A new MICT publication analyses Libya's newly emerging media landscape. It looks at the role of the media in Libya today and includes portraits of leading newspapers and broadcasters from across the country.[more]

Together with its long standing partners, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), UNESCO has produced A Road Map to Public Service Broadcasting. The book is authored by Elizabeth Smith, former Secretary-General of CBA and a world known expert in the field of electronic media and PSB.[more]

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, Digital Media in the Arab World One Year After the Revolutions, by Jeffrey Ghannam, a lawyer and writer in Washington, DC. The Arab region is experiencing a profound media shift.[more]

Radio has been called ‘Africa’s medium’. Its wide accessibility is a result of a number of factors, including the liberalisation policies of the ‘third wave’ of democracy and its ability to transcend the barriers of cost, geographical boundaries, the colonial linguistic heritage and low literacy levels. This sets it apart from other media platforms in facilitating political debate, shaping identities and assisting listeners as they negotiate the challenges of everyday life on the continent.[more]

It’s all about the birthday boy

President Mugabe’s 88th birthday celebrations, whose main event was held at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare on February the 25th, dominated news coverage of all the media throughout the month.[more]

The African broadcasting market has been growing rapidly. New players have sprung up in liberalised markets and there is growing international interest from external investors. Tracking this growth is far from easy but Balancing Act has taken 10 months to produce what is almost certainly the most detailed report on the African broadcast market. Russell Southwood outline what’s in this “monster-size” report.[more]

The speed with which Facebook grew in Africa was startling but the story is now well-known. Latvian social network Eskimi is designed for low-end handset users and in a little over 18 months it has gone from nothing to 2.5 million users. Anyone who believes that mobile content is important has to understand why this has happened. Russell Southwood picks over the bones with VytasPaukstys, CEO, Eskimi and Nigerian Ayo Alli who has taken on the promotion of the site.[more]

Twitter is a great tool to promote your stories and enhance your online identity. Treat your Twitter account as your business card. It should look professional, individual and cool.[more]

Published in 2009 - Updated in September 2011: Reporters Without Borders [RSF] is making a new version of its Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents available to bloggers today to mark Online Free Expression Day.[more]

This publication in the fesmedia Africa series is the abridged version of the 2011 study of the sustainability of the Namibian community broadcasting sector conducted by David Lush and Gabriel Urgoiti for fesmedia Africa, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.[more]

The Open Society Media Program has commissioned background papers on a range of topics that are important for understanding the effects of new technology on media and journalism. The papers accompany a series of reports, "Mapping Digital Media," on the impact of digitization on democracy in 60 countries around the world.[more]

Tony Maddox joined CNN International in 1998 after 13 years with the BBC.

On a visit to South Africa in December 2011, Maddox shared his views on social media and 'citizen reporting,' the recently signed 'secrecy bill' and CNN's editorial operations in Africa.[more]

Just over 55 years ago, on New Year's Eve 1957, trailblazing South African journalist Henry Nxumalo was murdered while investigating suspicious deaths at an abortion clinic in Sophiatown, a suburb west of Johannesburg.[more]

Intolerant language characterize ZANU PF conference

THE ZANU PF annual national conference in Bulawayo was the highlight of the campaign activities of Zimbabwe’s main political parties in the media as the year drew to a close.[more]

Freedom of Expression in Botswana is guaranteed in the Constitution and the country is signatory to numerous regional and international human rights instruments, yet the government’s conduct e.g. during the public workers’ strike shows that the spirit of these documents has not been internalised. Children as young as nine-years-old were arrested and held in jail for two days during the strike, though the government is denying this.[more]

Report by Reporters Without Borders - November 2011[more]

The World Bank's Communication for Governance and Accountability Program addresses this gap with Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance: A How-To Guide. The toolkit provides advice for donors, foundations, and other stakeholders who are interested in media development, but who need help assessing relevant institutions and actors.[more]

With Africa celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, fesmedia Africa launches its new series of AMB Briefs with a closer look at the state of access to information in countries covered be the African Media Barometer (AMB), thereby complementing numerous freedom of information initiatives taking place across the continent.[more]

infoasaid is producing a series of media and telecoms landscape guides to developing countries that are vulnerable to humanitarian crises.

These are designed as a tool to help humanitarian agencies to communicate effectively with crisis-affected communities. [more]

He is a young up coming journalist, Mr. Nfally Fadera who is perusing a degree in political science at the UTG has attracted thousands of listeners to the local FM station in Sinchu Alhagie especially those who cannot read newspapers. They depend on Mr. Fadara for the daily broadcast of both local and international news in the Mandinka Language. In this edition of art and music , Nfally talks about how the news broadcast, his experience, education, and challenges among other issues.[more]

Every year, media awards for journalists and media workers, have become a constant feature of Nigeria’s media life, just as in developed parts of the world. And in Nigeria, awards have been given and received, both for print and electronic media, and for their workers for different reasons.[more]

A Ugandan is among candidates shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize for African Writing, a literary award that has mostly been dominated by South Africans and Nigerians.[more]

My column last week on a British documentary shot in Kibera generated a lot of debate, especially on the role of the government and charities in improving services in the slum. (READ: fesmedia.org/african-media-news/detail/datum/2011/03/28/-2e1189e9b8/). The general consensus, it seems to me, was that while it is easy to be defensive about Kenya’s image abroad, the fact remains that slums like Kibera do exist – whether we like it or not – and that charities and NGOs are only stepping in to help because the government couldn’t be bothered. [more]

