of social media as points of connection has allowed users to design interactions that in some ways mimic interaction on the ground. One can argue that the virtual community then becomes a physical place, a destination if-you-will, where people can collectively carve out their belonging.

References Braziel, J. E., & Mannur, A. (2003). Introduction. In J. E. Braziel & A. Mannur (Eds.), Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader (pp. 1–22). Malden: Blackwell. Brennan, G. (2018). How digital media reshapes political activism: Mass protests social mobilization, and civic engagement. Geopolitics, History and International Relations, 2(2), 76–81. Brereton, B. (1981). A history of modern Trinidad 1783–1962. Port-of-Spain, Trinidad: Heinemann. Dahlberg, L. (2007). The internet, deliberative democracy, and power: Radicalizing the public sphere. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 3(1), 47–64. Field, A.  M. (2000). Contested citizenship: Renewed hope for social justice. Canadian Woman Studies, 20(2), 78–83. Fox, A., & Bird, T. (2017). The challenge to professionals of using social media: Teachers in England negotiating personal-professional identities. Education and Information Technologies, 22(2), 647–675. Hall, S. (2006). Cultural identity and diaspora. In B.  Ashcroft., G.  Griffiths & H.  Tiffin (Eds.), The Post-Colonial Studies reader (pp.  435–438). London: Routledge. Heinrich, H. A., & Weyland, V. (2016). Communicative and cultural memory as a micro-meso-macro relation. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 12(1), 27–41. Hill, E. (1972). The Trinidad Carnival. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Isin, E. F. (2009). Citizenship in flux: The figure of the activist citizen. Subjectivity: International Journal of Critical Psychology, 29(1), 367–388. Jones, L. M., & Mitchell, K. J. (2016). Defining and measuring youth citizenship. New Media and Society, 18(9), 2063–2079. Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., Richard, M. O., & Sankaranarayann, R. (2012). The effects of social media-based brand communities on brand community markers, value creation practices, brand trust and brand loyalty. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1755–1767. Lee, M. R., Yen, D. C., & Hsiao, C. Y. (2014). Understanding the perceived community value of Facebook users. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 350–358.

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Leighninger, M. (2011). Citizenship and governance in a wild, wired world: How should citizens and public managers use online tools to improve democracy? National Civic Review, 100(2), 20–29. Low, C. C. (2015). Defending national identity and national interests: The limits of citizenship transnationalism in Germany and China. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 16(3), 717–741. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12134-­014-­0362-­4 Mason, P. (1998). Bacchanal: The carnival culture of Trinidad. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Miller, D., & Slater, D. (2000). The internet: An ethnographic approach. Oxford: Berg. Oh, H. J., Ozkaya, E., & LaRose, R. (2014). How does online social networking enhance life satisfaction? The relationships between online supportive interaction, affect, perceived social support, sense of community, and life satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 69–78. Orgad, S. (2006). The cultural dimensions of online communication: A study of breast cancer patients’ internet spaces. New Media and Society, 8(6), 877–899. Scher, P.  W. (2007). When “natives” become tourists of themselves: Returning transnationals and the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. In G.  L. Green & P. W. Scher (Eds.), Trinidad Carnival: The cultural politics of a transnational festival (pp. 84–101). Indiana: Indiana University Press. Vertovec, S. (1997). Three meanings of “diaspora”, exemplified among South Asian religions. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 6(3), 277–299.

PART III

Reforming Media Practices

CHAPTER 11

Philanthropy-Funded Journalism: Implications for Media Independence and Editorial Credibility in South Africa Dumisani Moyo

Introduction The newspaper industry in South Africa has been facing heightened financial challenges since around 2010, with several titles either downsizing or folding outright. Much of this may be attributed to the shifts occasioned by the digital revolution, which has seen the migration of a large proportion of advertising from print to various online platforms, notably to Google and Facebook, which are said to take 70 percent of digital advertising worldwide (King 2019). The Google and Facebook effect has been widely felt in media industries across the world, with many news publishers, tax agencies and regulators calling for stringent regulation of these tech giants. The weekly Mail & Guardian (M&G), one of South Africa’s most influential newspapers renowned for its independent investigative journalism, has been experiencing financial difficulty for many years. In

D. Moyo (*) Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_11

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2017, its owner of 15 years, Trevor Ncube, was forced to cede control of the paper to the US-based Media Development Loan Initiative, following many years of teetering on the brink of collapse. Across the sector, cases of media companies in crisis abound. In June 2019, the Tiso Blackstar Group, one of South Africa’s largest publishing conglomerates, announced the impending shutdown of tabloid newspaper Sunday World, and that it would be retrenching staff from a number of its titles, including The Sowetan, Business Day, The Herald and Daily Dispatch. This follows several other retrenchments over the past few years, in what has been described as a ‘journalist bloodbath’, including those prompted by the closure of Afro Worldviews (formerly ANN7) in August 2018, the controversial daily New Age in June 2018, HuffPost SA in July 2018 and The Times newspaper in November 2017. Back in April 2009, Business Day stopped publishing its evening edition, and its sister publication, The Weekender, shut down in November of the same year. At the same time, there has been growing pressure to retrench some 1200 freelancers and 981 permanent staff from the public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), and 2194 employees from pay-TV operator MultiChoice. In this milieu, many frantic meetings and workshops have been held to explore funding models for the media. Given the chequered history of state funding on the continent, especially of broadcasting and newspapers which invariably ended up as instruments of regime propaganda and control, this has not been an attractive option. Donor funding is equally treated with suspicion in most African countries, especially by governments that have been unable to separate Western donors from Western governments that have earned notoriety for dispensing aid that is tied to democratic performance. In many of these countries, donors have been perceived as ‘enemies of the state’ for their insistence on working with civil society and ‘independent media’ (which is generally associated with opposition political parties). This is less so in South Africa, where media enjoy relatively greater freedom, and the history of foundation support dates back many years, even to the apartheid era.1

1  OSF founder, George Soros, testified that his first funding to an entity in South Africa was to the Weekly Mail newspaper, which was later to become the Mail & Guardian see  https://25.osf.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Tribute-to-George-Soros-byMary-Jane-Morifi-2018.pdf.

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It is against this background that this study explores the rise in philanthropy-­funded journalism and analyses its broader implications for the practice of journalism in South Africa. It focuses on the weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper and its two off-shoots, AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. While philanthropy is often used interchangeably with terms such as ‘charity’, ‘benevolence’, ‘giving’, ‘donating’ and ‘voluntary sector’, it is important to have a clear sense of its meaning in a particular context. Daly (2011), for instance, argues that philanthropy is essentially a contested concept whose meaning has changed as society changed in different contexts over time. Notably, the recent emergence of foundations such as Gates, Omiyar (now known as Luminate), Google, Open Society and others has given rise to what has come to be known as philanthrocapitalism, defined as ‘the use of business and the market to transform philanthropy and foreign aid’ (Edwards 2009, cited in Daly 2011, p. 535). This study looks at philanthropy from a broad definition of ‘the action of transforming the social wellbeing of others through generosity’,2 without losing sight of the significant professionalisation and varied interests that have increasingly crept into the field over the years. Today’s philanthropists have a range of expectations from recipients of their support, and they are attracted to stories that are not only relevant to their agendas and interests, but also have the potential to create measurable impact. Most philanthropists today use intermediaries—their foundations—to fund the various social enterprises on their behalf. These intermediaries are, however, not passive conduits for grant-giving (Porter and Kramer 1991), as they are led by professionals whose grant-giving decisions are informed by a range of issues—including the foundation strategies, values, goals and objectives, as well as their own cultural backgrounds and knowledge of the competing grantees. Following this introduction, we proceed to a discussion of the main theoretical and empirical arguments from preceding research on the topic, in positioning the current study. This is followed by a brief outline of the methods used, and analysis of the three cases, as well as their broad approaches to engaging with philanthropy funding. We then turn to discuss how, based on experiences of the three entities, philanthropy funding

2  See ‘The evolution of philanthropy & and fall of the fundraising pyramid’ at https:// www.communityfunded.com/blog/evolution-philanthropy-fundraising-pyramid/.

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would appear to alter journalistic practices, before drawing some conclusions.

Foundation Funding of Journalism, Global and Local Perspectives While the study of philanthropy funding of journalism is increasingly gaining traction, there has been little scholarly attention to it in Africa. This is despite the fact that several philanthropic organisations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates, the Open Society, Omidyar, Ford Foundation and others, have been pouring millions of dollars into different forms of journalism on the continent. The main questions raised in most of the studies in the West revolve around issues of the influence of philanthropy funding on journalistic practices and cultures, especially on editorial independence. While similar questions have been raised in relation to commercial and political funding of journalism (Herman and Chomsky 2002; Herman and McChesney 2004), investigating philanthropy funding has not been a popular preoccupation, mainly because of the assumptions that philanthropy funding is less problematic, and has the potential to improve elements of journalism where commercial funding has failed. For instance, philanthropy funding has been perceived to help the sector ‘by giving reporters more time to work on a story, by freeing them to pursue less popular topics and by reducing the likelihood of pressure from an owner or advertiser’ (Browne 2010, p. 980). Many studies, however, point to the prevalence of indirect rather than overt pressures exerted on the media by their philanthropy funders (Barker 2008; Browne 2010; Bunce 2016; Schiffrin 2017), implying that researchers should be looking at what Bunce calls the more subtle ‘ties that bind these news organisations to their funders’ (Bunce 2016, p. 3). What makes it imperative to analyse philanthropy funding of journalism in Africa today is the fact that the journalism profession is, in many places, still evolving, and many media houses are still trying to find their feet in increasingly unstable and generally weak markets that render media organisations precarious and in some cases unviable. In addition, the media still have a huge role to play in nation-building and democratic consolidation on the continent. It is important, however, to highlight that donor funding in the media sector in Africa is not new, as it has been an element of external support for the building and consolidation of liberal democracy.

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Most of this funding, however, has come from bilateral and multilateral donors, and less from individual philanthropies. In such cases, it can be fair to assume that media organisations in Africa are less experienced and less equipped to negotiate terms with philanthropic donors, and hence more vulnerable than their Western counterparts when dealing with different forms of influence from their benefactors. A notable observation in previous literature on foundation-funded journalism is the absence, in many instances, of written ethical guidelines informing the giving and receiving of donor funds in the sector (Schiffrin 2017; Scott et al. 2017). This is key in a sector whose credibility hinges upon editorial independence, and where increasingly concerns are being raised about the hidden agendas of funding organisations. As Bunce has argued, ‘media organisations dependent on foundation project-based funding risk being captured by foundation agendas and thus less able to investigate the issues they deem most important’ (in Benson 2017, p. 1). Anya Schiffrin (2017, p. 2) outlines three ways in which private foundations have sought to influence news agendas in media institutions. One is through providing training courses on specific areas of donor interest, such as health journalism or human rights, ‘with the expectation that participating journalists will be more likely to cover these issues as a result’. The second relates to capacitating civil society organisations and social movements to develop media advocacy strategies, as a way of influencing the media to cover their issues from their perspective. The third, which pertains to the focus of this study, is where foundations ‘directly underwrite news content’ (2017, p. 2). Schiffrin establishes that between 2010 and 2014, ‘about 23 percent of private grants intended to support “journalism, news and information” were channeled into initiatives that directly underwrite the production of journalistic content on a topic of importance to the donor’, while ‘Another 27 percent of these initiatives sought to influence news agendas indirectly’ (Schiffrin 2017, p. 2). As more donors insist on solutions-based journalism, and on measuring the success of news stories through their impact, there are emerging concerns that this puts pressure on news organisations ‘to commit significant resources (from a limited pot) to monitoring impact activity’ and to invest in ‘forms of journalism that are more likely to achieve this goal’ (Bunce 2016, np.). Any discussion on philanthropy easily conjures up Charles Dickens’s analogy of ‘telescopic philanthropy’, which in this case can provide a useful prism through which modern philanthropy funding could be viewed.

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While Dickens’s analogy was meant as a critique of early British philanthropy, which ignored the immediate poverty in England and concentrated on the faraway, unknown and unknowable poor, one could use it to raise questions about what happens at the other end of the telescope in modern day foundation funding. The fundamental questions here relate to the power relations between funders and their grantees, and the capacity and willingness of funders to listen to and understand their grantees and adjust their objectives accordingly. While the agenda-setting theory of the media is mainly about the influential power of the media in ‘telling its readers what to think about’ (Cohen 1963, p. 120), it is possible to extend it to media owners, advertisers and other power holders such as philanthropy funders and pharmaceutical companies whose various forms of soft power influence not only what the media report, but also how they should report certain issues. By seeking to fund work on specific societal issues or topics and not others, philanthropy organisations demonstrate that they have priority interests and agendas that they want to advance. These agendas and interests vary significantly, from one philanthropy organisation to another—from narrow and specific public health issues such as fighting HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, malaria to broader democracy, social justice and human rights issues. These are lists of issues and values they care about, and for which they seek to promote suitable organisations to act on, on their behalf, mostly through grants. The agendas and interests of these philanthropies are articulated in their strategy documents, mission statements and grant agreements.

Methodology This is a case study of three philanthropy-funded journalistic entities in South Africa—the ‘parent’ Mail & Guardian (M&G) newspaper and its two ‘spin-offs’—the AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. While both subsidiary entities were established as part of the M&G for the purposes of strengthening investigative reporting and health journalism, respectively, I analyse them as independent entities because they both operated as semi-autonomous entities while they remained within the M&G. They have since also made a clean break with the parent organisation. The study is exploratory with the goal of coming up with findings that will lead to further research not

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only on the impact of philanthropy funding on journalism practices, but also on possible new models of supporting journalism. Case 1: The Mail & Guardian The Weekly Mail (later known as the Mail & Guardian) was started in 1985 by a group of retrenched journalists, following the closure of two publications, Rand Daily Mail and Sunday Express. The dominant narrative is that these bold and innovative journalists ran the paper ‘on a shoestring’ budget and took advantage of the revolution in desktop publishing to get the paper up and running. Yet, little mention is made of the philanthropy seed funding they received from George Soros in recognition of the excellent investigative work they had initiated.3 This underscores the fact that philanthropy funding has always been intrinsic to the development of the Mail & Guardian, as the paper’s Editor, Khadija Patel, highlighted. The establishment in more recent years of an investigation desk (AmaBhungane) and a health journalism desk (Bhekisisa) with significant philanthropy funding, as will be discussed below, also attests to this. The 2017 change in ownership of the M&G has created a new dynamic, as the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) took majority shareholding after the exit of Trevor Ncube. While MDIF is an investment fund, it is often perceived as a philanthropy, or is closely linked to philanthropies that underwrite some of the loans given to media institutions. As such, it fits squarely in what has come to be defined as venture philanthropy, which Will Kenton (2019) defines as ‘the application or redirection of principles of traditional venture capital financing to achieve philanthropic endeavours’. For instance, its entry to ‘rescue’ the M&G has been described as ‘altruistic’, and as a ‘benefactor’ that has brought stability to the title after years of mismanagement and near-bankruptcy (Amato 2018). Nonetheless, according to its editor, the M&G remains largely a commercial enterprise that is meant to be self-sustainable and not reliant on MDIF, with philanthropy funding only covering about 15 percent of its operations (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019).

3  Speaking at the 25th Anniversary of the Open Society Foundations, George Soros revealed that the first donation he ever made was to the Weekly Mail. See https://25.osf.org. za/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/OSF-Lecture-Book-Complete-Final-1.pdf.

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The increased financial difficulty facing most media institutions over the past decade, including the M&G, has seen a growing trend in sourcing funds from philanthropies, with media institutions often bending over backwards to accommodate the requirements that come with the funding. For instance, most philanthropies are reluctant to fund commercial entities. They, instead, prefer to deal with not-for-profit organisations (NPOs), which are better suited for their various needs such as report writing, monitoring and evaluation, impact tracking and more accountable governance systems. The M&G established the Adamela Trust for purposes of receiving and administering philanthropy funding. The Trust is run by the editorial team, with the Managing Editor of the M&G serving as its chairperson and director. As Patel explained, We established the Trust specifically as a vehicle to receive funding from philanthropic organisations who are wary of funding a commercial enterprise. So we basically have created a vehicle to receive funding and to distribute that funding specifically for journalism that is administered by the newsroom and so is not touched by the company. So, we see philanthropic funding to be more and more important to a newsroom’s sustainability going forward. (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019)

Since establishing the Trust, the M&G has received funding from the Open Society Foundation (for training young business journalists), from The Other Foundation (to fund a Rainbow Fellow to look at issues relating to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex people (LGBTI) community in Southern Africa), and from the UK-based Indigo Trust (to fund a data journalist). In a context where it has become widely acknowledged that the legacy business model can no longer sustain the media and build new capacities, philanthropy funding is helping to ‘plug gaps in the newsroom and build new capabilities that we otherwise didn’t have’ (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019). Evidently, with the exit of both AmaBhungane and Bhekisisa, the M&G has huge gaps to fill, in order to maintain its reputation as the country’s leading investigative journalism paper. Patel explained further the prevailing thinking at the M&G: So, I think for me what’s crucial for newsrooms is guaranteeing our independence, because just as any advertiser has an agenda, all these donors also have agendas. It’s about getting into bed with people you trust, or whose agendas at least somewhat align with your own. (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019)

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The question of maintaining editorial independence while receiving philanthropy funding is not an easy one for foundation-funded media institutions. For the M&G, while getting like-minded donors is key, concerns still linger around perceptions of loss of independence: ... our capacities are weakened as we grow more dependent on philanthropic funding, which we ultimately don’t have much control over, because it’s also sporadic; it might be here this year and it might not be here in five years’ time. It’s about, how do you still control who you are and your core mission to produce good journalism, independent journalism while still being funded? (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019)

These are fundamental questions that any philanthropy-funded media institution has to grapple with. In the case of the M&G, the question of editorial control was compounded by the fact that it had two of its main desks better resourced than the rest of the news desks, and hence operated as independent entities within an organisation. Patel neatly summed up this contradiction: As specific beats or desks or units in the newsroom are better funded, there is a point where you risk cannibalistic interaction, because you basically have two organisations within an organisation and the processes governing that relationship can be quite difficult. (Patel, personal communication, May 15, 2019)

The paper realised the need to create a Trust as a vehicle to receive philanthropic funding, and to some degree as a way of cushioning the publication from possible interference from its benefactors. However, the fact that the Trust is run by an M&G editorial team, chaired by the editor, suggests insufficient separation or lack of a firewall between the Trust and the day-to-day editorial running of the M&G. In addition, the absence of funding guidelines to aid decisions on who to receive or not to receive funds from, among others, implies that a lot of responsibility rests on the shoulders of the said editorial team, which often is under pressure to raise funds on the one hand and fulfil their editorial roles on the other, presenting a potentially conflicted relationship.

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Case Study 2: AmaBhungane4 Centre for Investigative Journalism The AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism started in 2010 as the Mail & Guardian Centre for Investigative Journalism, where it made its mark by persistently exposing corruption in the Jacob Zuma administration, and linking President Zuma to the then little-known Gupta family.5 It operated within the Mail and Guardian until 2016 as partly philanthropy and partly commercially funded, with philanthropies providing 70 percent of the funding, and the M&G expected to contribute the balance of 30 percent. However, as one of the informants pointed out, the M&G never gave AmaBhungane that funding, but instead contributed in-kind support, which included such things as office space, internet access and telephone services, in addition to free access to the newspaper’s lawyers and web developers. While the major reason given for going independent is the desire to have their stories used in as many publications as possible, and not being limited to a single title, there are strong indications that this also had something to do with donor preferences to work with an independent unit that had no commercial ties. Since moving out, AmaBhungane has sought to replace the 30 percent funding gap from the M&G with crowd funding—which is something quite new in South African journalism. At the time of writing, the M&G had managed to raise R2.2 million (about US$70,600) (or a quarter of their annual budget in 2019) through crowd funding. In terms of the rest of its funding, AmaBhungane has insisted on donor diversity as a core principle, to avoid the pitfalls that come with being beholden to a single big donor. They have put in place various measures to safeguard the independence of their journalism as well as protect their credibility. These include establishing clear criteria on who the organisation accepts money from (i.e. both for donor funds and crowd funds)—for purposes of transparency and accountability. For instance, AmaBhungane strictly does not accept money from corporate entities or the state to 4  AmaBhungane is isiZilu for ‘the dung beetles’. Using the dung beetle motif, the organisation’s motto is ‘Digging dung. Fertilising democracy’. See https://amabhungane.org/ about-us/. 5  Starting with a spread titled ‘Zuma Incorporated’, AmaBhungane went on to expose the widespread corruption in the Zuma administration, which saw ministerial appointments, government tenders and other key decisions influenced by the interests of the Zuma and Gupta families.

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ensure public trust is maintained. In addition, it has a disclosure policy for individuals/organisations that give anything from 1 percent and above of annual budget (R10,000 threshold), among other criteria contained in their funding policy (Amabhungane 2019). AmaBhungane also indicated that they insist on funders having proper governance systems in place before they can take any money from them. For instance, there must be a functional Board or ‘some type of barrier between those with money and the decision-making around who gets that money… so that there is at least some distance between the wealthy and us receiving that money from a foundation’.6 AmaBhungane also highlighted that it has a strict criterion to say donors can fund the organisation’s journalistic work, but not a specific story: ‘So, we’ll say to all of our donors, Fund AmaB, don’t fund the story. We are unwilling to accept money to do a set of stories around health or policing. That editorial decision-making must be done by an editorial desk and not by a donor saying, ‘Here’s money to cover this particular story’. This, as Karabo Rajuili highlighted, is motivated by the fear of ending up pursuing stories that are not legitimately in the public interest: So, as much as possible, we try and ensure that our donors understand that they support the mandate and the public interest work of the organisation, than the actual decisions on priorities because those are editorial choices that must come from the Center and not external sources. (Rajuili, personal communication, April 24, 2019)

This, however, was not easy, as some donors apply subtle pressure to influence media to report in certain ways, which means the media have to constantly ‘push back’ on such demands, as Rajuili was quick to point out.

6  One informant pointed out that AmaBhungane refused to accept a ‘donation’ from global audit firm KPMG in return for the work the paper had done to unearth the corruption scandal that eventually implicated the firm. It emerged that KPMG had facilitated massive tax evasion by the Gupta family and its associates. KPMG paid back the R70 million it had earned from the Gupta companies involved, and wanted to mend its reputation by donating money to the media as recognition of their role in uncovering the corruption. AmaBhungane refused the money based on principle and insisted on proper Board processes in allocating the funds.

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Case Study 3: Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism7 The Bhekisisa Health Journalism Centre was started in 2013 as the M&G’s health desk. Like AmaBhungane, it was mainly donor-funded, with the bulk of funding coming from the German government, and partial funding, mostly in the form of in-kind contributions such as free office space, from the Mail & Guardian. German funding mostly came from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit’s (GIZ) HIV programme’s budget, but there was an agreed understanding that Bhekisisa wouldn’t only report on HIV-related issues and that the centre would also train and mentor journalists from other media organisations in health reporting. While still operating within the M&G premises at the time of writing, Bhekisisa had already assumed autonomous status back in 2016 when it registered as an independent non-profit and was due to move out in July 2019. Bhekisisa has diversified its funding base over the years. Since 2015, it started receiving funding from the Gates Foundation, which has become its biggest funder. Philanthropy funding constituted 97 percent of the Centre’s budget, with the remaining 3 percent being self-generated income from such things as creating and posting advertising on their website and sponsored events. The Gates funding came with an expanded mandate to take health coverage to the rest of the African continent. By March 2016, Bhekisisa had registered as a not-for-profit organisation (NPO) that received and managed funding independently of the M&G. As founding editor/CEO Mia Malan explained, the impetus to go autonomous mainly came from donors who requested them to register a separate organisation mainly for funding purposes: For the German government specifically, their funding model worked better with giving money to a non-profit than a for-profit. So from then, we became a separate organisation, and now we are going to move away... Our Board reached consensus in March (2019) that we should also file (stories) for other publications so that we have a broader reach.

What is particularly remarkable is that Bhekisisa grew to become the biggest news desk in the M&G, even three times the size of the political desk. At the time of separation, it boasted a staffing complement of over twenty, including seven permanent staff, four part-time staff and ten freelancers. 7

 Bhekisisa is isiZulu for ‘to look at closely’ or ‘to scrutinise’.

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Navigating Editorial Independence While funding from the Gates Foundation appears restrictive to Bhekisisa by limiting its mandate to hold the government accountable in terms of implementing the national strategic plan (NSP) on HIV, TB and sexually transmitted infections, the Bhekisisa editor/CEO does not see it as such. She argues that the mandate is very wide and ‘almost includes everything about health, as the NSP, a 132-page document, focuses on public health issues, and ways to deal with them, that Bhekisisa would have reported on in any case, but with fewer resources.’ The ambivalence about whether this amounted to editorial control or not, however, could not be missed, as the following quote illustrates: I think it is very important to know that you need to get a donor that has very similar objectives to what you do. Because that narrows the possibility significantly of someone having editorial control over what you do. For instance, our target market with or without donors is policy makers, academics, activists, high profile politicians. We want to change policies or set the agenda for policy, and the Gates Foundation is interested in that as well. We have a very clear understanding with Gates Foundation on how media becomes credible, so in our contract it’s very clear that only half our stories will focus on the National Strategic Plan for HIV. TB and sexually transmitted infections and the other will focus on health policy in general without any prescriptions. (Malan, personal communication, May 20, 2019)

While Bhekisisa’s contract with the Gates Foundation stipulates that the Foundation cannot see stories before they are published, or have input in Bhekisisa’s story production process, one can argue that the fact that there are general story quotas for which the organisation could be held to account, to some degree, might be interpreted as editorial control. Malan, however, insists this does not amount to editorial control: Is that editorial control? Not in my opinion. I don’t feel I am being forced to write something I would have done in any case. I do, however, have more resources to do it with and can do a better and more in-depth job of it... But it would get tricky if I take funding on specific subjects. Would I take it? I would love to say no, but non-profits need to survive, and I have seen people who said they would never do that, actually take it, you know. I would, however, be very wary of taking such funding and have said no to such offers before, and will likely do that again (my emphasis).

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Such is the nature of dilemmas that many media organisations face. They often have to choose between upholding principles and ethics of editorial independence and the need to keep the organisation afloat in a challenging environment. Bhekisisa did not have funding guidelines at the time of writing. However, the editor highlighted that these were being developed, as requested by the Board.

Effects of Philanthropy on Journalistic Practices, Independence and Credibility The most critical question put to all informants from the three entities related to how they thought philanthropy funding had altered the ways in which they practiced their journalism, either for good or for bad. The responses were quite revealing and illustrated the complexity and ambivalence of the relationship between philanthropy funding and journalism, where the currency of good journalism is its credibility, and where that credibility depends on independence of media institutions from any potential centres of influence. What was clear from most of the interviews is that media institutions typically take philanthropy founding out of necessity, in a context where the commercial model that has traditionally supported them is increasingly failing. Much as the informants suggested that they were all in a lucky position where they could ‘manage’ their respective relationships with their funders and defend their editorial independence, a certain level of discomfort was palpable, suggesting that the relationship is a negotiated one, with constant struggles over agendas. It was clear that in an ideal world, most would rather not take any philanthropy funding. Nonetheless, there was an overwhelming sense that philanthropy funding of journalism has some very positive attributes that cannot be ignored, and it is important to foreground these. The first relates to what has been mentioned above, that in a context where the commercial model is under siege and failing in many places, philanthropy funding helps strengthen the ecosystem of journalism by supporting areas that are seen as not contributing much to the bottom line of a media enterprise. Social justice stories in areas such as the environment, health, education and service delivery in general are among the first casualties. With the high cost of investigative reporting, it was highlighted that the M&G, for instance, could not have sustained the complex investigations into state capture without the philanthropy funding to AmaBhungane (while it was still part

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of the M&G’s investigations desk).8 Similarly, in a typical commercial model, health journalism would not get as much resources as Bhekisisa does from philanthropy funding, and would not make the critical impact that Bhekisisa is registering.9 As Malan noted, Before Bhekisisa, the monthly page views were 4,000 a month in February 2013. We are now at about 140,000 page views a month on our own website that operates separately from the M&G’s website. And this would never have happened if we did not have resources to have a team. We now have seven people working permanently, four people part time and another ten freelancers. The health desk is now the biggest desk in the M&G. It is bigger than the political investigations. It is about 3 times the size of the political desk. (Malan, personal communication, May 20, 2019)

Thus, philanthropy funding helps create a level of certainty at a time where many media houses are either downsizing or facing total collapse. The second positive attribute mentioned by most interviewees is that philanthropy-funded journalism allows deeper investigation into stories, as opposed to commercial media that are always in a rush to meet the deadline and get the story out. The following quote from Rajuili is illustrative: One of the difficulties I saw with the Mail and Guardian is that we felt under huge pressure to have that story out on Friday, irrespective of whether or not it was ready. And so just the process of being able to spend time working on stories, scrutinising the documents, asking the questions, you know, going through a thorough discussion about the story itself. Just having the time to do a story is often not there in a commercial model because there is that pressure to publish and publish a big story or a breaking story. So, the good side about philanthropic media is that ideally it does give journalists, in particular investigative journalists, the space to really do thorough work. (Rajuili, personal communication, April 24, 2019)

8  State capture refers to the mass corruption where private interests (namely the Gupta family and their networks) infiltrated the state to influence major decisions to their advantage, particularly relating to tenders on state-related projects. 9  The exposure of corruption and maladministration in Free State hospitals, the report on rising rape and physical abuse rates in the township of Diepkloof and the report linking the widespread medicine stock-outs in North West hospitals to state capture are some of the critical stories by Bhekisisa that brought the attention of policymakers.

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A third attribute is that philanthropy funding takes away the need for competitive journalism and replaces that with public interest journalism, which allows journalists to share resources and collaborate with different newsrooms, as AmaBhungane did in the case of stories associated with ‘the Gupta Leaks’ emails.10 A fourth is that philanthropy funding requires journalists to develop different sets of skills. As Malan argued: Ultimately, I am not just an editor, I am also a CEO because I am responsible to find the funding for this place. And when you write a proposal and liaise with donors, it is a very different skill set and language that you need to use than the skills used to produce and edit stories for a media organisation. (Malan, personal communication, May 20, 2019; see also Malan 2018)

She added that some of her reporters also double as impact trackers and writing sections of quarterly reports. With the growing donor obsession with metrics and impact measurement, journalists also have to learn to count metrics and report back on the impact of their stories. All this, Malan argues, is time-consuming and takes the journalists away from simply doing journalism.11 However, while this could be read as negatively influencing journalism, it is also arguable that by demanding the use of metrics to measure impact, philanthropies are enabling newsrooms to better understand their readers/audiences. Besides, in a rapidly changing environment, multi-skilling might hold the promise for the future of journalism. Finally, the absence of the usual ownership and commercial interests in the case of philanthropy-funded entities was also highlighted by most informants as a relief to journalism, as it takes away the attendant pressures. All the informants, however, concurred that philanthropy funding of journalism is not without its own challenges and complications. Some of these are highlighted below.

10  These were emails that exposed the extent to which the Gupta brothers controlled cabinet ministers, state-owned enterprises and their Boards. See, for instance https://www. timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2017-05-28-here-they-are-the-emails-that-provethe-guptas-run-south-africa/. 11  For more on the tyranny of metrics (see Moyo et al. 2019).

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Erosion of Independence, Distorting Newsrooms by Funding Some Desks and Not Others Concerns were raised over the potential of philanthropy funding of journalism to erode editorial independence through subtle and other means. Benson (2017), for instance, warns of potential media capture by foundations whose agendas may be at variance with the public interest goals of the media. One way that foundations have done this is through providing issue-based funding, which has been widely criticised for pre-determining what issues of public interest should be and trumping the agenda-setting role of the media. As Schiffrin (2017, p. 15) argues, ‘By funding coverage of one subject over another, donors set priorities for newsrooms and, by extension, for the public’. Although most informants strongly argued that they were ‘in bed’ with like-minded foundations, and hence not under pressure to report on things that they are not interested in, the mere fact that the funding provided is for some topics and not others, and that in some cases there are specified quotas for different types of stories, suggests a skewed power relationship, where foundations typically set the agenda for the rest of society. As Benson (2017, p. 15) further argues, Reliance on project-based funding at otherwise “neutral” news organisations encourages a subtle, non-transparent form of media capture … More generally, when foundations decide to focus on a few major issues, however worthy, they effectively divert attention from deep structural problems that may be even more worthy but less amenable to quick fixes.

However, in a context where resources are increasingly limited, not many editors would resist niche-area funding for fear of distorting the newsroom. As a former M&G editor, Angela Quintal argued: I would much rather have something that is skewed than nothing at all, to be quite honest – as an editor who was trying to fill her pages with content that was actually great content. So, when the chips are down, trust me, if it means that you are strong in two areas; investigative journalism and health journalism, (and environmental journalism – which was another niche for us), why not? … I think in the ideal world, yes. But we don’t live in the ideal world. (Quintal, personal communication, April 29, 2019)

Quintal emphasised that this was not ‘a case of prostituting ourselves and compromising our ethics but finding the right fit with like-minded

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donors’. Linked to the above is the concern that by funding certain news desks and not others, philanthropy funding distorts newsrooms as it creates a disequilibrium that might not have existed in the first place. In the case of the M&G and its two flagship desks (AmaBhungane and Bhekisisa), it is clear that philanthropy funding created ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, or rich and poor cousins, thereby changing newsroom cultures where traditionally everyone drew from the same resources.

Tyranny of Report Writing Philanthropy funding almost invariably comes with the onerous task of periodic reporting, which, as many informants highlighted, can be time-­ consuming and takes away editors and journalists from their core functions. The more donors an organisation attracts, the more reports it has to produce, grant sizes notwithstanding. Often, the reporting expectations differ from donor to donor. For instance, during the period that Bhekisisa received funding from both the German government and the Gates Foundation, it had to produce different reports for the grants received, each measuring different things (Malan 2018, p. 124). A similar pattern obtains in many donor recipient organisations, and there are very few cases where donors co-fund and expect a single report.

Imposing Structures Suitable to Philanthropy Funding Philanthropy funding often comes with strict grant agreements, which implies that grant money has to be spent strictly on agreed deliverables— unlike in commercial media where profits can be used as the organisation sees fit. While the M&G might have sought philanthropy support to prop up its investigative and health desks, the resultant structure of having centres that eventually evolved into autonomous entities is, arguably, a direct result of donor interests/preferences. Therefore, while both AmaBhungane and Bhekisisa might insist that they made autonomous decisions to move out of the M&G, it is evident that donor preferences of funding autonomous units that are divorced from the commercial enterprise, and that can operate as typical grantees, played a significant part. This resonates with one of the key findings in Schiffrin’s (2017, p. 4) study that ‘Media outlets

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are in some cases reshaping their activities to attract donor funding, and with scant guidelines or editorial policies to ensure editorial independence from donor influence’. The exception in this case is that the imperative for change appears more top-down than bottom-up. Although different philanthropies fund organisations of different form and function, most insist on organisations that have proper governance structures such as a Board, accountable financial management systems, capacity to do monitoring and evaluation, impact measurement, as well as reporting. In addition, many donors are increasingly reluctant to fund entire ecosystems where their interests could be easily drowned out by other unrelated issues—preferring rather to fund specific projects where their impact is distinct and measurable. The exit of AmaB and Bhekisisa from the M&G obviously has implications for the wellbeing of M&G as an institution, which is left to replace, re-strategise and rebuild journalism desks where it had been dependent on the two entities for content. Quintal described the exit of both AmaBhungane and Bhekisisa as ‘a loss to the key part of M&G’s DNA, which is that investigative stuff’ (Quintal, personal communication, April 29, 2019). As she argued, having Bhekisisa in the M&G is something that gave the paper a competitive edge over the others: ‘Other weekend papers didn’t have that sort of investigative health coverage that was really great and for which the team was winning awards, and that we could put on the front page’ (ibid.). Because of the nature of funding and reporting requirements, both Bhekisisa and AmaBhungane have structures and systems that are different from typical newsrooms or news desks and are a hybrid of a newsroom and an NGO. As the Bhekisisa Editor puts it: If you look at my team and compare it to a normal newsroom, my team consists of an editor, a director, which is me, a deputy editor, a multimedia reporter who only does health stories... But here’s the difference, a Programme Associate that no other newsroom is going to have who helps with donor reporting, processing payments and creating systems so we can report back on targets. Because donors have targets. And I have an Engagement Officer, which is the first time ever someone has that in South Africa. ... We now are required to use a tracker ... to enter all our stories so we can track what is the impact – not just in terms of page views but in terms of audience engagement and feedback ... I can’t do that without an Engagement Officer. (Malan, personal communication, May 20, 2019)

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All this implies that the processes and cultures of news production in these organisations is markedly different from the typical newsroom, hence necessitating new studies that can help us understand their role and place in the sector better. While some of these new structures and systems are a strain when considering the traditional way of doing journalism, they could, however, be seen as new ways of strengthening journalism. For instance, bringing impact measurement more directly into journalism could help strengthen the public interest claim, to which journalism often pays lip service.

Impoverishing Journalism, Altering Job Descriptions The new demands that come with philanthropy funding mean that editors and journalists are taken away from doing what they know best, which is writing and editing stories. Malan highlighted this by saying: I have to fund-raise; I have to show my donors that I am able to raise funds beyond their money. So, it means that I need to raise funds from other donors but also do self-generated funding. We have done things like produce t-shirts with Bhekisisa logos on them that we had to design. It’s not like we are designers, but we had to think it up and then find the money to print them and to sell them. Just to sell them, the logistics of that, you are going to use PayPal or which other system exits, is a thing. (Malan, personal communication, May 20, 2019)

However, it is important to highlight that it is not only philanthropy funding that takes away excellent journalists from doing what they know best. The financial difficulties that most media houses face require that editors keep searching for alternative ways of keeping the business going. In some newsrooms, fundraising has become a key performance indicator for journalists, with promotion and remuneration implications. In one publication, a journalist was rewarded with a promotion and a salary raise after successfully fund-raising for and starting a new journalism desk.

