Constitutional and Legal Reform in the Postcolony of Kenya

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-18
Author(s):  
Diane Ciekawy
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Speaking ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
National Union ◽  
Political Events

The central government of Kenya is well known for its use of the legal system, state structures, and the KANU (Kenya African National Union) party apparatus to threaten and thwart those who criticize its undemocratic practices and human rights violations. There are numerous and detailed accounts of attacks on the news media, the denial of permits for opposition public speaking events, the disruption of opposition party meetings, and the arrest and incarceration of reformist political and religious leaders. It is common for the central government to criminalize political activity by charging critics with sedition or holding an illegal meeting, and to use police violence to break up both licensed and unlicensed political events. Government officials and institutions played a major role in inciting and organizing violence in the Rift Valley from 1991 to 1993 that led to the deaths of over 1,500 people. The return to multiparty politics in 1991, after a lapse of 26 years when KANU reigned supreme, has done little to change these practices. Repression of the freedom of assembly, the freedom of association, and the freedom of expression is the modus operandi of the Kenyan nation-state.

scholarly journals CHILDREN ACCUSED OF PRACTICING WITCHCRAFT IN AKWA IBOM, NIGERIA: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF ONLINE NEWS MEDIA

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 447
Author(s):  
Uchenna Onuzulike
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Online News ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Folk Belief

<p>This essay analyzes online news media reactions to the labeling and stigmatizing of children as witches in Eket, within the state of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The paper was triggered by Governor Godswill Akpabio’s August 30, 2010, appearance on CNN, during which he stated that the situation of these stigmatized children is exaggerated. This essay seeks to understand what perspectives the online news media created in response to Akpabio's interview. Three themes - the children accused, the behavior of the gatekeepers (i.e., among others, parents, guardians, religious leaders, and government officials), and the practice of witchcraft - emerge from the data. The results reveal the following: (a) the Governor is defensive and in denial, (b) the involved pastors are opportunists, and (c) the accused children are abandoned, maltreated, and sometimes murdered. Results also show that none of the analyzed online news media specifically blame the parents of the accused children; rather they blame the Governor and pastors, and specifically Helen Ukpabio. Further analysis indicates that poverty is not necessarily the root of the problem as the Governor claims. The essay recommends acknowledgement of folk belief systems in the training of gatekeepers.</p>

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

FLASH MOB AS A MODERN FORM OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGICAL, MOTIVATIONAL AND IDENTIFICATION FACTORS

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 124-143
Author(s):  
D.I. KAMINCHENKO ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Empirical Level ◽  
Mass Participation ◽  
Communicative Space ◽  
Modern Form

Modern digital technologies contribute to the emergence of new forms of social and political activity. One of these forms of participation is flash mob. Flash mobs are able to activate society for mass participation in various political events, which indicates the relevance and necessity of studying flash mobs as a modern form of citizen participation in social and political processes. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the flash mob from the standpoint of the intersection of several factors: technological, identification and motivational. The research methodology at the theoretical level is made up of the theory of the information society and the concept of “network identity”, on the empirical level - the method of sociological survey with the subsequent compilation of contingency tables. As a result of the study, it is established how widespread the practice of participation of active users of social media in various flash mobs is. Based on the data on the most significant opportunities for using social media, an interim conclusion is made about the existing motivational attitudes of the participants in flash mobs. Through the use of several determinants of network identity, a number of its properties are identified and considered, which are manifested in the communicative space of social media. It is established that the factor of participation / non-participation in the flash mob is not decisive in the manifestation of the properties of network identity.

The Politics of the Mundane

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
ROBERTO F. CARLOS
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Children Of Immigrants ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
Political Events

Extensive research on political participation suggests that parental resources strongly predict participation. Other research indicates that salient political events can push individuals to participate. I offer a novel explanation of how mundane household experiences translate to political engagement, even in settings where low participation levels are typically found, such as immigrant communities. I hypothesize that experiences requiring children of Latinx immigrants to take on “adult” responsibilities provide an environment where children learn the skills needed to overcome the costs associated with participation. I test this hypothesis using three datasets: a survey of Latinx students, a representative survey of young adults, and a 10-year longitudinal study. The analyses demonstrate that Latinx children of immigrants taking on adult responsibilities exhibit higher levels of political activity compared with those who do not. These findings provide new insights into how the cycle of generational political inequality is overcome in unexpected ways and places.

