AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
 

Call for Papers: Mass Media in the SADC Region, 01/08


Call for Book Chapters

Title
Policing the 4th Estate in a Changing SADC: Critical Reflections on Media Reforms in the New Millennium

Editors:
Dr Dumisani Moyo (University of the Witwatersrand), and
Wallace Chuma (University of Cape Town)

Introduction/Background

The post-2000 era in Southern Africa has been defined by a number of socio-political and economic events and processes which have also shaped the structure, content and functions of the media in the region. From global factors such as the 'war on terror', the rapid convergence of information and communication technologies and the accelerated incursion of China into Africa, to more regional ones such as the crisis in Zimbabwe and the death of Jonas Savimbi in Angola, the mass media in the SADC region have been implicated at every stage by the changing circumstances of the new millennium. Media policy makers, especially African governments, have taken these multiple changes as posing both threats and opportunities. In turn, they have created policy and regulatory regimes which reflect both their democratic/undemocratic character(s) and the influence of the changing regional and global political economy on local policymaking.

As SADC elites moot new ways of forging closer regional integration at political and economic levels, it would be interesting for media scholars and researchers to critically explore the divergent (but also converging in some ways) media policy and regulatory regimes in the region. Because they can either free up or constrain the media and their roles as institutions of the public sphere, media policies in any society are significant pointers to its democratic character.

Articles should focus on either country case studies or comparative discussion of two or more SADC countries. The general theoretical and conceptual thrust of this book is critical political economy of communication. The following questions should provide a guideline to researchers and writers:


Topics may include but are not necessarily limited to:

  • Media policy and regulatory changes in the SADC in the context of global pressures for privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation o How have media policy and regulation in SADC in the new millennium changed in response to changes in the rest of the world?

  • The new regulatory regimes and implications for democracy o To what extent do the new policies and regulations pass the democratic test? How were they conceived, discussed, passed? What level (s) of public participation was involved? o To what extent do these changes liberate, rather than limit, the public sphere in the different countries?

  • Emerging trends and models in media policy and regulation in the region o What models of media and communication reform have emerged in the past decade? How can we characterise such models?

  • The South African reform initiative and implications for the SADC region o What has been the role, if any, of South Africa's democratic transition in the transformation of media and media policy in the region?

  • The role of civil society in advocating media policy and regulatory reform o What has been the role of civil society in these new policy and regulatory initiatives?

  • New policies and regulations: implications for present and future o What do the new media policies portend for the media and its role in the 21st century SADC?

  • Citizen participation and ownership of the reform processes o What has been the response of the public to these policy changes?


Abstracts and biographies
Abstracts should be no more than 400 words.
Please include a short biography of yourself, of not more than 200 words.

Important Dates  
Abstracts Due 31 May 2007
Deadline for submission of full papers 31 October 2007
Authors get reviews by 15 December 2007
Final Papers due: 30 January 2008
Anticipated publication: June 2008

Format and preparation instructions for submissions:

Send your abstracts to:
Wallace Chuma: wallace.chuma@uct.ac.za
Dumisani Moyo dumisani.moyo@wits.ac.za






Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.

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