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Public Perceptions on Philanthropy Funding of Media Most media institutions built on a foundation of principles of objectivity, fairness, balance, credible and truthful reporting, and editorial autonomy, ‘in line with the ethical principles that have guided the journalism profession over the past century’ (Dunn 2013, p. 86), are always wary of perceptions that may be created by receiving support from certain funders. As Bunce (2016, np.) argues, in reference to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ‘Journalists who receive funding from the foundation worry that audiences think that they are compromised, and unable to report on its activities’. Such concerns about credibility can also include the sense that the audiences think reliance on philanthropy is a sign of failure, and not an alternative funding model. As Rajuili argued, ‘There is sometimes the perception that we only ask for donor money or crowd funding money because we are not successful on the commercial model ... so there’s a strange perception of being viewed as failure rather than an alternative model’ (Rajuili, personal communication, April 24,  2019). These concerns have compelled some institutions to put in place systems that ensure greater transparency, including publishing online details about their funders and amounts that they have provided.

Conclusion The three entities analysed in this study highlight the growing importance of philanthropy funding of journalism in South Africa, where the media sector in general is facing serious challenges. At a time characterised by significant cost-cutting, shrinking newsrooms and closure of some media organisations, philanthropy funding is helping to reduce the gaps, especially in those critical social justice and public interest issues that often become the first casualties because they are not perceived to make significant contributions towards the bottom line. The central role of AmaBhungane in the unearthing of what is now commonly referred to as state capture in South Africa would not have been possible without the resources that philanthropy funding provided. Similarly, it is undisputable that Bhekisisa has made a tremendous contribution to improvements in the public health delivery system since its creation—again all with philanthropy funding. In many ways, the study demonstrates that philanthropy funding of journalism is becoming an

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indispensable part of the future funding mechanisms of journalism in South Africa.12 Most of the donors involved in the three entities can be described as progressive, as they are not only interested in funding topics of mutual interest with their grantees, but also in employing local staff who understand local dynamics, as a way of eliminating the telescopic bias that I allude to above. Nonetheless, the study also highlights that philanthropy funding is not without its own challenges. In the case of the M&G and its two off-shoots, it is evident that while the donor-grantee relationship was often described by informants as one of good bedfellows, power is skewed in favour of the purse-holders in terms of asserting preferences and setting the agenda. Borrowing from Schiffrin (2017), it can be argued that the partners may be in the same beds but having different dreams. How the structural reconfiguration of both the M&G and its two off-shoots favours the interests of donors is illustrative of this power dynamic. Similarly, the chapter has sought to demonstrate the fragility of critical journalistic values such as editorial independence, in a context where some donors want to dictate the topics that journalists should focus on, and where metrics and impact decide which stories are important for resource allocation. In addition, the study points to the need for more research into the different ways in which philanthropy funding is transforming journalistic cultures and practices, beyond just the structural transformations and values debate illustrated here. Finally, the study demonstrates that power dynamics between donors and grantees in the global south are not significantly different from those obtaining in the global north. Donor and grantee interests everywhere coincide and conflict at the same time, and there are constant struggles and negotiations over agendas. Media institutions in the global south are as concerned about editorial independence as their counterparts in the global north and have more agency than often acknowledged. However, the degree of enforcement of ethical principles varies from one media 12  Notably, The Guardian in Britain operates a reader funding appeal at the end on each online story. It has also established a Premium Channel, where more developed versions of a report can be obtained by paying. Other Western newspapers have put up paywalls for even basic access to stories beyond the introductory minutes or pages. It can, therefore, be argued that in all regions of the world facing breakdown of the traditional newspaper financing system, varied ways are being found to keep news and information flowing, even in circumstances that seem to fly close to prohibitions in traditional ethical rules.

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institution to another. For instance, while AmaBhungane has developed funding guidelines that set thresholds for funds they can take from individual donors (either philanthropy funders or crowd funders), among other criteria, both the M&G’s Adamela Trust and Bhekisisa did not have such guidelines at the time of publishing this paper, suggesting the two were at greater risk of capture by philanthropic organisations.13 In the case of AmaBhungane, there are a number of instances where the organisation has turned down funding on principle; informed by their funding guidelines. This is important for ensuring transparency, independence and accountability if media institutions that take philanthropy funding are to remain credible.

References Amabhungane. (2019). Funding Policy.  Retrieved from https://amabhungane. org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Funding-policy.pdf Amato, C. (2018, October 25). Uncaptured: The money problem and journalists who have ‘stopped looking’. Mail & Guardian. Retrieved from https:// mg.co.za/article/2018-­12-­20-­00-­uncaptured-­the-­money-­problem-­and-­the-­ journalists-­who-­have-­stopped-­looking. Barker, M. (2008). The Soros media ‘empire’: The power of philanthropy to engineer consent. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/3138624/The_Soros_ Media_Empire_The_Power_of_Philanthropy_to_Engineer_Consent. Benson, R. (2017). Can foundations solve the journalism crisis? Journalism, 19(8), 1059–1077. Browne, H. (2010). Foundation-funded journalism: Reasons to be wary of charitable support. Journalism Studies, 1(60), 889–903. Bunce, M. (2016). Foundations, philanthropy and international journalism. Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, 13(2/3), 6–15. [Open access version]. Retrieved from http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/ eprint/13498/3/Foundation%20funding%20and%20international%20 news.pdf Cohen, B.  C. (1963). The press and foreign policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Daly, S. (2011). Philanthropy as an essentially contested concept. VOLUNTAS: International journal of voluntary and non-profit organisations, 23(3), 535–557. 13  As the policy indicates, AmaBhungane limits funds from any entity to 20 percent of its annual budget, to avoid the pitfalls of being beholden to a single big donor. The Board, however, has the authority to waive this limit in exceptional circumstances. Individuals can only fund up to 1 percent, and charities up to 2.5 percent of the organisation’s annual budget.

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Dunn, H. S. (2013). “Something old, something new…”: WikiLeaks and the collaborating newspapers—Exploring the limits of conjoint approaches to political exposure. In B. Brevini., A. Hintz. & P. McCurdy (Eds.), Beyond WikiLeaks: implications for the future of communications, journalism and society  (pp. 85–100). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Herman, E. S., & Chomsky, N. (2002). Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. New York: Pantheon. Herman, E. S., & McChesney, R.W. (2004). The global media: The new missionaries of corporate capitalism. New York: Continuum. Kenton, W. (2019, November 13). Venture philanthropy. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venture-­philanthropy.asp King, S. (2019, May 2). How philanthropy can preserve press freedom. The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Retrieved from https://www.philanthropy.com/ article/How-­Philanthropy-­Can-­Preserve/246227 Malan, M. (2018). Quid pro quo: How donor-funded journalism redefines job descriptions. African Journalism Studies, 39(2), 121–129. Moyo, D., Mare, A., & Matsilele, T. (2019). Analytics-driven journalism? Editorial metrics and the reconfiguration of online news production practices in African newsrooms. Digital Journalism, 7(4), 490–506.  Porter, M.  E., & Kramer, M.  R. (1991). Philanthropy’s new agenda: Creating value. Harvard Business Review, 77, 121–131. Retrieved from http://www. nonprofitjourney.org/uploads/8/4/4/9/8449980/_philanthropys_new_ agenda_creating_value.pdf. Schiffrin, A. (2017). Same beds different dreams? Charitable foundations and newsroom independence in the Global South. Washington: Centre for International Media Assistance. Retrieved from  https://www.cima.ned.org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/02/CIMA-Media-Philanthropy_Schiffrin.pdf. Scott, M., Bunce, M., & Wright, K. (2017). Donor power and the news: The influence of foundation funding on international public service journalism. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 22(2), 163–184.

CHAPTER 12

Business News Making Practices in Zimbabwe Collen Chambwera

Introduction Business news is considered a core requirement for the proper functioning of a capitalist system (Parsons 1989). A problem arises, however, in countries such as Zimbabwe where there have been marked economic crises in recent years that appear to have reshaped how the world of business is understood. Further, there is ambivalence about whether the country is a free market or a ‘command,1’ a term that is increasingly being used. When it comes to the question of which economic system it is based on, Zimbabwe has a historical ‘identity crisis’ dating back from 1980, further exacerbated by the economic crisis of over two and half decades (2000 to the present). 1  A term used to denote government assistance particularly in agriculture to increase production. It entails government providing inputs for farmers who pay them back in the form of the produce which may be maize, cotton etc. However, it has seen government setting prices for delivered produce at prices that are over market prices.

C. Chambwera (*) University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_12

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Despite the economic identity crisis and duality from which Zimbabwe appears to suffer, and the widely reported economic crisis of the last eighteen years, little research has focused on how these ambivalences and crises are mediated by financial, business and economic journalism, or how they constrain—and are constrained by—both official and everyday economic discourse. Most previous studies tend to focus on the mediation of Zimbabwe’s political crisis and the Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) (Chari 2013; Chuma 2008; Ranger 2005; Willems 2005). A large corpus of economic reporting, business journalism and financial news production remains largely and surprisingly ignored in the reading of the ‘Zimbabwean crisis’. This is perhaps a reflection of how politics has dominated everyday discourse in the country. Focusing on two of Zimbabwe’s oldest and arguably most influential financial newspapers, the Financial Gazette and The Herald, this study, through in-depth interviews with the papers’ journalists, interrogates what influences them as they decide on what makes the news. It questions the multifaceted realities that influence business news making practices in an economically volatile country. It argues that it is important to understand the complex feedback loops that link mediation and reality. In this case, the interest is in the relationship between news production and the wider socio-economic and political contexts. This study argues that while business journalists operate in the same environment as all other beats, there are some specific realities that they face which are unique and require unpacking. The study is organised in five sections. This introduction is followed by a discussion of Zimbabwe’s economic context during the ‘crisis’ years from 2000 to present. A literature review following the sociology of news production by Schudson (1989, 2000) then follows. Findings and discussion of the data are then followed by a conclusion.

Zimbabwe’s More Than Two Decades of Economic Decline What has come to be known as the ‘Zimbabwe Crisis’ (Raftopoulos 2006) can be argued to have started off as an economic crisis. The introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) in 1990 signalled an end to all pretence of the country being socialist. The ESAP did not yield the expected results leading to widespread discontent in the

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country that eventually led to a coalescing of employees, employers and civil society to form the Movement for Democratic Change in 1999 (Compagnion 2011). In trying to maintain its grip on power, the government in 2000 launched an often-violent land redistribution programme that led to international financial institutions withholding financial aid to the country, citing violation of rule of law and disregard of property rights (Sachikonye and Sachikonye 2011). The government led by Robert Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU PF), increasingly took on a predatory state2 character (Shumba 2018). Jones (2010) describes the period 2000 to 2008 as the rise of the kukiya kiya (do anything to make ends meet) economy. It is a period where citizens resorted to doing anything to get by as the ‘real economy’ was replaced by a kukiya kiya economy. Official figures indicate that the GDP of the country contracted between 1998 and 2006 by about a third with the manufacturing sector contracting by about 14 percent between 2000 and 2006 (Parsons 2007). By mid-2009 the country was running at 10 percent of its industrial capacity (Mawowa and Matongo 2010). Official figures indicated that inflation rose from 55 percent in 2000 to 1300 percent in 2006 (Parsons 2007). It grew to 89.700 trillion percent in 2009 (Mawowa and Matongo 2010). The country’s GDP had contracted to half the size of its 1997 level by 2009 (Mawowa and Matongo 2010). Availability of foreign currency deteriorated acutely in this period, resulting in a flourishing black (parallel) market that was said to be fuelled by the state itself (Mawowa and Matongo 2010; Raftopoulos and Phimister 2004). Foreign direct investment (FDI) decreased from USD440 million in 1997 to USD9 million in 2004 (Mashingaidze 2006; Raftopoulos and Phimister 2004). In 2005 the average purchasing power of a Zimbabwean shrank to the same level as 1953 (Mashingaidze 2006). From 2000 to 2006 more than 400 companies were officially acknowledged to have shut down, leading to four out of five people being unemployed (Mashingaidze 2006). After a disputed 2008 election, a Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed in February 2009 involving the long-ruling ZANU PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)3 parties 2  A predatory state disregards conventional macroeconomic policy as those in power seek to exercise direct control over markets and economic actors. 3  MDC was the first opposition party since independence in 1980 to give Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF a serious challenge. It successfully campaigned for the rejection of a draft consti-

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(Besada and LaChapelle 2011). The new unity government ushered in a raft of measures aimed at stabilising the economy beginning with abandoning the Zimbabwe dollar that had become worthless and introducing a multicurrency regime dominated by the American Dollar and the South African Rand (Makochekanwa and Kambarami 2011). The economy stabilised during this period and GDP growth averaged 10 percent between 2009 and 2012 (Kanyenze et al. 2017). However, after ZANU PF won the 2013 elections, the economy started suffering again, marked by an acute shortage of foreign currency and cash in the banks. These have been blamed on the government’s failure to control its expenditure in an economy marked by a huge trade deficit. In November 2017 Robert Mugabe was deposed from power through a military-initiated parliamentary process. He was replaced by his former deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa, who went on to be elected in the national elections held in July 2018. Considering the economic chaos that has characterised the country for much of the past eighteen years, it is therefore a little surprising that most studies have tended to focus on political journalism and the use of media as political tools (see Chuma 2008; Ranger 2005; Waldahl 2005). Not much has been interrogated concerning business reporting in this post-2000 political-economic crisis and this study seeks to fill that void. Publicly owned but state-controlled, The Herald, the country’s oldest daily newspaper, used to have a strong business pull-out on Thursdays which morphed into a weekly business paper, the Business Weekly, in 2018. Privately owned, the Financial Gazette is the oldest financial paper in the country and is a weekly which publishes every Thursday. These two newspapers present fertile ground for an investigation into how this ‘crisis’ influenced the production of business news.

The Sociology of News Production Three approaches to the study of news production were identified by Schudson (1989, 2000). This study uses two, that is, political economy and social organisation of news work. tution in 2000 before going on to win 57 seats in parliament later that year. It, however, split in 2005 due to a disagreement over contesting for senatorial seats. The two parties maintained the name MDC. In the 2008 elections, the bigger party, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, decided to call itself MDC-T to separate itself from the one led by Welshman Ncube. Both parties had won seats in parliament in 2008, so when the Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed in 2009, they were both represented.

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Political Economy Approach The approach holds that the production of news is determined by the economic structure of news organisations (Schudson 1989). However, Schudson (2000) argues that the relationship between media ownership and market structure on the one hand and what is produced as news on the other is not always as straightforward as some scholars have made it to be. Some of these scholars (Herman and Chomsky 1988; McChesney 2000) have argued that corporate ownership of the media compromises the democratic function of the media. However, Schudson contends that ‘the ability of a capitalist class to manipulate opinion and create a closed system of discourse is limited…’ (2000, pp. 180–181). In business news, Usher (2017) notes that the political economy approach has been used to explain how business journalism serves the interests of investors and big businesses. Interests of big businesses and investors have been argued to override the interests of the public (Usher 2017). Business journalism takes a top-down approach where it largely relies on powerful business interests to provide the necessary information for the story (Starkman 2014). Hence business journalism ‘is communication between and among elites without reference to broader public interests’ (Starkman 2014, p. 52). Other scholars (Pickard et al. 2014) have argued that business journalists are too involved in the capitalist enterprise and cannot always point out when things go wrong in the system. Corporations are in constant competition with one another to attract a target audience hugely made up of investors and the media play a big role in disseminating favourable information to this target audience (Doyle 2006). In a study on the relationship between news reports and volume of trades, Englebert and Parsons (2011) observed that local media coverage of earnings announcements of firms on the S&P 500 index leads to an increase in trade volumes of the stock. Some journalists view their work as that of providing vital information for investors and helping them to make successful investment decisions (Tambini 2008). In the Greece bailout discourse, Doudaki (2015) observed that mainstream media were accused of serving the interests of political and economic elites while largely ignoring alternative voices. However, Schudson (2000) notes that it would be too simplistic to take Herman and Chomsky’s (1988, p. xi) argument that media ‘serve to mobilise support for the special interests that dominate the state and private activity’. Rather it is noteworthy that the media is a ‘highly contested

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territory’ (Dreier 1982, p. 111). There are some business journalists who view their role as that of holding to account business and public authorities (Tambini 2008). Many of the views on the political economy approach to business news focus on functional economies. What about a country where investors and the business community are under siege from a political-economic crisis that threatens their existence? This study explores the extent to which powerful interests influence business news production in a Zimbabwe in crisis. Sociological Approach This approach is concerned with how occupational and organisational routines influence the way that journalists make decisions about what constitutes news (Schudson 1989). Molotch and Lester, in Schudson (1989, p. 271), argue that newspapers reflect ‘the practices of those who have the power to determine the experiences of others’. Journalists’ day-to-day activities are filled with interaction with official sources from whom they get their stories, making sources the most important tool for journalists (Schudson 1989). These sources may include business executives, economists, politicians and analysts. It has been argued that while warnings were there prior to the 2008 financial crisis, these largely came from sources that were not from the circle favoured by mainstream media outlets (Lewis 2010). Sources from banks managed to manipulate the press to pay less attention to the impending financial crisis (De Landtsheer and Van de Voorde 2015). The problem is that often the interested parties that may include corporate executives and analysts are the only viable sources of the data that journalists need to write their stories (Tambini 2010). A herd mentality4 of financial journalists was noted as being partly responsible for their failure to warn the public about the impending collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2009 (Marron et al. 2010). It is not enough to just focus on the gathering of news, but also on the writing and re-writing of news in the newsroom (Schudson 1989). Journalists are compelled to quickly adjust and adhere to the values and routines in the news organisation for which they work (Schudson 1989). 4  Journalists tend to cover similar issues and rely on the same circle of sources. As a result, they did not report on views of those who saw the risky market conditions that led to the collapse of a big bank like Lehman Brothers.

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It is inevitable that there is construction of reality in the news production system (Tuchman 1978; Schudson 1989). To this end, ideological and institutional biases influence the choices made regarding the final news product and should be accounted for (Knowles et  al. 2015). Thus, the political or economic leaning of a news organisation can have an influence on how it reports economic and financial news (Van Dalen et al. 2015). In Zimbabwe, it has been noted that when journalists join a newsroom, they go through some ideological repositioning so that they may align with the proprietors’ policies and politics (see Mano 2005). Journalists in Zimbabwean newsrooms have acknowledged that there are subtle pressures from their immediate managers who also get these pressures from those above them (Mabweazara 2011; Mano 2005). Socialisation in the newsroom leads to journalists knowing what kind of news stories are acceptable considering that there is media polarisation in the country, with state-controlled media reporting favourably on officials of the ruling government and privately owned newspapers pointing out the shortcomings of government officials while reporting on the opposition in a positive light (Mano 2005). This study sheds light on how these everyday newsroom realities play out in the production of business news.

Methodology In-depth interviews were held with six business journalists each from the Financial Gazette and The Herald. For analysis purposes the interviewees are named FG 1–6 for those from the Financial Gazette and TH 1–6 for those from The Herald. It should be emphasised that the findings from the data cannot be viewed as objective representations of reality out there but, as argued by Fontana and Frey (2005, p. 698), ‘interviews are not neutral tools of data gathering but rather active interactions between two (or more) people leading to negotiated, contextually based results’. All the interviews were conducted at each newspaper’s premises after establishing contacts. In the next section, I discuss the findings from the interviews.

Findings and Discussion The Crisis of Reporting the Zimbabwe Crisis Business journalists from the two media houses find themselves in a quandary when it comes to reporting the economic crisis. While they do report

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on the crisis, it has not been an easy task due to the predatory nature of the Zimbabwe government (Shumba 2018). While markets would dominate business news in functional economies, in Zimbabwe, business journalists have to deal with markets that are dominated by the government. As the government moved to control the economy and markets, reports became more about the government than about business. As FG1 remarked, ‘there are periods when we had to pay more attention to the rhetoric from government than the happenings in business’. FG1 further stated that ‘at the peak of the hyperinflation period around 2008, there was not much activity on the business front but a lot of pronouncements from government and those tended to dominate our reporting’. Thus, contrary to many political economy scholars (see Herman and Chomsky 1988; McChesney 2000) who express reservations about the influence of a capitalist elite in the production of news, in Zimbabwe it appears that government interference is more of a cause for concern. As the government domination of markets has increased, so has the journalists’ watchdog function been compromised. Where journalists are supposed to hold the government to account on behalf of the public, they have found themselves producing some reports that are not helpful to the public. TH5 lamented how they were unable to fully analyse government policy during the hyperinflationary era: Let’s go back to 2005 to 2009, this period was doom for many Zimbabweans, doom in the sense that people lost investments—those who had invested in securities, insurance policies, those who bought shares—they lost the investments to hyperinflation… So as public media we were writing about it, but the way we were writing about it was just to announce what was happening, inflation is at whatever figure, but not the cause and the consequences of those policies. (TH5, personal communication, September 21, 2018)

While this strategy carried the day, journalists interviewed expressed that they did not feel comfortable reporting this way, but they had no choice. This sentiment was also expressed by journalists from the privately owned Financial Gazette. FG1 stated: In the early 2000s we were able to hold government to account, but there came a period when government went for broke and we had to tread more carefully, even without anyone telling us to do so. Things only changed in 2009 and the entire duration of the GNU. You could say we found our

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voices again. However, post 2013 we seem to be going back there again. (FG1, personal communication, September 16, 2018)

However, there are others who see no problem in how they have covered economic issues. They consider that their duty is to align with government and, instead of critically analysing economic policies, they would rather point readers to the good of such policies. These only came from the statecontrolled The Herald. For instance, TH6 stated: The indigenisation programme came in… what some of us do is to go beyond criticising and say it has come in, what has it done? Yes you see some large multinational companies moving out of the country then the economy is affected at some point, but when you start seeing smaller companies or companies that were formed immediately after the programme was introduced, when they start taking shape, you then start saying oh ok… those are some of the successes of the indigenisation programme that you want to write about, not just criticise the policy. (TH6, personal communication, September 22, 2018)

Thus, for many journalists, the political and economic crisis has likewise placed their profession in a crisis of knowing how they should report but circumstances preventing them. However, some are happy with the status quo.

Shrinking Corporate Sector, a Threat to Good Journalism? Business journalists rely on the corporate sector for business news (Berry 2013; Rafter 2014; Starkman 2014). In Zimbabwe, the corporate sector has been dwindling, presenting varied challenges for business journalists. As competitors’ close shop, some corporates have become so powerful that they become ‘untouchable’. TH2 noted, ‘I have had to strike a balance between angering these big guns and the survival of my organisation which ultimately has an impact on me as well’. It is therefore evident that while in other jurisdictions, there is some sort of collusion between journalists and corporates, in Zimbabwe the worry for journalists is not only about their ability to retain sources, but also their own organisations’ long-term sustainability, which is tied to their own job security. FG2 called these corporates market bullies: ‘These market bullies bring a lot of

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business to the newspaper, so you avoid taking them head on’. This confirms Usher’s (2017) observation that big businesses and investors have been known to override the interests of the public. Listed companies were found to be more inclined to want to suppress certain information from being published to the extent that sometimes they even incentivise journalists to drop certain stories that may affect their share price. TH6 revealed that: A company may be listed on the stock exchange and they see that if a story gets published, the effect on the share price may be disastrous. So, they will say let’s just give this guy (journalist) say US$5000. Because things are hard the journalist will weigh and say what will it benefit me to write the story and then she gets the money instead. (TH6, personal communication, September 22, 2018)

Some of the listed companies are also big advertising spenders. It is not uncommon for journalists to get calls from marketing departments to change angles of certain stories or drop them altogether. FG 2 commented, ‘I would say the only way that corporates have some control over our work is through advertising. You write certain stories and the marketing department complains that we are chasing away clients’. This confirms Golding and Murdock’s (2000, p. 74) assertion that ‘advertisers do operate as a latter-day licensing authority’. However, some journalists pointed out that due to the need to remain credible in a difficult operating environment, they have had to sometimes write stories that may not be sympathetic to advertisers. This is more important for privately owned newspapers such as the Financial Gazette that risk losing the same advertisers should readers start viewing them as not credible. This was noted by FG4, who said, ‘Naturally you wouldn’t go all out on someone you work with, but for the sake of maintaining credibility you have to write certain stories that may not be comfortable for advertisers’. The difficult economic conditions have further given companies some influence through ‘sponsoring’ journalists’ expenses as they cover their activities or functions. Newspaper companies are going through financial difficulties like many other companies in the country. Due to these difficulties, FG3 stated, ‘we get our accommodation, transport and subsistence paid for by a company that has called us for an event. This places us in a position where we cannot be too negative when writing about the

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company’. Thus Thompson (2013) argued that the financial media and the news service they provide should not be viewed as detached or independent observers of market events. While acknowledging the fact that the dwindling corporate sector makes some companies ‘untouchables’, some journalists stated that there are times when they disregard such statuses in the interest of the public. For example, FG1 stated: I wrote a story that exposed the low prices that were being paid to cotton farmers by merchants. Government intervened, and I got a lot of complaints from the merchants who were not happy with the story and the subsequent intervention by the government.

There was, however, an acknowledgement that sometimes corporate executives negotiate only with editors to ensure certain stories are dropped.

Coping with Public Relations Officials and Organisational Routines Regardless of the depressed business environment, business journalists still rely much on public relations officers and executives to get stories. Public relations officers remain some of the main sources for getting stories in an inexpensive way. This has resulted in some of the public relations officers seeking to ‘manage’ journalists by giving glowing accounts of how their businesses are thriving and hiding the negatives. TH6 explained how this may happen: To a certain extent, journalists are kind of managed, not necessarily by brown envelopes, but public relations exercise. Unfortunately, sometimes we also fail to interrogate to say ok so you are producing at 50 percent or 30 percent, but we can’t even see a lorry on the loading bay and the whole complex is quiet’. It has been argued by Grünberg and Pallas (2012) that ‘organisations ... are staffed with well-educated and experienced public relations practitioners who are active in generating and disseminating their ideas about what news should be produced and how, and how it should be disseminated.’ (2012, p. 19)

The relationship between journalists and public relations professionals is also quite strong considering that many of the public relations

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professionals started off as journalists. Hence, public relations professionals are in constant contact with business journalists, which enables them to systematically shape their own news production (Grunberg and Pallas 2012). For instance, TH1 commented: If a colleague is now a PR officer of some company and has some not-so-­ good information you want to write about, give them the facts or tell them that this is what I want to write about, I give them the facts and I ask how do you respond... So if this guy comes and says everything you said is true but my bosses request that you ignore the story, I then may look at our relationship, the benefits of ignoring the story viz-a-viz publishing the story. (TH1, personal communication, September 21, 2018)

Due to the deteriorating political-economic situation, business newspapers such as the Financial Gazette have found themselves at times being forced to adjust the focus of the paper from business to politics. Journalists likewise have had to adjust in those times to write more on politics than business. Despite their not being happy about the change, sustainability of the newspaper in those harsh times is more important. Journalists from the Financial Gazette felt the adjustment was necessary though it compromised the reputation of the paper as the best in business news in the country. FG1 stated: You can see that from maybe 2000 up to the time of the GNU, it is politics that dominated the news. Our paper had to follow what was going on for it to survive. Yes, we knew we were a financial paper but for us to remain relevant in the market we had to report more on politics. (FG1, personal communication, September 16, 2018)

As the economy stabilised during the GNU, the paper has had to revert to a purely business newspaper. The change has also brought its own challenges for journalists. To regain market share, the Financial Gazette decided to have shorter stories than the long feature stories that had come to dominate the newspaper when politics dominated the economy. Some of the journalists expressed frustration with the shorter stories, with FG2 lamenting that ‘the requirement to now write only 400 words is affecting us… You have to understand that in writing longer stories we were not just reporting events. We were giving the broader picture’. The economic crisis has therefore led to a crisis even in the structuring of stories.

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The Crisis of Adhering to Ethics There has been a direct relationship between the sinking economy and an increase in ‘cheque book’ journalism. Some journalists who joined the profession in the early 2000s noted how the profession has changed over the years and at least some have found the practice concerning. For example, TH5 stated: When we started in the newsroom this thing of cheque book journalism was not there. Now you open the newspaper and see a lot of stories that look like PR and chances are someone would have been paid to write the story. (TH5, personal communication, September 16, 2018)

FG1 explained why the practice of cheque book journalism has become rampant: In this struggling economy people want stories written in a certain way and they are prepared to pay for it. Recently someone brought me US$700 for a story that appeared in our newspaper, but I am not the one who wrote the story. (FGI, personal communication, September 16, 2018)

Mare and Brand (2010) highlighted some of the variables that lead to corruption in the newsroom as poor working conditions and the hunger by corporates for positive media coverage. A respondent in Mare and Brand’s study noted that many Zimbabwean journalists make a living by accepting bribes from news sources. This was also confirmed by FG4: ‘There are journalists even known as tollgates for the way they ask for money if one has a story to give to them’. Due to the prevalence of bribery, investigative journalism to expose corporate malfeasance has suffered. As TH6 put it, ‘it’s one thing to investigate and another to write the story. Journalists know a lot of shady dealings in corporations, but they don’t write, they get hands greased’. Mabweazara (2010, p. 432) observed that political and economic conditions in Zimbabwe after 2000 ‘promoted an unprecedented mercenary approach to journalism’. However, there is a constraining force on the extent to which business journalists can engage in ‘cheque book’ journalism. There is a recognition that business journalism is different from political journalism because in business, credibility is key to keeping business executives as sources.

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Business executives are not as prone to corruption as politicians, as highlighted by FG4: At some newspapers you have to pay to get your story published but not here. Our market is different because it is very small and if you lose your credibility no one will ever want to give you a story again. Business news in Zimbabwe demands integrity. (FG4, personal communication, September 19, 2018)

Indeed, it is not all journalists who have fallen to the temptation of cheque book journalism. Happily, there are some journalists who resist, as mentioned by the respondents from the Financial Gazette who participated in this study.

Conclusion It is therefore necessary to note that while studies in well-functioning economies have noted the embeddedness of journalists in the capitalist system as one of the reasons why journalists may fail to report weaknesses in the system (Tambini 2010), in Zimbabwe the capitalist system has been decimated. However, the few corporates operating have assumed enormous power to influence business news reports. This power finds easy expression because journalists are suffering from the harsh economic conditions punctuated by the low salaries they get. Due to the deteriorating economic conditions, there has been a noticeable increase in the normalisation of the practice of accepting bribes. It can be argued that the economic crisis has led to a crisis in business news reporting especially in the peak crisis years around 2008. There was not much economy nor business to report on leading to government pronouncements on the economy dominating news reports. Instead of focusing on business, journalists have at times had to focus on political issues due to the dominance of politics in the economy. There has also been a crisis in reporting the economic crisis due to government overreach. As the state adopted a predatory nature, the journalists adopted self-­ censorship for fear of backlash from the authorities. Business news production has also been in crisis due to the lack of adequate funding in newsrooms, which has led to corporates funding journalists to cover their activities, thereby placing them in a quandary when they report on the negatives in such organisations. Thus, the crisis is in being able to

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recognise what is wrong in the economy and business world but failing to write about it for readers because of fear of government authorities and a small but increasingly powerful corporate sector. It can therefore be said that from 2000, business-news-production practices in Zimbabwe have been characterised by crises, just as the economy has been in crisis.

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CHAPTER 13

Displacement and Substitutability Effects of Online Newspapers on Traditional Media: A Zambian Perspective Parkie Mbozi

Introduction and Conceptual Framework The advent of any new medium always raises interest (scholarly and otherwise) about its impact on the existing media ‘eco-system’. Of interest is the relationship between the innovation and the ‘old’ media and how that might impact their own existence (Chyi and Lasorsa 2002). Anxiety is premised on the hypothesis that the new medium invariably displaces or compliments the old (Perse 2001; Westlund and Färdigh 2011). The invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 revolutionised the media industry. Printed newspapers, the oldest mass medium, benefited from the flurry of opportunities for gathering, processing and sharing information wrought by the new technology (Deuze 2001). Digitisation gave rise to online newspapers, starting in the mid-­ 1990s. Subsequently, many newspapers have terminated print in

P. Mbozi (*) Institute of Economic and Social Research, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_13

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favour of online distribution (Thurman and Myllylahti 2009; Westlund and Färdigh 2011).1 Scholarship on the impact of online newspapers on the media landscape referenced over the last ten years has portrayed a nebulous picture. One set of data supported the proposition that online newspapers would soon obliterate their print counterparts and markedly affect the audience dynamics involving other traditional media (Salman et  al. 2011; Shirky 2011). A counter argument was that while online newspapers posed a challenge to the existing business models, it did not spell doom for the other mass media (Kim and Johnson 2007). Optimistic scholars have argued that pundits and prognosticators had predicted the death of newspapers for decades. Radio, TV and now the Internet were all supposed to kill them off, but they are still here. Symbiotic relations between old and new media have been proposed (Christopher 2012; Kim and Johnson 2007). The fretfulness around the impact of online newspapers on the media contours is anchored on the substitutability theory, which postulates that when a new medium emerges, audiences evaluate it against the old media (Kim and Johnson 2007). From a Uses and Gratification trajectory, audiences can pick the medium that best satisfies their needs and wants (Kim and Johnson 2007; Johnson and Kaye 2016). Several studies have found that online newspapers specifically pose the greatest challenge ever to the existence of ‘ink on paper’ news media. Predictions of eventual extinction abound, albeit with contradicting timelines (Ha and Fang 2012;  Shirky 2011). The predictions support the analogy by Shirky (2011, p. 19) that ‘Society does not require newspapers. What we need is journalism’. The analysis of displacement and even replacement (substitutability) hypotheses (Westlund and Färdigh 2011) in the present study is from both medium-centric and user/audience-centric perspectives (Westlund and Färdigh). The media-centric approach focuses on the attributes or functionalities of the medium itself and how they serve interests of different users (Westlund and Färdigh 2011). The audiences make choices on what to use their limited resources on (Westlund and Färdigh 2011). The principle of relative constancy contends that when a new medium is introduced, the medium with the most attractive functions and content will displace the one deemed less attractive (McCombs 1972; Westlund 1  Deuze (2001) distinguishes online newspapers as the type that is produced exclusively for the worldwide web (as a graphic interface of the Internet). They are also known by some scholars as ‘online-only’ and ‘born-digitals’.

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and Färdigh 2011). Online news sites have a niche among key audience groups, especially for, among other things, up-to-date news and interactivity features that allow readers to interact with the medium and with one another (Chung and Yoo 2008; De Waal et al. 2005). Their attractiveness increases competition for users’ attention (Westlund and Färdigh 2011). On the other hand, the user-centric analysis is described as deterministic in so far as it focuses on the needs and wants of the users (Westlund and Färdigh 2011; Lowenstein-Barkai and Lev-On 2018). The needs and habits of the audiences shape their choices and behaviours, in particular, on whether the use of one medium results in the displacement of another. Research is also conclusive on the fact that different media serve different needs, often resulting in the use of the multiplatform (Lowenstein-Barkai and Lev-On 2018; Westlund and Färdigh 2011). Use of online newspapers should be understood within the context of growth of online journalism in Zambia and increased Internet access. Online journalism dates back to 1996 when The Post, the leading independent daily at the time, commenced publishing an online version. The first standalone or online-only newspaper, the focus of the present study, was published in 1998. Since then, numerous standalone online newspapers targeting Zambian audiences have emerged, with more than 15 occupying the digital space to date. Limited available data asserts that more Zambians are reading online newspapers than the leading print dailies (Chishala 2015; Willems 2016). Frustrations with traditional mass media, the quest for uncensored news and cost of newspapers are factors contributing to the high use of social and new media (Chishala 2015; Mbozi 2014). On the other hand, a decline in circulation numbers among the major dailies over the years has been reported (Hamusokwe 2018). Access to online newspapers is abetted by the rapid rise in the accessibility of the Internet and an increase in the ownership of mobile phones across the country. The latest survey conducted nationwide reported that 63% of households across Zambia owned a mobile phone and 71% of the target population accessed the Internet via the device (Zambia Information Communication and Technology Authority (ZICTA) 2018). Overall, the majority of the respondents (97%) in the present study reported having access to the Internet via their mobile phones. Internet penetration has been accelerated by the rolling out of communication towers in most parts of the country under the ‘SMART’-Zambia programme. Furthermore,

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Mbozi (2014) asserts that online newspapers are also freely accessed through their Facebook pages by readers on the Airtel mobile network.2 The population dynamics and mix is another important factor to understanding audience behaviours and choices. Zambia’s population is described as one of the youngest in the world, with a median age of 16.6  years (compared to a global average of 29.2 years). By 2015, 15-to-­34-year-olds constituted 65% of the working population (Bhorat et al. 2015). The youth are the main users of the Internet and consumers of news from the mass media (Chyi and Lasorsa 2002; Skogerbø and Winsvold 2011). Meanwhile, Zambia’s mainstream media face legal and editorial restrictions and resource constraints, which inhibit diversity of news. The major ones are either owned or controlled by the state (Hamusokwe 2018; Mwanza et al. 2014). The media’s ability to provide independent and uncensored news is also hindered by prohibitive laws, such as the Penal Code and State Security Act (Mwanza et al. 2014) and strict regulations imposed by the amended ‘Independent’ Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Act of 2010 (Likando et al. 2010; Simutanyi et al. 2015). Given the conditions described above, the result has been a high propensity for Zambian news media audiences to seek and opt for alternative channels. In addition, online newspapers belong to the alternative media not only because they are non-mainstream but also for positioning themselves in opposition to the mainstream (Moyo 2007). Building on the principle that the advent of any innovation affects those it finds, and which serve the same purpose/s (Westlund and Färdigh 2011), it is justified to hypothesise that the rapid rise of online newspapers in Zambia affects, one way or another, the old news media. Unfortunately, although it is close to 15  years since the first documented online newspaper was published in Zambia, empirical knowledge on whether the use of online newspapers precipitates complimentary or displacement effects on the three traditional news media remains scanty. This article uses empirical data from the survey of online newspaper readers in Lusaka District, the capital of Zambia. The survey was conducted between December 2017 and February 2018. Drawing extensively 2  The Airtel Facebook bundles have their respective validity periods and data volume. The bundles can be accessed by any device that is data enabled or data capable and all Prepaid and Post-paid customers with data-capable handsets are eligible to take up any of the plans, see https://www.ogbongeblog.com/2013/06/codes-to-activate-airtel-unlimited.html. Seventy-five percent of readers in the survey subscribed to Airtel network.