FREE EXPRESSION OR EQUAL SPEECH?

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-169
Author(s):  
Teresa M. Bejan
Keyword(s):  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Freedom Of Thought ◽  
The Right ◽  
Equal Right ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractThe classical liberal doctrine of free expression asserts the priority of speech as an extension of the freedom of thought. Yet its critics argue that freedom of expression, itself, demands the suppression of the so-called “silencing speech” of racists, sexists, and so on, as a threat to the equal expressive rights of others. This essay argues that the claim to free expression must be distinguished from claims to equal speech. The former asserts an equal right to express one’s thoughts without interference; the latter the right to address others, and to receive a hearing and consideration from them, in turn. I explore the theory of equal speech in light of the ancient Athenian practice of isegoria and argue that the equality demanded is not distributive but relational: an equal speaker’s voice should be counted as “on a par” with others. This ideal better captures critics’ concerns about silencing speech than do their appeals to free expression. Insofar as epistemic and status-harms provide grounds for the suppression and exclusion of some speech and speakers, the ideal of equal speech is more closely connected with the freedom of association than of thought. Noticing this draws attention to the continuing—and potentially problematic—importance of exclusion in constituting effective sites of equal speech today.

New Indian online rules risk state overreach and abuse

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Digital Service ◽  
The Government

Significance The new rules follow a stand-off between Twitter and the central government last month over some posts and accounts. The government has used this stand-off as an opportunity not only to tighten rules governing social media, including Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and LinkedIn, but also those for other digital service providers including news publishers and entertainment streaming companies. Impacts Government moves against dominant social media platforms will boost the appeal of smaller platforms with light or no content moderation. Hate speech and harmful disinformation are especially hard to control and curb on smaller platforms. The new rules will have a chilling effect on online public discourse, increasing self-censorship (at the very least). Government action against online news media would undercut fundamental democratic freedoms and the right to dissent. Since US-based companies dominate key segments of the Indian digital market, India’s restrictive rules could mar India-US ties.

Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa

1968 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Lonsdale
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
National Movements ◽  
New Type ◽  
First Time ◽  
Official Recognition

This paper attempts to provide a frame of reference for evaluating the role of ordinary rural Africans in national movements, in the belief that scholarly preoccupation with élites will only partially illumine the mainsprings of nationalism. Kenya has been taken as the main field of enquiry, with contrasts and comparisons drawn from Uganda and Tanganyika. The processes of social change are discussed with a view to establishing that by the end of the colonial period one can talk of peasants rather than tribesmen in some of the more progressive areas. This change entailed a decline in the leadership functions of tribal chiefs who were also the official agents of colonial rule, but did not necessarily mean the firm establishment of a new type of rural leadership. The central part of the paper is taken up with an account of the competition between these older and newer leaderships, for official recognition rather than a mass following. A popular following was one of the conditions for such recognition, but neither really achieved this prior to 1945 except in Kikuyuland, and there the newer leaders did not want official recognition. After 1945 the newer leadership, comprising especially traders and officials of marketing co-operatives, seems everywhere to have won a properly representative position, due mainly to the enforced agrarian changes which brought the peasant face to face with the central government, perhaps for the first time. This confrontation, together with the experience of failure in earlier and more local political activity, resulted in a national revolution coalescing from below, co-ordinated rather than instigated by the educated élite.

Economic Interest and the Oversight of Violence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Investigative Techniques ◽  
Robust System ◽  
Court Involvement ◽  
First Time

While, earlier chapters establish that the officer and investigative techniques necessary to create a monopoly of violence were in place in England by the beginning of the sixteenth century, these alone only provided the potential for the effective regulation of violence. To ensure that the state’s definitions of legitimate and illegitimate violence were rigorously enforced, oversight of the coroner system was necessary. Chapter 5, therefore, charts the rise of a new, more robust system of oversight that came into effect in the sixteenth century. The growth of oversight, it is argued, began in the 1530s as a result of competing economic interests in the outcome of coroners’ inquests and the growing popularity of the central courts as a venue for adjudication. This combination of economic interest in forfeiture and greater central court involvement in forfeiture disputes resulted in a system of surveillance which allowed central government officials unprecedented control over the coroner system and thus, for the first time, an effective monopoly of lethal violence.

