Media Coverage of Science and Technology in Africa
JOURNAL
Sponsored by UNESCO
Department of Journalism and Communication, Makere University
Principal Investigator: George W. Lugalambi, PhD
2011
Overview
This paper critically analyses the role media has to play in facilitating the public understanding of science and technology across Africa. It does so against the backdrop of little or no previous studies on the subject, with few of them having systematically investigated the volume, quality, scope and perceptions of science and technology coverage.
This article seeks to amend this lack of previous research and explores coverage within the context of the contemporary media landscape of Cameroon, Kenya, Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, and Uganda.
Beyond Broadcasting: The future of state owned broadcasters in Southern Africa
JOURNAL
Written in 2009, this recommended article, supported by FesMedia Africa, conveys the complicated changes facing state-owned broadcasters in Southern Africa.
These changes include those influenced by the “digitisation of production, distribution and consumption of public interest news and current affairs” and their impact on key broadcast players across the region.
The report is split into sub-reports about the media landscape in individual states and the influence of technological, regulatory and conceptual changes to broadcasting services.
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Media System, Public Knowledge and Democracy
JOURNAL
A Comparative Study
James Curran, Shanto Iyengar, Anker Brink Lund, Inka Salovaara-Moring
Goldsmiths University London, Stanford University, Copenhagen Business School, University of Helsinki
European Journal of Communication, SAGE Publications, 2009, 24(1), p.5-26
Abstract
This article addresses the implications of the movement towards entertainment-centred, market-driven media by comparing what is reported and what the public knows in four countries with different media systems. The different systems are public service (Denmark and Finland), a ‘dual’ model (UK) and the market model (US). The comparison shows that public service television devotes more attention to public affairs and international news, and fosters greater knowledge in these areas, than the market model. Public service television also gives greater prominence to news, encourages higher levels of news consumption and contributes to a smaller within-nation knowledge gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged. But wider processes in society take precedence over the organization of the media in determining how much people know about public life.
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