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on the Uses and Gratification theory, it first explores whether there is a link between consumption of news from online newspapers and reduction in the need for, and the time spent on, the three main traditional news media—television, radio and print newspapers. The study further investigates whether the readers find online newspapers adequate as substitutes for print newspapers and television did not replace radio and ends with an analysis of the demographic and socio-economic factors that help predict the displacement and substitutability (replacement) effects.

Literature Review Maiden analyses of the impact of online newspapers were between the two different formats (online and print) of the same newspaper brand. The focus has shifted to the readership and market relations between standalone online newspapers and the traditional media, especially print newspapers. The electronic newspaper is now a distinct medium though it is still often associated with, or even operated by, its print counterpart (Chyi et al. 2010). The audience dynamics and choices have also been altered since their advent. For example, ‘Media consumers have become selective and active participants in the production and generation of media content’ (Skogerbø and Winsvold 2011, p. 21). Studies undertaken over the years emphasised the cannibalisation effects resulting from displacement and product substitutability between the two forms of newspapers (Bromley and Bowles 1995; Chyi and Lasorsa 2002). Chyi and Lasorsa (2002, p. 94) defined cannibalisation effect in economic terms as ‘the substitution effect, which is the tendency of people to purchase less expensive goods that serve the same purpose’. For cannibalisation to take effect, ‘product substitutability must be higher, meaning they must be substitute goods (i.e. goods that can be used in the place of the other)’. Studies on the impact of audience use of traditional media present three sets of variegated results: (1) Limited displacement effects and loyalty to the traditional mass media, especially during the first decade of digital journalism (1995–2005); (2) Hybrid or complimentary use; and (3) Disproportional impact and prescient projections of total annihilation of the print newspaper. Earliest studies concluded that the audiences did not spend any less time on traditional media due to the interface of the Internet (Bromley and Bowles 1995; Stempel III and Hargrove 2004). Readers did not perceive the electronic newspaper as a satisfactory substitute for

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the traditional format (Chyi and Sylvie 2010; De Waal et al. 2005; Skogerbø and Winsvold 2011). Internet users would still seek news from print newspapers, but non-users would get news from radio and television (Mueller and Kamerer 1995). Open preference for print to online newspapers was established by several studies. Skogerbo and Winsvold (2011, p. 219) summed up that ‘the pint editions were read more than the online newspapers, thereby confirming the dominance of the print version. Considerations of ‘visibility’, original content and perceived higher status weighed heavily in favour of the print vis-à-vis online newspapers’. However, this observation was made from a Scandinavian perspective where other studies have generally also shown strong loyalty to print newspapers. From this perspective has been argued that the presence of the Internet would not replace newspapers, just as radio did not replace newspapers and television did not replace radio (Salman et  al. 2011). ‘Shovelware’ and other unethical practices tend to render online newspapers generally less credible than traditional media (Chari 2009; Chishala 2015), which invariably limits their substitutability effect. Credibility is perceived as both a factor in motivation for, and satisfaction from the use of, a particular type of media (Johnson and Kaye 2016). ‘Hybrid’ or ‘simultaneous’ use of both online newspapers and traditional media was observed by several studies (Chyi and Lasorsa 2002; Chyi et  al. 2010; De Waal et  al. 2005; Stempel III et  al. 2000). Therefore, online newspapers were perceived as compliments rather than substitutes for print newspapers and other traditional media (Salman et al. 2011). The audiences’ desire for ‘multiplatform’ sources of news and information was observed (Stempel III et al. 2000). Non-users of all forms of mass media also avoided online versions (Chyi et  al. 2010; Westlund and Färdigh 2011). The negative impact on television was found by De Waal et  al. (2005) and other studies. Television is generally perceived as an entertainment media by those whose primary motive is news (Kim and Johnson 2007). In summary, past studies and predictions of the impact of online newspapers on traditional media present a mixed picture. They also leave the following gaps: (a) the majority are focused on comparing the impacts between online and print versions of the same newspaper brand; (b) most were conducted many years ago (during the formative or start-up years of the Internet); and (c) all of them were conducted in different geographical settings (almost exclusively in the West). The present study aims to

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contribute to addressing the above shortcomings, by specifically answering the following research questions: • Is there a reduction in the need for, and the time spent on, traditional news media as a result of reading online newspapers? • Do the readers of online newspapers perceive them as an adequate substitute for TV and print newspapers? • What demographic and socio-economic factors predict the use of online newspapers at the expense of traditional channels?

Methods and Measurements Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey of 535 respondents randomly sampled across the eight districts of the Lusaka Province of Zambia. The study assesses the displacement and substitutability effects of online newspapers on traditional media by specifically measuring and comparing (1) the frequency of use and the time spent on each media type; (2) the need for each channel over time; (3) the adequacy of online newspapers as substitutes for the traditional media; and (4) the credibility and its probable impact on the substitutability effect of online newspapers. Previous studies have established that socio-demographic characteristics are key determinants of the use of the Internet (Kitamura 2013), a scenario which raises the possibility of correlation with consumption of online news. This makes it necessary to examine and compare not only news consumption but also the demographic factors affecting this consumption. The study was specifically interested in establishing how the following demographic factors influenced the readers’ perceptions and choices: age, sex, education, socio-economic status, political activism, readers’ experience with use of the Internet and interaction with online newspapers and internet skills. The results of the study are based on self-reports of the respondents on their perceptions, experiences and media consumption behaviours as captured through a questionnaire. Close-ended choice questions and the Likert scale were used to assess respondents’ agreement with the statements presented to them. The respondents were specifically asked to choose one of the following response options: (1) Strongly Agree; (2) Agree; (3) Neutral; (4) Disagree; and (5) Strongly Disagree. The respondents were randomly sampled from 30 wards and the Smallest Enumeration Areas (SEA) from all the eight districts of the Lusaka Province of Zambia.

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The demographic and socio-economic features of Zambia are all well epitomised in the Lusaka Province. The study population consisted of 335 individuals aged 18 years and older. A systematic random sampling ensured that the results of the study could be reasonably representative of the Zambian population and therefore amenable to generalisation. Prior to the sampling phase, all the households in the sampled SEAs were physically visited for the purpose of listing and profiling of individual members in terms of the above criteria. The profiles contained vital information that was used for stratification purposes (of sub-groups, by age and gender in this case), for identification (contact details, location and so on), and for making appointments for the interviews. The list was used as the sampling frame from which the 535 respondents were sampled. Android-based tablet computers were used to facilitate speedy and accurate data collection. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Strata for both descriptive and inferential statistics. Chi-square (at 95% confidence level) and logistic regression (using adjusted old ratios) were used to establish relationships between selected independent and dependent variables.

Results Displacement Effect: Need for and Time Spent on Traditional News Media The first research question asks about the impact of the readers’ reading of online newspapers on the need for print newspapers, television and radio. The question is answered through an assessment of the expressed need for, and the time spent on, each media type and the actual reduction in the use of a particular type (in case of print newspapers). In terms of the need for, and the time spent on, print newspapers, the majority (72%) of the respondents indicated that reading online newspapers slowed down their need to read a print newspaper. The results from the regression analysis (not graphically presented due to space limitation) indicate that income, residence, experience with the Internet and Internet skills determine reduction or otherwise need for reading the print genre due to reading online newspapers. Specifically, a respondent residing in a low-density3 area 3  A low-density residential area in the Zambian context is predominantly a preserve of the affluent individuals and families. The opposite applies to a high-density area.

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e­ xperiences a reduction in the need for reading print newspapers by 2.34 times compared to one residing in a high-density residence. Also, a reader with ‘very poor’ Internet skills has less need for print by 1.96 times compared to a reader with ‘poor’ skills. On the other hand, the following readers are not likely to reduce their need for reading the print type due to the availability of online newspapers: respondents who earn between K50,000 and K100,000 (US$4500–9000) (by 61 times compared to those who earn anything below K50,000); a reader with ‘moderate’ skills (by 60 times compared to one with ‘poor’ skills); and one who has been surfing the Internet for six to ten years (by 54 times compared to a reader who has been surfing for two to five years). Apart from reduced need, the study has shown that the majority of the respondents (72%) had actually cut down on reading Zambian print newspapers because of spending more time on Zambian standalone online newspapers. Three factors manifest as positive predictors of this particular displacement effect of online newspapers on the print newspapers: political activism, experience with the Internet and length of time spent reading online newspapers. To be more specific, data show that (1) A respondent who is not a registered voter cuts down on the reading of print newspapers by 5.25 times compared to a registered voter; (2) Respondents who have been surfing the Internet for six to ten years and for more than ten years cut down on their readership of print newspapers by 2.18 times and 3.38 times, respectively, than a reader who has been surfing it for two to five years; and (3) As the weekly frequency of reading online newspapers goes up, the reader cuts down on the reading of print newspapers by 1.20 times. The picture is different when it comes to the displacement of television by online newspapers. The results indicate that fewer respondents (37%) had slowed down the need to watch news on television as a result of reading online newspapers. Seven demographic factors predict the reduction in respondents’ need for television news because of spending time reading online newspapers. They are as follows: (1) a female reader (2.21 times compared to a male reader); (2) a reader in the 26–35 age group (3.57 times compared to the one in the 18–25  year age group); (3) a reader holding a degree qualification and above (2.28 times compared to a secondary school leaver); (4) a reader who has been using the Internet for less than two years (3.64 times than one who has used it for two to five years); (5) a low weekly Internet surfer (15.81 times compared to high weekly surfer); and (6) as the experience of reading online newspapers goes up by a year, each reader’s need for television goes down by 1.05

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times. Conversely, a reader with ‘moderate’ Internet skills is 46 times likely not to reduce the need for television due to spending time reading news on online newspapers than the ones with ‘poor’ skills. In terms of the impact of online media on the need for radio, just over half (54%) of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed to the statement Reading an online newspaper (not the version of a print newspaper) slows down my need to listen to news on radio. The regression analysis model (not added to the text) shows the influencers of the reduction in the need for listening to the radio due to online newspapers and these are age, political activism and the length of time respondents spent reading online newspapers. Specifically, a reader who is aged between 26 and 35 reduces the need for radio by 3.32 times than one who is aged between 18 and 25 years; a reader who voted during the 2016 general elections reduces the need by 2.27 than the one who did not; and as the experience of reading online newspapers goes up by a year, each reader’s need for radio goes down by 1.05 times.

Online Newspapers as Substitutes for Television and Print Newspapers The second research question asks the readers, who are respondents, whether they perceive online newspapers as adequate substitutes or replacements for television and print newspapers. With respect to adequacy of online newspapers as substitutes for print newspapers, 52% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement thus: Zambian stand-alone online newspapers are an adequate substitute for Zambian print newspapers. Forty-two percent (42%) of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed. The logistic regression model (not attached) indicates that education, income, years of experience working with the Internet and the frequency of reading online newspapers influence readers’ opinions on whether online newspapers are so adequate that they can totally replace their print counterparts. Specifically, the study shows the following trends: (1) Respondents earning between K50,000 and K100,000 (US$4500–9000) and K101,000–K250,000 are more likely to find online newspapers adequate (by 1.84 and 3.31 times respectively) than a reader earning below K50,000 (US$4500); (2) A reader holding either a degree or above finds online newspapers as an adequate substitute for print versions by 2.17 times than a secondary school

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certificate holder; and (3) as experience of reading online newspapers goes up by a year, the reader’s rating of the adequacy of the online media as a pretext for replacing the print newspapers also goes up by 1.15 times. Conversely, medium and high daily frequent Internet surfers are 66 and 45 times, respectively, not likely to find online newspapers a sufficient substitute for print newspapers than a low frequent surfer. Also, a reader whose Internet skills are only ‘moderate’ is 56 times not likely to find online newspapers an adequate substitute for print newspapers than the one equipped with ‘very good’ skills. Regarding the perceptions about the substitutability of online newspapers for television, only 23% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement Zambian stand-alone online newspapers are an adequate substitute for Zambian Television. Sixty-five percent (65%) disagreed or strongly disagreed and 13% indicated their neutrality. The logistic regression results show that age, income and experience with both the Internet and the reading of online newspapers are predictors of opinion on whether online newspapers are an adequate substitute for television or otherwise. Specifically, (1) respondents aged 26–35  years find online newspapers an adequate substitute for television by 3.03 times as compared to those in the 18–25  years age-group; (2) respondents earning between K50,000 and K100,000 regard online newspapers an adequate substitute by 2.25 times as compared to those earning below K50,000; (3) a reader who has been using the Internet for less than two years finds online newspapers an adequate substitute for television by 3.38 times compared to one who has been using the facility for two to five years; and (4) as experience of reading online newspapers goes up by a year, the reader’s rating of the adequacy of the media as justification for the replacement of television also goes up by 1.04 times. Conversely, a reader who has been using the Internet thrice a day finds online newspapers an adequate substitute for television by 63 times as compared to a reader who surfs once a day. Research question 3 asks about the socio-economic determinants of the displacement effect of online newspapers on traditional ones, driven by the fact that the news channels compete with each other (new and old) for the attention of the audience. To this effect, 57% of the respondents affirmatively answered the question Have you ever been faced with a situation where you had to choose to get news or information from an online newspaper instead of a traditional newspaper? Forty-one percent (41%) had never been faced with such a situation and 3% were not sure. In choosing an

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online newspaper over a traditional print newspaper, 77% of the respondents who had to make that decision were influenced by consideration of the cost, 67% were influenced by the need for up-to-date news, 32% by the value of the news and/or information (content), 23% chose it due to trust and confidence they had in the online newspaper, 6% of them opted for it due to other reasons and finally 2% of them could not state the reason/s. The results show that perceived credibility is not one of the factors driving readers from the traditional news media to the online newspapers.

Discussion With regard to displacement on account of the need for online newspapers in comparison with the traditional mass media, the study finds that the presence of online newspapers has negatively impacted the readers’ need for all the three traditional mass media—television, radio and print newspapers—albeit to varying degrees. Three-quarters indicated a reduced need for print newspapers and about half for radio over the past five years because they are spending more time on online newspapers. This evidence is corroborated by the fact that almost the same proportion of readers confirmed having cut down on the time they spent on print newspapers because of reading online newspapers. However, fewer people (about a third only) indicated cutting down on their need for television. The results suggest that overall and in line with the findings by other researchers (such as De Waal et al. 2005), reading online newspapers is a positive predictor of the displacement effect on print newspapers. Contrary to earlier studies (De Waal et al. 2005), the present study finds that television is the least cannibalised by online newspapers. De Waal et al. (2005) specifically concluded that more people were cutting down the time they spent on television than the other news channels. Figure  13.1 demonstrates the disproportional displacement effects of online newspapers on the three traditional media. The present study also finds that the proportion of readers turning to online at the expense of print newspapers is much higher than previously reported, especially during the first decade of online journalism (1995–2005) (Bromley and Bowles 1995; Chyi and Lasorsa 2002). It, therefore, confirms earlier predictions that the impact of online newspapers on the print newspapers would profoundly manifest in later years (De Waal et al. 2005). In terms of the time and need-based demographic predictors as displacement effect, the results assert that long years of experience and

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Displacement Effect 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40%

Print

30%

Radio

20%

TV

10% 0% Agree

Disagree

Fig. 13.1  Comparative displacement effect on the three traditional mass media: print, television and radio. (Source: Author) [‘Agree’ represents displacement effect and ‘Disagree’ represents the ‘pushback’ to displacement]

frequency of reading online newspapers are common key determinants in the reduction of the need for, and the time spent on, all the three traditional media. In terms of experience in reading online newspapers, a proposition being advanced here is that the more the time the readers spend reading them (online newspapers), the more they appreciate them as the ‘real product’ that they can rely on. This finding resonates with, and can be extrapolated in the context of, the media ‘reliance’ theory, which is a key element of the Uses and Gratification theory. The principle postulates a reciprocal or cyclic relationship between reliance and motivation (Ball-­ Rokeach 1985). Kaye and Johnson (2017) concluded that the more strongly a medium satisfies the gratification being sought, the more

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heavily it is relied on. Similarly, the more it is relied on, the more it is repeatedly used by the audience to gratify needs. Age, in particular the youth, by Zambian classification, is another common predictor of the reduced need for all the three conventional media channels: the print newspaper, the television and the radio. The experience with the Internet as expressed in years presents conflicting results across the media genre. As such, long experience with the Internet precipitates a reduction in the need for and use of print newspapers. On the other hand, the fewer the years a reader has spent on the Internet, the more likely an individual will reduce the need for, and use of, television. The strong displacement effect on all the three traditional channels by the youth is consistent with the findings of earlier studies (e.g. De Waal and Schoenbach 2010), who concluded that the youth shun print newspapers because they ‘feel that news sites serve and satisfy the same needs as newspapers’ (De Waal and Schoenbach 2010, p. 181). Whether or not this is the case in the Zambian scenario needs further investigation, given that additional factors such as the cost consideration play a crucial role in influencing the audience’s media choices in the case of a Third World country like Zambia. The strong displacement effect on radio and television can also be explained in terms of the high frequency in the use of mobile phones to access the online newspapers free of charge through their Facebook pages as earlier explained. Use of mobile phones gives the readers a niche in online media particularly over radio and TV, whose news cannot easily be accessed online. This is in line with the findings of other researchers, especially De Waal and Schoenbach (2010). De Waal and Schoenbach (2010, p. 181) summed up the point by saying ‘Clearly, access to the media in different spaces and through the availability of one’s time are also important factors in the user-centric approach’. The present study reports very high use (97%) of mobile phones to access the Internet and online newspapers in Zambia. It confirms an enormous increase from the 71% reported in the 2015 national ICT survey conducted by ZICTA (2018). However, disaggregated data shows disproportionately much lower use among certain demographic groups (e.g. rural populations where Internet access and use was reported at 14.3% nationally (ZICTA 2018)). The study measures the perceptions of respondents on the adequacy of online newspapers as a substitute for print and TV, as a proxy indicator for the substitutability or replacement effect, the ‘ultimate of displacement’

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(Westlund and Färdigh 2011). The results indicate that the substitutability effect is much less than the displacement effect on print newspapers and TV. An estimated 50% of the respondents perceived online newspapers as a sufficient substitute for print newspapers, roughly a 25-percentage point reduction compared to the displacement effect. Equally, a much lower number (20%) found online newspapers a sufficient substitute for television, a 17-percentage point reduction from the displacement effect. This implies that the majority of Zambian users are hesitant to completely do away with the traditional media, at least for now. Print newspapers are again the most affected by the substitutability effect of online newspapers, albeit to a lesser degree compared to the displacement effect. The statistics also suggest that the proportion of audiences who have substituted print for online newspapers has risen from what some earlier researchers had established. Skogerbø and Winsvold (2011) assertion that ‘far less readers were substituting traditional print for online newspapers’ is inconsistent with the situation among the Zambian audiences. If the perceptions of the respondents correctly approximate actual behaviour, at least half of Zambian media audiences across the Lusaka Province have completely done away with print for online newspapers. In earlier sections of the paper, it was reported that turning to online at the expense of print newspapers among the Zambian audiences is predicated on the quest for up-to-date news and affordability. The readers seem less bothered by the value of the content and least so by the perceived credibility of the online newspapers. Therefore, it is plausible to assert that the cost effect weighs heavily against print newspapers. Despite costing a minimum of K10 (or US$0.85), they are, according to the ‘principle of relative constancy’, technologically inhibited to compete with digital media in providing up-to-date and breaking news. Poverty is a fundamental determinant to people’s media choices. A recent survey found that 54.4% of Zambians live below the poverty line, with monthly household income of K1,801.30 or US$18 (Central Statistical Office 2018). This translates into US$0.6 (60 cents) a day, which is less than the cost of an average newspaper in Zambia. On the other hand, online newspapers can be accessed free of charge on their Facebook as described earlier in the report. This scenario has been summarised by De Waal and Schoenbach (2010, p. 180) as follows: ‘Here, we can acknowledge significant disadvantages of printed newspapers in relation to news sites with respect to the fact that they present yesterday’s news and charge for it’.

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In terms of the predictors of perceived substitutability effect of online newspapers on TV and print newspapers, years of reading online newspapers and income emerge as common factors for both media. Low-to-­ medium-income earners find online newspapers a sufficient substitute for both TV and print newspapers. This finding supports the hypothesis advanced earlier that poverty determines media behaviour and choices. The study also finds that long years of experience with online newspapers increases their substitutability effect, as is the case with displacement effect. After a number of years of continuous reading, some users seem to find the online newspapers adequate as the ‘real product’. Experience with the Internet offers mixed results. While few years of experience with technology predicts opinion of adequacy of online newspapers as replacements for TV, medium and high daily surfing and moderate skills point in the opposite direction. Finally, contrary to earlier assertions (Johnson and Kaye 2016), the present study avers that credibility is not a strong predictor of motivation for reading online newspapers.

Conclusion This study is conclusive in that the advent of online newspapers in Zambia has negatively impacted the three traditional news media—television, radio and print newspapers—albeit to dissimilar degrees. Comparatively speaking, print newspapers are the most affected by the displacement effect on all accounts: (1) frequency of use of the medium by the audiences (exposure); (2) need for the medium; (3) amount of time spent on the medium; and (4) amount of attention paid to the contents of the medium. The television is the least affected and the radio lies in between. While the results are conclusive that most readers are spending less time reading print newspapers due to the advent of online newspapers (displacement effect), it would appear that many readers are less enthusiastic to ultimately substitute (or replace) online news newspapers for TV and print newspapers. Therefore, complementarity still holds, albeit the need for and role of traditional mass media, especially print newspapers and radio, has diminished from what was reported in earlier studies. An experimental design, specifically by way of longitudinal study, is, however, required to arrive at the conclusion made by other researchers such as De Waal et al. (2005) that the online newspapers are now permanently the ‘real product’ and the medium that the majority of readers turn to during

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the time of convergence (i.e. when the users are exposed to various media concurrently). One confounding factor that has averted total replacement or substitution of the traditional media by online newspapers appears to be the fact that the readers still regard news in traditional media generally more credible than the one offered by the alternative media (this was established in other parts of the study). In those parts of the study, it was reported that most readers prefer to cross-check facts in other channels in order to be sure about the facts presented in some online newspapers. Therefore, the substitutability effect extrapolated in the present study seems to be circumstantial to the changing needs of the readers and it is audience specific. The relevance of the ‘reliance theory’ to both the displacement and substitutability effects of online newspapers on the traditional news media is confirmed. Admittedly, users who have been exposed to online newspapers for a longer time and more frequently eventually accept them as the ‘real product’ and medium they turn to even in times when various media are competing for their resources, such as space and time. Therefore, it is plausible to conclude that substitutability has mainly taken root among the fervent and ‘converted’ readers of online newspapers. The study also presents a nuanced picture of use of the online media among different demographic groups. Strong displacement and substitutability effects manifest on all the three conventional media among more frequent and long-term users of online newspapers and the youth. The results are also conclusive and indicative of the fact that economic consideration and the quest for ‘breaking’ and up-to-date news are the main ‘pull factors’ that lure audiences towards online news. However, the results do not find a relationship between perceived credibility and displacement or substitutability effect. Acknowledgements  The researcher wishes to acknowledge the University of Zambia, through the Institute of Economic and Social Research (INESOR), for its financial contribution to the study. Special thanks go to the Centre for Communication and Media Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in particular Prof Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, for supervising the research for the PhD, from which the results presented in this paper were taken.

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Shirky, C. (2011). Traditional newspapers are becoming extinct. Are Newspapers Becoming Extinct? Farmington Hills: Greenhaven. Simutanyi, N., Fraser, A., & Milapo, N. (2015). Background paper: Politics and interactive media in Zambia. Retrieved from https://eprints.soas.ac. uk/23042/1/PiMA%20WP%203%20Zambia%20Background%20Paper.pdf Skogerbø, E., & Winsvold, M. (2011). Audiences on the move? Use and assessment of local print and online newspapers. European Journal of Communication, 26(3), 214–229. Stempel III, G.  H., & Hargrove, T. (2004). Despite gains, Internet not major player as news source. Newspaper Research Journal, 25(2), 113–115. Stempel III, G. H., Hargrove, T., & Bernt, J. P. (2000). Relation of growth of use of the Internet to changes in media use from 1995 to 1999. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(1), 71–79. Thurman, N., & Myllylahti, M. (2009). Taking the paper out of news: A case study of Taloussanomat, Europe’s first online-only newspaper. Journalism Studies, 10(5), 691–708. Westlund, O., & Färdigh, M. A. (2011). Displacing and complementing effects of news sites on newspapers 1998–2009. International Journal on Media Management, 13(3), 177–194. Willems, W. (2016, August 30). Social media, platform power and (mis)information in Zambia’s recent elections [Blog post]. Retrieved from https:// blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2016/08/30/social-­media-­platform-­power-­and-­ misinformation-­in-­zambias-­recent-­elections/ Zambia Information Communication and Technology Authority (2018). ZICTA 2018 ICT survey report. Lusaka: ZICTA.

CHAPTER 14

Diversity in Broadcast Television in Botswana: Prospects and Challenges William O. Lesitaokana and Seamogano Mosanako

Introduction Media diversity, press freedom, and media access are some of the key concepts in communications practice. This chapter focuses on issues of diversity in television service provision in Botswana. It is necessary, at the outset, that we discuss our intended meanings of the concept of diversity and why it is important for this study. The normative definition of media diversity is the prevalence of diverse characteristics within the media (McQuail 1992). In this definition, media diversity focuses on structural characteristics of a media system such as media ownership and varied types of media outlets. Thus, media diversity can be viewed from the standpoint of ownership structure in terms of government, public service, commercial or community broadcasting. Regarding media outlets, diversity refers to existence of multiple forms of media such as television, radio, print, online, and social media in a country.

W. O. Lesitaokana (*) Department of Media Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana S. Mosanako Bank of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_14

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Media diversity could also entail analysis of a media system by exploring internal characteristics of a media outlet. In this instance, media content is examined to determine the extent to which it provides for diversity of voices through diverse political and cultural viewpoints reflected in media content (Karppinen 2006). Media content is evaluated to determine whether the content is differentiated in such a way that it is reflective of the inherent demographic characteristics of a society. Furthermore, other considerations such as geographic pluralism should focus on ensuring that media content encompasses viewpoints from different locations in a particular locality. In multi-cultural societies, diversity could be analyzed though the extent to which there is linguistic plurality in the media, as content would reflect diverse languages existent in a society (Hoffmann-­ Riem 1987; Iosifides 1999) provides the following four sub-goals of diversity that he suggests should prevail with regard to broadcasting: diversity of formats and issues; diversity in plurality of content; person and group diversity; as well as issue, content and geographic diversity. In his view, it is necessary that programs should have a variety of fields and topics, include different opinions expressed in a society, have representation from the community and a varied mix of programming content from local, and regional, through to international sources. It is important that media systems strive to be diverse, as there are potential benefits to be derived from that. Largely, the relevance of a diverse media is crystalized around the notion of diverse public interest and existent benefit to society (Iosifides 1999). The utmost benefit of media diversity is that it facilitates discourse in a democratic society. Through diversity in the media, democratic ethos in society is promoted, as viewers are confronted with more content and diverse communication from various sources. Most of this sort of communication is significant to advance development in society. Perhaps, this is why De Bens (2007) suggests that whenever the media seems to be failing, governments should introduce policies that help advance media’s democratic and cultural mission in society. With diverse broadcast television, such as public and commercial channels, it is essential that information flow in society be diverse. This would undoubtedly help uphold social cohesion, advance sociocultural values, increase knowledge about the economy, and create employment. For Einstein (2004), media diversity is necessary because with a more concentrated media industry there will be a less beneficial communications landscape. It can also be argued, however, that more media do not

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necessarily confer greater diversity (Dunn 2005). For diversity to be realized, the media should expose differing viewpoints to contribute to public dialogue and facilitate accountability to the public. Recognizing the connection between diversity, freedom of expression and democracy, Van-­ Cuilenburg (1998, p.  38) notes ‘democracy guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental human right for all, which freedom fosters diversity of information and opinion.’ Problematically, however, numerous studies on media diversity focused more on the Global North, yet development of the broadcast media in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other developing regions continues to rise. The few studies in the Global South have tended to focus more on media pluralism, press freedom, and access to print media (Bourgualt 1995; Duncan 2015; Duncan and Reid 2013). Research also indicates that there is dominance of foreign media content in most countries in the Global South. For example, noting his concerns about related deficiencies in the Caribbean region, Dunn (2005, p. 81) noted, ‘The leading cooperative ventures in media are encountering grave struggles for survival in the face of the changing global environment.’ In his view, this was due to the proximity and dominance of the United States to this region, which resulted in easy access to US media products. In another study undertaken in Kenya, it was established that despite an increase in the number of television channels, there were concerns of strangling diversity in terms of content across the leading five television channels (Mwangi 2015). In Eswatini, additional to foreign-based content available through Multichoice, there is also a state-run broadcaster, Swaziland Television Authority (STA), which dominates the airwaves (Rooney 2007). Also, in many African countries, what was intended as public broadcasters have been put under full control of the state. There have also been reports of concerns in the way the Egyptian government has maintained a strong grip on the television market (Sakr 2009). For some of the governments in the Global South, the option to own and control the media is predicated on three arguments: for ‘successful nation-building, being less wasteful of the limited resources,’ and to guarantee ‘the political stability badly needed for rapid development’ (Nyamnjoh 2004, p. 122). It remains to be seen, however, whether such justifications are similar in most countries in the Global South. This is because countries in the Global South are not homogeneous and include a diversity of sizes, economic power, and political systems, and they face many challenges such as poverty, digital divide, social inequality, crime, and unemployment (Felsenstein and

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Portnov 2006; Murshed et al. 2011). Hence, there is a need to expand the scope of studies of media diversity, particularly the performance of broadcasting television to as many developing nations as possible. Drawing upon qualitative research data from Botswana, this chapter has three broad objectives: first to explore media diversity in Botswana— an outwardly liberalized media environment; second, to examine the development of broadcast television, to examine the challenges that led to the lack of diversity therein; and third, to use the case of Botswana to suggest recommendations through which media diversity could thrive elsewhere in the Global South.

Data Gathering Data in this chapter were obtained through two methods of qualitative research. The first involved an analysis of policy documents and government consultancy reports on media in Botswana, in particular on television broadcasting. These included policy documents from the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA), such as communications regulatory frameworks, license agreements for local channels, previous policy documents on licensing frameworks and Botswana Television (Btv) policy and broadcast schedules. Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-three informants who were asked to share their viewpoints regarding the history and state of broadcast television in Botswana. These were purposively selected to include three legislators, six journalists, three government officials in the broadcasting sector, three independent media producers, and eight members of the public from among youth, adults, and elderlies. All the interviews were conducted for about forty-five minutes, audio recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed.

Overview: Media Diversity in Botswana In our attempt to examine diversity of broadcast television in Botswana, it is perhaps significant at this stage to reiterate that key indications of diverse media in any country include accessibility to a variety of media channels; diverse ownership, as well as distinct representation and associated views expressed through various media outlets (Hoffmann-Riem 1987). As in many other states, Botswana has diverse media channels such as print, radio, television, the internet, and mobile communication technologies.

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With regard to media ownership, there is diversity in terms of commercial and publicly owned media, or state media as it is commonly described. Specifically, citizens of Botswana have access to over twenty local newspapers and a number of international publications circulating locally. Also, there are five terrestrial FM radio channels. Two of these, Radio Botswana and RB2, are state owned, whereas three others Duma FM, Gabz FM, and Yarona FM are privately owned. All these radio channels broadcast nationally, thus servicing almost the entire population of 2.3 million. Moreover, Botswana citizens have access to a few South African FM Radio channels including Motsweding FM, YFM, and Jacaranda FM, most of which are accessible to citizens living along the Eastern parts of the country. Furthermore, since the development of the printed press during colonial times, Botswana has always had public print media such as magazines, newsletters, and newspapers. In addition to foreign newspaper publications, especially those from South Africa, the people in Botswana have access to over fifteen locally produced newspapers including the state-­ owned Daily News and Kutlwano magazine, and privately owned publications such as The Voice, Midweek Sun, The Botswana Guardian, Mmegi, Mmegi Monitor, Sunday Standard, The Botswana Gazette, The Patriot, Business Weekly, Echo, Weekend Post, Global Post, Agric News magazine, Wealth, and Lapologa. These circulate nationally and are published largely in English and a few in Setswana, the local language. Broadcast television is also available in Botswana, dominated by state-owned Botswana Television (Btv) and foreign-­based entertainment digital satellite subscription television—Multichoice DStv Botswana. Other commercial channels include Maru, Access, Khuduga, eBotswana, and OVY network. Since 2000 the Botswana government has committed to significantly develop the internet nationally, to extend its accessibility countrywide through asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL), hybrid fiber coaxial cables, and satellite broadband. It is worthwhile to also note that the dramatic diffusion of mobile telephony nationally has been the additional catalyst for wide access to mobile broadband countrywide. As may be expected, the presence of various media channels in Botswana offers good prospects for diverse media ownership, the promotion of distinct views, and diversity of information and knowledge. However, while this is almost certain with regard to broadcast radio and print, diversity in broadcast television in Botswana is yet to be realized. This is demonstrated and discussed further in the next sections, where we focus our inquiry on

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the prospects of diversity in broadcasting television in the country, as well as the key challenges that impede its success.

Television Broadcasting in Botswana The development of broadcast media in Botswana could be traced from as far back as the colonial period when the national broadcasting radio channel, Radio Botswana, was introduced. Before gaining independence in 1966, Bechuanaland, now Botswana, was one of the poorest nations in sub-Sahara Africa. During and after independence, the new government, with the benefit of newly found diamond and copper mineral resources, was able to provide adequate infrastructure nationally to develop the lives of its people. Those undertakings were also significantly accomplished through the growth of the agricultural sector, which resulted in the improvement of national food security and exportation of beef to the European market. The efforts of the government at that time resulted in a rise in literacy levels among citizens and urbanization, which followed thereafter with an increase in opportunities for employment in the cities, towns, and rural centers (Rantao 1996). There was also intensified appetite for media content, for information, entertainment, and advanced education, among citizens. During the early years after independence, broadcast radio, in particular Radio Botswana (RB), and films were considered the most appropriate media for establishing communication between the government and its people (Lesitaokana 2013). Consequently, a film production unit was established in the government’s Information Department as it was intended that at least one film a year about Botswana should be shown locally, and as well as exported abroad to advertise the country so as to attract foreign investors. With Botswana’s illiteracy rate at around seventy-­ five percent at that time, these were perhaps the most appropriate media for communication. A Cinematography Act was developed in 1978 when it was conceived that such a law would advance developments related to the production of films to market the country. There was no television service in Botswana until the early 90s when a few European foreign nationals installed Gaborone Broadcasting Television (GBC)—a relay channel which was based and broadcast within a 50-­kilometer radius of Gaborone—the capital city. At that time, most of the programming on GBC was content from TV Africa. The other circuit television services were developed in the diamond mining towns of

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Jwaneng and Orapa. Although significantly filling the void for a lack of local television in Botswana, most of the television content accessible locally since the 90s was foreign. For instance, during the same period, television broadcasts from South Africa, such as Bophutsatswana Television (Bop TV) and Contemporary Community Value (CCV) channels, were accessible to some local citizens who resided along the South and South Eastern parts of Botswana bordering South Africa. The most common of such channels were South Africa’s TV1, broadcasting in English, TV3 broadcasting in Sotho and Tswana and TV4 which was rich in sports and entertainment programming. Also, at that time, some middle- and high-­ income families in Botswana subscribed to MultiChoice’s M-Net pay per view service through which they watched foreign-based content. Such a lack of a dedicated local channel resulted in citizens making incessant appeals to the government for the establishment of a public television service. While assenting to this, the state undertook to expand communication networks, extend electricity supply and developed policies geared toward facilitating broadcasting television. Discernable efforts in this regard also included the following: establishment in 1997 of the Botswana Broadcasting Act; the establishment of the Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA)—a national regulator for telecommunications and electronic media; and the introduction of studies that were conducted to inform the development of a national television service. Most of these initiatives were significant undertakings that informed what can be labeled the de-regulation of broadcast media in Botswana in about 1997. Somewhat ironically, the dominance of foreign channels, including foreign content in the local circuit television in Botswana in the 90s, indicates that citizens were presented with information from outside the country, most of which was not relevant to local social culture and economic development in Botswana. Moreover, a lack of local television channels in Botswana at that time suggests that foreign social and economic culture, instead of local culture and national sovereignty, was advanced. It was also concerning that almost two decades after independence Botswana was reluctant to introduce its own national television. Elsewhere, it has been suggested that a local television service is an apparatus for promoting national culture and identity (Jackson and Vipond 2003), as well as employment creation, which leads to the growth of the economy in any society (Grugulis and Stoyanova 2012; Lee 2011). Clearly then, it is almost inconceivable that these functions could be fulfilled in

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Botswana through foreign television channels. As a matter of fact, there was a need for Botswana to fully develop the broadcast television sector, such as to establish a national television, to license privately owned commercial TV services, and to train locals for film and video production roles.