scholarly journals Community Governance and Civil Society: An Examination of the Purpose, Intent and Structure of Residents' Groups in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jarrod Coburn
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
News Media ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Health Board ◽  
District Health ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Civil Defence ◽  
Charitable Activities

<p>Residents’ groups have been in existence in New Zealand for almost 150 years yet very little is known about them. The collection of residents’, ratepayers’ and progressive associations, community councils, neighbourhood committees and the like make up a part of the community governance sector that numbers over a thousand-strong. These groups are featured prominently in our news media, are active in local government affairs and expend many thousands of volunteer hours every year in their work in communities… but what exactly is that work? From the literature we see these groups can be a source of local community knowledge (Kass et al., 2009), a platform for political activity (Deegan, 2002), critical of government (Fullerton, 2005) or help maintain government transparency and accountability (Mcclymont and O'Hare, 2008). They are sometimes part of the establishment too (Wai, 2008) and are often heard promoting the interests of local people (Slater, 2004). Residents’ groups can be set up to represent the interests of a specific demographic group (Seng, 2007) or focus on protecting or promoting a sense of place (Kushner and Siegel, 2003) or physical environment (Savova, 2009). Some groups undertake charitable activities (Turkstra, 2008) or even act in a negative manner that can impact on the community (Horton, 1996). This research examines 582 New Zealand organisations to derive a set of purposes that residents’ groups perform and ascertains how their purposes differ between geo-social and political locality and over three distinct eras of community development. The thesis also examines the relationship between residents’ groups and councillors, council officers, district health board members and civil defence and seeks to uncover if the level of engagement (if any) has an affect on their overall raison d’etre. The research concludes with a typology of New Zealand residents’ groups along with the key purposes of each type.</p>

scholarly journals PENGUATAN PERAN APARATUR PEMERINTAHAN DESA DALAM MELAKSANAKAN TUGAS PEMERINTAHAN DESA DI KABUPATEN INDRAMAYU JAWA BARAT

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasji Rasji
Keyword(s):  
Central Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Village Community ◽  
The People ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
Village Government ◽  
The Village ◽  
Technical Guidance

Village government is the lowest level of government in the Government of the Republic of Indonesia. Its existence is very strategic for the implementation of programs of the central government, local government, and the wishes of the village community, so that the village government can help create a balance between the goals desired by the state and those desired by the people, namely the welfare of the people. For this reason, the role of village government officials is important to achieve the success of implementing village government tasks. In fact, there are still many village government officials who have not been able to carry out their duties and authorities properly and correctly. How are efforts to strengthen the role of village government officials so that they are able to carry out their duties and authority properly and correctly? One effort that can be done is to provide technical guidance to village government officials regarding village governance, the duties and authorities of village government officials, as well as the preparation of village regulations. Through this activity, it is hoped that the role of the village government apparatus in carrying out their duties and authorities will be strong, so that their duties and authorities can be carried out properly and correctlyABSTRAK;Pemerintahan desa adalah tingkat pemerintahan terendah di dalam Pemerintahan Negara Republik Indonesia. Keberadaannya sangat strategis bagi penerapan program pemerintah pusat, pemerintah daerah, dan keinginan masyarakat desa, sehingga pemerintah desa dapat membantu terciptanya keseimbangan tujuan yang diinginkan oleh negara dan yang diinginkan oleh rakyat yaitu kesejahteraan rakyat. Untuk itu peran aparatur pemerintahan desa menjadi penting untuk mencapai keberhasilan pelaksanaan tugas pemerintahan desa. Pada kenyataannya masih banyak aparatur pemerintahan desa yang belum dapat melaksanakan tugas dan wewenangnya dengan baik dan benar. Bagaimana upaya menguatkan peran aparatur pemerintahan desa, agar mampu menjalankan tugas dan wewenangnya secara baik dan benar? Salah satu upaya yang dapat dilakukan adalah memberikan bimbingan teknis kepada aparatur pemerintahan desa mengenai pemerintahan desa, tugas dan wewenang aparatur pemerintah desa, maupun penyusunan peraturan desa. Melalui kegiatan ini diharapkan peran aparatur pemerintahan desa dalam melaksanakan tugas dan wewenangnya menjadi kuat, sehingga tugas dan wewenangnya dapat dilaksanakan dengan baik dan benar.

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