Speaking Up and Talking Back? Media Empowerment and Civic Engagement among East and Southern African Youth

This yearbook 2012/2013, published by The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media at Nordicom, questions whether and how young citizens in Africa engage with media and communications technologies and platforms in a desire to be included in the change processes of their societies. According to the publisher, the theme echoes some of the claims made by disenchanted and frustrated youth and other citizens in the streets of North Africa’s cities in 2011 and 2012. They were severely critical of the governance structures in their countries, mass social mobilisations took place, governments fell and, in the aftermath, the slow process of transition continued, now with one tyrant less but still with uncertain outcomes and huge challenges for the social and economic development of these countries.

According to the authors, youth in particular engaged massively, visibly, loudly, and dramatically around demands to be involved and included in their countries’ development processes. This yearbook taps into the less visible and dramatic, but nevertheless highly dynamic and influential, process of media development and the enlargement of youth-driven, deliberative spaces which sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing.

Contents:

Part I. Introduction and Conceptual Framing

• African Youth, Media and Civic Engagement (by Thomas Tufte, Norbert Wildermuth)
• Towards a Renaissance in Communication for Social Change. Redefining the Discipline and Practice in the Post ‘Arab Spring’ Era (by Thomas Tufte)
• Communication for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. From Orientalism to NGOification (by Linje Manyozo)

Part 2. ICT, Empowerment and Policies

• Information and Communication Technology-facilitated E-citizenship, E-democracy and Digital Empowerment in Kenya. The Opportunities and Constraints of Community-based Initiatives (by Norbert Wildermuth)
• Institutional Context of ICT and Women’s Participation in Kenya (by Winnie V. Mitullah)
• Social Media and Digital Democracy. An Exploration of Online Forums for Civic Engagement and the Involvement of Kenyan Youth in Participatory Development (by Wanjiru Mbure)
• Prospects for Civil Society Empowerment through the Use of the New Media (by Karen Kisakeni Sørensen and Viktorija Petuchaite) 
• Young Women and ICT. A Need to Devise New Strategies? (by Grace Githaiga)

Part 3. Health and Social Change

• Conflicting Paradigms. Challenges to HIV and AIDS Communication. A South African Perspective (by Eliza Govender)
• Involving Youth in Peer Educators. Message Deliverers or Agents of Change? (by Line Friberg Nielsen and Mille Schütten)
• HIV/AIDS Campaigns as Signifying Processes. Group Dynamics, Meaning-formation and Sexual Practice (by Abraham Kiprop Mulwo and Keyan Tomaselli)
• Examining Civil Society Approaches to Adolescent Sexual Empowerment in Tanzania (by Datius K. Rweyemamu)
• Moving Sexual Minority Health Rights Forward in Uganda. A Study of Opportunities and Challenges Using Domestic Media (by Cecilia Strand)

Part 4. Culture and Social Change

• Makamba Culture Cubs. Towards Communication for Reconciliation (by Nikita Junagade)
• Communicating Crime Prevention. Participation and Building Trust in Kibera (by Ricky Storm Braskov)
• Community Radio as Promoters of Youth Culture (by Jessica Gustafsson)
• Film for Social Change. A Study of the Zanzibar International Film Festival’s Initiatives for Bringing about Social Change for the Local Youth (by Anne Sofie Hansen-Skovmoes and Line Røijen)
• Hidden Voices on Air. Empowering Tanzanian Youth through Participatory Radio (by Rosalind Yarde)