Prospects for Diversity in Broadcast Television in Botswana Data gathered for this chapter indicates that there existed two main prospects for diversity in broadcast television in Botswana. The first was the introduction of a national channel, Botswana Television (Btv), in 2000, thirty-four years after Botswana’s independence. The second was the deregulation of broadcasting television in Botswana starting in 2004. This led to the introduction of Botswana broadcasting regulatory frameworks through the BTA in 2004, and then BOCRA (introduced in 2012) and the licensing and regulation of broadcasting services locally. These are discussed further in the next sub-sections. The Introduction of BTV as a National Channel Launched as a government department in 2000, Btv has never been regulated and licensed by the initial independent regulatory authority—the BTA.  The channel has been providing wider national access and, from providing mainly foreign content, has over the years been developed further to include local content in its programming. Despite this, a majority of its content remains government communication, including information about decisions of the state and policies developed by the government from time to time. It also provides local and international news and entertainment. According to government officials interviewed, when introduced, Btv was expected to provide government communication, offer entertainment, mirror the nations cultural identity through its programming, offer local content, and reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign media. Both the legislators and media producers interviewed for this study concurred that the function of Btv to communicate government information was predicated on enabling the public to become aware of opportunities that could be available to them. For this, one of the legislators remarked, Btv’s role is to connect the government with its people, to

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provide citizens with information about policies of the government that benefit them (Temo, personal communication, February 12, 2016). Most of the study participants acquiesced that in a developing country the electronic media should be supportive of the government. This could have occurred because of the state-led model of development in Botswana where the government has remained central to socio-economic development. In particular, media producers who participated in the study expressed how they are often reminded to always support the government’s initiatives through Btv. Examples of Btv broadcasts aimed at disseminating government information include news bulletins, agricultural magazine shows (Tsa Temo Thuo), current affairs programs (e.g. The Eye), coverage of the State President’s visit across the country, coverage in villages of special visits of members of the cabinet, broadcasts of special programs such as State of the Nation (SONA) addresses by the State President, the national budget speech and other national events led by government officials, as well as broadcasts of new policy decisions introduced by government ministries. An example cited in this regard by one of the study participants (Kgaodi, personal communication, March 03, 2016) is Btv’s broadcast of government policy on backyard gardening, which includes the aim of alleviating poverty through encouraging Batswana, as nationals are called, to engage in small-scale gardening in their homes, for both subsistence and commercial purposes. Nonetheless, some participants in this study are concerned about the government’s over-use of Btv to communicate its issues. In particular, legislators from the opposition political parties, members of the public, and journalists are of the view that whereas it is good that Btv broadcasts government information and policies, such content dominated to an unwarranted extent, the channel’s programming. There are indications that most of the time Btv presents the government’s point of view and that there is no balance in their programming. Consider the following extracts from interviews with some of the participants citing the predominant use of Btv by the government, ‘All that we watch on Btv news is ‘government this, government that.’ The state has captured Btv and uses it to flag their views and policies’ (Batho, personal communication, February 24, 2016). ‘Btv is a state department and all its employees, whether station manager, producers, or even journalists are public officers serving under the ruling government. We expect them not to bite the hand that feeds them’ (Thato, personal communication, February 13, 2016). A legislator from an opposition political party also remarked, ‘It is shocking how the ruling party [referring to government of the day] uses Btv to mar-

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ket the services of the state and present themselves in good light. That’s’ unfair’. (Allen, personal communication, February 26, 2016)

The participants in this study also expressed concerns that most of the time, government officials are the only people featured as sources of information broadcast on Btv.

Deregulation of Broadcasting Television Following the deregulation of broadcasting in 1998 there has been an increase in the number of privately owned broadcast channels. It was then that two commercial radio channels and Gaborone Broadcasting Channel (GBC) were licensed and became operational. Specifically, in 2007 there was re-licensing of GBC to expand its signal reach nationally. Interestingly, however, GBC failed to satisfy the market as it lacked the capacity to broadcast across the country beyond the capital city Gaborone, whereas Btv enjoyed the monopoly as the only local service with nationwide signal reach. Significant attempts by GBC in 2006 and 2007 to improve its services were followed by its acquisition by a South African commercial television service, eTV.  This led to its change of the name to eBotswana. Having been under various owners, eBotswana service is currently under the media group Yarona Media Holdings (YHM) which is more experienced in the radio broadcasting. Although licensed to operate nationally, eBotswana has only been available in the capital Gaborone and neighboring villages. There was evidence in 2007 that several Botswana business operators saw the opportunity locally to invest in television services. An example in this regard was the licensing in 2007 of foreign-owned satellite subscription channels such as Gaborone Television (GTV), the Munhumutape African Broadcasting Corporation (MABC), and Black Entertainment Satellite Television (BEST TV). In fact, both MABC and BEST TV failed to launch while GTV was introduced in 2007 and then ceased to operate in 2009, due to financial constraints (Botswana Telecommunications Authority 2009). Further endeavors by the Botswana government to deregulate the local broadcast sector resulted in the review of the Broadcasting Act that led to the transformation of BTA into the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) in 2012, to provide licensing, monitoring, and regulation of all communications channels in Botswana. Within the revised

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Act, more new commercial television channels such as Access TV, Khuduga TV, Maru TV, OVY network, and Kwese TV were licensed to operate in Botswana. Expectations have been that through BOCRA, diversity of commercial broadcasting services in Botswana would significantly increase as more entrants into the market meant more options and varieties of programming for local viewers. This also provided prospects for the expansion of the local film industry, as well as creation of employment locally, especially in the television industry. However, it is clearly evident that commercial television’s response in Botswana has been disappointing, as most of the channels are failing to satisfy the market. Btv remained the only notable local television service in Botswana as most of those that were licensed failed to take off, while others only achieved very limited broadcast services, hence they cannot satisfy the market. This is despite the Botswana government’s endeavors through the then BTA and recently BOCRA to provide the regulatory frameworks necessary to advance diversification of broadcast media locally.

Challenges That Impede Diversity in Broadcast Television Diversity in broadcast television has not been realized in Botswana due to several challenges that impede the successful development of privately owned commercial television locally. Firstly, although the government has done well to deregulate the media, such as providing opportunities for the licensing of privately owned broadcasters, it seems there is no will from the private sector to empower privately owned television services, whereas Btv is fully funded by the state. Secondly, foreign content especially South African channels dominate local television. Lastly, the television industry in Botswana, which is still developing, is significantly challenged by signal spillage from South Africa’s advanced channels. However, with proper local spectrum regulation and adequate local signal strength and transmitter management, this should not be a problem.

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Limited Political Will by the Private Sector to Empower Commercial TV In any country, the success of broadcasting television depends on the amount of support the sector gets from both the government and the private sector. In many instances, government can ease the regulatory requirements, and the private sector provide funding necessary to run the stations (Negrine 1985). Relatedly, Tinic aptly suggests ‘today’s new media environment of expanded channel capacity and multi-platform delivery has revitalised debates about the continued relevance and legitimacy of public investment in broadcasting in the age of spectrum surplus’ (2009, pp. 65–74). There was a consensus among the interviewees that despite Botswana providing enabling environments such as easing the regulatory frameworks for the licensing of local commercial broadcast television, the government has continued to fund television services, whereas the wider private sector has not helped to develop the sector. Although the diffusion of information communication technologies (ICT) can go a long way to support the provision of digital broadcasting services, more needs to be done to support the market structure in broadcast television by providing better production and broadcasting infrastructure. Specifically, the interviews with journalists and film producers supported the view that the private sector should fund the local commercial television industry, and also that because it has more advanced transmission equipment nationwide, the government could lease access to such infrastructure to private media. These sentiments came out strongly during the interviews with media practitioners: The costs of broadcast television infrastructure are high, the same with operating such businesses, the private sector should play a role to fund commercial television sector. (Mosele, personal communication, March 03, 2016) It is a known fact that Government owns very advanced broadcast equipment, but do not put these to adequate use. As such they should let us rent it. (Leungo, personal communication, March 07, 2016)

Consider also an extract from an interview with former employee of GTV when articulating this view: When we started at GTV we had many customers who considered our services. By then MultiChoice’s DStv and Btv had already established their

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markets, and it was expensive for us to expand our services beyond the cities. (Theo, personal communication, February 24, 2016)

While it may be argued that commercial media would be using public resources but not sharing its profits with the government, from a media policy perspective, such a practice is detrimental to the growth of commercial media in a developing country context. Interestingly for Botswana, the funding institutions available, such as the local commercial banks, Botswana Development Corporation (BDC), and the Citizen Entrepreneurship Development Agency (CEDA), seem reluctant to fund broadcasting businesses, as they consider that the risks are high.

Physical Proximity and Dominance of Foreign Content Dominance of foreign content, specifically in television broadcasting, is widely acknowledged as one of the challenges faced by broadcasters, especially those in the Global South (Chadha and Kavoori 2000; Dunn 2005; Jin 2007; Negrine and Papathanassopoulos 1991). As indicated earlier, even though it is commonly accessible in Botswana, DStv is mostly foreign content. In the case of eBotswana, one of the challenges is that the service has always largely relied on content from foreign channels, such as South Africa’s E-tv. Its recent acquisition by eBotswana followed the same pattern. Its programming is dominated by South African E-tv’s content. Viewers in Botswana, who have access to E-tv mostly through pirated signals, prefer to watch the South African service as its content is fresh, while similar eBotswana’s content is running behind the episodes aired on E-tv. As such stale foreign content on eBotswana is a deterrent to viewing by many. The abundance of foreign channels through satellite television MultiChoice also poses challenges for diversity of local television in Botswana. This is because these channels lead to a form of internationalization of content preferences by local viewers. The challenge with this is that when such states eventually manage to produce local content, such content is trashed in preference for international content. Thus, the global media system of international content production and distribution poses challenges for Botswana and other media markets of the developing nations, which tend to lack the necessary capacity to compete with the

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much more influential and dominant states. For instance, Multichoice and eBotswana content accessible in Botswana presents a one-sided South African cultural emphasis and cast it as the dominant source of cultural imperialism. Programing in the two television stations exhibits various types of South African entertainment such as idols, soaps, dramas, music, sports, religious sermons, and foreign news, most of which legitimizes South African languages and cultures in Botswana. Moreover, this presents the people of South Africa as sovereign over the Botswana locals. This contrasts with what has been suggested by Baker (1999) that when television programs are transmitted across geographical boundaries, they greatly contribute to the making of rich and complex hybrid and diaspora identities. As a market-driven industry, TV holds the possibility of undermining of national identity. Thus, the dominance of South African channels in Botswana could be seen as catalyst for the dissolution of national identity. However, that is not an inevitable outcome. In the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica’s ‘cultural identity’ has not been ‘dissolved’ or ‘synchronized’ as predicted, by proximity to heavy US TV content (Dunn 2005). However, the risk remains and may be even more acute in other regions. Contexts differ the end result could be as predicted for many nations which face similar challenges in the Global South. As noted by Isofides (1999), technological innovations have made it complicated for government to fully regulate broadcasting. An example in this regard is the accessibility of South African channels—SABC—in Botswana through pirated means. It has also become common that some Botswana citizens who have relatives in South Africa nowadays get decoders as well as pay necessary fees to access SABC content lawfully while in Botswana. Technological developments compound this as South African businesses are reluctant to advertise in Botswana channels as they are of the view that due to signal spillage or signal piracy, Botswana citizens can still access their advertisement. Thus, they reach wider market at no added cost, yet this disadvantages smaller neighboring states. These practices can pose a big threat to commercial broadcasting in Botswana. Due to Botswana’s over-reliance on goods and services imported from South Africa, South African companies as producers tend to only place advertisements for their products and services in their media, depriving Botswana market of potential advertising revenue. This demonstrates that while a developing country may seek to diversify their media markets and introduce fewer varied commercial channels, as is the case in Botswana with eBotswana and other local channels, these channels

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struggle for their existence, as audiences tend to prefer the already established services provided by a neighboring country with developed media markets.

Conclusion This chapter investigated diversity in television broadcasting in a developing country context. Using the case of Botswana, the study indicates that media diversity is yet to be fully realized in the TV sector of that developing market. Attempts to diversify the broadcast television market in Botswana through multiple ownership of media enterprises, and diversity of content remains a challenge. Specifically, the development of a national public service TV channel has always been undermined by the state’s interest to dominantly use the well-funded and publicly owned Btv to its advantage, while the privately owned media remains insignificant. This is partly because, unlike the privately owned broadcasters, the state broadcaster is not regulated and as such the government uses it as its mouthpiece to the detriment of other sectors of society. The private sector on the other hand seems reluctant to fund commercial broadcasting, making it difficult to survive in a small media market. There is also the problem of dominance of foreign content in the local media space. The risks discussed here of cultural hegemony are analogous to data from other studies conducted elsewhere in other African states (Mwangi 2015; Rooney 2007; Sakr 2009). In order to diversify television broadcasting in Botswana, several measures are required, based on the findings of our study. The broadcasting legislation must be reviewed to provide for alternative broadcasting models, such as community television and local cable services, to enhance media diversity from a structural perspective. Community broadcasting, as a model that requires less operating expenditure, could possibly be attractive to specific communities and enterprises, such as non-government organizations (NGOs) and churches, as elsewhere in Africa. Furthermore, the regulatory frameworks should be improved. Licenses should be prepared to make provisions for minority content and for content reflecting other neglected sectors of society. Additionally, there should be initiatives geared toward funding commercial services, such as tax rebates on equipment importation. Many lessons may be learned from the case of Botswana as discussed here. For media diversity to thrive in the Global South, governments

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should lessen control of the state-funded national television service. There should be incentives to promote diverse public ownership of commercial channels. Both governments and the local private sector should co-­operate in equipment sharing. Independent regulators could provide oversight to ensure a balance of government programming on the one hand and other content on the other. An independent regulatory authority should regulate state-owned broadcasters as well as privately owned ones, to help ensure real content diversity.

References Baker, C. (1999). Television, globalization and cultural identities. Buckingham: Open University Press. Botswana Telecommunications Authority. (2009). Botswana Telecommunications Authority annual report, 2009. Retrieved from https://www.bocra.org.bw/ bta-­2009-­annual-­report-­english Bourgualt, L. M. (1995). Mass media in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Chadha, K., & Kavoori, A. (2000). Media imperialism revisited: Some findings from Asian case. Media, Culture & Society, 22(4), 415–32. De Bens, E. (Ed.). (2007). Between media culture and commerce. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books. Duncan, J. (2015). Rethinking media diversity policy on the community press in South Africa. Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 41(4), 423–443. Duncan, J., & Reid, J. (2013). Towards a measurement tool for the monitoring of media diversity and pluralism in South Africa: A public-centred approach. Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 39(4), 483–500. Dunn, H. (2005). The politics of the media in the English-Speaking Caribbean. In P. N. Thomas & Z. Nain (Eds.), Who owns the media? Global trends and local resistance (pp. 69–96). London: WACC. Einstein, M. (Ed.). (2004). Media diversity: Economics, ownership, and the FCC. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Felsenstein, D., & Portnov, B.  A. (Eds.). (2006). Regional disparities in small countries. Heidelberg: Springer. Grugulis, I., & Stoyanova, D. (2012). Social capital and networks in Film and TV: Jobs for the boys? Organization Studies, 33(10), 1311–1331. Hoffmann-Riem, W. (1987). National identity and cultural values: Broadcasting safeguards. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 31(1), 57–72.

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Iosifides, P. (1999). Diversity versus concentration in the deregulated mass media domain. Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly, 76, 152–162. Jackson, D. J., & Vipond, M. (2003). The public/private tension in broadcasting: The Canadian experience with convergence. In G.  F. Lowe & T.  Hujanen (Eds.), Broadcasting & convergence: New articulations of the public service remit (pp. 69–82). Goteborg: Nordicom. Jin, D.  Y. (2007). Reinterpretation of cultural imperialism: Emerging domestic market vs continued US dominance. Media, Culture and Society, 29(5), 753–771. Karppinen, K. (2006). Media diversity and the politics of criteria: Diversity assessment and technocratisation of European media policy. Nordicom Review, 27(2), 53–68. Lee, D.  J. (2011). Networks, cultural capital and creative labour in the British independent television industry. Media Culture and Society, 33(4), 549–565. Lesitaokana, W. O. (2013). Radio in Botswana: A critical examination of its growth and dominance across Botswana’s mass media landscape. Journal of Radio and Audio Media, 20(1), 197–211. McQuail, D. (1992). Media performance: Mass communication and the public interest. London: Sage. Murshed, M. S., Goulart, P., & Serino, L. A. (2011). South-South globalization: Challenges and opportunities for development. London: Routledge. Mwangi, H. K. (2015). Media concentration, funding and programming diversity: A critical study of public and commercial television stations in Kenya (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Johannesburg, South Africa: University of the Witwatersrand.  Negrine, R. (1985). Cable television and the future of broadcasting. London: Routledge. Negrine, R., & Papathanassopoulos, S. (1991). The internationalization of television. European Journal of Communication, 6(1), 9–32. Nyamnjoh, F.  B. (2004). Media ownership and control in Africa in the age of globalization. In P. N. Thomas & Z. Nain (Eds.), Who owns the media? Global trends and local resistance (pp. 119–134). London: WACC. Rantao, P. (1996). The role of the media in promoting participatory politics in Botswana. In M. Leepile (Ed.), Botswana’s media and democracy (pp. 3–20). Gaborone: Mmegi Publishing House. Rooney, R. (2007). Revisiting the journalism and mass communication curriculum: Some experiences from Swaziland. Ecquid Novi, 28(1/2): 207–222. Sakr, N. (2009). Egyptian TV in the grip of government: Politics before profit in a fluid Pan-Arab Market. In D. Ward (Ed.), Television and public policy: Change and continuity in an era of global liberalization (pp.  265–282). London: Routledge.

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Tinic, S. (2009). Between the public and the private: Television drama and global partnerships in the neo-network era. In G. Turner & J. Tay (Eds.), Television studies after TV: Understanding television in the post-broadcast era (pp. 65–74). London: Routledge. Van-Cuilenburg, J. (1998). Diversity revisited: Towards a critical rational model of media diversity. In B. Kees, J. Hermes & L. van Zoonen (Eds.), The media in question: Popular cultures and public interests (pp. 38–50). London: Sage.

CHAPTER 15

Back to the Village: Integrating Folk Media into Rural Food Security Communication in Ethiopia Hagos Nigussie

Introduction In Sub-Saharan Africa, food insecurity remains a chief development concern (Conceição et al. 2011). With high levels of poverty and a population largely dependent on food-aid (UNDP 2011), Ethiopia is reported as one of the most food-insecure nations in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ejiga 2006). The Ethiopian government has introduced various policies and strategies to alleviate rural food insecurity. It seems, however, that the communication approaches applied to take these strategies to rural communities have been ineffective. Vulnerable to natural disasters (unpredictable climate change and unproductive farms), the Tigray region is of particular concern in the fight against food insecurity. Nevertheless, donors and development partners continually enforce ready-made proposals that rarely address the expectations of people at the grassroots, thus imposing their own agendas ‘over people’s needs’ (Dagron 2003, p. 6). Moreover, the

H. Nigussie (*) Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_15

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communication models used are often extrapolated ‘from the developed world and [applied] wholesale in  local environments in Africa’ (Mushengyezi 2003, p. 107). Since they are not contextualised to local thinking, such development strategies often fail. This is the fault of both African governments and their development partners. Studies in various African countries have shown that folk media forms have the potential to integrate into development programmes (Ansu-­ Kyeremeh 2005; Bame 2005; Mbakogu 2004; Nigussie et al. 2010; Riley 2005; Wilson 2005). Yet, there is no evidence that local or external experts have used folk media for food security communication in Ethiopia’s Irob district. The only available evidence is that the Adigrat Diocesan Catholic Secretariat (ADCS), a local NGO from the Catholic Church, had organised a ‘Training of Trainers’ in May 2016 about the role of Aa’dar in HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in the district. Some of the Aa’dars composed about the epidemic were highly informative. However, there were no follow-ups, and their impact was not measured.

The Context of the Study This study was undertaken in Irob district, eastern Tigray. The primary economic activity here is livestock farming and limited crop cultivation. The Tigray region has an estimated population of over 4.3 million, out of which 80.5% lives in rural areas (CSA 2007). Current population figures are lacking as the last Population and Housing Census was conducted in May 2007. There are three different ethnic groups in Tigray Regional State. They are the Tigreans, the Saho Irobs and the Kunama people. The Tigreans (Tigrigna language speakers) form the majority of the population, while the Saho Irobs and the Kunamas are fewer in number. Out of the 4.3 million people in the region, the Saho Irobs represent 33,407, whereas the Kunama are only 4,864 in number (CSA 2007, p. 73). This chapter focuses on the Saho Irobs (the Irob people), who reside in the north-eastern part of Tigray at a distance of 167 kilometres from Mekelle, the region’s capital. The Irob district is divided into seven sub-districts, in remote and geographically dispersed locations from Dawhan, the centre of the district administration. The Irob ethnic group comprises three major clans referred

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to as the ‘ad’oha Irob’.1 These clans include the Buknayto, the Adgada and the Hasaballa, who reside in dispersed locations of the district. This chapter focuses on the Buknayto, who reside in the central parts of the Irob district. As they live in dispersed locations and lack access to modern media such as radio and television, the Irob people rely on folk media to address their socio-cultural, religious, economic and political needs. Folk media is a broad concept representing a variety of forms that have differing communicative, entertainment and educational potential. Proverbs, Derro, Goila and Aa’dar are some of the commonly practised folk media forms in the Irob district.2 This study focuses on Goila (song and dance) and Aa’dar (oral poetry) as specific folk media forms. They are regularly practised in the Irob district, often at weddings, religious festivities and other socio-cultural events. Analysis of the adaptability of folk media to integrate into food security communication was based on the multiplicity paradigm of development. This paradigm emphasises that there are no uniform models of development globally, and each society must construct its own development strategy (Servaes 1999). Moreover, it focuses on the cultural and social multiplicity perspectives with an emphasis on endogenous development and self-reliance of people. The relevance of this paradigm is that it recognises the context of development, local values and local expertise, and the overall contribution of these factors to connect rural people to food security programmes. Quarry and Ramirez (2009, p. 15) state that ‘context matters and solutions need to be designed to fit the local situation’. Context is paramount to grasping the difficulties and problems of local communities, which cannot be understood in isolation (Maser 1997). The local context here does not mean ‘a fixed set of surrounding conditions but a wider dynamical process of which the cognition of an individual is only a part’ (Hutchins 1995, p. xiii). Thus, situating development programmes within the context of localities helps in the design of communication strategies that correspond to the skills and worldviews of people in a specific setting.

1  The Ado’ha Irobs belong to the same ancestor called Sume who had three sons residing in three different locations of the Irob district. 2  Messages through proverbs are idiomatic—limiting the flow of communication across diverse audiences. Derro is used to convey the death of a community member in the Irob district. It cannot be applied to other purposes.

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Communication for Development and Food Security Programmes in Eastern Tigray Communication for development is associated with seeking change at different levels including ‘listening, building trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for sustained and meaningful change’ (Dagron 2009, p. 6). More than mere information dissemination, it focuses on knowledge sharing, which is aimed at promoting consensus among different actors considering their skills and capabilities to meet the needs and expectations of individuals (Servaes and Malikhao 2007). Communication for development is also equated with meaningful stakeholder participation in exercising their power in decision-making processes (Arnstein 1969; Carpentier 2011; Dutta 2011; Servaes 1999). People’s participation in development processes becomes vital as it involves an equitable sharing of power among individuals, thus reducing the advantage of certain groups (Servaes 1999). In eastern Tigray, rural development programmes such as food security programmes are communicated through public meetings. However, public meetings are criticised for being dominated by government representatives and development experts, often limiting local people’s participation in decision-making processes. The approach taken in these meetings is one of ‘informing’ in that ‘people have little opportunity to influence the programme designed for their benefit’ (Arnstein 1969, p.  5). Such public meetings are notably top-down, information dissemination (Nigussie 2017). There is thus a need to rethink communication strategies for inclusivity, but more so, for local people to lead development processes (Compas 2007; Haverkort et al. 2002). Development ideas must be built from the inside-out as a starting point rather than being levied from outside (Wilkinson-Maposa and Fowler 2009). This draws attention to three essential features of endogenous development. First, endogenous development is a ‘self-oriented growth process’, focussing on the ‘local determination of development options’ in that the benefits of development remain in the community (Millar 2014, p. 639). Secondly, it is about realising people’s worldviews, drawing on the local context and the cultural perceptions of the community (Centre for Cosmo Vision and Indigenous Knowledge 2013). Thirdly, it is inclusive in its approach (CEICK 2013). Mefalopulos (2008) calls for a new communication paradigm suggesting the vital function of participatory communication in a broader strategic communication mix of channels.

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This new paradigm ‘does not call for a replacement of the basic communication functions associated with information dissemination, but rather it broadens boundaries to include more interactive ways of communicating’ (Mefalopulos 2008, p. 71). Thus communication efforts must include the values and skills of rural people instead of borrowing communication strategies from outside that promote change without due consideration of culture (Decock 2000). Culture-based development can be realised through approaching ‘culture as a method’, which focuses on the use of cultural expressions including ‘song, dance, poetry, idioms, and proverbs to enhance development efforts’ (Njoh 2006, p. 186). Folk media is one such cultural expression.

The Conceptualisation of Folk Media Folk media has been described (among others) as ‘oramedia’ (Ugboajah 1985), and ‘indigenous communication systems’ (Ansu-Kyeremeh 2005; Wang and Dissanayake 1984). These terms are defined in multiple ways. From an Asian perspective, Wang and Dissanayake (1984) define indigenous communication systems as interpersonal channels and networks of communication, such as the Indonesian Banjar, the Korean Mother’s club and the Chinese Hui (loaning club). From an African viewpoint, Ugboajah (1985) defines Oramedia as communication forms grounded in indigenous culture produced and consumed by members of a group. The following definition best captures the focus of this study. Ansu-Kyeremeh (2005) defines folk media as: Any form of indigenous-communication system, which by virtue of its origin from, and integration into a specific culture, serves as a channel for messages in a way and manner that requires the utilization of the values, symbols, institutions and ethos of the host culture through its unique qualities and attributes. (p. 16)

The above definitions have in common the terms ‘indigenous’ and ‘interpersonal’, both used to distinguish endogenous media (folk media) from exogenous media (modern media) systems. For the purposes of this research, the term indigenous refers to specific groups of people defined by ancestral territories, collective cultural formation and historical locations (Angioni 2003; Dei 2002; Purcell 1998; Turay 2002). Diverse definitions aside, at the core of folk media is an indigenous communication

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system determined by interpersonal and social intercourse (Wang and Dissanayake 1982) and produced on ‘the basis of indigenous culture’ (Ugboajah 1985, p. 166). Folk media thus provides local rural communities with an established communication system through which to ‘generate, store and share, communicate and utilise information’ (Nigussie et al. 2010, p. 116). Local communities are familiar with these communication forms, and understand, trust and accept them far more than modern media (Nigussie et al. 2010). Folk media are closely linked to the language and idioms of the people (Bame 2005) and are inextricably integrated into the social system which endows them with ‘the capacity to respond to the local cultural setting’ (Ansu-Kyeremeh 2005, p.  23). Most folk media forms are interactive and participatory, promoting dialogue among participants, and have the potential to advance new ideas and social change (Awa 1995; Chapke and Rekha 2006; Hoivik and Luger 2009; Mushengyezi 2003; Nigussie et al. 2010). Nevertheless, this study does not take folk media as a panacea to alleviate poverty and food insecurity in eastern Tigray. But as Escobar argues, ‘…intervention relies on myriad local centres of power, in turn, supported by forms of knowledge that circulate at the local levels’ (1995, p. 46).

Goila and Aa’dar Goila in eastern Tigray is a form of song and dance performed during public gatherings often involving participants of varying age, gender and social status. The Irob people mostly perform Goila during the night after they have completed their farming and household chores. Songs include laments over the migration of youth, love and respect for the land, and calls to peace and security. The Irob district has been embroiled in most of Ethiopia’s wars, including the recent Ethio-Eritrean border conflict. As a long-established practice, it is a means for people to collectively express their feeling about a number of things. Songs are either composed on the spot or individuals share them from neighbouring villages or districts. During the Ethiopian winter (usually from July to August), many religious and cultural festivities take place in the Irob district. Such occasions serve as opportunities for people to gather and for individuals to compose and share Goila. Despite seasonal variations, Goila is a regular activity for rural people, who practice various social and religious events throughout the year.

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Composed in public gatherings, Aa’dar is an elaborate oral poetry tradition used to praise, emphasise or criticise someone or something. Those who compose Aa’dar are called Aa’darens (oral poets), often composing and reciting on the spot and traveling between villages to verse the Aa’dar. Aa’darens learn the history and culture of the people from their elders,3 often making reference to history to contextualise current events. Aa’darens compose in  local languages and idioms making their poetry understandable to the majority of rural people. Themes include household, social, religious, economic and political matters. Communities in the Irob district have been known to narrate Aa’dars versed many years ago, highlighting the popularity of this folk media and its impact on the preservation of language, history and culture. There are many reasons for the widespread use of Goila and Aa’dar in the Irob district. First, there is a rich oral culture with low literacy levels in this district. The literacy level within the 35–39 age bracket for both sexes is 33.8% (CSA 2007, p. 232). Literacy levels decrease with an increase in age. Secondly, the popularity of these folk media forms in rural areas is associated with their familiarity and accessibility. This further motivates message retention. Thirdly, Goila and Aa’dar are an integral part of the local culture, maintaining the continuity of values and norms of the people. Fourthly, people have little access to modern media in this district, and rely heavily on folk media for their communication and information needs.

Methods and Data Collection This study employed an ethnographic research design. Ethnography helps obtain deep insights into the belief system of communities and the activities that people engage in, by observing their actions and experiences (Angrosino 2007; Gobo 2008; Reeves et al. 2008). The relevance of ethnography to this study is that it helps to ‘critically analyse interconnected socio-cultural issues’ in a given social context (Sarantakos 2013, p. 182). As a researcher who grew up in an Irob sub-district, I understand the culture and speak the language of my participants, thus I could easily relate to the responses provided by participants. While this closeness to the 3  Community elders, locally called Makabon or knowledgeable people, are taken as the source of language, culture and history of the community. They are responsible for transferring knowledge to the next generation and are highly respected by community members.

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research participants arguably adds richness to the study, it may also cause epistemic taken-for-grantedness in that details requiring further probing may be left unexplored. To mitigate such a concern, researcher reflexivity was a critical component of the research process. Gullion (2016) contends that through reflexive practice, researchers continually interrogate their perspectives. A checklist was developed to record fieldnotes through participant observation of events, actions and procedures. The fieldnotes were carefully recorded on the spot to maintain accuracy. A total of 105 semi-structured interviews and 32 focus group discussions (FGDs) were held in the district. Forty-five interviews were conducted with male household heads, 40 with female household heads and 20 with development agents. The FGDs were held with 17 female household heads and 15 male household heads. Most of the individual interviews lasted 20–30  minutes and the FGDs 45  minutes to an hour. All interviews and FGDs with locals were undertaken in the Saho language (respondents’ language of preference). Interviews with development agents were held using Tigrigna (the Tigray Regional State Office language). Interviews and FGDs were held until a point of saturation was reached. Samples were selected using purposive sampling to access people, times and settings representative of the given criterion (Ritchie and Lewis 2003). The sample selection criterion for research participants was based on their age, gender and involvement in food security programmes (household focused). People aged 50 and above were selected to provide details about the nature, history and social roles of Goila and Aa’dar, and their adaptability for food security communication. While folk media is widely used in this rural context, older people were interviewed based on their wealth of knowledge on the nature, history and importance of each of the folk media forms. Gender was a sample selection criterion in order to examine the practices and preferences of Goila and Aa’dar among gendered groups in the community. Their perceptions about the adaptability of these folk media forms into food security communication were also explored.

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Data Analysis and Discussion of Results The Potential of Goila and Aa’dar for Food Security Communication Messages through Goila and Aa’dar are widely applicable, entertaining and informative. Results show that respondents believe Goila and Aa’dar are convenient for food security communication and preferred to other folk media forms. Firstly, they are popular and their messages are often positively received among community members. Secondly, as Goila and Aa’dar are performed during social events, their messages can quickly reach a large audience. Thirdly, they convey lasting messages, prompting listeners towards collective action. Nevertheless, in both interviews and FGDs, while 85% of male household heads indicated that they prefer both Goila and Aa’dar for food security communication, 90% of female household heads highlighted their preference for Goila. One of the underlying reasons for female households’ choice of Goila over Aa’dar is that Aa’dar is gender discriminatory. Though there are female Aa’darens (oral poets) in rural villages, they are not observed versing in public places and do not command respect in the same manner as male Aa’darens do. Another reason for their critique of Aa’dar is that Aa’darens mostly compose their Aa’dar based on events from the past, relating them to contemporary issues. Thus, individuals are required to understand the historical context of a specific Aa’dar in order to fully grasp its meaning. A female household head in Dawhan village argues: I prefer Goila to Aa’dar for different reasons. First, in Goila, we get the chance to compose our songs but not in Aa’dar. Second, a Goila sung in one village can be shared and sung in other villages, which helps to exchange message [sic] easily. Thirdly, due to its entertaining power, many people participate in Goila… (FHH12, personal communication, July 18, 2018)

Another female household head in Daya village also claims that: …Goila has a high potential to reach the majority compared to Aa’dar. Aa’darens use advanced language that we cannot easily comprehend. But Goila is easily understandable. That is the main reason that I prefer Goila to Aa’dar. (FHH22, personal communication, July 15, 2018)

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The sheer joy experienced during Goila was captured by a female household head from Awo village: Goila is everything to us. We enjoy every moment when we practice it. Everyone from our community gathers in a village to participate in Goila. Sometimes, people from other villages also join us, and we spend long hours of singing and dancing. (FHH23, personal communication, July 25, 2018)

Development agents and male household heads lacked the nuanced critique of the women; they merely acknowledged both Goila and Aa’dar as equally acceptable. A male household member from Daya village argues: In our district, I believe that Aa’dar and Goila would suit to convey food security messages. Aa’dar has the quality to tell the history and culture of the people that are highly valued and cherished by rural people. Goila is also used as entertainment in that a significant number of people can participate. Both have the qualities to inform, educate and entertain the public. (MHH23, personal communication, July 22, 2018)

About the potential of Goila and Aa’dar for food security communication, a development agent from Alitena village in the Irob district states that: I believe that Goila and Aa’dar can have a significant role to convey food security messages. I prefer Aa’dar to Goila… Aa’dar communicates messages relating to ideas of the past with the culture and history of the people, which makes it more attractive to listeners… Goila mostly focuses on contemporary events rather than to the past. (DA12, personal communication, July 27, 2018)

Fieldwork observation confirmed that Aa’darens (oral poets) play a vital role in delivering messages of history and culture. Further, Aa’darens are highly trusted by their community members. This is, in part, what keeps old Aa’dars in circulation. A male respondent from Awo village notes: Aa’dar in Irob is a highly-valued form of communication, and we always enjoy listening to Aa’dar. It helps you to learn many… ideas from the past, including the origin, culture, religion, and the language of our people. I believe that Aa’dar has the potential to communicate diverse ideas. (MHH29, personal communication, July 22, 2018)

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A female household head in Daya village confirmed, ‘…Aa’dar is highly valued… It has all the qualities to express our culture, criticise wrongdoings as well as unite people. This is one of the reasons why we admire Aa’darens’ (FHH30, personal communication, August 10, 2018). As noted earlier, folk media such as Goila and Aa’dar are collaborative and participatory, thus promoting dialogue among participants. This is all part of an interactive, immediate feedback system that puts them ahead of other communication channels (Wilson 2005). Furthermore, although there may be training costs for composers of Goila and Aa’dar, in comparison to other communication channels, folk media are relatively cheap. Community participation, for example, is free, and there is often no need for anything else besides voices and dance moves. Their qualities notwithstanding, development agents and food security experts in eastern Tigray do not incorporate folk media forms into food security communication strategies. This is consistent with the findings of Mbakogu (2004) who states that the problem with current attempts to use folk media particularly in developing countries is that development practitioners work towards a rigid acceptance of foreign models and strategies of development. This suggests that there exists a lack of commitment to apply folk media forms into rural food security communication programmes. Balit argues that there is a need to change the attitudes of field staff and development agents who have been educated ‘to apply top-down, authoritarian methods and tell people what to do’ (2012, p.  113). Likewise, Njoh (2006) highlights the urgent need to promote understanding of the importance of integrating salient and useful aspects of African culture and tradition into contemporary development endeavours on the continent.