Book review of "Secrets of On-line and Multimedia Journalism" co-authored by two media veterans-Mudathir Ganiyu and Qasim Akinreti[more]

Investigative journalism has, largely, been on its knees in SA for many years. Two years ago, things began to change dramatically.But let us first examine the reasons for the demise of investigative journalism. They range from financial pressures to the drive for transformation. It is argued, says Anton Harber in his cogent introduction to Troublemakers , that these have led to shrinking newsrooms, poor working conditions , a loss of skills and experience and a "juniorisation" of newsroom management.[more]

The emergence of the Internet and the digital world has changed the way people access, produce and share information and knowledge. Yet people in Africa face challenges in accessing scholarly publications, journals and learning materials in general. At the heart of these challenges, and solutions to them, is copyright, the branch of intellectual property rights that covers written and related works.[more]

« Les médias sont l’oxygène du terrorisme, car ce que les terroristes recherchent avant tout, c’est la publicité. Or, plus l’acte est violent, plus la couverture médiatique sera forte. … ». Apparemment, cette assertion est très fondée, mais elle n’a pas été du goût de tout le monde le vendredi dernier au Centre Culturel Américain.

« Médias et terrorisme : du rôle central des médias dans le terrorisme et le contre-terrorisme », c’est le thème de la dernière sortie bibliographique de l’écrivaine américaine Brigitte L. Nacos. Dans cette œuvre, Brigitte Nacos fait comprendre quelque peu que les médias servent et entretiennent le terrorisme. Naturellement, cette parution fait des gorges chaudes dans les cercles de journalistes, puisqu’elle remet un tant soit peu en cause le rôle des médias traditionnels dans la diffusion de l’information. [more]

Flaming pleadings in support of new media and gloomy prophecies of the professional journalism’s downfall dominate the debate on media development in the age of digitalisation. Rhodes University’s Head of Journalism school, Guy Berger, takes a closer look and breaks the discussion down to what should be the main concern for public broadcaster in the age of digitalisation: What impact will the new technologies have on (public) content? Read Guy Berger’s considerations, laid out in his keynote speech to the 18th Annual General Metting of the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA). [more]

Al Cross, Political Journalist and director of the Kentucky Institute for Rural Journalism, is making the link between historical lessons from Access to Information provisions in the United States and Botswana's ongoing debate. Read his speech given at MISA's public lecture in Gabarone on May 26. [more]

When google wants to save the news industry it just destroyed. Read an analysis by James Fallows in the Atlantic Magazine[more]

Since 2000 foreign aid flows to Ethiopia have trippled. The county's prime minister Meles Zenawi is known for speaking up against poverty and corruption on the international conference level, but so far the policies he is lobbying for seem to have very little effect on the Ethiopian society. Helen Epstein reflects on the reasons and delivers an interesting insight into political dynamics of freedom of expression, critical debate and the success or failure of anti-poverty policies. [more]

“What’s so good about having the vote?” is the teasing sub-title to BBC correspondent Humphrey Hawksley’s even more eye-catching title: DEMOCRACY KILLS. As a starter, he quotes Churchill’s famous dictum: “It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."[more]

I got my things and left. This is the first line of the book "The House of Hunger" by Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera. It is a forlorn opening line in a book with a poignant title that captures the lot of most African writers who live a metaphorical “house of hunger.” Paying a tribute to Marechera, Nigerian writer Helon Habila argued that he was “always getting his things and leaving; not that he had many things to get…” [more]

The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible.[more]

Chopngomna is the only one of the habitués gathered in the Grand Canari bar who has a mobile phone; in fact, he ‘owned two mobile phones – the latest cutest and most expensive Nokia and Samsung in town; phones endowed with the fanciest ring tones that made him a popular spectacle around Nyamandem’.[more]

Celebrities like Mia Farrow and George Clooney may have done more to prolong the suffering of Darfur than resolve the crisis in Sudan's war-torn region, a new book argues.[more]

Since the so-called democratization decade of the 1990s, there has been increased scholarly interest in democratic elections and how they are conducted throughout Africa (see for example Cowen and Laakso 2002; Bratton and Van de Walle 1997).[more]

Essays by Sokari Ekine, Nathan Eagle, Ken Banks, Redante Asuncion-Reed, Anil Naidoo, Amanda Atwood, Christiana Charles-Iyoha, Becky Faith, Joshua Goldstein, Christian Kreutz, Tanya Notley, Juliana Rotich, Berna Twanza Ngolobe, Bukeni Waruzi

Edited by Sokari Ekine

[more]

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai', 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum', 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.[more]

The report will provide a brief overview of major themes for women and ICTs, including issues for girls versus women; the ICT workforce; and opportunities versus the threat of ICTs for women’s lives.[more]

Why are you reading this review in the Financial Times? You would like to think that it’s because you chose to.[more]

Johannesburg — Paper Wars goes beyond being a valuable repository of freedom of information lore. It reflects upon the ‘multiple faces of information governance’ and indeed upon secrecy itself.[more]

"The old man died beneath the wheels of the twentieth century. There was nothing left but stains, bloodstains and fragments of flesh... And the same thing is happening to my generation." - Dambudzo Marechera, House of Hunger[more]

Although it has been strangely ignored in the Western press, one of the most destructive wars in modern history has been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa's third-largest country.[more]

The American news business today finds itself trapped in a grim paradox. Financially, its prospects have never seemed bleaker. By some measures, the first quarter of 2009 was the worst ever for newspapers, with sales plunging $2.6 billion. Last year, circulation dropped on average by 4.6 percent on weekdays and 4.8 percent on Sundays.[more]