Integrating Folk Media into Food Security Communication As mentioned, in the Irob district, food security programmes are communicated through public meetings. During my fieldwork, I attended five public meetings as participant observer; one of them was in the Alitena sub-district. Participants of this meeting comprised a government representative from the District Agriculture Office, two development agents (a beekeeping expert and an irrigation expert) and rural households from different villages, with 30 participants altogether. The meeting was scheduled at 11 am, but it started at 1 pm as most participants were late. Though

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the meeting was arranged for both male and female households, the majority of attendees from rural villages were male household heads. The meeting organisers indicated that the number of attendees from rural villages was below what had been anticipated although the reasons for the poor attendance were unclear. The discussion was held in the Tigrigna language though some Irobs do not fully comprehend Tigrigna. Points of discussion included traditional and modern beehives, irrigation systems, small-scale water projects and soil fertility. Though the meeting started late, most of the rural people wanted to leave early. Towards the end, one of the participants requested the chairperson to conclude the session. The meeting was concluded without feedback or comment from rural attendees. I observed that they were talking to each other about personal issues. Further, they looked confused about the points discussed in the meeting. The structure of this meeting was similar to that of the others I attended. The government representative and development agents dominated the session in presenting their respective programmes. Most public meetings entertain three to five different programmes in a single session, leaving people confused about the programme on which they are required to focus. Food security programmes are associated with packages such as beekeeping, poultry, animal husbandry, fertilisers and small-scale water projects. Availability of these packages is communicated in public meetings. Households may have varied perceptions about the different packages. However, the public meetings I attended were primarily dominated by the views of development experts. Rural people attending these meetings have limited power to comment on relevance and implementation procedures. Hence, they are merely informed about the available food security packages. The next step at the Alitena meeting was casting votes to identify who wanted to participate in the packages. Few participants voted, with fewer still expressing their views. Others echoed the opinions of government representatives. This pattern featured in the other meetings I attended. The role of attendees in these meeting was thus merely to confirm the decisions already made by the government. In such cases, participation is passive, ‘assessed through methods like head counting and contribution to the discussion (sometimes referred to as participation by information)’ (Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009, p.  6). A major limitation of the public meetings for food security communication that I attended is that, while informing people, they failed to connect people to food security

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programmes. Consequently, people left lacking knowledge and skills about the nature, relevance and implementation procedures of the programmes. Under the newly revised rural food security programme, the Ethiopian government has introduced voluntary resettlement, encouraging rural people living in chronically food-insecure areas such as the Irob district to relocate to other places in the Tigray region (FDRE 2011). In a focus group discussion (FGD16/Alitena village), discussants mentioned the following Goila, which focusses on the role of indigenous knowledge for food security, which they believe is rarely recognised by development experts and government officials in the district: A) Adiye maliyoy Danhsa atikile liiyo Balasa (I will not relocate to Dansha instead I will plant a Cactus tree in my backyard). The above song was sung in response to the government’s plan to relocate people to Dansha, in West Tigray. The government believes that Dansha has more productive farms than the Irob district. Rural people opposed the plan and echoed their dissatisfaction through the above song. The message of the song is also a reminder about the significance of cacti in alleviating food insecurity. Cacti locally called ‘Balasa’ are accessible in many parts of the Tigray region and the Irob district at large. Cacti are a seasonal fruit usually from the end of May to September in most rural areas. In some villages it lasts until December. The Irob people believe that if properly managed, the cactus (although seasonal) may substantially contribute to alleviating food insecurity. Studies have shown that over the last few decades, interest in cacti as food and feed has increased due to its drought resistance, high biomass yield, high palatability and tolerance to salinity (Barbera 1995; Ben Salem et al. 2002). Stintzing and Carle (2005) describe the cactus as a miracle plant, dromedary of the vegetation world and the bank of life as it can contribute to the livelihoods of rural populations in dry areas. Its other uses include fencing, firewood, cochineal production and bee foraging (Gebremeskel et al. 2013). Despite these roles, this plant received little attention from both the government and rural development experts in the Irob district. This highlights a disparity between indigenous knowledge and the knowledge of rural development experts. This is consistent with the findings of Domfeh, who contends that ‘indigenous knowledge continues to be largely disregarded in development planning’ (2007, p. 47). Studies in some African countries such as Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique have shown

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that indigenous knowledge and practices were perceived as impractical, unscientific, superstitious and illogical (Mawere 2013; Shizha 2013). The following Goila was sung to mobilise rural people to participate in soil and water conservation programmes in the Irob district. B) Nailamao’ye nailamao’ye Niinidick nasamao’aye This Goila is translated as: Let us contribute to our development, Let us make our country a better place to live in. Soil erosion and environmental degradation are among the major problems in the district. This Goila is a call for endogenous development and self-reliance. It shows that local people have taken the initiative to promote dialogue amongst themselves and encourage each other to participate in a development programme. Tinguery (2014) argues that sustainability lies in the extent to which development initiatives promote active engagement of the people. C) Adoha Iroboy yiiway ohgiina Miihro nublek daate mamiina Lima’atko aa’red masiina This Aa’dar is translated as: Dear graceful, three Irobs, Despite education, we need to make dialogue among us, No one should refrain from taking part in development programmes. The above Aa’dar reminds the Irob people that dialogue and collective decision-making remain at the heart of sustainable development. More so, it calls individuals to actively participate in development programmes.

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Limitations of Goila and Aa’dar to Integrate into Food Security Communication Despite their adaptability, there are constraints to the use of Goila and Aa’dar for rural food security communication. Their orality, while central to the communities under discussion, may prove disadvantageous as oral histories disappear when oral historians die. This, together with youth migration, causes a significant disruption to the continuity of the culture and accounts of communities. While most of the respondents 50 years and above indicated that both Goila and Aa’dar are centuries-old communication forms in the Irob district and continue as necessary communication forms at present, a female household head from Daya village noted that ‘…nowadays, it seems that Aa’dar is mostly accepted by elders than the younger generation’ (FHH30, personal communication, August 10, 2018). A further constraint is that, in the Irob district, Aa’dar is gender discriminatory. As has been discussed, although Aa’dar is highly respected and recited among the Irob people, female Aa’darens are not as equally appreciated and accepted as their male counterparts. Thus, employing it to development communication will limit female inclusivity. Another limitation is that Goila is composed by a small number of skilled individuals. Thus, difficulty in finding individuals who can regularly compose Goila may adversely affect its continual use. Some folk media forms have similarities across cultures but their rituals and practices may vary. For instance, though Mase4 and Aa’dar are both recognisable forms of oral poetry and have similarities in the Irob and Gulomekeda districts in eastern Tigray, their rituals vary in these districts. These differences can affect the integration of Aa’dar and Mase into widespread rural development communication strategies. Thus, in ‘considering the inclusion of the indigenous systems in the future communication planning, one needs to consider not just their attributes but also the contextual socio-cultural characteristics with which the systems are intertwined’ (Awa 2005, p.  228). Finally, most nations have long-established, state-­ dominated top-down rural development communication approaches. The shift from these approaches to integrating Goila and Aa’dar into food

4  Mase in the Gulomekeda district, eastern Tigray, is equivalent to Aa’dar in the Irob district. However, its applicability and acceptance vary compared to Aa’dar in the Irob district. This, in turn, affects its applicability for rural food security communication.

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security communication strategies will thus require consensus from multiple stakeholders.

Conclusion Results of this study show that Goila and Aa’dar were found highly adaptable to integration into food security communication. Both folk media forms are cost-effective for development communication purposes, accompanied by immediate feedback and are flexible to cover different themes. The strong social networks in which Goila and Aa’dar are performed add an essential degree of credibility to messages and increases the probability of the adoption of new ideas to the local context. The participatory nature of these folk media forms further increases the probability of wide transmission of the message. In this way, endogenous, sustainable, grassroot-­ level development is promoted. Indigenous knowledge is essential for agricultural success in this region. Goila and Aa’dar are adaptable for the dissemination of such knowledge in ongoing food security communications.

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PART IV

Challenging States and Corporations

CHAPTER 16

Popular Culture as Alternative Media: Reggae Music, Culture and Politics in Malawi’s Democracy Anthony M. Gunde and Victor Chikaipa

Introduction While popular music is a major political engagement tool in Africa and beyond (see Dolby 2006; Fiske 2010; Gerstin 2000; Lwanda 2009), historical treatment of this relationship is scarce (Van Zoonen 2005). Few scholars highlight the role of popular culture in social and political advocacy in Malawi (Chirambo 2002; Lwanda 2009). For example, Chirambo (2002) calls the lyrics of Lucius  Banda a catalyst of debate and action against the dominant elite ideology.

A. M. Gunde (*) University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi Journalism Department, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] V. Chikaipa University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Zomba, Malawi Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_16

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Building on the above and employing Fuchs Alternative Media Theory, we argue that Malawian reggae music acts as Alternative Media in a landscape where mainstream media ownership is highly politicised. We show how this music functions as a critical communication channel against a repressive political elite. The chapter is in four sections. First, it delves into the Malawian media landscape. Second, it discusses sources of Malawian reggae music. Third, it examines the Alternative Media Theory. Fourth, it discusses examples of civic mobilisation through this critical communication channel.

Malawi’s Media Landscape For nearly 30  years after attaining independence from Britain in 1964, Malawi’s news media landscape was under the control of the repressive regime of President Hastings Kamuzu Banda and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP) (Chimombo and Chimombo 1996).1 Via the Censorship and Control of Entertainment Act, the Kamuzu Banda regime established the Malawi Censorship Board, under whose mandate the press were strictly controlled and journalists regularly detained without charge (Gunde 2015). Kamuzu Banda owned and controlled the press through his Blantyre Print and Publishing Company—now called the Times Media Group—publishers of the Daily Times, Malawi News and the Sunday Times newspapers (Mphande 1996). In 1966, two years after Malawi gained independence, the government established the Malawi News Agency (MANA) to act as an additional source of information for the two Kamuzu Banda-owned pro-MCP newspapers, the Daily Times and Malawi News, as well as the state-funded Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) (Chipangula 2003). Chipangula (2003) observes that, at the initial stages of the post-­ colonial period, it was difficult for media audiences to distinguish between the government and the party because the media under the monopoly of Kamuzu Banda was pro-government, and, therefore, pro-MCP. Senior journalists joining the Daily Times and Malawi News were told by management that the editorial policies of these publications were ‘to speak well of Dr. Banda, the party and the government and to ensure that the president’s friends, particularly foreign diplomats were not put in bad light in any local stories or those emanating from news wires’ (Chitsulo and 1

 Banda is a common surname in Malawi and those cited in this chapter are not related.

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Mang’anda 2011, p.  9). In essence, the news media served as a propaganda apparatus of Kamuzu Banda and his one-party regime. Malawi’s only other large print media house is the Nation Publications Limited (NPL) of the late politician Aleke Banda’s family (not related to Kamuzu Banda). Founded in 1993, the NPL are publishers of Malawi’s largest circulating weekly The Nation (a daily newspaper), Weekend Nation, Nation on Sunday and Fuko, a free bi-monthly newspaper in Malawi’s dominant vernaculars, Chichewa and Tumbuka. Aleke Banda was the vice president and cabinet minister of the United Democratic Front (UDF) under the leadership of President Bakili Muluzi for nearly ten years since 1994. However, following an intra-party leadership disagreement over succession towards the end of Muluzi’s ten-year presidential tenure, Aleke Banda left the then-governing UDF in 2003 to join a newly formed political party, the People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) where he was elected president and member of parliament (Rakner and Svåsand 2005). This illustrates that ownership of the only two large print-media houses in Malawi is politically linked. From 1964 to 1994, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) was the only broadcasting station in Malawi and had only one radio channel and no television. This was a deliberate policy by the authoritarian regime. However, in 1997, three years after the advent of democratic rule, MBC introduced a second radio channel called MBC Radio 2FM (Manjawira and Mitunda 2011). Additionally, the establishment of the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) in 1998, to regulate the functions of the communications sector, facilitated reforms in the broadcasting industry, leading to the establishment of private and community radio stations as well as television (Manjawira and Mitunda 2011). The first television station, Television Malawi (TVM), now re-branded to Malawi Broadcasting Corporation Television (MBCTV), was established in 1999. According to MACRA (2018), Malawi has 78 registered and operational broadcasters including commercial and community radio and television media houses. The largest of these, with nationwide coverage, include MBC Radio 1 and 2FM (funded by the government); Times Radio and TV of the former President Kamuzu Banda family and linked to the opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP); and Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) Radio and TV, a commercial media house owned by Gospel

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Kazako (formerly of the public broadcaster).2 Since politicians have such a monopoly on Malawi’s media landscape, it is all the more important for channels of Alternative Media to exist.

An Overview of Reggae Music in Malawi From the early 1990s, with the end of its one-party authoritarian regime, Malawi became open to outside influence. There was an influx of mostly pirated music cassettes and compact discs including Jamaican reggae, South African kwaito, black American hip-hop and West African kwasa-­ kwasa. Imbued with biblical allusions and lyrics of resistance, reggae became hugely popular. Originating in Jamaica in the nineteenth century, reggae emerged out of a blend of American Pop and Jamaican folk music and became an expression of Rastafarian culture (Kauppila 2006). It played a complex role in solidifying political resistance in Jamaica (Hall 1985). Reggae emerged as the sound of the opposition as artists would often satirise current affairs and local events (Brewster and Broughton 2014). This ‘rebel music’ took off worldwide (Barrow 1998 as cited in Brewster and Broughton 2014). Before the 1990s, the Malawian music landscape was very small and conservative, with artists cautious to avoid confrontation with the one-party regime. But from the 1990s onwards, as Malawi was dramatically transforming, songs of satire and resistance against the dictatorial regime arose largely through reggae rhythms (Lwanda 2009). Between 1999 and 2004, themes in Malawian reggae were mainly political. Artists reflected on socio-political concerns such as inadequate healthcare, growing inequalities between the rich and poor, food insecurity and government corruption. As was the case in Jamaica, in Malawi, songs of resistance blended with religion. Religion is the main matrix of Malawian identity. The country has a population of approximately 19 million people comprising 76 per cent Christians and 11 per cent Muslims, with the rest belonging to indigenous faiths (Government of Malawi, National Statistical Office, 2008). Among the Christians, 50 per cent are Protestants of various denominations, while 20 per cent are Roman Catholics. Malawians have been highly receptive to Christianity due to its early influence on education and health during the

2  Malawian media houses that appear to be free from political interference largely accommodate the views of their commercial advertisers (Gunde 2015).

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colonial era. Further, religious leaders were the first to oppose the one-­ party regime and its oppressive ideology. Through a pastoral letter on 8 March 1992, titled Living our faith, a group of Roman Catholic bishops, the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, openly criticised Kamuzu Banda and his autocratic rule (Cullen 1994). The letter sparked protests for political change. The protestors included University of Malawi students and leading protestant churches such as the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (C.C.A.P), who supported the Catholic clergy (Dulani 2009). It is not surprising that the first Malawian reggae artists came from a Roman Catholic apprentice training school in Balaka district, south of the country. The school is run by Italian Catholic missionaries who train young men and women in vocational skills such as motor mechanics, bricklaying and music. Out of the school emerged Alleluia Band, a group of young men whose music was initially renditions of Catholic church hymns. It was the incorporation of reggae rhythms with religious hymns that popularised the Jamaican style of music in what Edensor (2002) calls the fluidity of culture—in which the global inter-­ penetration of cultures transforms social spaces. Put another way, cultural expressions take different forms in different locations as processes of domestication re-contextualise and re-shape them to address local concerns (Englert 2008). From Alleluia Band, artists broke out to form their own bands from the mid-1990s. These included the famous Lucius Banda and Billy Kaunda. These musicians not only continued to popularise reggae but later became musicians-cum-political-activists. Many of their songs condemned the previous dictatorial regime while also denouncing growing government corruption during the new multi-party era. Some lyrics from Lucius Banda’s 2005 album contend that while Malawi had undergone political change from an authoritarian regime to multi-party democracy, all politicians are ultimately oppressive (Lwanda 2009).3 In one particular song, Banda points out ‘[President Kamuzu] Banda’s physical repression and [President] Muluzi’s use of money for repression while neglecting the economy’ (Lwanda 2009, p.  145). The Kamuzu Banda regime notoriously used force to supress any dissent against the one-party system of government, while during the dawn of plural politics, the then 3  Not without his own controversy, Lucius Banda, a politician himself, lost his seat in parliament for a time in 2006 when it was uncovered that he had forged his academic qualifications (https://www.malawi-music.com/L/35-lucius-banda).

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president Muluzi was enmeshed in self-serving systemic corruption amidst the abject poverty of everyday Malawians. According to Allen (2004), music functions as a trenchant political force in Africa primarily because it is the most widely appreciated art form on the continent. The Malawian situation echoes Allen’s comments, with its own locally produced reggae as a platform for the expression of criticism against political exploitation.

Alternative Media Theory Fuchs (2010) advances a definition of Alternative Media as mass media that challenge the dominant capitalist forms of media production, structures, content, distribution and reception. Alternative Media systems are critical in nature: Critical media… are characterized by critical form and content. There is oppositional content that provides alternatives to dominant repressive heteronomous perspectives that reflect the rule of capital, patriarchy, racism, sexism, nationalism, etc. Such content expresses oppositional standpoints that question all forms of heteronomy and domination. So there is counter-­ information and counter-hegemony that includes the voices of the excluded, the oppressed, the dominated, the enslaved, the estranged, the exploited… One aim is to give voices to the voiceless, media power to the powerless as well as to transcend the filtering and censorship of information by corporate information monopolies, state monopolies, or cultural monopolies in public information and communication. (Fuchs 2010, p. 179)

While mainstream media maximises audiences by appealing to ‘safe, conventional formulas’, Alternative Media foregoes comfortable, depoliticising formulas to advocate for social change (Hamilton 2000). Williams (1980) argues that it is imperative to consider Alternative Media not as media but as communication—the making and sharing of ways of seeing. Communication is the means by which social relations are constituted and practised. Hollander and Stappers (1992) discuss the need to consider ‘community communication’, which encompasses the interplay between mediated and interpersonal communication, and addresses both the sender and the receiver (or community) within the same social system. Geographical locality and communities of interest constitute essential contexts of communication since both senders and receivers share concerns

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and community issues (Hollander and Stappers 1992). For Sandoval and Fuchs (2010), Alternative Media should be understood as participatory media. They argue that participatory media have emancipatory power. From a cultural perspective, the role of Alternative Media (or Alternative Communication) is essentially the exercise of unmasking a dominant ideology and delivering the people from false consciousness by removing repressive bonds (Hamilton 2000). In this way, Alternative Media serve as ideological apparatuses responding to specific, social, political, economic and cultural challenges (Banda 2006).

Discussion Many Malawians thought their lives would be positively transformed following the ushering in of multi-party democracy in 1994. But the majority have lost this hope as corrupt politicians continue to enrich themselves in the face of worsening conditions for the general populace. In this respect, themes of discontent, desperation and critique of the political regimes that have governed Malawi since 1994, recur in the lyrics of Malawian reggae music. For example, Lucius Banda, who calls himself ‘Soldier’, ‘Voice of the People’ (Lwanda 2009, p. 145) and ‘Voice of the Voiceless’ (Jefferess 2000, p. 113), released an album in 2018 titled Crimes which was described as an ‘unrelenting and unwavering… criticism of public looting, social injustice and political abuse’ (Chirwa 2018). One of the songs from the album is titled Kulira kwa Amphawi (Wailing of the Poor) (Banda 2018). The following is an excerpt from the song: Text (In Malawian vernacular) Simuchita manyazi kuyenda pa chi convoy cha galimoto 20 kukayendera anthu opanda silipasi Translation You are not ashamed, an entourage travelling in a convoy of 20 vehicles Visiting the impoverished who cannot afford even flip-flops

The song points out the hypocrisy of the governing regime, in this case, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) whose officials neglect the impoverished citizenry yet turn out to meet them in a fleet of luxury vehicles. Elsewhere he ridicules members of parliament, deriding them for neglecting their suffering constituents while enjoying nights in capital city hotels with prostitutes. In the antagonistic Cease Fire, Banda angrily ‘takes

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stock of the ills of Africa and Malawi: war, oppression, the repression of dissent, economic exploitation, inequality, selfishness, [and] the failures of democracy’ (Jefferess 2000, p. 114). Similar ‘reggae rhythms of protest’ (see Jefferess 2000) are found in the repertoire of Billy Kaunda, who produced a song titled Agalatiya Mwataya Chipangano (Galations, You Have Broken the Promise) in 2002 (Kaunda 1999). The song is derived from the Bible’s New Testament book Galatians. The following is an excerpt from the song: Text (In Malawian vernacular) Agalatiya, Agalatiya, mwataya chipangano Nthawi yatha, mukukakamirabe Translation Galatians, you have broken the promise Your time is up. Why are you clinging to power?

In 2001, the first democratically elected President of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi (1994–2004), attempted to influence members of parliament to amend the Constitution to allow him to run for a third term in office. Kaunda’s song critiques the President’s attempt to hold onto power after two five-year terms. The biblical references reverberate with the cultural background of the deeply religious Malawian audience. The Galatians were Christians who had been converted by the apostle Paul, but later undermined his authority, asserting that he had not been trained by Jesus himself. They began setting their own rules for salvation. This prompted Paul to write a letter of defence to the people of Galatia, in part emphasising the freedom Christians enjoy from outmoded laws of exclusivity— such as the required circumcision of males. Paul admonishes the church, ‘For freedom, Christ set us free, so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery’ (Galatians, 5:1, New American Bible 1987, p. 1275). Kaunda capitalises on this religious tradition to empower listeners to resist. In the case of President Muluzi, the UDF leadership, having raised hopes for better lives among the masses, was backsliding into a form of dictatorship by trying to amend the Malawian Constitution, which only allows a president to run for two terms of office. Just like the biblical Galatians who had quickly ‘backslidden’, the elected politicians may have begun with the right mindset but later ignored the Malawian Constitution for self-gain. Kaunda, a Catholic Christian among the founding members of Alleluia Band, appropriates Agalatiya (Galatians) for the purpose of

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challenging the president’s greed. The song became a hit, with thousands of copies sold. During this time, Lucius Banda released How Long, similarly criticising Muluzi for abuse of power. Banda’s and Kaunda’s songs galvanised mass protests, which received support from the church and civil society groups including the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP). Muluzi attempted to ban all political demonstrations against the amendment of the Constitution but this was overruled by the High Court (Ellet 2013). A final effort in parliament failed. Muluzi abandoned the idea and instead appointed a successor, Bingu wa Mutharika, to lead the then-governing United Democratic Front (UDF) into the 2004 elections. Politicians have tried to silence controversial musicians through strong-­ arm tactics via state-funded media platforms. In 2017, for example, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) management told its staff to stop playing Lucius Banda’s songs (Mughogho 2017). With regard to Kaunda, MBC plays only those of his songs that do not contain political criticisms. Even so, Banda and Kaunda have amassed a following through live shows, album sales, and support from independent and privately owned commercial radio stations. Moreover, Malawian audiences usually listen to their music in local pubs and on public mini-buses (a common mode of public transport across southern Africa). Blaring music from mini-buses is part of a way to attract passengers and popular tunes by local reggae artists have wide appeal. Furthermore, leading independent newspapers promote their performances through paid-for advertorials. Partly as a result of the rebellious rhythms against political oppression, these artists have succeeded in winning greater visibility in Malawian society and have become local icons. In the absence of a strong opposition in parliament, and media platforms largely connected to or owned by politicians, Malawian reggae artists provide ‘channels’ of expression for political resistance. Chirambo (2002) argues that Lucius Banda and others like him ‘…are spokespersons, arbiters of public opinion and intermediaries for the grievances of the people’ (Chirambo 2002, p. 121). In addition to this advocacy role we argue that these resistance rhythms contribute to a form of Alternative Media which enables alternative communication. Together, these make possible the articulation of a social order different from and often opposed to the dominant ideology (Hamilton 2000). Malawian reggae resistance rhythms have the ability to express the experiences of the poor and marginalised and critique the elite so effectively as to bring about social change.

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The themes in the songs described above (and others like them) befit what Fuchs describes as Alternative Media: There is oppositional content that provides alternatives to dominant repressive heteronomous perspectives that reflect the rule of capital, patriarchy, racism, sexism, nationalism etc. Such content expresses oppositional standpoints that question all forms of heteronomy and domination. So, there is counter-information and counter-hegemony that includes the voices of the excluded, the oppressed, the dominated, the enslaved and the exploited. (Fuchs 2010, p. 179)

Alternative Media seek to challenge the status quo, to educate and mobilise the masses in service of a case or movement (Allen 1985). In like manner, Englert (2008) observes that in many cases popular culture in Africa has been an empowering counter-hegemonic force. Frederiksen (2000) argues that popular culture can be a space through which the marginalised can participate in various facets of democracy. Alternative media provide these spaces for participation; they are anti-authoritarian and weave effectively with protest movements (Jeppesen 2016). Reggae is well equipped for this task. As a form of popular culture and with deeply religious roots, Malawian reggae grips the hearts and minds of audiences and strongly influences the possibilities of their imagination (Dolby 2006).

Conclusion Through voices of dissent, Malawian reggae artists galvanise a vibrant religious culture to chastise the political elite. Artists such as Lucius Banda and Billy Kaunda provide an alternative platform for Malawians to speak out against issues that (due to politically influenced ownership structures) no conventional media dare address. Such artists and their music offer an avenue through which the masses negotiate with the state. They are the political advocates of everyday Malawians and, in the face of politically influenced mass media, their music is an Alternative Medium. It provides counter-information and counter-hegemony. Malawian reggae resistance rhythms cry aloud against the injustice of ordinary Malawians trapped in a corrupt system in which the political elite use public office for self-­ enrichment. This illustrates Fuchs’ (2010) argument that in critical Alternative Media, there is oppositional content that provides alternatives to dominant repressive heteronomous perspectives reflecting the rule of

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capital. In expressing oppositional standpoints that question all forms of power and domination, Malawian reggae resistance rhythms have become Alternative Media for the voiceless.

References Allen, L. (2004). Music and politics in Africa.  Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies, 30(2), 1–19.  https://doi.org/10.1080/02533950408628682. Allen, P. (1985). Socialist worker: The paper with a purpose. Media, Culture and Society, 7(2), 205–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/016344385007002006. Banda, F. (2006). Alternative media: A viable option for Southern Africa. Openspace, 1(5), 80–83. Banda, L. (2018). Kulira kwa Amphawi. On  Crime [CD].  Zembani Music Company Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/ crimes/1346516274. Brewster, B., & Broughton, F. (2014). Last night a DJ saved my life: The history of the disc jockey. New York, NY: Grove Press. Chimombo, S., & Chimombo, M. (1996). The culture of democracy: Language, literature, the arts and politics in Malawi, 1992–1994. Zomba, Malawi: WASI. Chipangula, E. (2003). Political reporting trends in Malawi. Thyolo, Malawi: Malamulo Publishing House. Chirambo, R. M. (2002). ‘Mzimu wa soldier’: Contemporary popular music and politics in Malawi. In H.  Englund (Ed.), A democracy of chameleons: Politics and culture in the new Malawi (pp. 103–122). Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Chirwa, K. (2018, February 19). Lucius Banda continues war against Malawi corruption in ‘Crimes’: Album starts selling online. Nyasatimes. Retrieved from https://www.nyasatimes.com/lucius-­b anda-­c ontinues-­w ar-­m alawi-­ corruption-­crimes-­album starts-­selling-­online/ Chitsulo, E., & Mang’anda, G. (2011). Origins, development, and management of the newspaper industry in Malawi. In E.  Kondowe., P.  Kishindo & F.  Mkandawire (Eds.), Journalism practice in Malawi: History, progress, and prospects (pp. 2–14). Blantyre, Malawi: UNESCO. Cullen, T. (1994). Malawi: A turning point. Edinburgh: Pentland. Dolby, N. (2006). Popular culture and public space in Africa: The possibilities of cultural citizenship. African Studies Review, 49(3), 31–47. Dulani, B. (2009). Nurtured from the pulpit: The emergence and growth of Malawi’s democracy movement. In S. Ellis & I. Van Kessel (Eds.), Movers and shakers: Social movements in Africa-African dynamics series (pp.  138–155). Leiden: Brill. Edensor, T. (2002). National identity, popular culture and everyday life. Oxford: Berg.

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Ellet, R. (2013). Pathways to judicial power in transitional states: Perspectives from African courts. Milton Park, Oxon: Routledge. Englert, B. (2008). Popular music and politics in Africa: Some introductory reflections. Wiener Zeitschift für kritische Afrikastudien, 14(8), 1–15. Fiske, J. (2010). Understanding popular culture. London: Routledge. Frederiksen, B. F. (2000). Popular culture, family relations and issues of everyday democracy: A study of youth in Pumwani  (IDS Working Paper No. 530). Retrieved from https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/ 123456789/1063 Fuchs, C. (2010). Alternative media as critical media. European Journal of Social Theory, 13(2), 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431010362294 Gerstin, J. (2000). Musical revivals and social movements in contemporary Martinique ideology, identity, ambivalence. In. E. Monson (Ed.), The African diaspora: A musical perspective (pp. 295–328). New York, NY: Garland. Government of Malawi, National Statistical Office. (2008). Population and housing census results. Retrieved from http://www.nsomalawi.mw/component/ content/article/8-­r eports/1072008-­p opulation-­a ndhousing-­c ensus-­ results.html Gunde, A.  M. (2015). The political role of the media in the democratisation of Malawi: The case of the Weekend Nation (2002–2012) (Unpublished Doctoral thesis). Stellenbosch, South Africa: Stellenbosch University.  Hall, S. (1985). Religious ideologies and social movements in Jamaica. In R. Bocock (Ed.), Religion and ideology (pp. 269–296). Manchester: Manchester University Press, Hamilton, J. (2000). Alternative media: Conceptual differences, critical possibilities. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 24(4), 357–378. Hollander, E., & Stappers, J. (1992). Community media and community communication. In J. Jankowski, O. Prehn. & J. Stappers (Eds.), The people’s voice: Local radio and television in Europe (pp. 19–20). London: John Libbey. Jefferess, D.  M. (2000). Saying change in Malawi: Resistance and the voices of Jack Mapanje and Lucius Banda. Review of International English Literature, 31(3), 105–123. Jeppesen, S. (2016). Understanding alternative media power: Mapping content & practice to theory, ideology and political action. Democratic Communique, 27(15–16), 54–77. Kaunda, B. (1999). Agalatiya Mwataya Chipangano.  On Mwataya Chipangano (Agalatiya) [CD]. Balaka: IY Productions. Kauppila, P. (2006). From Memphis to Kingston: An investigation into the origin of Jamaican Ska. Social and economic studies, 55(1/2), 75–91. Lwanda, J. (2009). Music advocacy, the media and the Malawi political public sphere, 1958–2007. Journal of African Media Studies, 1(1), 135–154.

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MACRA. (2018). Broadcasting. Retrieved from http://www.macra.org.mw/ broadcasting/ Manjawira, E., & Mitunda, P. (2011). Origins, growth and development of the broadcasting industry in Malawi. In E. Kondowe., P. Kishindo & F. Mkandawire (Eds.), Journalism practice in Malawi: History, progress, and prospects (pp. 15–33). Blantyre, Malawi: UNESCO. Mphande, L. (1996). Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda and the Malawi Writers Group: The (un) making of a cultural tradition. Research in African literatures, 27(1), 80–101. Mughogho, L. (2017, March 16). No Lucius Banda music on MBC. Malawi24. Retrieve from https://malawi24.com/2017/03/16/no-­lucius-­banda-­ music-­mbc/. New American Bible. (1987). Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Iowa Falls, IA: Nelsen Bibles. Rakner, L., & Svåsand, L. (2005). Fissions and fusions, foes and friends: Party-­ system re-structuring in Malawi in the 2004 general elections (Working Paper No. 6). CHR, Michelsen Institute. Bergen: CMI. Sandoval, M., & Fuchs, C. (2010). Towards a critical theory of alternative media. Telematics and Informatics, 27(2), 141–150. Van Zoonen, L. (2005). Entertaining the citizen: When politics and popular culture converge. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Williams, R. (1980). Base and superstructure in Marxist cultural theory. In R. Williams, Problems in materialism and culture: Selected essays (pp. 31–49). London: Verso.

CHAPTER 17

Ruling Minds: The Media and State Propaganda in British-Ruled Nyasaland, 1945–1964 Paul Chiudza Banda

Introduction This chapter adopts the ‘contextualised approach’ to discuss the role that technology, particularly the radio and print media, played to enhance British colonial rule in post-World War II Nyasaland (now Malawi). The period in question, 1945–1964, was in most African colonies characterised by the rise of radical forms of nationalism, often associated with the spread of global communism. During the same time the British government, through the Colonial Office (CO), initiated several development programmes, through the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts, of 1940, 1945, 1949, 1950, and 1955. Such developments necessitated the development of a robust propaganda machinery in support of colonial government policies, programmes, and activities. Most governments, as did the Nyasaland government, turned to the media (print and radio) as

P. C. Banda (*) Tarleton State University, Stephenville, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_17

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an avenue through which to win over the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Africans, in most cases with limited successes, because of the agency which the Africans had to determine which media outlets to agree with. The media became a convenient tool for governments to manipulate the mindsets of Africans. The reasons behind such policy trends included that similar avenues were utilised by the nationalist movements and their local and international allies to spread anti-colonial messages. Furthermore, the media and information gadgets served as tools for modernisation and were more likely to attract the attention of the African masses. The proven success which media-driven propaganda had been manifested elsewhere also encouraged its use in Nyasaland.

Setting the Context There are several studies that have been of significant influence, particularly focusing on how the media was utilised in colonial settings. Leading scholar, Rosaleen Smyth, has written on the genesis of ‘public relations’ in British colonial service. Smyth (2001) posited that by the mid-1930s, it had become official British government policy to make use of the daily press as ‘tools’ with which to implement colonial policy and entrench colonial rule. While British colonial propaganda was at its peak during World War II, it became official government policy to continue the same in peace time, where policy direction was influenced by both political and developmental dynamics of the time. There was a clear connection between the propaganda strategies of the ‘official mind’ (in the metropole) and the ‘administrative mind’ (in the colonies). From 1940 onwards, the CO operated through its public relations branch, to assemble and coordinate propaganda materials for the colonies, and that was where the media served its purpose. The efforts included the use of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to broadcast pro-empire programmes; coordination with the Colonial Film Unit (CFU), which had been established in 1939 to produce propaganda-influenced films; and the publication of various handbooks, pamphlets, leaflets, and newsletters that also promoted the Empire. Kerr (1993) focused on developments in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland between the 1930s and 1960s. His work focused on how the colonial authorities used the cinema to enlighten the African natives of the governments’ development agenda, and to encourage them to be loyal to the Empire. Kerr’s paper mainly focused on Northern Rhodesia and did

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not discuss the prevailing political and economic changes that necessitated the change in British colonial policy in the two territories. It also focused on the use of cinema, while this chapter focuses on the print media and radio broadcasting, particularly their roles in working towards ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the Africans. There is generally no uniform definition of the term ‘technology’. However, Headrick (2010, pp. 3–4) defined ‘technology’ as the ways in which humans use the materials and energy in the environment for their own ends, beyond what they can do with their bodies. The history of technology is thus the story of humans’ increasing ability to manipulate nature. Rodriguez-Alegria (2008, p.  34) highlighted that there are two main approaches utilised to analyse ‘technology’. Firstly, there is the ‘standard view’ of technology, which considers technology as comprising of tools and techniques that are commonsensical solutions to physical and environmental challenges. This view holds that technology is simply a rational way of adapting to nature, and it is largely extraneous to social life, in the sense that it progresses scientifically, independent of social and cultural interests. Secondly, there is the ‘contextualised view’, which considers the social relations and culturally negotiated ways of constructing material worlds. Technology is analysed within the social, political, and economic contexts in which it is utilised. The ‘contextualised view’ informs a significant chunk of this chapter, as it focuses on analysing how the British colonial authorities utilised various forms of technology in the fight against perceived forms of African resistance during the post-World War II era. It is important to note from these conceptualisations that ‘technology’ goes far beyond the mediums discussed in this chapter. In most parts of colonial Africa, as posited by Hachten (1971, pp. 3–6), the news communication industry was introduced as an appendage of European colonial intrusion. In general, there were two journalistic traditions in the colonies, namely: the European or ‘settler’ tradition and the African nationalist tradition. The former mainly developed in areas with significant European settler settlements, where an independent African press was not entertained. The newspapers and other literature that were directed at Africans were either owned by the government, or missionary societies, or Europeans subservient to government policies. The latter (African-owned newspapers) occurred in very rare cases, as in Kenya and Uganda, and were only published in vernacular languages, and in most cases during the later stages of European colonial rule. It is the European tradition, particularly state-owned or controlled newspapers that form a

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significant chunk of this chapter’s conceptualisation. I particularly set out to analyse their ownership, the target audience, language choice and the context in which the newspapers appeared. Similar analyses will also be applied to radio broadcasting programmes that were introduced much later in the colonial enterprise.

The Colonial State and the Media in Nyasaland: Early Efforts The early efforts towards establishing and operating a media industry in Nyasaland were perhaps unsurprisingly by European settlers, who took advantage of the technological inventions of the nineteenth century. The earliest known news-related publication in the country appeared through the work of European Presbyterian missionaries, firstly of the Blantyre Mission, who in 1888 began publishing a journal titled Life and Work in British Central Africa. Other publications followed, also by another mission station, the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), which published The Nyasa News, at the Mission’s headquarters on Likoma Island since 1893. European settler-planters in the country also jumped onto the bandwagon, beginning in 1895. A European settler-planter (from Scotland) by the name R.S.  Hynde launched a newspaper, The Central African Planter (CAP), which appeared monthly, and retained that name until 1897. The newspaper was launched primarily to act as a medium for the expression of European settler opinions. Following the disbanding of the CAP, the proprietors founded The Central African Times (CAT). Its name was changed to The Nyasaland Times in the early twentieth century. The change of the name came following the change of the colony’s name from British Central Africa Protectorate (BCAP) to Nyasaland Protectorate in July 1907 (Great Britain, Colonial Office 1920). Due to conflicting interests between the government and the newspaper’s proprietors, there were instances where the two camps openly clashed on the best ways to administer the Protectorate. For instance, in 1902, the two editors of the Times (Messrs. R.S. Hynde and Harold A.S. Rutherfold) were both convicted and fined by Judge Nunan of the Nyasaland High Court, on accusations of misreporting the proceedings of a court case in which some natives had complained of being forced to work as carriers to assist Nyasaland troops. They were charged with contempt of court on the following terms: that the said

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weekly newspaper willfully and maliciously misrepresented the evidence presented in the High Court, concerning the charges brought against the army and the police of BCA; that they deliberately, willfully, falsely, and maliciously suppressing important portions of the evidence and proceedings in the Inquiry and that they willfully, falsely, and maliciously published an article in the newspaper, which had falsely quoted the Judge (Judge Nunan) as having stated that a ‘reign of terror’ had been produced by the conscription of carriers, which was contrary to the evidence the court had gathered. Both men were fined £10 each, a further £250 surety for Mr. Hynde and £100 for Mr. Rutherforld. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the proprietors of the Times also launched two newspapers, published in vernacular to reach out to the wider African population, namely Zoona (The Truth) and Nkhani za Nyasaland (News of Nyasaland). The later was a free weekly newspaper and only appeared at the beginning of World War II. The Nyasaland government also published its own newsletter, beginning January 1894, initially titled The British Central Africa Gazette, and later The Nyasaland Government Gazette. The Gazette represented the ‘administrative mind’ of the colonial state, including disseminating information on government projects, ordinances, bills passed in the legislative assembly, publication of notices, regulations and announcements of the Administration, and other empire-wide developments. It also emerged as a money-making tool for the government as private investors in the country could advertise their products (Great Britain, Colonial Office 1950a).

Post-World War: Two Developments While there was a slow pace of state intervention in the media industry before the outbreak of World War II, the same could not be stated about the post-war period. It is that period, which is also referred to as ‘the classic period of decolonisation’ or the ‘era of the second colonial occupation’ in other quarters, in part due to increased intervention by the metropolitan powers in colonial affairs, which I now focus on. That period was also characterised by several telling factors including the global spread of communism and the Cold War that ensued, the rise of radical forms of nationalism and the enactment of Colonial Development Acts. In the case of Nyasaland, there was also the establishment of a new political entity, called the Central African Federation (which brought together the three British

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territories of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, and Southern Rhodesia, between 1953 and 1963). Such changes necessitated the need for a robust state propaganda machinery, in which the use of the print media and radio broadcasting became necessary. Following the outbreak of the Cold War, from 1945 onwards, there were fears by the West, including the British authorities that the Eastern bloc would have taken advantage of the discontent among the colonised peoples (both in Asia and Africa) to convert them to communism. It was the same motivation to block the spread of communism in the British colonies, that in 1953, the Central African Federation (CAF) was established, against the wishes of most of the African population in the three territories. Although the British government had emphasised that the Federation had been conceived to enhance development programmes, what the Africans were not told was that one of the major motivations had been to form a strong state that would act as a buffer against the spread of communism (Welensky 1964, p. 47). In Nyasaland, the establishment of the Federation helped to revive the ‘fortunes’ of the leading nationalist movement, called the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), which had been established in 1944, but had remained weak and elitist. Once the Federation was imposed on the Africans, the NAC leadership regarded it as their responsibility to speak on behalf of the Africans to challenge the colonial authorities. There were also various development programmes that were put in place by the British government, working together with the Federal Government and the territorial government in Nyasaland. For Nyasaland, such plans began with the Colonial Development Act, 1929, (British Government, Colonial Development Act 1929), which although it contributed towards the boosting of colonial economies, through monetary grants and loans, had also been specifically passed to help in the improvement of trade/commerce and industry and also reduce the levels of unemployment in the United Kingdom (UK), as the colonial produce would help to create employment opportunities for British citizens. In 1940, 1945, 1949, 1950, and 1955, further Development Acts were passed, under the title Colonial Development and Welfare Act (CDWA), extending and/or expanding the funding that had been provided in each previous phase (Morgan 1980). The funds were aimed for the implementation of integrated development programmes, in sectors including health, education, agriculture, transport and communication, water supply, and electricity production, among others. Such programmes also needed a robust

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media presence to help inculcate the notion that the government was working in the interest of Africans. African opposition to continued colonial rule came from multiple sources including chiefs, women, the youth, and the NAC. As highlighted by Baker (1993), the decade of the 1950s was characterised by widespread native unrest, beginning in 1953 (the year the CAF was established), when protests occurred in the southern and central provinces of the country, where the Africans, led by their chiefs refused to obey government orders, especially the payment of hut and poll taxes and adherence to land preparation and conservation measures. The NAC also embarked on a campaign urging its followers to boycott such services and places as European markets and stores, withdraw farm and estate labor, and from the civil service (Nyasaland Intelligence Report 1953: CO 1015/464). The African unrest was brutally postponed in that year, following the detention of some of the protestors, the shooting to death of 11 of them and the wounding of over 70 others, and the banishment of the non-­ cooperating chiefs, such as Chief Gomani of Ntcheu District, under the orders of Governor Geoffrey Colby. However, the unrest re-appeared later that decade, following the re-organisation of the NAC, and the return of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda in July 1958, to lead the NAC, following over three decades spent studying and working in the USA, UK, and Ghana. Due to continued African disturbances between January and February 1959, Governor Sir Robert Armitage declared a State of Emergency on 3rd March 1959. He acted on intelligence briefing that the NAC leadership had planned to embark on a campaign of widespread violence, and to murder Europeans in the country. Under Operation Sunrise, the police arrested Dr. Banda and other leaders of the NAC. They were placed in detention centers both in Nyasaland and in Southern Rhodesia. In both Rhodesias (Southern and Northern Rhodesia), states of emergency were also declared between February and March 1959. By April, over 1000 Africans were detained in Nyasaland, and hundreds of others were also convicted of political offences. The NAC was also outlawed, and it immediately ceased to exist as a political entity. These arrests were followed by further native disturbances, where some 51 people were mercilessly killed by the security forces between March and April 1959 (Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry 1959, pp. 94–125).

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The Media and State Propaganda The historical developments of the post-World War II period in Nyasaland called for a robust state-sponsored propaganda machinery. The term ‘propaganda’, as defined by Ellul (1973), refers to the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influencing the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends and through psychological manipulations. Some of propaganda’s main characteristics include: psychological action, psychological warfare, re-education and brainwashing and public and human relations. August (1985) posited that although the British imperialists often utilised propaganda tactics, they tried as much as possible to avoid using the term because of some of the negative connotations associated with it, including the telling of lies and half-truths. British authorities considered propaganda as something that the Communists and the Fascists practiced, and hence did not want to be associated with it. Instead, the British favored to use such terms as ‘education’, ‘information’, and ‘imperial studies’ to distinguish themselves from other imperial competitors. It was in that perspective that the subject of information management in the African colonies was discussed at the African Governors Conference in 1947, where the delegates adopted the term ‘public relations’, rather than the use of the term ‘propaganda’ when it came to ‘selling the empire’. Public relations referred to the technique of presenting the activities of a government in a favorable light, which in the colonies was meant to serve the role of creating and maintaining a spirit of fellowship and cooperation based on mutual understanding and trust between the government and the masses. Orders were given to the governors to create or reinforce Public Relations and Information Departments, tasked to make extensive use of media resources (cinema/films, newspapers, and radio broadcasting) directly linked with the Information Department at the CO (Public Relations in the Colonies: CO 847/36/3, No. 9, Nov. 1947). Such recommendations led to the creation of a Public Relations Department (PRD) in Nyasaland by the end of 1947, tasked with the following responsibilities: to assist in interpreting government policies, and to keep the government informed of the people’s views, to provide information about colonial affairs for publicity use in Great Britain, to provide the colonial public with information about developments and policy changes in Great Britain and to act as an advisory and coordinating agency for the planning and execution of departmental propaganda campaigns (Great Britain, Colonial Office 1950b).

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Newspapers, Newsletters, and Other Bulletins Prior to the post-World War II era, the colonial state had rarely utilised newspapers as a medium for propaganda. After the War, there were important media-related developments that induced the government to act. For instance, in the Nyasaland newspaper industry, there emerged a privately owned newspaper known as Kwacha (Dawn), which was initially published in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. It began to appear in 1955 and was owned by the NAC. The paper carried stories affecting the political and socio-economic livelihoods of Africans in the country. In the aftermath of the 1959 disturbances, the leaders of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), a successor party to the NAC, also began to publish two pro-­ African newsletters, namely Mtendere pa Ntchito (Peace at Work) and Tsopano (Now) at the end of September. The former mainly covered labor-related activities in the country, while the latter, emerged as a militant mouthpiece of the NAC. By December 1959, the party also established its own newspaper, called Malawi News (Pachai 1973). It was thus necessary for the colonial authorities to come up with measures to counter the information that emanated from Kwacha and any other papers that might have appeared in Nyasaland and elsewhere in the Federation. The advantage with newspapers was that they could be read at the opportune time of the reader; they could be passed on from one person to another; the contents could be related to the illiterate and they could also be published in vernacular languages. In 1949, the government, through the PRD, had begun to publish a vernacular newspaper titled Msimbi (the relator or recorder of news), which carried both local and world news, and was published weekly. At its peak, the newspaper sold 8200 copies per week, for an annual subscription of 4s. Governor Colby increased funding for the newspaper on several occasions following orders from London, to use propaganda techniques to deter the spread of Communism in the Protectorate (Baker 1994). Msimbi was soon followed by another privately owned but seemingly pro-government newspaper titled Bwalo la Nyasaland (The Nyasaland Forum), which began to appear in about 1953. The weekly newspaper which carried articles both in English and local languages soon began to carry pro-government articles, such as the following: ‘Congress Leaders Jailed for Sedition: Federation here to stay—says Magistrate’; ‘Background to Cholo Riots was Localized Land Hunger—Federation not cause of disturbances’. In the former, the intention was to clearly show that the

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government would no longer tolerate any form of anti-Federation agitation, while in the latter, the intention was to show that the riots in the southern province district of Cholo (now Thyolo) were after all not against the CAF, but agitation for access to land and other basic needs. There were also other articles that exonerated the government of being oppressive, by suggesting that in fact it was the Africans who were attacking state authorities through violent means. Other articles also expressed the Africans’ satisfaction with government development programmes, or simply touted the government’s development programmes. In 1953, the Nyasaland Information Service (formerly PRD) also began to circulate a weekly newsletter known as the Information Bulletin, producing 6000 copies a week, and contained both local and empire-wide news, in the process interpreting and explaining government policies in simplified terms, at no cost. The changes happened alongside the re-organisation of the former PRD, with a staff establishment of five European officers, including the Information Officer, his assistant, a Cinema Officer, two Departmental Assistants and 21 other African members of staff. The office also distributed bulletins from Reuters, London Press Services, British magazines, and Press releases from the Information Department of the CO (including posters and photographs of the Royal Family). Such publications were distributed to African Welfare Halls that were manned by officials in the office of a District Commissioner (Great Britain, Colonial Office 1954). By 1960, the PRD underwent further re-organisation, with the addition of extra staff, some of whom were responsible for the release of 600 press releases that year alone, including increasing the publication of the Information Bulletin to 60,000 copies per week. There were also Provincial Information Officers appointed for each of the three provinces, to render information services and to distribute the Bulletin at that level. There were also other newspapers that were published either in Northern Rhodesia or Southern Rhodesia, some privately owned others by the government, that also influenced events in Nyasaland. For instance, there were publications such as the African Weekly and the Bantu Mirror, both published in Southern Rhodesia, and carried articles in English and the main vernacular languages in the Federation (Chinyanja, Bemba, and Shona). These papers found their way into Nyasaland a week or so after their publication. It was common to see pro-government articles in these two papers. The Bantu Mirror often carried such headlines as the following: ‘Federation Only Solution to Partnership—Says Sir Godfrey Huggins’.

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In that article, Sir Godfrey, who was the first Prime Minister of the CAF, touted the need to form the Federation arguing that partnership would pool the resources of the three territories together to enable them to develop more rapidly and for the benefit of all inhabitants. Other articles also carried news on events in the metropole, such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in June 1953, which was portrayed as a symbol of unity in the British Empire. Such articles were often deliberately created to inculcate the spirit of patriotism across the Empire. Other articles even foretold of economic problems if Nyasaland were to secede from the Federation. Other articles also warned of the infiltration of the Russian strain of communism in Africa, and the dangers that would follow if it was not checked. The Federal Government in Salisbury also launched a government newsletter, titled Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Newsletter. The weekly newsletter became the official mouthpiece of the Federal Government, and covered news stories across the Federation, and some empire-wide news. The publications often carried news on government development programmes and/or projects, the political changes, and threats about the rise of insecurity associated with the likelihood of the spread of communism, among other issues of concern to the colonial authorities. Another equally pro-government newspaper, published in Salisbury, was The Central African Examiner, whose publication began in the late 1950s and was kept in circulation until the mid-1960s. It would for instance warn radio listeners in the Federation against being enticed by the communist propaganda channeled through international radio stations, especially from Egypt and Russia. It also highlighted development programmes taking place across the CAF, and the need for Africans to reject any communist influences. The government in Southern Rhodesia, the headquarters of the CAF, resorted to the use of propaganda, as those highlighted above, having realised that it operated from a weakened position. As argued by Msindo (2009, pp. 663–681), both during the Federation and in its aftermath in 1963, the government used the media (print, audio, and visual) as a tool with which to deceive the world about the situation in the territory. At the same time, the media, as highlighted above, also served to win the hearts and minds of the colonised Africans and the white minority. As was the case in Nyasaland, the Rhodesian government also had to fight against the rising tide of African nationalism, led by the likes of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, from Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and

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Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), respectively. It was thus expected that the other two territories in the Federation would replicate the Rhodesian style of propaganda.

Radio Broadcasting Julian Hale (1975), writing on the importance of radio broadcasting, summarized the important role that such a medium can play as a tool for propaganda, either by the state or those in opposition to it. Hale (1975, p. ix) noted: That radio is the only unstoppable medium of mass communication. It is the only medium which reaches the entire globe instantaneously and can convey a message from any country to any other. Combined, these qualities of radio ensure that it plays an indispensable role in international communications and keeps its place as the most powerful weapon of international propaganda.

Efforts to provide broadcasting services in the colonies could be traced to the late 1930s. In 1937, the Right Hon. W.G.A. Ormsby Gore, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, appointed a Commission of Inquiry (COI), charged with the task of considering and recommending the steps to be taken to provide broadcasting services in the Colonial Empire, in collaboration with the BBC. The Commission was chaired by the Earl of Plymouth and had 14 committee members. In its report, the Commission reiterated that broadcasting would be important to the Colonies for several reasons. It would not only serve as an instrument of entertainment for Europeans and others of similar education and means, but it would also serve as an instrument of advanced administration, which could also be utilised to enlighten the backward sections of the colonial population in matters of public health and agriculture, among others. The final report recommended two possible alternatives to colonial broadcasting: that wire broadcasting could be installed in some of the colonies, especially those with stronger economies, where listeners could have been paying an annual subscription fee of £3. That system could be installed alongside the pre-existing telephone lines, and the installation of wireless broadcasting, which could have targeted colonies with less productive economies. Since that could have been a costly exercise, the Commission recommended that funds could be sourced from advertisements and sponsored programmes, once the radio stations were

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operational. The Commission also recommended that in future, it would be necessary to create a semi-autonomous broadcasting organisation to oversee matters of colonial broadcasting. Such plans were hampered by the outbreak of World War II, and after the War by budgetary limitations. However, efforts were still made to provide broadcasting services to the Federation, as after the War, the Labour Government, made sure that funds from CWDA would be channeled towards funding the broadcasting sector. For instance, in 1949, the Governments of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were offered more than £40,000 to establish the Lusaka-based broadcasting unit. Furthermore, the BBC was also from time-to-time requested to provide technical assistance to the African stations and/or extend its catchment area to help counter the anti-colonial and Pro-Communist propaganda (Armour 1984). However, Nyasaland did not have a radio station of her own, which meant that radio services in Nyasaland could only be accessed through the Lusaka station and the Federal Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) in Salisbury. It was not until the mid-1950s that the question of investment in Federal Broadcasting was revisited, when a COI was established, under the Federal Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1955. The Commission was put in place by His Excellency John J.B. Llewellin, Governor General of the CAF, and was chaired by a Mr. Hugh Carleton Greene, Esq., O.B.E., who was assisted by three other members, all Caucasians. The terms of reference that guided the work of the Commission included: to investigate the possibilities of establishing a Federal Broadcasting Station, whether the time was ripe for such a task, what powers and duties would such an organisation assume and to suggest the major sources of funding to run the station’s affairs. In its final recommendations, the Commission highlighted the following areas: that there was need to establish a semi-autonomous Federal-wide statutory broadcasting organisation to start operations in July 1956; that if established, the organisation would serve several purposes, including unifying peoples of the Federation, and being an instrument of education; that broadcasting services in Nyasaland could be enhanced, especially as the territory only had a small recording studio run by the Information Department; that there would be need for the British government to shoulder the initial operational costs of the organisation, by providing grant-in-aid funding and that a license fee of £1 per listener should be imposed throughout the CAF, to be paid by both Europeans and Africans, to serve as revenue to

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run the affairs of the organisation. The listener fees would, as suggested, be collected by native authorities in the rural areas, whereas those in urban areas would have to pay the fees at the nearest Post Office. It would be on the back of the Commission’s recommendations, that in 1956, the FBC was established, to provide general broadcasting and propaganda services. In a January 1959 memo prepared by the Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO), for its high-ranking officer, Lt-General Sir William Oliver, the CRO highlighted the realistic threat posed by radio broadcasts from Moscow Radio. It highlighted the need to collaborate the work of the FBC with the BBC and South African Broadcasting Services towards monitoring and later jamming the broadcasts from Moscow Radio, Cairo Radio, and Athens Radio. These radio stations were well-­ known for their anti-colonial broadcasts throughout Africa and Asia. The major challenge faced by efforts to jam other radio stations was that it was a costly exercise. For instance, rough estimates of jamming broadcasts from the Voice of the Arabs in the Persian Gulf and Aden were placed at about £800,000 in capital expenditure and £250,000 a year in running costs. The estimates were that if that had to expand to the rest of Africa, it could have needed more funds (Measures against hostile broadcasts: CO 968/698, Jan. 1959). The BBC and the FBC collaborated in producing a pro-Federation programme titled Calling Rhodesia and Nyasaland and other special programmes (e.g. Commonwealth Magazine) that aired live on BBC and were relayed to FBC listeners. Following the declaration of the Nyasaland Emergency (of March 1959–June 1960), proposals were also made in London, to launch radio broadcasting services within the Protectorate, to cover local propaganda-­ driven programmes, rather than rely on the FBC.  The request came through a proposal by Sir Charles Ponsonby, from the Royal Commonwealth Society, titled The Mind of Nyasaland. The proposal argued that the only way of changing the attitude of mind of the Africans in the country was to make a direct personal appeal to them through continuous and well-­ organised propaganda. The national or local broadcasting service would serve the role of countering the anti-government messages that were being spread through other radio stations or frequencies. What was needed then was for the British and Federal Governments to provide the funding towards the project (Publicity and propaganda in Nyasaland: DO 35/7689, July 1959). The proposal for broadcasting services in Nyasaland was favorably welcomed by the Federal Government, such that it launched a Chinyanja

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news bulletin slot, immediately after the English news bulletin, on the FBC programmes schedule. Plans were also put in place, to improve transmission of news from Lusaka, Northern Rhodesia, to improve the Chinyanja news bulletins (by employing good Chinyanja announcers/ broadcasters), from where the people of Nyasaland could listen to news bulletins while the Zomba broadcasting station was being set up, to augment the work shouldered by the small studio being run by the Information Department (Political situation in Nyasaland, July 1959: CO 1015/1527). It was not until March 1960 that the FBC established a regional station in Nyasaland (at Zomba). Funds for establishing the station were sourced from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund (CDWF). The initial investment was a 400-watt transmitter which operated within a 90-metre band. In May of that year, a new 2.5-kilowatt transmitter was installed, which helped to increase the area covered by the radio station. Initially, the station would be on air for three hours a day with programmes in Chinyanja and English. Some programmes could also be aired in Tumbuka (for only three days per week), to reach out to listeners in the Northern Province. The Zomba station also aired programmes supplied by the BBC, FBC, Indian, South African, and Portuguese East African Stations. Where the Africans could not afford to purchase their own radio sets, the government provided group wireless sets, made available at various public holding centers, including community welfare halls and schools (Great Britain, Colonial Office 1960). What was also interesting to note was that since the radio was regarded as a modern technology, some of the newspapers would include special editorial sections to teach the Africans how the radio operates. Readers were given instructions on how to tune in to various radio stations, the difference between short wave and long wave tuning, how to keep radio sets safe, and how to conduct minor repairs when necessary. Furthermore, the ownership of a radio set on its own served as a sign of modernity, as it exposed the listeners to stories beyond the bounds of their country (Fraenkel 1959). The radio sets that circulated in the CAF were nicknamed ‘saucepan radios’ (resembling a saucepan without a handle) and were manufactured by the Supersonic Radios Company and its subsidiary (Chassay Brothers Pvt. Ltd. and Omega/Marilyn Premier Electric Pvt. Ltd.), with factories in Salisbury. It is interesting to note, as discussed above, that the radio sets served multiple roles.

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On one hand, they were the medium through which the state spread its propaganda. On the other hand, the Africans were also at liberty to tune in to various international radio stations, such as those from Moscow and Cairo, from where they could listen to anti-colonial broadcasts and news bulletins. The colonial authorities had thus failed to completely shut out the anti-government propaganda. That also explains why in all the three territories under the CAF, independence was finally attained, starting with Malawi and Zambia in 1964, and Zimbabwe in 1980.

Post-Colonial Legacies The decolonisation process, which culminated in the attainment of independence for Malawi in July 1964, did not completely alter the ways the state utilised the media for propaganda purposes. The authoritarian rule of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, from 1964 to 1994 adopted similar measures to those of the predecessor colonial state, mostly through the influence of British personnel who remained part of the government as advisers and civil servants. The government continued to control the media, both print and radio broadcasting. For instance, there was only one radio station in the country, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), which was established in 1964, and was and is still state-owned. The first headquarters of the MBC was in Zomba, in the same building initially owned by the FBC. There was one major newspaper production company, hereafter, The Times Group of Companies, which was also owned by Dr. Banda. The company published a daily newspaper, The Daily Times, from Monday to Friday, and a weekend newspaper, The Malawi News, on Saturdays. Although the media was liberalised following the return to multi-party democracy in the mid-1990s, problems still linger on, especially on the performance of the MBC.  Since it is solely funded by the state, the public broadcaster has often been abused by the incumbent leadership to serve the interests of the ruling party. This includes refusing to cover opposition political events and rallies and creating radio programmes to lampoon those in the opposition. Over the past decade, the MBC has come up with such programmes as Makiyolobasi and Zingayamba Kuyiwalika (literally ‘Lest We Forget’). Both programmes are organised by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government to lampoon the former ruling parties, Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and United Democratic Front (UDF), by highlighting the atrocities committed by the leaders of those parties when they

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were in power. When the UDF was in power between 1994 and 2004, it also ran a newspaper, called The UDF News, which served as a propaganda tool for the party and government. The paper has since been disbanded.

Conclusion This chapter has discussed how the media (print and radio) was utilised to manipulate the mindsets of Africans in Nyasaland in the post-war era. In doing so, it has pinpointed how technology was used within the context of spreading pro-government propaganda in the fight against nationalism and communism. The colonial authorities deliberately set aside funds, opened offices, established media outlets, and employed people to specifically work in the propaganda section, often sugarcoated as public relations. For centuries, the colonial media played an important role in winning the hearts and minds of the colonised societies. However, by the mid-­1960s, as the winds of change blew across the African continent, Nyasaland attained its independence, with lessons of how the colonial government manipulated the media to serve its interests. In an ironic reprise, post-colonial Malawi, saw successive governments also utilise the media, both radio and print, to serve the interests of those in power. While the major culprit has been the MBC, there has also been extensive usage of newspapers to spread pro-government propaganda. It has also been highlighted that in using these media platforms, the people have their own agency, rather than be compelled, to choose which radio stations and newspapers to consume.

References August, T. G. (1985). The selling of the Empire: British and French imperialist propaganda, 1890–1940. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Armour, C. (1984). The BBC and the development of broadcasting in British Colonial Africa 1946–1956. African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society African Affairs, 83(332), 359–402. Baker, C. (1993). Seeds of trouble: Government policy and land rights in Nyasaland, 1946–1964. London: British Academic Press. Baker, C. (1994). Development governor: A biography of Sir Geoffrey Colby. London: British Academic Press. British Government. (1929). Colonial Development Act, 1929. London: HMSO.

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British Government. (1959). Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry. London: HMSO. British National Archives (BNA): CO 847/36/3, No. 9; CO 1015/464; CO 1015/1527; CO 968/698, No. 104; and DO 35/7689. Kew, Richmond, United Kingdom. Ellul, J. (1973). Propaganda: The formation of men’s attitudes. New  York: Vintage Books. Fraenkel, P. (1959). Wayaleshi. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Great Britain, Colonial Office. (1920). Annual Report for Nyasaland Protectorate, 1920. Malawi: National Archives of Malawi. Great Britain, Colonial Office. (1950a). Annual Report for Nyasaland Protectorate, 1950. Malawi: National Archives of Malawi. Great Britain, Colonial Office. (1950b). Annual Reports for Nyasaland Protectorate Public Relations Department 1950. Malawi: National Archives of Malawi. Great Britain, Colonial Office. (1954). Annual Report for Nyasaland Protectorate, 1954. Malawi: National Archives of Malawi. Great Britain, Colonial Office. (1960). Annual Report for Nyasaland Protectorate, 1960. Malawi: National Archives of Malawi. Hachten, W. A. (1971). Muffled drums: The news media in Africa. Ames: Iowa State University Press. Headrick, D. (2010). Power over peoples: Technology, environments, and western imperialism, 1400 to the present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hale, J. (1975). Radio power propaganda and international broad-casting. London: P. Elek. Kerr, D. (1993). The best of both worlds? Colonial film policy and practice in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural and Media Studies, 7(1), 11–32. Morgan, D. J. (1980). The official history of colonial development, Volume 1: The origins of British Aid Policy, 1924–1945. New Jersey: Humanities Press. Msindo, E. (2009). Winning hearts and minds: Crisis and propaganda in colonial Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies, 35(3), 663–681. Pachai, B. (1973). Malawi: The history of the nation. London: Longman. Rodriguez-Alegria, E. (2008). Narratives of conquest, colonialism, and cutting-­ edge technology. American Anthropologist, 110(1), 33–43. Smyth, R. (2001). The genesis of public relations in British colonial practice. Public Relations Review, 27, 149–161. Welensky, R. (1964). Welensky’s 4000 days: The life and death of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. London: Collins.

CHAPTER 18

Communicating Politics in Small States: Preferred Sources of Political Knowledge in the Jamaican Society Lloyd G. Waller and Nicola D. Satchell

Introduction Decades of investigating and theorising political behaviour have highlighted the value of ‘political knowledge’ as an indispensable ingredient required to strengthen democratic governance (Almond and Verba 1963; Dahl 1979). Political thinkers have traditionally recognised socialisation agents such as the family, the education system, small groups and traditional media as informing the attitudinal and behavioural parameters upon which political knowledge is based. Current discussions are now underscoring the value of the new digital media—social media, websites, apps and so on, as a major source of political information, especially among young people. New digital media have grown exponentially to become a source of disseminating and accessing information about politics. Consequently, there

L. G. Waller (*) • N. D. Satchell The University of the West Indies (Mona Campus), Kingston, Jamaica e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_18

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is growing interest in, and research on, the role of new media in strengthening democracy through the enhancement of political knowledge (Groshek and Dimitrova 2011; Hendricks and Denton 2010). There is also no denying that such technologies are slowly becoming a normal means of influencing political knowledge in many places around the world (Althaus and Tewksbury 2002). There is now a growing body of literature on the role of new digital media and politics. Yet with all the research being conducted internationally, not much exploration has been undertaken in small developing states. This chapter attempts to address this gap. The purpose of this study is to determine the sources which influence the political knowledge of Jamaicans and to ascertain the trust that they have in these sources. The outcomes may be relevant to enhancing understanding of the political processes and sources in countries with a similar background. The study is guided by the following research questions: (1) to what extent has new digital media superseded the traditional sources of political information, particularly among Jamaican youth; and (2) What level of trust do Jamaican youth have in new digital media as a source of political knowledge?

Political Information, Political Knowledge and Democracy Political knowledge is defined broadly as the range of ‘factual information’ about political events, actors, concepts and related constructs that are ‘held by members of the public’ (Oxley 2012, p.  27). In other words, political knowledge is useful information which has been attained through learning and experience. This definition is preferred here as it captures the varying popular representations of political knowledge in the literature (Carpini and Keeter 1996; Oxley 2012; Prior 2007). Intrinsic to the discourse are two assumptions which are pertinent to this study. The first assumption posits that the information which forms the basis of political knowledge is factual. Knowledge, unlike information, includes a cognitive dimension and information is effectively transferred into knowledge when agentic actors possess the capacity to accommodate and assimilate it. A significant component of this process is being able to decipher whether the information received is correct (Grönlund and Milner 2006). Carpini and Keeter (1996) also saw it as imperative that this knowledge be stored in long-term memory.

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The second assumption is that there must be some collective meaning derived from the information that is communally held by receivers. Though there are different views about the level, sophistication, relevance and prevalence of political knowledge among citizens in many parts of the world, scholars, politicians, pundits and journalists will all agree that an informed citizenry contributes to a stable democracy (Andersen et  al. 2002; Carpini and Keeter 1996; Dalton 2004; Easton 1965; Inglehart 1990; Moon 1990; Mutz and Martin 2001; Weatherford 1989). This notion is supported by the rational choice theory of political behaviour. As early as the work of Downs (1957), the danger of individuals and groups making political decisions with little or faulty information was articulated. From this theoretical position, explicit knowledge is an important input to get to the political outcomes that are desired. Carpini and Keeter (1996) identified three types of political knowledge that all citizens should have for democracy to be optimised. The first focuses on knowledge surrounding the structure of government such as the duties of each branch of government and the process involved in legitimately selecting those representatives. This was important in informing an understanding of ‘what government is’. This is what Carpini and Keeter (1996, p. 14) referred to as the ‘rules of the game’. Then, there is knowledge about the ‘substance of politics’, that is, relevant issues such as the historical and current concerns that the polity needs to respond to. This source of knowledge critically interrogates the ideological stance of the parties. Finally, there is knowledge about political actors, that is, an awareness of the current leaders of a country, political groupings and where these actors stand on critical politically relevant issues. All three types of political knowledge, whether they be held collectively or individually, influence the level of attention citizens give to politics, their level of interest in politics as well as how they apply and organise ideas about politics.

Traditional Sources of Political Knowledge Historically, issues surrounding the determinants of political knowledge would almost always lead to a conversation about all the agents of ‘political’ socialisation. However, over the last two decades, there has been a general preoccupation with ‘the media’1 as an influential agent of political socialisation and information, with claims that it represents the most 1

 Largely referring to the tradition media: television, radio and the print media.

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significant source of political knowledge (Chaffee and Frank 1996; Vettehen et al. 2004). It is, therefore, not surprising that political parties, political leaders and governments have over the years become dependent on the mass media to get their messages across to citizens. A general concern among political thinkers is that the increased variety of the traditional media sources has created an environment where people now need to apply greater mental efforts to differentiate news from advertisement (Chaffee and Frank 1996). Across all media sources, factual information is often mixed with opinions and attempts at agenda setting. The ‘mediatisation of politics’ foregrounds the need of the media to cover the stories about politics and the desire of the political actors to disseminate particular types of information to advance their interest (Mazzoleni and Schulz 1999). For democracy to function effectively, the negotiation between these two sets of players must generate information that is in the best interest of the collective. Modern societies are largely information-based and therefore facilitate a natural dependency on the media to transmit information to satisfy all areas of everyday life, including politics (Stromback 2008; Wolfsfeld 2011). The impact of individual differences in the processing of political knowledge is dependent on the type of media (Anduiza et  al. 2012; Tichenor et al. 1970). The newspaper, for example, provides coverage of a wide range of issues but it is not only the facts of the particular social phenomenon that is presented. There is also extensive analysis, usually including the aetiology of the issue and its anticipated consequences. This facilitates the acquisition of ‘hard knowledge’ (Anduiza et al. 2012) which has the capacity to be transferred into purposeful political talk. It can also provide the information needed to develop the attitude that will guide decision making. This can be contrasted to television that presents more quick and concise information, though the information produced by this media source may demand less attention and often generates ‘soft knowledge’. Television is one of the few media platforms which is effective in directing people towards what to think and talk about (Holbrook and Hill 2006). Political information is not only shared through news items but also programmes meant for entertainment. The impact of political satire programming is noticeable in this regard, as they are designed to deliver comedic content but utilise political information with an impact on political preferences (Oxley 2012).

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Traditionally, research on the determinants of political knowledge, particularly in reference to the developing world, identifies ‘the radio’ as a more impactful knowledge leveller than television or print (Gerbaudo 2012; Ott 1998). This is especially the case in countries where literacy is low and access to television is limited. Radio Talkshow Programmes (RTPs), for example, provide citizens with substantive information and edutainment (education and entertainment) on critical political matters. Where these programmes facilitate dialogue through ‘call-in feedback’ mechanisms, citizens get the opportunity to voice their opinions, get clarification on topical issues and offer suggestions.

New Media and Political Information New media is defined here as the many forms of digital communication that are made possible through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). New media also utilises ICTs to provide users with the ability to interact and modify this information. It includes Websites, Blogs, Online Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Jamaicans are embracing this move as based on the ‘Digital in 2017’ report, 56% of Jamaicans have access to the internet, while 43% are active social media users and 39% are active mobile social media users. The report further asserts that, since 2016, there has been a 20% increase in the number of social media users within the country (Hootsuite and We are Social 2017). The new digital media creates more choices for citizens to access news today than any other time in history and, therefore, offers multiple and diverse sources of political information (Adamic and Glance 2005; Barberá and Rivero 2015; Dalrymple and Scheufele 2007; Oxley 2012; Pierskalla and Hollenbach 2013; Vitak et al. 2011). The new digital media facilitates interactivity and dialogue; real-time interaction and expression with users from varying demographic and geographic locations. Many of our political representatives now have Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts which facilitate real-time engagement with constituents. In other words, new media is more engaging than traditional media sources. Individuals can match available content with their preferences, motivations and cognitive skills. Studies suggest that the ICT environment has the potential to increase the knowledge gap between persons less educated and motivated, and their counterparts. This is primarily because the Internet provides a mass

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of information that requires greater cognitive capacity and interest to process (Chadwick and Howard 2010; van Deursen et al. 2014). According to Bucy and Gregson (2001, p. 368), with new media ‘the electorate is symbolically or materially empowered’ through the range of access portals and the interactiveness those portals facilitate. The literature suggests that the more educated citizens (which is being used here as a proxy for cognitive capacities) are able to take greater advantages of all information sources (Chadwick and Howard 2010; Gaziano 2010). The successful use of the new media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter in President Barrack Obama’s election campaigns, recognises this medium of communication as an impactful means of political knowledge. New digital media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were also successfully used during the Arab Spring uprisings to disseminate information, inform, educate and influence citizens in North Africa and the Middle East (Bhuiyan 2011; Farag 2010; Howard and Parks 2012). Fox and Ramos (2012) note that the events which unfolded in these countries and during that time suggest that ‘the digital age has drastically transformed the method and style of political communication and mobilization’ (p. 2). With all the success in broadening access, communication and mobilisation, the 2016 US election highlighted and drew attention to questionable social sharing in information dissemination. In particular, that campaign period exposed the number of fake news sites and articles which captured the attention of an electorate that was highly divided politically (Pennycook et al. 2018). The significant impact of fake news on the 2016 US election led Oxford Dictionaries to select ‘post-truth’ as the word of the year in late 2016, defining it as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’ (Oxford Dictionaries 2016). Social media, in particular, emerged as the centre stage of the political drama and became the leading source of information and, quite frequently, misinformation and disinformation for a large number of voters. A Pew Research study conducted in December 2016 found that 23% of adults shared fake news, knowingly or unknowingly, with friends and others. This finding was for the United States only and did not account for the dissemination of the same fake stories globally in a digitally connected world where the US 2016 election campaign became a source of global speculation. As shown in that presidential election, the new media sources were an efficient means to advance political agendas without the intervention of

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professional media organisations. In fact, online news media facilitated greater individual control over news exposure and issue related knowledge (Althaus and Tewksbury 2002). Dalrymple and Scheufele (2007) suggest that these sources of information are more effective when augmented by other media. This has also been the case within many other countries around the world, including countries in the global south, such as Jamaica. For example, during the 2016 election in Jamaica, several discussions emerged about the use of social media as a campaigning tool (Poyser 2016). Many social thinkers questioned the integrity of the information that was being shared, although much of the political campaigning was still reliant on traditional party meetings and the traditional media. The issue was raised by Hall (1980) as traditional media were emerging as a key information source about how messages are being decoded and encoded to develop hegemonic relationships. Subsequently, the level of media literacy of users of the ICT platforms varied as they sift through what is factual as opposed to unsupported opinions. It was this phenomenon which promoted our curiosity and influenced this research study.

Research Design Methodology, Methods and Sample The data used in this chapter are part of a larger exploratory study of National Political Development in Jamaica. The research study uses a cross-sectional case study approach to explore the political behaviour of Jamaicans. To make this determination, a 60-item questionnaire was designed and utilised in a face-to-face survey. The stratified random sampling technique was used to identify the participants for this study, N = 910. The criteria for selection were based on location, gender and age group, ensuring the strictest adherence to the sample frame. Upon selection of the participants in the cases, the aim was to gain a first-hand understanding of their experiences in the political and voting arena. The data were analysed using the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Multivariate and bivariate tests were undertaken in order to effectively answer the research question.

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Measures Sources of political information were measured through a question designed to capture information about the ‘main’ source of such political information. Five options were presented to the participants. These included: traditional media (television, radio, print media such as newspapers), the school system (things that are learnt at school), at home (from family members), in groups (based on conversations with people that I know—friends, groups in church, school, my community etc.), new digital media (Internet, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc.). Participants were asked to identify which were their primary source of knowledge as it relates to the following: • Political events and issues currently happening in Jamaica • Political events and issues currently happening in other countries • Political leaders in Jamaica • Political leaders in other countries • How the Jamaican government functions (operations, functions of the branches of government) • How the government in other countries functions (operations, functions of the branches of government) • Political processes such as voting, nominating political actors, running for political office, participating in a political activity As it relates to trust, participants were also asked to determine on a scale from 0 to 5 where ‘0’ represents no trust and 5 represents a high degree of trust, how much trust they had in the sources of information across the indicators listed above.

Results Sources of Political Information Jamaicans are generally reliant on traditional media sources for all forms of political information, see Appendix 1. Most (72.7% of participants) were using this source for ‘information on political events currently happening in Jamaica’. An almost equal number (71.1%) utilised that source for information on political leaders in Jamaica. Significant numbers of participants also relied on traditional media sources for information such as political processes (64.5%), how government functions in Jamaica (63%) and in other countries (57.9%).

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Of the three age groups (youth 18–24, young adult 25–35 and older adults 36 and over), youth was the only group that was using traditional media sources below the overall average. This difference was significant as determined by an ANOVA analysis [F(2,780) = 17.068, p = 0.000]. Post hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that youths depended on this source for, on average, four of the seven types of information (M = 4.01, SD = 2.8). Young adults were using traditional media sources for an average of 4.62 of the seven types of information (M  =  4.62, SD = 2.63) and those 36 years and over were reliant on this source for over five (M = 5.43, SD = 2.48). The new digital media were used mainly for political information external to the state. Approximately one in every five (21.7%) Jamaicans utilised this source for information on political events and issues, political leaders (20.9%) and how government functions in other countries (19.1%). The new digital media was a less popular source of information about political events and issues locally (11.3%); national political leaders (10.2%); governmental process in Jamaica (11.2%) and political process (11.1%). Not surprisingly, young people were using the new digital media, on average, more than the other age groups [F(2,780) = 6.542, p = 0.002]. The average usage was significantly different for youths 18–25 years (M = 1.39, SD = 2.27) when compared with both young adults (M = 0.95, SD = 1.73) and other adults (M = 0.77, SD = 1.8). Youths were, therefore, reliant on new digital media sources across less than two of the seven types of information. An analysis of the mean differences shows persons 25–35 years were utilising this source less that the youth (0.436, p = 0.022). This difference was even greater for persons 36 years and older (0.61, p = 0.002). The school system was not seen as an influential source of information. Greatest reliance on the school system was for information on how government functions in Jamaica (14.1%) and internationally (12.3%). Composite scales were developed for sources of information2 across the seven types of political information. All the variables on the traditional media sources scale loaded on one factor with an eigenvalue of 1.049 and accounted for 67.09% of the variance across the seven types of political issues. The component used for ‘other sources’ accounted for 61.22% of the variance with an eigenvalue of 0.66 and ‘the new media’ accounted for 64.65% of the variance across all the political concerns with an eigenvalue 2  Traditional media sources; the new digital media; and other sources (which include the school system, the home and small groups.

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of 0.57. Youths were also utilising ‘other sources’ of information above the overall average [F(2,780) = 9.105, p = 0.000]. In terms of educational attainment, an ANOVA test showed significant difference in the means of persons with different levels of education and how much they relied on the traditional sources of information [F(3,797)  =  6.609, p  =  0.000]; those who used the new digital media [F(3,797) = 6.233, p = 0.000] than those using other sources of information [F(3,797) = 2.978, p = 0.031]. The Tukey HSD post hoc test showed that those who had post-secondary/vocational/college education (M = 5.38, SD = 2.54) on average depended on traditional sources more than those with secondary level education (M  =  4.81, SD  =  2.76) and university training (M = 4.14, SD = 2.64). Citizens with a primary level education were significantly more reliant on the home and small group for political information (M  =  2.22, SD  =  2.79) than those with post-­ secondary (M = 0.85, SD = 1.95). Those with a university level education (M  =  1.40, SD  =  2.19) were, on average, more dependent on the new digital media for sources of information. In fact, this was the only group which recorded reliance on this source above the overall average of (M = 1.07, SD = 2.00) (Table 18.1). Trust in Sources of Political Information To ascertain the level of trust that Jamaicans have in the various sources of political information, two variables were created. The first was the level of trust in information across various political issues3 and the second was trust across the informational sources. Trust in the sources of information was measured on a scale ranging from 0 to 5, across the five media sources.4 Each information source, therefore, had a computed score of between 0 and 25. Cronbach’s alpha reliability tests for the six items were conducted and the scores were as follows: trust in political events (local) (α  =  0.61), trust in political events (international) (α  =  0.61), trust in political leaders (local) (α = 0.63), trust in political leaders (international) (α = 0.64), trust in information on how government functions (international) (α = 0.65) and trust in political processes (α = 0.68). This indicates low but acceptable levels of internal reliability across all six of the constructed scales (Fig. 18.1).

3  An error in data collection excluded the issue of how government functions locally from this analysis. 4  Traditional media, the school, the home, small groups and the new digital media.

Source: Authors

a. Political events and issues currently happening in Jamaica b. Political events and issues currently happening in other countries c. Political leaders in Jamaica d. Political leaders in other countries e. How the Jamaican government functions f. How the government in other countries functions g. Political processes (64.5%)

85 (9.6%)

(14.1%) 108 (12.3%)

570

124

(63%) 508 (57.9%)

37(4.3%)

551 (63.4%)

556

50 (5.6%)

(3.1%)

629 (71.1%)

28

35 (4%)

(72.7%)

The school system

553 (62.7%)

647

Traditional media

Table 18.1  Sources of political information

62 (7.0%)

45 (5.1%) 42 (4.8%)

47(5.4%)

51 (5.8%)

45(5.1%)

53 (6.0%)

At home

69 (7.8%)

(6.6%) 52 (5.9%)

58

52(6.0%)

65 (7.3%)

58 (6.6%)

61 (6.9%)

In groups (11.3%)

98 (11.1%)

99 (11.2%) 168 (19.1%)

182(20.9%)

90 (10.2%)

191(21.7%)

101

New digital media

884

878

882

869

885

882

890

Total

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15.21 15.11 15.05 14.99

15.03 14.9

Political Events Political Events Political leaders Political leaders (Local) (International) (Local) (International)

How Government Functions (International)

Political Processes

Fig. 18.1  Trust in information on selected political issues. (Source: Authors)

New Digital Media Small Groups The Home The School System

16.45 16.08 17.45 18.92

Traditional Media Sources

21.53

Fig. 18.2  Trust in sources of political information. (Source: Authors)

Analysis of the computed scales shows moderate levels of trust were recorded across all information sources. Highest levels of trust were recorded for information related to political processes (M  =  15.21, SD = 4.8). There was no significant difference in the means across the age groups for the information scores (see Fig. 18.2).

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The second set of scales combined all the trust scores for the various informational issues. The variables which asked participants to score the trust (measured on a range between 0 and 5) they had in the various sources of information across the six political issue. Therefore, each scale had a value between 0 and 30. Reliability testing was conducted on all the items used to create the scale and the following was the results: trust in traditional media sources (α = 0.97), trust in the school system (α = 0.97), trust in the home (α = 0.96), trust in small group (α = 0.94) and trust in traditional media (α  =  0.98). This indicates very high levels of internal consistency within each of the constructed scales. The results corroborate the earlier findings that Jamaicans were generally trusting of traditional media sources (M = 21.53, SD = 7.71). This also suggests that Jamaicans were predominately utilising the media source that they had greatest trust in for political information. The school system (M = 18.92) and the home (M = 17.45) recorded relatively high levels of trust. Moderate levels of trust were recorded in the new social media (M = 16.45, SD = 9.88). The least level of trust was for information generated within the small group (see Fig. 18.2 for all observations). All the scores for trust in the home, school system and small group form one variable. Factor analysis was done, and the variable loaded on one component with an eigenvalue of 1.73. They were accounting for 57.61% of the variance in the item. The scale had a maximum value of 90 and minimum of 0, the average score was 53.37. This indicates that there is fair level of trust in these sources. There was a difference in the scores among the age groups for trust in traditional media scores [F(2,737) = 7.437, p = 0.001]. The post hoc tests show that there was no difference in the mean of those in the 18–24 age range and those between 25 and 35. Older adults, however, were on average more trusting of traditional sources (M = 23.47, SD = 6.32). There was no significant difference in the mean for other sources. However, there were observed differences among the age groups for the new media [F(2,699) = 3.651, p = 0.026]. The Tukey HSD test showed that participants 36 years and older had significantly lower levels of trust when compared with the other age groups, with a mean difference of 2.6, p = 0.02.

Discussion Pursuant to the theory of the mediatisation of politics, Jamaicans were more reliant on traditional media sources (television, radio and print) than on the school system, small groups and the home for political information.

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Traditional media sources were also the most trusted, and its greatest use was to inform citizens about the ‘substance of politics’. Although the schools were not a heavily used source, participants identified this institution as a trusted information source particularly for issues around ‘the rules of the game’, that is, the structure of government and how it functions internationally and locally. This is a counter-narrative to global trends which show new digital media as growing exponentially to become a primary source of disseminating information about politics and in accessing information about politics (Bucy and Gregson 2001). The finding is not due to a lack of access as more than a half the population now have access to the Internet and over a fourth of the citizens are active social media users (Hootsuite and We are Social 2017). Consistent with global trends, however, is the fact that the new digital media is the preferred information source among the youth and persons who are more educated. The reliance and trust in traditional media by all age groups could signal two things: firstly, the media in Jamaica has a high level of press freedom which facilitates the ventilation of various issues, even those that may be considered as anti-establishment; secondly, the reporting is issues-­ focused and not characterised by the identity driven politics that fuelled the high social media dependency in the United States, Northern African and the Arab Spring. This is a matter for further research. The results do reveal an imminent shift as the youth population (18–25 years old) is disproportionally utilising new media sources. This is in keeping with the international literature. However, Jamaicans primarily used digital media to gain political information on happenings outside of their country. Relatively low levels of trust were recorded in this source. The concern here is the high propensity for falsity that now characterises this media source. International news influences public opinions on issues occurring within and outside of the specific society. Since the research shows that this media source is characterised by much advertisement and agenda setting, it therefore suggests that Jamaicans need to educate themselves about foreign policy to effectively reconcile national issues with those that emerge at the international level. Although we are arguing that in this era of post-truth there must be personal empowerment and rationality in knowledge acquisition, we also underscore the importance of responsible journalism. The information produced through new media often does not adhere to the ethical and professional standards that characterise traditional media sources. It is,

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therefore, imperative that professional institutions, civil society groups and academics see it as essential to bring a balanced perspective in the communication of political information and analysis to their publics. Political actors also need to maintain a social media presence so that issues can be responded to in real-time. This is especially true during general elections, where propagandists are active, and when there are issues of national importance that have polarised view points along political lines. It is not surprising that persons with University education were also using new media source at an above average level. This strengthens the argument about the cognitive capacities that are required to deconstruct the large amount of information provided through social media on political issues. Citizens with primary level education were dependent on the home and on small group outputs for political information, yet the small group was the least trusted source. This shows the value of communitarianism which characterises small states, public education at the community level is, therefore, still relevant even as social media sources are being heavily utilised.

Conclusion Political knowledge facilitates the quest by citizens for good governance. This includes people developing the requisite tools to get involved in political discussions and building the capacity of citizens to evaluate government policies. The rational choice theory suggests that, for this to be effective, citizens need to be exposed to political information that is relevant, causing persons to process and respond appropriately to political cues. This study shows that the authenticity and balanced nature of information becomes a main concern as information diversity and the mediatisation processes expand. This is especially important because lower levels of trust are recorded in the school system and the home when compared to traditional media sources, which are more readily available to the less educated. While this particular research study is exploratory, its outcomes are clear. The new media is slowly becoming an important and influential source of political information and an increasingly trusted source of political information. It found that while this is true in the case of information originating within Jamaica, it is particularly accurate for information originating outside of the country. In communicating politics, we submit that balance needs to be guarded. The emotive and subjective appeals that

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often accompany the dissemination of political information, especially online, must be founded on evidence-based sources which, in Jamaica, are often professional organisations, civil society and academic groups. It is always an advantage where there is diversity in the sources of political information to ensure greater triangulation of the postulations and conclusions relevant to specific issues. The importance of balance remains central as the media provides the population with the necessary facts to decode political information. Jamaica, like many other post-colonial societies of the Global South, has a relatively young democratic history. Survival and progress require responsible information sharing that will facilitate the empowerment of the citizen and the growth and development of the society as a whole.

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Howard, P. N., & Parks, M. R. (2012). Social media and political change: Capacity, constraint and consequences. The Journal of Communication, 62(2), 359–362. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01626x Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mazzoleni, G., & Schulz, W. (1999). “Medialization” of politics: A challenge for democracy? Political Communication, 16(3), 247–261. https://doi. org/10.1080/105846099198613 Moon, D. (1990). What you use depends on what you have: Information differences in electoral choice. American Politics Quarterly, 18, 3–24. Mutz, D. C., & Martin, P. S. (2001). Facilitating communication across lines of political differences: The role of mass media. American Political Science Review, 95(1), 95–114. Ott, D. (1998). Power to the people. The role of electronic media in promoting democracy in Africa. FirstMonday, 3, 4–6. https://doi.org/10.5210/ fm.v3i4.588 Oxford Dictionaries (2016). Word of the year, 2016. Retrieved from https://en. oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016 Oxley, Z. M. (2012). More sources, better informed public? New media and political knowledge. In R. L. Fox & J. M. Ramos (Eds.), iPolitics: Citizens, elections, and governing in the new media era (pp.  25–47). New  York: Cambridge University Press. Pierskalla, J. H., & Hollenbach, F. M. (2013). Technology and collective action: The effect of cell phone coverage on political violence in Africa. American Political Science Review, 107(2), 207–224. Pennycook, G., Cannon, T., & Rand, D. (2018, September 24). Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance Online Publication. Retrieved from https://doi. org/10.1037/xge0000465 Pew Research Center. (2016). Many Americans believe fake news is sowing confusion. Retrieved from https://www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/ many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/ Poyser, A. (2016, February 15). Social media being poorly used in political campaign. Jamaica Gleaner. Retrieved from http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/ lead-stories/20160216/social-media-being-poorly-used-political-campaign Prior, M. (2007). Post-Broadcast democracy: How media choice increases inequality in political involvement and polarizes elections. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Stromback, J. (2008). Four phases of mediatization: An analysis of the mediatization of politics. International Journal of Press/Politics, 6(3), 228–246.

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CHAPTER 19

Dancehall Music’s Resistance: Upstaging Diageo’s Prescriptive Marketing Rules in Jamaica Melville Cooke

Introduction Red Stripe beer, first brewed in Jamaica in 1928, was sold by Jamaican owners Desnoes and Geddes (D&G) to the UK firm Guinness UDV in 1993. Guinness became part of the UK-based Diageo group in 1996, its Jamaican operations soon named after the flagship beer (www.redstripejamaica.com). In Jamaica, the company became eponymous with its trademark Red Stripe beer when it was renamed Red Stripe by Diageo in 2001, although still trading on the stock exchange as Desnoes and Geddes Ltd. (Jackson 2012). Unless otherwise specified, references to Red Stripe in this chapter are also to the company. Jackson (2012) emphasises Red Stripe’s importance to Jamaica, as ‘the brand and the company that stood behind it had seeped deep into the country’s collective consciousness. Jamaicans had taken it for granted that this iconic institution would always remain in local hands and firmly under

M. Cooke (*) University of Technology, Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica © The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9_19

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local control’. This chapter analyses the conflict over local and imported control, as marketing regulations were imposed on Red Stripe by a multinational corporation (MNC) based in England, Jamaica’s coloniser up to Independence on August 6, 1962. Questions asked include: ‘What is the balance of power between dancehall and Red Stripe over the period 2008–2010’, ‘Has Red Stripe compromised its stated values in utilising dancehall in the campaigns over the period’, and ‘Have dancehall performers compromised their stated values during their involvement in Red Stripe’s marketing campaigns over the period?’ Being Jamaican is emphasised in the D&G company profile: Red Stripe appeals to the trendsetters who say “apart from the quality, we love this beer because it is from a country where the people have rhythm, soul and live life to the fullest.” People value the Irie Vibe that is Jamaica. Our strategy will focus primarily on allowing the quality and image of this great Jamaican product to do most of the talking. (www.referenceforbusiness.com, 2012, para. 1)

Jamaican popular music’s organic intellectuals (Gramsci 1971) have voluntarily exercised agency through their communication in the dancehall lifeworld popularising D&G’s brands. This includes Red Stripe bottles on a table in front of Coxson’s Sound System’s speakers on the cover of the 1961 Studio One album ‘All Star Top Hits’ (All star top hits n.d.) to deejay Bugle’s 2014 direct quote of the Guinness slogan as he deejays ‘just like Guinness we made of more’ (Krish Genius 2014). The company extols its purchase with Jamaican popular music: For many, Red Stripe has been associated with music in Jamaica for as long as one can remember. Older folk will remember Ernie Smith’s memorable Life is Just for Living Red Stripe ads that ran on local television back in the 1970s. People sang the jingle like it was a chart-topping single. (Red Stripe underscores commitment to music 2011, para. 1)

Analysing this manifestation of late capitalism (Jameson 1991), Carah (2010, p. xiii) says ‘experiential branding is a new strategy for capital accumulation, but it is also situated historically within capital’s accumulation of physical, mediated and social space’. In its experiential marketing in

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Jamaica, where England had previously accumulated those spaces, Red Stripe attempted to colonise the dancehall lifeworld with regulations on content designed to protect its brands’ reputation, while extracting brand-­ building value. Ritzer (2006, p. 122) summarises Habermas’ adaptation of agency-structure theory: This colonisation of the lifeworld takes many forms, but none is more important than the fact that the system imposes itself on communication in the lifeworld and serves to limit the ability of actors to argue things through and achieve consensus within it.

Late capital’s expansion into Jamaican popular music in experiential marketing campaigns occurs through articulation, which Hall defines as ‘the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions’ (Grossberg 1986, p. 53). Hope (2010) points out the relationship between D&G brands and the dancehall space as symbolic of a person’s financial status announced by the number of liquor crates surrounding them. The BBC documentary ‘Reggae: The Story of Jamaican Music’ (2002) says: The only way to listen to reggae is at a sound system. Ideally, this would be at an open-air lawn in downtown Kingston, where it is 80 degrees at 2 a.m. and the bassline vibrates your bottle of Red Stripe.

Red Stripe tested its longstanding commensalistic interdependence (Parsons 1951) with Jamaican popular music by its 2008 unilateral live music sponsorship withdrawal in Jamaica. While anti-homosexuality was not specified, Red Stripe’s managing director, Mark McKenzie, said a leading entertainment chain had banned the brand two years previously, after it sponsored an event with lyrical content glorifying violence (Gordon 2008). Noting that under Diageo’s ownership the ‘…company has pushed hard to market its lager internationally, as a premium brand’, The Gleaner newspaper reported that ‘this attempt at top-tier positioning of the product overseas, managers apparently felt, [was] in danger of being undermined by some of what happens at live shows where some Jamaican dancehall openly promote violence, often against gays’ (Gordon 2008, p. 2).

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Red Stripe’s Withdrawal Statement and the Diageo Marketing Code (DMC) On April 4, 2008, Red Stripe said: Some performers continue to propagate, through their live performances, violent and anti-social lyrics. Red Stripe will not be party to this, and thus we have taken the very difficult decision of withdrawing sponsorship from live music events. Consequently, Red Stripe will not renew our contract for title sponsorship of Reggae Sumfest and Sting. We will, however, ensure that our brands are made available whenever and wherever our loyal consumers enjoy premium alcohol beverages. (Hepburn 2008, para. 2)

Head of Corporate Relations, Maxine Whittingham-Osbourne, said Red Stripe would withhold sponsorship in ‘the millions’ and emphasised Red Stripe’s good citizenship: The key thing is the fact that Jamaica has been so labelled as the murder capital of the world and we need to take stock of all the things that we are doing to contribute to it… The glorification of violence in the music is not helping our situation. (Hepburn 2008, p. 4)

Whittingham-Osbourne stated Red Stripe’s intention to influence Jamaican popular music’s lyrical content, at which point the company would review its stance (Hepburn 2008). Red Stripe’s action was public use of hard power (Nye 2006), which it had utilised by offering dancehall the reward of sponsorship. Aligning the withdrawal with Jamaica’s murder rate was utilising soft power (Nye 2004, p. 11) seeking support by appealing to the general value of public security. This attraction of shared values is one part of soft power’s currency, the other being ‘the justness and duty of contributing to the achievement of those values’ (Nye 2004, p. 7). This currency is deployed through soft power’s sources of inherent qualities (such as charisma) and communications (Nye 2006, p. 3). However, the withdrawal’s marketing basis was identified when International Marketing head, Grace Silvera, explained ‘Red Stripe’s action in withdrawing from live music sponsorship is specific to Jamaica, where we have been unable to completely ensure we can uphold our Marketing Code’ (Henry 2008). The mandatory Diageo Marketing Code (DMC; www.drinkiq.com) says in part that marketing on all platforms should not ‘cause offence or suggest association with violent, anti-social or illegal activities’.

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Cherrier et al. (2011, p. 1757) define ‘intentional non-consumption’ as ‘a decision not to consume something’. Adapting this, I define intentional non-sponsorship as a decision by a practitioner or corporate sponsor to eschew a relationship with the other party in its entirety. Cherrier et al. (2011, p. 1757) define ‘ineligible non-consumption’ as that which results ‘when a person cannot act as a consumer for a particular product (e.g. an underage person not eligible for certain types of product/services)’. From this I derive ineligible sponsorship, when a practitioner or corporate sponsor cannot enter into a sponsorship arrangement. Dancehall practitioners are persons involved in dancehall as performers, producers and organisers; that is, anyone who engages in the production and dissemination of dancehall with the intention of realising financial profit. With the sponsorship withdrawal Red Stripe took ineligible and partially intentional non-sponsorship positions—ineligible because the DMC mandated against the relationship and partially intentional as it eschewed a relationship with a specific aspect of Jamaican popular music, the live performance. Da Silva Lopes (2007) distinguishes sticky business knowledge, accumulated by a firm and specific to its operations, from smooth business knowledge, applicable to different firms within the same industry and other industries. Red Stripe’s close long-term association with Jamaican popular music is sticky business knowledge. The DMC is smooth business knowledge, standardising the company’s marketing operations globally. Red Stripe’s 2007 sales showed the importance of growing its export market. While total sales for the first half was three per cent higher than 2006, the level of exports was flat while sales in Jamaica rose four per cent (Gordon 2008). Managing director of Red Stripe, Mark McKenzie, noted the importance of the Jamaican market to the flagship beer brand, saying ‘Jamaica is the biggest market; it’s where the beer expertise lies and so we will use that expertise to drive volume growth’ (Red Stripe 2009). This supports Diageo’s classification of Red Stripe as a local priority brand. Da Silva Lopes (2007) says Diageo classifies its brands into categories. Global priority brands, ‘…considered to have the greatest current and future earnings potential’ (da Silva Lopes 2007, p. 75) have a consistent worldwide marketing strategy. Guinness is a global priority brand. Local priority brands generate a great deal of economic profit in one or two countries. In 2007, Diageo classified Red Stripe lager beer as a local priority brand in its international category.

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It was noted that Red Stripe was pushing for deeper reach in Europe, including having a new distributor to service Sweden. There had been major protests against dancehall performers’ anti-gay lyrics in parts of Europe (Kohlings and Lilly 2013), where concert cancellations cost dancehall performers Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton four million Euros (Cooke 2010). This increased the possibility that Red Stripe would take action against live performance in Jamaica to protect its brand during export expansion. Additionally, the differing legal frameworks between Jamaica and the United Kingdom cannot be ignored. Homosexuality is not illegal in Jamaica, but Section 76 of the pre-independence  Offences Against the Person Act 1864 (Ja.), concerning ‘Unnatural Offenses’, says ‘whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable to be imprisoned and kept in hard labour for a term not exceeding 10 years’. Section 77 provides for imprisonment of up to seven years, with or without hard labour, for an attempt at buggery. Under Section 4 of the Marriage Act 1897 (Ja.), a marriage is void if entered into by persons of the same sex. These laws were imposed by Britain and retained after Jamaica’s political Independence. This legal framework is maintained in the context of strong disapproval of homosexuality among the majority of Jamaicans. In a March 2012 University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) preliminary study, 80 per cent of respondents said homosexuality ‘is a bad thing’. In a 2011 University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona study, 82.2 per cent of respondents said male homosexuality is morally wrong (Golding 2012). Homosexual buggery was decriminalised in most English and Welsh jurisdictions in 1967 and British law removed the concept of buggery in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Little-White 2011). For Red Stripe, Diageo’s global marketing parameters, which are in line with UK law, conflict with pursuing Jamaican profitability. Carah (2010, p.  15) says ‘where global corporations have been criticised for being monolithic institutions that disseminate brand monologues, they respond by localising their brand-building practices and embedding themselves in the spaces and practices of local people’. However, in the Jamaican situation, localising the brand-building practice through utilising dancehall, without breaching the DMC, proved problematic.

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Dancehall Reacts in a ‘Particular Direction’ Anticipating dissent, Whittingham-Osbourne said, ‘we do believe that there may be some persons who are not in agreement with our position… I know people tend to skew it in a particular direction’ (Hepburn 2008, p. 8). The dissent was immediate, and the particular direction was homosexuality. Nye (2006) says hard power is less effective when there is extensive knowledge. Red Stripe’s continued support of live music performance elsewhere was reported in Jamaica, fuelling dancehall’s resistance to the Jamaican sponsorship withdrawal. In the UK, Red Stripe supported the Camden Crawl and The Great Escape festivals. Citing www.just-­drinks. com, Henry (2008) described the format of the Red Stripe-supported Rockfeedback Presents as following performers, mostly rock artistes, globally. Shooting locations included Las Vegas and Austin (USA) and London, England. Influential poet and broadcaster Mutabaruka linked the sponsorship withdrawal to anti-homosexual lyrics and Red Stripe’s push for South African market growth, accusing the brand of hypocrisy (Cooke 2008). Insisting on ownership of the music product, deejay Beenie Man said ‘wi need fi know what wi doing, because dancehall is our music’ (Evans 2008, A statement issued by Red Stripe). Beenie Man proposed putting on a free event ‘…fi fight back ‘gainst all these people who a fight ‘gainst dancehall’ (Evans 2008), where drinks made and marketed by Red Stripe would not be sold. The proposal was to take an incidental non-consumption stance against Red Stripe, substituting other alcoholic beverages for those produced or marketed by the company, ‘…for di entire Jamaica’ (Evans 2008). By positioning his proposal as being on Jamaica’s behalf, Beenie Man intuitively interpreted Red Stripe’s stance as being anti-Jamaican. He also contrasted the brand’s Jamaican live music sponsorship withdrawal with continued sponsorship of European rock shows, using it as a rallying point for resistance. Beenie Man exercised this incidental non-consumption against Red Stripe at his 2008 Summer Sizzle concert, held at the Jamalco Sports Club, Clarendon, on August 6, Jamaica’s Independence Day (Brooks and Nelson 2008). As the event’s organiser, along with Free People Entertainment, he was one rung higher on Stolzoff’s (2000) dancehall hierarchy than solely as a performer. Stolzoff’s (2000, p. 117) ‘heuristic model of dancehall’s political economy ranks in ascending order “Vendors, Higglers and Hustlers”,

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“Dancehall Artists” (this includes performers), “Record Producers and Promoters”, “Sound System and Recording Studio Owners”, “Artist Management and Record Companies”, “Record Distributors, Sellers and Distribution” and “Venture Capitalists and Large Companies”’. The last are defined as ‘…financiers and large corporations that use dancehall culture as a way to advertise their products’ (Stolzoff 2000, p. 121). He also notes that ‘Jamaican businesses at all levels use dancehall culture to sell their products’ (Stolzoff 2000, p.  121), identifying D&G as the most obvious example. Beenie Man also financed the event in large part (Brooks and Nelson 2008), putting him at the top of Stolzoff’s hierarchy. Persons renting booths inside the venue were prohibited from selling Red Stripe products, although it was conceded that some may have smuggled them in. Beenie Man utilised hard power and, combined with the soft power of his attractiveness to dancehall adherents, utilised smart power (Nye 2006). Hope was expressed that the ban would be picked up by other promoters (Jahkno! 2008). This proposed ban, not widely formally instituted by dancehall practitioners, was a rare suggestion that dancehall use smart power (Nye 2006)—the hard power of economic strength and soft power of attractiveness to dancehall adherents—against a corporate sponsor. It was consistent in dancehall performers’ public reaction to Red Stripe. Deejays Spice and Mavado were among those calling for dancehall to ban the company’s products (McLeod and Cooke 2008) and Elephant Man and Voicemail supported the suggestion of an event without Red Stripe’s products (Evans 2008). While there wasn’t a formal widespread boycott of Red Stripe, there is evidence of a low-level boycott and aggression towards the company. Using images of a red x across a Red Stripe bottle and a cartoon figure urinating on another Red Stripe bottle, website realpatriot (2008) railed against the company. One such post is reproduced in part here: Red Stripe tun dead stripe, cause dem start fallow battyman [local hostile street term for ‘homosexual’]order. A sell alcohol and a try fake morality. All scientist done prove seh alcohol kill ppl by di hundred thousands. Di only reason man use to support redstripe a cause it have our name pon it., but now dem naah stay true soh we nah support dem. Soem foreigner juss a talk bout redstripe n mi tell dem noh drink it. Since a pure censoring a gwaan wi’ll ban all D&G products from wi scheme. Anybody wid redstripe inna hand aggo get a phat stone. A straight lemonade and ffruit juice and some big head spliff pon our endz…no rum head no beer gut round yah.

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Questioning Red Stripe’s moral stance is consistent with Holt’s arguments (2002) saying brands which are overly pious and sincere find their commercial intentions being exposed. Still, Whittingham-Osbourne insisted ‘we have taken a particular stance and we issued a statement and we stand by that statement’ (Evans 2008).

Red Stripe Live Red Stripe re-established articulation with live music performance in Jamaica with Red Stripe Live, ostensibly to fund its Learning for Life artiste development project, at Sabina Park, Kingston, on Saturday, March 28, 2009. Red Stripe operated according to Ham and Hill’s (1984 cited in Dunn 1991) development of corporatism, which I have adapted to read ‘…the corporate sponsor has moved from a position of supporting the process of capital accumulation to directing the process’. Presenting Red Stripe Live as a fund-raiser was utilising soft power, as ‘when a country’s culture includes universal values and its policies promote values and interests that others share, it increases the probability of obtaining its desired outcomes because of the relationships of attraction and duty that it creates’ (Nye 2004, p. 11). Throughout this conflict Red Stripe acted like the state, so it is reasonable to substitute ‘a corporate sponsor’s culture’ for ‘a country’s culture’. Music’s importance to Jamaicans in general (Chang and Chen 1998; Thomas 2004, cited in Horst and Miller 2006, p. 64) makes it a universal value, one which would be particularly important to an audience of dancehall adherents at Red Stripe Live. The event not only showed that Red Stripe valued music, but also that its stated objective of supporting emerging artistes would have resonated with the public. Despite its soft power appeal, Red Stripe publicly used hard power at Red Stripe Live. To some audience members’ vociferously expressed displeasure, the microphone was turned off and deejay Assassin escorted off stage shortly after he did the song Pree Dis (dancehallism 2009), which queries: ‘pree dis, how so much fish deh ya an a no sea dis?’ (Brooks 2009). ‘Fish’ is Jamaican slang for homosexual. Assassin said ‘no lie me a tell, is reality. A lie me tell?’ A section of the audience responded ‘no!’ and Assassin commented ‘a de truth me a talk’ (Xynkfence Sound 2009). Shortly after, he did Dem Guy Deh (TR1X786 2009), which uses the names of popular music events to express opposition to homosexuality. On March 30, 2009, Assassin’s agent issued a statement, carried in the traditional print media, which explained:

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When he was booked for the event the songs he would be performing were submitted in their entirety (without edits) weeks in advance, as requested by the organisers of the event. He also rehearsed the songs on two separate occasions in the presence of representatives from Red Stripe. (Assassin says he was not at fault 2009, p. 13)

Assassin said: During my performance I did not deviate in any way from the rehearsed set. I was therefore shocked when approximately eight minutes into the 10 minutes I was allotted, I was forced to discontinue. I was subsequently accused of breaching company policy by using what the promoter labelled offensive and discriminatory lyrical content. The promoter then demanded that I apologise to the audience, a demand to which I did not comply. (Assassin says he was not at fault 2009)

Red Stripe demanded that the dancehall performer publicly contradict his stated values to an audience section which had just supported them. It could be argued that the brand intended to publicly dominate and co-opt the organic intellectual, while advancing its goal of shaping live performance content. Assassin revealed Red Stripe’s attempted coercion and seeming  efforts to pass off the company’s values as his. Having had his Red Stripe Live performance screened by Red Stripe’s representatives, Assassin displayed Aggression-Approval Proposition A (Homans 1974, cited in Ritzer 1996, p. 269) in reaction to the microphone being taken away, an unexpected punishment. He also obeyed the Rationality Proposition (Homans 1974, cited in Ritzer 1996, p.  269), stating how valuable his career is, how hard he had worked at it and his perceived responsibility to dancehall’s audience (Assassin says he was not at fault 2009). It seemed that Assassin’s soft power was more powerful than Red Stripe’s hard power. Red Stripe conceded and Assassin stated publicly: My management has since been contacted by Red Stripe’s Maxine Whittingham-Osbourne who admitted it was miscommunication among Red Stripe representatives rather than any wrong doing on my part that resulted in this whole incident. She also stated that after reviewing the lyrics of the song, agreed I did not break any of Red Stripe’s company codes. She apologised for failing to communicate to me prior to my performance that any lyrics were deemed questionable. (Assassin says he was not at fault 2009)

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Red Stripe publicly apologised to Assassin and thanked him for performing at its first live event to support its project (Brooks 2009). In the USA, Red Stripe faced pressure from activist  groups. In April 2009 a ‘Boycott Jamaica’ campaign was launched at Harvey Milk Plaza in San Francisco ‘…discouraging patronage of the island’s exports—particularly Red Stripe—to put pressure on government and private-sector interests to rein in a perceived rise in attacks on sex minorities’ (Mitchell 2009, p. 1). This testifies  to the difference in attitudes towards homosexuality in Jamaica and in sections of  the Global North, resulting in Red Stripe’s position.

Red Stripe Resumes Live Music Sponsorship Red Stripe’s Jamaican sales tumbled during its live music sponsorship withdrawal. An 84 per cent decline in fourth quarter profits to June 2010 continued a two-year decline in profit, the start coinciding with the company’s sponsorship withdrawal. Red Stripe said advertising and marketing spend kept its brands highly visible, but sales volumes remained low, conceding that ‘traditional marketing tools have so far failed to break the back of the business fall-off’ (Profits plunge at Red Stripe 2010). I do not state a direct cause and effect relationship between Red Stripe’s live music sponsorship withdrawal and the company’s sales decline. However, I suggest the decline was a significant result of the circumstances that Red Stripe’s incidental non-sponsorship created. The company fully resumed its disrupted articulation with Jamaican popular music in June 2010. Red Stripe staged its own Arthur Guinness Celebration at the National Stadium and sponsored the dancehall show called  Fully Loaded. Reggae Sumfest’s Dancehall Night was especially heavily branded, including hyper-simulation of dancehall just outside the entrance to the venue, with an installation of attractively clad young Guinness promotional women on motorcycles, playing of dancehall music and display of a collage of popular dancehall performers. Patrons had to pass by these displays to access the festival’s audience area, all designed to reinforce the brand’s connection with dancehall. Inside the venue, Red Stripe’s booth graphically represented the beer’s dancehall connection through images of prominent performers in different dancehall eras. In announcing that it would be a top-tier platinum sponsor of Reggae Sumfest 2010, the company said:

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Red Stripe’s return comes at a time when there is a paradigm shift in the content of local music. When the company pulled its support from live performance events, it did so in protest at the increasingly sexually explicit and violent content of the lyrics. There was some outcry from supporters of the entertainment industry, but Red Stripe stuck to its guns even while helping to shape a new direction in local music. (Red Stripe backs live music again 2010, para. 4)

As reflected in this study, the events, as they unfolded, appear to run counter to Red Stripe’s claim. The identity Red Stripe assumed through its intentional non-sponsorship of live performance events in Jamaica was modified extensively by the 2010 sponsorship resumption, where it appears to have accepted content from dancehall performers that was previously deemed problematic. Dancehall’s successful resistance to Red Stripe’s attempted ‘colonisation’attempt confirms Habermas’ (1987, as cited in Ritzer 1996, p. 417) statement that ‘…no matter how extensive the colonisation by the system, the lifeworld is never completely husked away’. It is also consistent with Foucault’s (1973, cited in Ritzer 1996, p. 464) concept of governmentality, where power is in ‘key sites’ but there is always resistance (cited in Ritzer 1996). Red Stripe did not remain under local ownership but, with regard to its inability to effectively enforce a specific stipulation of the DMC, it remained firmly under local control.

Conclusion By withdrawing its support from all live music performances in Jamaica, Red Stripe instigated public conflict with an art form critical to Jamaicans’ expressive identity (Thomas 2004) and an essential component of locally authenticating the brand (Carah 2010). The  response of some leading dancehall artists  to the withdrawal, showed awareness of dancehall’s agency in Red Stripe’s profitability. After a failed directive strategy, Red Stripe returned to sponsorship of dancehall, despite the company’s resistance to anti-homosexuality. Upon its resumption of sponsorship, Red Stripe’s claim that there was a ‘paradigm shift’ in the dancehall practise which had caused it to withdraw sponsorship from live events in Jamaica was largely untrue. The company compromised on its 2008 statement, as well as on Diageo’s Marketing Code (DMC). It could be argued that the agency of dancehall changed

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the ontology of the company in Jamaica, which could not sustain Diageo’s standardised global marketing code. Red Stripe’s sticky marketing knowledge of articulation with Jamaican popular music, which preceded the DMC, was important to the company’s success, while the DMC conflicted with that articulation. Red Stripe’s directive  was modified as a result of its re-articulation with dancehall (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). While this study does not establish a direct cause and effect relationship between Red Stripe’s sponsorship of live performance music events in Jamaica and the company’s profitability, the coincidence of declining profitability during the live performance intentional non-sponsorship period and Red Stripe’s revived fortunes upon resumption is striking. The start of Red Stripe’s sales decline in 2008 followed its withdrawal from live music sponsorship in April (Gordon 2009). At the least, this underscores the importance to Red Stripe of experiential marketing involving Jamaican popular music. It substantiates Carah’s (2010) emphasis on the importance of live performance to authenticate a brand.

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19  DANCEHALL MUSIC’S RESISTANCE: UPSTAGING DIAGEO’S… 

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Kohlings, E., & Lilly, P. (2013). From one love to one hate? Europe’s perception of Jamaican homophobia expressed in song lyrics. In: D.  Hope (Ed.), International reggae: Current and future trends in Jamaican popular music (pp. 2–29). Kingston, Jamaica: Pelican Publishers. Krish Genius. (2014, August). Bugle—made of more [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO1ZlrODhL Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and socialist strategy. United Kingdom: Verso. Little-White, H. (2011, November 27). What is buggery? The Gleaner. Retrieved from http://jamaica-­gleaner.com/gleaner/20111127/out/out9.html Marriage Act 1897 (Ja.). Retrieved from http://moj.gov.jm/sites/default/files/ laws/Marriage%20Act_1.pdf McLeod, D., & Cooke, M. (2008, April 28). Artistes want beer ban. The STAR. Retrieved from http://forum.dancehallreggae.com/showthread. php/145391-­Artistes-­want-­beer-­ban Mitchell, S. (2009, April 1). Gays in US ‘boycott Jamaica’. The Gleaner. Retrieved from http://old.jamaica-­gleaner.com/gleaner/20090401/news/news2.html Nye, J. (2004). Soft power, the means to success in world politics. New  York, NY: Public Affairs. Nye, J. (2006, October 27). Soft power, hard power and leadership (Talk). Harvard Seminar, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University. Retrieved from https://www. hks.harvard.edu/netgov/files/talks/docs/11_06_06_seminar_Nye_HP_SP_ Leadership.pdf Offences Against the Person Act 1864 (Ja.). Retrieved from http://moj.gov.jm/ sites/default/files/laws/Offences%20Against%20the%20Person%20Act_0.pdf Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Glencoe, Il: Free Press. Profits plunge at Red Stripe. (2010, September 3). The Gleaner. Retrieved from http://jamaica-­gleaner.com/gleaner/20100903/business/business4.html realpatriot. (2008, May 7). Why people a boycott Red Stripe, D&G etc. [Forum post]. Retrieved from http://forum.dancehallreggae.com/showthread. php/146008-­Why-­people-­a-­boycot-­Red-­Stripe-­D-­amp-­G-­etc Red Stripe. (2009). Red Stripe to oversee Diageo’s regional market. Retrieved from  http://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090422/business/business3.html Red Stripe backs live music again. (2010, June 27). The Gleaner. Retrieved from https://jamaica-­gleaner.com/gleaner/20100627/ent/ent2.html Red Stripe underscores commitment to music. (2011, January 16). The Jamaica Observer. Retrieved from www.jamaicaobserver.com Reggae, the story of Jamaican music. (2002). Retrieved from http://niceup. com/history/bbc/systems.html Ritzer, G. (1996). Modern sociological theory. (4th ed.). USA: McGraw-Hill.

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Ritzer, G. (2006). Contemporary sociological theory and its classical roots: The basics. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Stolzoff, N.  C. (2000). Wake the town and tell the people: Dancehall culture in Jamaica. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. TR1X786. (2009). Assassin—dem guy deh. [Online video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bGYEdRR7k8 Xynkfence Sound. (2009). Assassin at Red Stripe live 2009. [Online video]. Retrieved from at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxKBrzQrbM8

Index1

A Aa’dar (oral poetry), 274, 275, 278–279, 281–283, 288 folk media form, 275 for HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, 274 integral part of local culture, 279 interactive communication, 283 oral poetry tradition, 279, 287 participate in development programmes, 286 potential for food security communication, 281–283, 288; limitations, 287–288 promotes dialogue, 283 relate past to contemporary events, 282–283 Academic dependency, 54, 67 divide, 20 imperialism, 54

Access to electricity, 98 See also Electricity Advertising, 52, 193, 226 jingles, 105 Affordable internet access, 44 lowering access costs, 44 Africa and digital technologies, 20 and the Global South, 20, 21 recipient of expertise and knowledge, 21 Africa and Caribbean, 2–6 anti-colonial re-construction, 5 challenge of change, 6–7 challenging states and corporations, 13–14 colonialism, 3, 4 and cultural invasion, 5 culturally connected, 2 digital strategies and transitions, 9–11

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2021 H. S. Dunn et al. (eds.), Re-imagining Communication in Africa and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54169-9

363

364 

INDEX

Africa and Caribbean (cont.) educational development, 5 emerging scholarship, 1 global growth of media and communication, 14 history of colonialism, 3 media transformation, 2 reforming media practices, 11–13 research and technology, 8–9 and slave trade, 4 African countries; domestic challenges, 78 culture and tradition; and development endeavours, 283 digital cultures, 20, 21, 23, 25 empowerment, 20 innovation, 10, 97, 110 liberation, 5 nationalist tradition, 311 opposition to colonial rule, 315; boycott campaign, 315; unrest, 315 African-owned newspapers, 311–312 Africans to be empowered through digital technologies, 20 Africa’s ICT policy formulation, 75–90 concerns about universal access, 75–77 and dominant technologies, 76 first wave of policies, 75; transnational interactions, 77; trans-organisation systems, 77; turned to listed organisations, 77 role of government in service provision, 76 second wave of policies, 76, 83–86; diminished role of governments, 76; integration of digital services provision in Africa, 83; priorities of individual customers, 76;

technology convergence and universal access, 76; universal access, 76, 81 Afro-Creole middle class elites, 62 Afro-Creole nationalism, 61, 63 and democracy, 62 AI, see Artificial intelligence Alternative fixed telephony (TFA), 125 Alternative media, 295–305 challenge the status quo, 304 as community communication, 300 and Malawian reggae, 298 as participatory media, 301 and popular culture in Malawi, 295 and protest movements, 304 theory, 296, 300–301 AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, 195, 198–200, 202–203, 206, 208, 210, 211 anti-homosexuality, 358 and funding, 210–213 and state capture in South Africa, 206, 207, 213 Appadurai, A., 19–22, 28, 29 big data’s ethical danger, 22 and digital media studies, 22–23 objections against digitally-mediated conversation, 28 Articulation, 349, 355 Artificial intelligence (AI), 39, 41, 42, 46 and ethical boundaries, 42 challenges, 45 Attitudes to homosexuality, 352 B Banda, Aleke, 297 Banda, Hastings Kamuzu (President), 296, 315, 324 Blantyre Print and Publishing Company, 296 and censorship, 296

 INDEX 

and NAC, 315 propaganda apparatus, 297 rule 1964–1994, 324 use of force to suppress dissent, 299 Banda, Lucius, 295, 299, 301, 303, 304 album Crimes, 301–304 song How Long, 303 BBC broadcast pro-empire programmes, 310 Behavioural parameters, 327 Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, 195, 198–200, 204–206, 211, 213–215 Big data, 19–22, 26, 28–30 effect on individual privacy, 21 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 196, 204, 205, 210, 213 Blogs, 331, 334 Botswana, 262–264 media diversity, 258–260 Botswana national television, 258–262, 264–267 deregulation of broadcasting television, 264–265 foreign content, 267–269 Botswana Television (Btv), 260–267 British colonial authorities, 311 policy, 311 propaganda, 310 rule, 309 Broadcasting in the colonies, 320 counter anti-colonial and communist propaganda, 321 Brown, Aggrey, 55, 59–60 redefined concept of class, 59 Btv, see Botswana Television Business journalism, 203, 218, 221 production, 218, 221–223 in Zimbabwe, 222–225

365

Business news making practices, 217–231 in Zimbabwe, 217–231 Business Weekly, 220 Bwalo la Nyasaland (The Nyasaland Forum), 317 C Cacti, 285 Calypso, 181–182, 185–186 Capability theory, 102 Caribbean, 55, 57–60, 179 academic independence, 65 broader concept of development, 67 Caribbean Association for Communication Research, 56–60; and CARIMAC, 56; objectives, 56 Caribbean communication thought, 57–61 communication scholarship, 57, 61, 62, 67 contexts and culture, 63–64 early reflections, 55 emerging researchers and writers, 56 International and regional associations, 56 language in Caribbean communication, 66 media and imperial control, 55; and the local, 55 media ownership, 64 and modernisation, 62 and northern exploitation, 60 paradigm in communication thought, 8, 51, 57–61; and Afro-Creole Nationalism, 61, 63 perspective on media and communication theory, 51, 54, 59

366 

INDEX

Caribbean (cont.) perspectives on de-colonisation and de-westernisation, 51, 54 ‘practical’ education, 64 and resistant thought, 68 scholars, 61 WACC-Caribe, 60; democratisation of communication, 60 and workers’ rights, 63–64 Caribbean News Agency, 60 Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC), 56–57, 60–61 CARIMAC, see Caribbean School of Media and Communication Central African Examiner, 319 against communist propaganda, 319 Central African Federation, 313–315, 319 buffer against spread of communism, 319 Central African Times (CAT), 312 Challenging states and corporations, 7, 13 Cinema, 138–140, 142, 145, 310, 311, 316 Citizenship, 28, 157–159, 177–179 in online communities, 177–181 Citizenship online, 177–179 use social media to engage with homeland issues, 177–179 Class, 26, 59 and power, 59 CNs, see Community networks Cold War, 313, 314 Colonial Africa, 311 broadcasting, 320, 321 media, 325 Colonial Development and Welfare Act (CDWA), 314 Colonial Film Unit (CFU), 310

Colonialism, 22, 36, 58, 98, 103, 105, 107, 161 Colonial Office development programs, 309 Commodification and currency, 128–131 definition, 117, 119 as hard currency factor, 130–132 of mobile communication services in Cuba, 10, 117–118, 121–125 of mobile services, 122–125 Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), 81 ICTs central to forging relationships, 81 Communicating politics in small states, 327–342 Communication, 8, 9 for development and food security programmes, 276–277; and knowledge sharing, 276; in Tigray, Ethiopia, 276 as a group process, 53 and media studies, 53–55 and media theory, 52 research, 8, 53, 56, 57 thought, 51–68 Communism, 309, 313, 314, 316, 325 in Africa, 318, 319 Community ICT networks, 10, 109 Community networks (CNs), 97–110 and decolonising, 97, 102–103 and identity, 109–110 Content dissemination, 1–2 control, 1 COVID 19 pandemic, 2 remote delivery of education, 2 Creating identities, 107–108 Crisis of adhering to ethics, 229–230

 INDEX 

of reporting Zimbabwe crisis, 223–225 Critical media, 300 industry studies, 138, 143 Cuba, 117–132 Castro, Raúl (President), 124, 130 currency and commodification, 128–131 economic transformation, 126 mobile communications, 117–132 mobile lines, 125, 126, 128 and remittances, 118, 128, 129 Revolution (1959), 118 and social inequality, 120 tourism and trade, 122–125 Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise S.A., see ETECSA Cuban Telephone Company, 120 Cultural conquest, 14 identities, 137 norms, 107, 108 Culture, 21, 23 and digital media, 20, 21 Culture-based development, 277 and folk media, 277 Cuthbert, Marlene, 60 Caribbean communication thought, 60 Caribbean News Agency, 60 and female media professionals, 61 regional ethos in journalism, 60 D Dancehall culture, 347–349 immediate reaction to Jamaican sponsorship withdrawal, 353–355 low level boycott of Red Stripe, 354

367

performers resistance to Diageo’s code, 350 and soft power, 354 Dancehall music’s resistance, 357 Diageo’s marketing in Jamaica, 348; communicate brand messaging, 351 Data collection, 119, 179–181, 279–280 colonisation, 21 gathering, 2, 119 journalism, 200 packet transmission charges, 85 Decentralisation, see Community networks (CNs) Decolonisation, 9, 107 and community networks, 102–103 and innovation, 107 of knowledge, 60 Democracy, 62, 328–329 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 98 Dependence, 65 internal mechanisms, 61–65 Developing countries, 33–35, 67, 76, 84 inter-generational poverty, 38–39 low productivity levels, 38 Development processes, 276 programmes, 64, 286 through consumerism, 65 De-westernisation, 51–53, 65, 66 subject to critical assessment, 55 Diageo, 14 attempt to eliminate dancehall’s lyrical content, 356 Global marketing code, 359 and Red Stripe beer in Jamaica, 351 Diaspora, 2, 11, 176 definition, 179–180 and social media use, 188

368 

INDEX

Digital advertising, 193 Digital citizenship, 177–178, 187 in performance, 183–187 Digital cultures, 20 Digital divide, 90, 163, 168 Digital dividends, 90 Digital journalism, see Online journalism Digital labour platforms, 46 Digital media, 19, 23–25, 29, 30, 331, 332 in African studies, 27–28 cultures in Africa, 19–20, 25, 28, 30 and expressions of identity, 27–28 and sociality, 28–29 studies, 20–25, 27–28 used for; blocking chat software, 24–25; government surveillance of opponents, 24–25 Digital migrants, 47 Digital natives, 47 Digital productivity, 34, 36, 38–40, 42, 44, 45, 48 cost of internet access, 44 tools in Africa, 44 Digital strategies and transitions, 7 Digital technology, 33, 89 Displacement effect, 238, 239, 242–250 on mass media print, television and radio, 247 Diversity in media in Botswana, 262–270; challenges, 265–267 definition, 255–260 and democracy, 257 DRC, see Democratic Republic of Congo Drucker, Peter, 38 DStv, 259, 266, 267 Dunn, Hopeton, 56–59, 65

dependence as feature of Caribbean economy and society, 57 economic vulnerability of Caribbean to external interests, 58 emerging Caribbean researcher and writer, 56 globalisation from within, 58 new paradigms of thought in academe, 58 re-theorising Caribbean experience, 59 theories of globalisation, 57 E eBotswana (TV channel), 259, 264, 267, 268 Economic development, 34–36, 38, 44, 58, 75, 83, 261 growth, 3, 33–37, 44, 67, 76, 82 opportunity, 76 Editorial control, 201, 205 credibility, 11, 193–215 independence, 196, 197, 201, 205–206, 209, 211, 214; ethics, 206 policies, 211, 296 restrictions, 238 Educational delivery, 47 institutions, 47 reforms, 34, 48 Electricity and capitalism, 104, 107 infrastructure, 98, 99 Emerging digital cultures, 21, 38 Endogenous development, 288 Envelopment theory, 63, 65 Environment, 2, 47 Erosion of independence, 209–210

 INDEX 

Eskom Enterprises, 99–100 ETECSA, 118, 121–124, 127–128, 130–132 Ethics, 20, 23, 55 Ethiopia, 273–288 Aa’dar (oral poetry) and Goila (folk songs), 278–279; limitations, 287–288; wide transmission of message, 288 folk media communication, 274; and development programmes, 286 food security programmes, 283–288; context, 288 Irob district, 274, 278 rural food insecurity, 12, 273 and voluntary resettlement, 285 Ethnography, 30, 160, 279 Eurocentrism, 54 Exogenous media, 277 Export strategies, 37 F Facebook, 25, 27, 85, 100, 165, 166, 176, 193, 331, 332 Fanon, Frantz, 107 Faulty information, 329 Federal Broadcasting Station, 321 Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Newsletter, 319 Financial Gazette, 218, 220, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230 Financial journalism, see Business journalism Folk media, 273–288 conceptualisation, 277–278 culture as a method, 277 definition, 288 forms, 275, 280

369

Goila and Aa’dar, 278–279, 281–283; wide transmission of message, 288 indigenous communication system, 277–278 integrated into social setting, 287 integration into food security communication, 275–277, 281–286 interactive communication, 276–278 as oramedia, 277 participatory nature, 288 and socio-cultural characteristics, 287 Food security, 273–288 communication in Ethiopia, 273–288 programmes, 276–277 Ford Foundation, 196 Foucault, Michel, 139 Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), 42, 44 Freedom, 23 Free market principles, 37 Fuchs, Christian, 117–120 Alternative Media Theory, 300–301, 304 G Gaming, see Video gaming Gates Foundation, see Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 80 General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), 80–81 Gig economy, 46 workers, 46 Globalisation/globalization, 8, 33, 48 from Above, 33

370 

INDEX

Globalisation/globalization (cont.) and African countries, 90 enhancing digital productivity, 33–34 of media, 54 and technology transformation in the south, 35 trade and development, 34–38 of western views of media, 54 from Within, 8, 34, 38, 40, 48, 54, 58 Global knowledge systems, 39 Global markets, 36, 37, 40, 149, 150 Global South, 2, 6–8, 19, 20, 27, 39, 41, 48, 54 European mercantilism, 54 and Global North, 21 media as technology of third phase, 54 studies, 54; European mercantilism, 54; foreign direct investment, 54; media as technology of third phase, 54 Goila (folk songs), 275, 278–279, 281–283, 285, 287, 288 easily understandable, 281 potential for food security communication, 282; limitations, 287–288 Google, 100, 184, 193, 195 Google Play, 151 Government of National Unity (GNU), 219, 224, 228 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, 44, 219, 220 Growth and development, 45 Guyana, 61, 186–187 H Hall, Stuart, 61, 139, 168, 180 communication theorist and scholar, 61

concerns of culture, identity and power, 61 international influence, 61 Hard knowledge, 330 Hard power, 14, 87 Hawking, Stephen, 41 risks and benefits of artificial intelligence, 41–43 Healthcare, 42, 298 services, 2 Health journalism, 197–199, 204, 207, 209 The Herald, 194, 218, 220, 223, 225 Hintzen, Percy, 61–63 Afro-Creole Nationalism, 61 elite domination, 61 Guyanese scholar, 61 role of elites in Caribbean media, 62 Hip-hop, 108, 157–169, 298 artists, 163, 164, 169 in Africa, 161 global culture, 160–161 groups, 160, 161, 163 male dominance, 163 origins, 160 and San youth, 10, 161–163 Homosexuality, 352 in British law, 352 laws imposed by Britain on Jamaica, 352 Housing, 2, 168 Human capabilities, 23 capital, 35 communication in the Caribbean, 66 dignity, 23 rights, 6, 197, 198, 257 trafficking, 4, 5 Humans and machine technology, 41 Human-technology relations, 21, 23

 INDEX 

I IAMCR, 56 ICT convergence and policy development, 83–86 ICT policy formulations, 89–90 Identities, 107–108 Identity, 25–28 in innovation, 9, 97–110 self, 101, 102 IESA, see Interactive Entertainment South Africa ILO, see International Labour Organization IMF, see International Monetary Fund Indentureship, 4 Independent media, 194, 258 Indigenous communication system, 277–278 Indigenous communities Australian youth, 167, 168 San youth, 10, 163 Indigenous culture, 277, 278 Indigenous knowledge, 13, 37, 285, 286, 288 Indigo Trust, 200 Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), 75, 76, 81, 82, 331 Information dissemination, 276, 277, 313 Innovation potential, 109–110 Innovations, 33 enhance national and corporate productivity, 40 that anticipate consumer demands, 40 Interactive communication, 277 Interactive Entertainment South Africa (IESA), 151 International Labour Organization (ILO), 46

371

Global Commission on the Future of Work, 46–47; human-­ centred agenda, 46; sustainable work, 46 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 34–36, 78–80, 88 assistance to post-independence Africa countries, 79 and Zambia, 79, 88 International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), 120 Internet, 1, 37, 164 access limitations, 187 and discrimination, 37 penetration, 44 provides mass of information, 332 of things, 42 uptake in Africa, 27 Internet access, 2, 44, 45, 164–169 peer influencers and challenges, 164–167 resistance and assimilation, 167–169 Investigative journalism, 193 in South Africa, 200, 202–203, 209 in Zimbabwe, 229 ITT, see International Telephone and Telegraph J Jamaica, 64, 327–342 2016 elections, 333 and social media, 327, 331, 339, 341 Jamaican dancehall music, 14, 357 political behaviour, 333 political information, 340–342 politics, 13

372 

INDEX

Journalism, 11, 12, 52, 60, 193–215 foundation funding, 196, 207 philanthropy funding, 196–198, 206–210, 212–213; erode editorial independence, 209 practice in South Africa, 195, 202, 213, 214 Journalistic credibility, 206–208 cultures, 12, 214 entities, 198 ethics, 20, 229, 230 independence, 206–208 integrity, 11, 230; ethics, 229–230 practices, 196, 206–208 traditions, 311 Journalists and bribery, 229 and corporate interests, 221, 222 and government interference, 224 and organisational routines, 222, 227–228 and public relations professionals, 227, 228 in South Africa, 193–215 in Zimbabwe, 223–231 Journal Life and Work in British Central Africa, 312 K Kaunda, Billy, 299, 302, 303 political criticism song, 299 Khwe, see San youth Knowledge accumulation, 2 assimilation, 328 -based economies, 36 -based services, 36 creation, 40, 54 disruption, 42 domination, 36

economy, 34, 105 factual, 328 in field of communication, 64 storage, 328 Knowledge and information societies, 40 Konza technology city, 101 Kwacha (Dawn), 317 Kwaito, 298 Kwasa-kwasa, 298 L Landline telephones, 121 Language issue, 66 Leapfrogging, 84 Learning and knowing, 105–107 LinkedIn, 184 Live performance, 350–353 Livestream, 176, 178, 181, 183, 185, 187 chats, 183–184 of Trinidad Carnival, 176 Local innovations, 37, 38 markets, 37 M Macha Works, 98 Magazines, 145 Mail & Guardian, 193, 195, 199–201 funding, 204 history, 193–194 Mainstream media, 221, 222, 238, 296, 300 Malawi, 295 President Bakili Muluzi, 297 See also Nyasaland Malawian Constitution, 302–303 media landscape, 13, 296

 INDEX 

reggae music, 296, 298–299, 303, 304 reggae resistance rhythms, 303 Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), 296, 297, 303 government controlled, 303 Malawi Broadcasting Corporation Television (MBCTV), 297 Malawi Congress Party (MCP), 296, 297, 317, 324 Malawi News, 296, 317, 324 Mandela, Nelson (President ), 4, 154 Manufacturing, 34, 35 MCP, see Malawi Congress Party MDIF, see Media Development Investment Fund Meaning of innovation, 107 Media, 1, 2, 258–260, 295–305, 309–325 access, 164, 255 in colonial settings, 310 and communications, 19 diversity, 255–258, 269; in Botswana, 258–260, 269 funding models, 194 independence in South Africa, 193–215 institutions, 11, 13, 197, 199, 200 liberalised, 258 literacy, 47, 333 monopoly, 296 and nation-building, 153 platforms, 303, 325, 330, 332 producers, 258, 262, 263 professional practice, 2 studies, 20 studies in Africa, 20 tools, 11 See also Diversity in media Media and state propaganda, 309–325 in British-ruled Nyasaland, 313–317

373

Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), 199 Media industry and state intervention, 313 Media research, 51–68 Mediatisation of politics, 330, 339 trust in traditional media, 340 youth use new media sources, 340 Mobile communications in Cuba, 117–132; cost, 123; ETECSA, 118, 119, 122, 123, 131; mobile lines, 125, 126, 128; mobile services 1993-2008, 122–125; political and economic context, 120–122; privatisation, 121 Mobile networks, 85 emerging market in Africa, 85 Mobile phones, 22, 24, 237 erosion of conversation and empathy, 22 mobile communication, 24 Mobile technology, 1 MOs, see Multilateral Organisations Mosco, Vincent, 118 Movement for Democratic Change, 219 Mpesa mobile wallet, 44 mobile banking, 44 Msimbi (the relator or recorder of news), 317–318 MTV, 161, 164 MTV base, 161, 165 Mugabe, Robert (President), 25, 219, 220, 319 MultiChoice, 257, 259, 261, 266–268 See also DStv Multilateral organisations (MOs), 75, 89 and ICT policies, 76 Multinational conglomerates, 35

374 

INDEX

Music, 160–164, 168, 169 See also Calypso; Hip-hop; Reggae music Music production in Platfontein, 161–164 Music Television, see MTV MySpace, 184 N Namibia, 99, 103, 104 National identity, 9, 10, 138–143 and television, 268 and video gaming, 137–143, 153 Nationalist movements, 310 National political development in Jamaica, 333 National television, 12, 261, 262, 270 Nation Publications Limited (NPL), 297 Nature of work, 33, 39 Ncube, Trevor, 194, 199 See also Mail & Guardian Neoliberal capitalism, 99 NEPAD e-Africa Commission, 82–83 ICT infrastructure in Africa, 82–86 regional multilateral organisations, 82; competition in ICT sector, 85; model bills, 81, 82 role of ICTs in accelerating growth and development, 82 Net Neutrality, 36–38 discontinued by USA, 37 speed of service delivery, 36 Networks (technical infrastructure), 76, 87, 97, 98 New digital media, 327–328, 331, 332, 335–337 used by young people, 335 used for external political information, 335 New media, 331–333, 340

definition, 331 and democracy, 328 information sources, 334 more engaging than traditional media, 331 platforms, 330, 332 and political information, 331–333, 341–342 sources, 341 theory, 20 transformed style of political communication, 332 Newspaper industry, 193–215 Newspapers, 202, 334, 340 context, 325 Daily Times, 296, 324 and digital media, 249 Financial Gazette, 218, 220, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230 The Herald, 194, 218, 220, 223, 225 language choice, 312 Mail & Guardian, 193, 195, 199–201, 204 Malawi News, 296, 317, 324 ownership, 312 state-owned, 259 Sunday Times, 296 target audience, 312 taught Africans how radio operates, 323 The Sowetan, 194 for wider African population, 313 in Zimbabwe, 218 See also Online newspapers Newspapers, newsletters and other bulletins, 317–320 African Weekly, 318 Bantu Mirror, 318 Kwacha (Dawn), 317 News production, 212 New technologies, 84

 INDEX 

North South relations, 36 power imbalances, 36 Northern Rhodesia, 310, 314, 315, 321, 323 Novels, 153 Nyasaland, 309–325 African Congress (NAC), 314–315 broadcasting services, 320–324 broadcasting to counter anti-­ government messages, 322 Colonial Development Act 1929, 314 colonial state and media, 312–313 development programmes, 309 emergency, 322 government, 313; provided wireless sets, 323 Information Service, 318; Information Bulletin, 318 pro-government propaganda, 316, 325 Public Relations Department, 316 regional station at Zomba, 323 Nyasaland Times, 312–313 O Omidyar, 196 Online communities, 11 Trinidadian, 177–181, 187–189 Online journalism, 237, 246 Online newspapers, 12, 235–251 and credibility, 246 displacement effects on traditional media, 238–246 effects on traditional media in Zambia, 241–242 and internet use, 241 and print newspapers, 239, 244–246, 249, 250 and radio news, 240

375

as substitutes for television and print newspapers, 244–246 and television news, 244–246 in Zambia, 235–251 Open Society Foundation, 199n3, 200 Oramedia, see Folk media Organisation for African Unity (OAU), 75, 82 Orkut, 184 The Other Foundation, 200 Ownership and enterprise, 104–105 P Pabbo (town), 103, 105 Peer influencers, 164–167 Philanthrocapitalism, 195 Philanthropy-funded journalism, 11, 193–215 AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, 202–203, 213–215 benefits, 206–208, 213–215 Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, 204 complications, 209–210, 212, 214–215 definition, 195 and editorial independence, 196, 197, 200–211, 214–215 imposing structures suitable or philanthropy funding, 210–212 impoverishing journalism, 212 influence on credibility, 197–198, 206, 209–210, 213 Mail &Guardian, 199–201 and report writing, 210 tyranny of report writing, 210 Political behaviour, 327 Political communication, 52 Political economy of commodification, 119–120

376 

INDEX

Political information, 13–14, 331–339 and democracy, 330 diversity of sources, 342 in the Global South, 332–333, 342 importance of balance, 342 and levels of education, 336–337 and new media, 328, 331–333 and social media in Jamaica, 327, 328 sources, 327–328, 334–337 and traditional media, 327 trust in sources, 336–339 Political knowledge, 327–329 and citizens’ quest for good governance, 341 and democracy, 329 and dependency on media, 330 dissemination, 332 in Jamaican society, 327–342 level of interest in politics, 329 and mass media, 330 and news vs. advertisement, 330 and radio, 331 traditional sources, 327–328 types, 329 Political processes and sources, 328 Political socialisation, 329 Popular culture as alternative media, 295 reggae music in Malawi, 295–305 role in social and political advocacy, 295 Post-colonial legacies, 324–325 Postcolonial relations, 98 Postman, Nei, 41–43 Present and future of work, 45–47 Press freedom, 255, 257, 340 Primary source of knowledge, 334 how governments function, 334 for political events, 334 political leaders in Jamaica, 334 of political processes, 334

Print media, 239, 240 in Botswana, 260–265 preference, 240 in Zambia, 238, 248, 249 Privatisation, 78–80, 83, 85, 89, 99, 121, 122 Productivity, 38–40 and enhanced job performance, 39 and job performance, 39 Propaganda, 13, 297, 314, 322 machinery, 314 materials, 310 strategies, 310 Public perceptions of philanthropy funding of media, 213 Public private partnerships, 12 public relations officials and organisational routines, 222, 227–228 Python (programming language), 144 Q Questionable social sharing in information dissemination, 332 R Radio, 12, 13, 319–324 in Botswana, 260 in Zambia, 248 Radio and print media, 309 Radio broadcasting, 264, 311, 312, 314, 320–324 and international propaganda, 320 unstoppable medium of mass communication, 320 Radio broadcasts from Moscow radio, 322 jamming, 322 Radio Talkshow Programmes (RTPs), 331

 INDEX 

Ramaphosa, Cyril (President), 46 Rastafarian culture, 66, 298 Red Stripe beer, 357 boycott campaign in US, 354 commercial intentions, 355 and dancehall lyric’s violence promotion, 353 and Dancehall sponsorship, 348 and dancehall’s resistance to Red Stripe’s colonisation, 358 and Diageo marketing code, 350 identity modified by dancehall, 358 importance of Jamaican market, 347 instigated public conflict with a Jamaican art form, 358 Jamaican sales plummeted, 357 live music performance, 353, 355 Red Stripe Live, 355–357; fund raiser, 355; opposition to homosexuality, 355; and performer Assassin, 351–352 resumes live music sponsorship, 357–358; Reggae Sumfest, 357 sales, 351 Reforming media practices, 11 Reggae music, 13, 296, 298–300 and Alleluia Band, 299 civic mobilisation channel, 296 communication platform for oppressed, 300 culture and politics, 295 expression of Rastafarian culture, 298 in Malawi, 13, 296, 298–300 musicians and political activists, 299 as platform to express political criticism, 303 against political oppression, 303 political themes, 295–305 resistance rhythms, 303–305 viewed as alternative media, 305 Research and technology, 7, 8 Rise of radical nationalism, 313

377

Robotics, 8, 39–40, 42, 45–47 and developing countries, 45 Role of technology, 311 S SABC, 194, 268 SA Gamer (gaming forum), 150, 152 SADC, see Southern Africa Development Community San digital media practices, 157–169 hip-hop, 160–164 San youth, 10, 157–169 assimilation, 167–169 history, 158 and music production, 161–164; marketing, 166 and peer networks, 164–167 Sankatsing, Glen, 62, 63 concept of envelopment, 62 role of elites in Caribbean media, 62 Schwab, Klaus, 42–43 4IR projections, 42 Sen, Amartya, 102 Shrinking corporate sector, 225–227 threat to good journalism, 225–227 Silicon Valley, 100 Smyth, Rosaleen, 310 Social media, 183–189, 193–215 and citizenship, 177–179 and community, 178–180 embedded sociality, 26 facility to engage in extreme speech, 25, 26 identity politics, 26 leading source of information and misinformation, 332 livestreaming, 183–185, 188; chats, 183–184 and marketing, 183–184 online identity formation, 26 and political issues, 340–342, 352

378 

INDEX

Sociality, 19, 20, 28–29, 109 Social progress, 23 Sociology of news production, 218, 220–223 findings and discussion, 223–225 methodology, 223 political economy approach, 221–222 sociological approach, 222–223 Socio-technical assemblage, 86 Soft power, 14, 84, 87, 198, 350 Solar and Wi-Fi, 103–104 Solar power, 103–104 SoundCloud, 165–167 Sources of political information, 13, 328–329, 331, 334–338, 342 level of trust, 328, 336–339, 341 South Africa, 37, 81, 103, 110, 158, 159 cost of data, 166, 167 and hip-hop, 108, 157–169 journalism, 193–215 national identity, 138–140 newspaper industry, 193–194 San youth, 10, 157–169 video game developers, 138–140, 143, 145, 146, 150, 153 video game industry, 137–154; and government, 153; international audience, 149; national audience, 150 South African Broadcasting Corporation, see SABC South African San Institute (SASI), 161 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), 81 plan for a Regional Frequency Band, 81 regional integrated economy, 81 Southern Rhodesia, 314, 315, 317 and African nationalism, 319

government, 319 newspapers, 318 Spread of hip-hop, 160–161 State intervention in media industry, 313 State propaganda machinery, 314 Steam (gaming platform), 143–147, 150, 151, 153 and African countries, 80 Substitute effect, 244–246, 248 Sustainable development, 286 T Tech hubs, 100–101 Technological innovations, 35, 42, 268 Technological invention and business innovation, 40 and local inventions, 40 new market opportunities, 40 Technology adaptation, 43 and production, 100 and productivity, 8 Techno-nationalism, 43 China and Japan, 43–44 Telecommunications and informatics technologies, 84 monopolies, 105 See also Community networks (CNs) Television, 139, 142, 258–260 in Botswana, 260–264; deregulation, 264–265; diversity challenges, 265, 267, 269; government influence, 268; licenses, 269; national channel BTV, 262–264; public ownership, 270; regulations, 270; South African dominance of content, 267–269 generates soft knowledge, 330

 INDEX 

Television broadcasting, 255–270 in Botswana, 258–264, 269; challenges that impede diversity, proximity and dominance of foreign content, 267–269; introduction of BTV as national channel, 262–264; prospects, 274 data gathering, 258 diversity, 258–260 Tertiary education, 67 TFA, see Alternative fixed telephony Thiong’o, Ngũgı ̃ wa, 102 Tourism and trade, 122–125 Trade barriers, 34 and development, 34–38 liberalisation, 35 relations, 35 Traditional media, 236, 239–241, 246, 247, 249, 251, 327, 333, 334, 340 institutions, 11 replaced by alternative media, 251 sources, 330, 331, 333–337, 339, 340 Transmission of data, 24 Transnational interactions, 77, 86–89 duplication of recommendations, 86 persuaded obligation, 86–88; resource power, 87 targets and benchmarks, 86 Trans-organisation systems, 77, 86–89 Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, 176, 179, 181–183, 185, 188 context, 181–183 diaspora, 188 findings, 183 and internet usage, 187, 188 invoking ethnic divisions, 186–187 livestream chat, 183–184

379

politics, 185, 186 recreating the hangout, 185–186 remembering the past, 185 Trinidadian identity, 182 Trinidad’s dialect, 184 diaspora, 176, 178–181, 183, 187, 188 social media use, 183–189 Twitter, 27, 165, 331, 332, 334 as tool for social change, 86 U UDF, see United Democratic Front UDF News, 325 Uganda, 25, 103, 105, 311 Underdeveloped countries, 35 United Democratic Front (UDF), 297, 302, 303, 324, 325 United Nations (UN), 42, 75 Millennium Summit, 86 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 40, 41 Universal paradigm, 101, 102, 107 V Video game industry, 137–154 discussion, 149–153 findings, 145–149 literature analysis, 138–143 methodology, 143–145 Video gaming, 139–140, 149–153 in Africa, 149 communities, 137, 140, 151 developers, 150–153 and national identity, 142, 153 online forums; Gamespot, 144, 147, 150; IGN, 144, 150; SA Gamer, 150, 152

380 

INDEX

Video gaming (cont.) and patriotism, 141 and qualifications, 152 in South Africa, 10; developers, 145–148, 150–153 technology, 152, 154 W Water conservation programmes, 286 Wealth creation, 38 Weekly Mail, see Mail & Guardian Westernisation, 52 WhatsApp, 25–27, 29, 105, 106, 166 biggest messaging platform across Africa, 26 platform for incendiary messages, 27 role in political contests in Africa, 27 and South African land conflicts, 27–28 Wi-Fi in community networks, 102–103 and solar power, 103–104, 107, 109 Work, 39, 42, 45–47 challenges of artificial intelligence, 45 and digital productivity, 39, 45 its present and future, 45–47 and jobs, 45 and productivity, 39 robots and digital gadgets, 45 Workers as independent contractors and freelancers, 45 Workforce transformation, 47 emerging and declining job types, 47 Workplace strategies for developed and developing countries, 47 World Bank, 34, 75, 78–80, 88, 89 1981 Berg Report, 78

dominant in ICT policy formulation, 76, 90 funded telecommunications infrastructure, 78 and International Monetary Fund (IMF), 78–80; influenced Zambian domestic policy, 86 policy on ICT in developing countries, 78–80, 90; in complex political and social settings, 90 World Economic Forum 2018 Report on the Future of Jobs Survey, 47 World Trade Organization (WTO), 35, 80–81 competition in global telecommunications, 80 complex competition system, 88 rules, 35, 80 telecommunications crucial to trade, 80 Worldwide Web, 37 Y YouTube, 148, 165–167 Z Zambia, 79, 237, 324 effects of online newspapers on traditional media, 235–251; literature review, 239–241; methods and measurements, 241–242; results, 242–244 internet access, 237 and mobile phones, 248 and online newspaper use, 237, 238, 241, 248 population, 237, 238 print newspaper readers, 242–250

 INDEX 

sale of parastatal companies, 88 and World Bank, 88 ZANU PF, 219, 220, 320 Zenzeleni Network, 103–104, 108, 110 Zero rating, 85 Zimbabwe, 5, 324 economic crisis, 217, 218, 220, 223, 225, 228, 230; reporting, 223, 230 economic decline, 218–220 Government of National Unity, 219, 224

381

independence, 324 Movement for Democratic Change, 219 Mugabe, Robert, 219, 220, 319 news production, 12, 218 ZANU PF, 219, 220, 320; government, 219 Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, see ZANU PF Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) Radio and TV, 297