Media, Democracy, and Political Change in Developing Countries

Author(s):  
Lynete Lusike Mukhongo ◽  
Juliet Wambui Macharia

The introductory chapter undertakes a detailed discussion of the political influence of media in developing countries. Communication scholars and researchers often discuss what the media needs to do in the process of driving political change, however, this is often done without a real consideration of the challenges facing the media and political journalists in developing countries. There is therefore need to lay emphasis on drawing reference from experiences as narrated by the media, researchers and political interest groups based in developing countries. This book seeks to document research carried out by communication researchers, scholars and media practitioners based in various developing countries. The authors draw from their varied experiences in developing countries to undertake interesting discussions on how the media operates in the developing world, and the subsequent challenges facing the media and political journalists.

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-175
Author(s):  
Lynete Lusike Mukhongo ◽  
Juliet Wambui Macharia

The introductory chapter undertakes a detailed discussion of the political influence of media in developing countries. Communication scholars and researchers often discuss what the media needs to do in the process of driving political change, however, this is often done without a real consideration of the challenges facing the media and political journalists in developing countries. There is therefore need to lay emphasis on drawing reference from experiences as narrated by the media, researchers and political interest groups based in developing countries. This book seeks to document research carried out by communication researchers, scholars and media practitioners based in various developing countries. The authors draw from their varied experiences in developing countries to undertake interesting discussions on how the media operates in the developing world, and the subsequent challenges facing the media and political journalists.


2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Czaplicki

This article explains how pasteurization—with few outspoken political supporters during this period—first became a primary milk purification strategy in Chicago and why eight years passed between pasteurization’s initial introduction into law and the city’s adoption of full mandatory pasteurization. It expands the current focus on the political agreement to pasteurize to include the organizational processes involved in incorporating pasteurization into both policy and practice. It shows that the decision to pasteurize did not occur at a clearly defined point but instead evolved over time as a consequence of the interplay of political interest groups, state-municipal legal relations, and the merging of different organizational practices. Such an approach considerably complicates and expands existing accounts of how political interests and agreements shaped pasteurization and milk purification policies and practice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ilham Wahyudi

Sunan Giri was the Islamic priest in Java who had enough enormous influence especially in 15-17 th AD century. The name of “Sunan Giri” is not limited referring to Raden Paku (Sunan Giri I) who started the political entity of Giri Kedhaton, but also refers to almost all of the sunans from Giri who are also descendants of Sunan Giri I. The Babad Tanah Jawi (BTJ) as a historical literature book of the Mataram palace in addition to telling the history of Java from the pre-Demak era to Mataram, on the other hand also mentions a lot about the existence of Sunan Giri. This research seeks to reveal the legitimacy narratives of the Islamic Mataram Kingdom in BTJ involving Sunan Giri as a religious figure who can exert political influence on them. By using a qualitative-descriptive method, the writer analyzes the text data of BTJ's narratives that contain elements of legitimacy involving Sunan Giri. From the philological data, it is then balanced with historical data from several historical works to find out how the socio-political conditions occurred in the 15th-17th century AD, especially in Java. The mention of legitimacy related to Sunan Giri in BTJ occurred in the early of Demak, early of Pajang, early until the mid of Mataram. Those stories are closely related to the existence of Sunan Giri as a priest with enormous influence both in Java and outside Java. Therefore, BTJ, which contains such information, has become one of the media for the legitimacy of power by the kings of Mataram.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Teo Ballvé

This introductory chapter briefly explores the ways in which imaginaries of statelessness have structured the political life of Urabá, Colombia. It argues that Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient regimes of accumulation and rule—yet this is not to say they are benevolent. In order to do so, this chapter approaches the state as a dynamic ensemble of relations that is both an effect and an instrument of competing political strategies and relations of power. In Urabá, groups from across the political spectrum, armed and otherwise, all end up trying to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of the state in a space where it supposedly does not exist. The way this absence exerts a generative political influence is what this chapter establishes as the “frontier effect.” The frontier effect describes how the imaginary of statelessness in these spaces compels all kinds of actors to get into the business of state formation; it thrusts groups into the role of would-be state builders.


2018 ◽  
pp. 723-733
Author(s):  
Prabartana Das

Media engineers subtle ways in which gender bias can persist in society and ensures the perpetuation of women subjugation in the society. In this chapter I want to excavate the various factors which contributes to the augmentation of gender biases by the media and how the media in developing countries strengthens the cause patriarchy masquerading in the façade of preserving traditions and customs? I also intend to unravel how perennial problems like illiteracy and abject poverty further dents the project of women empowerment and how deeply entrenched patriarchal values manipulate the media to withhold emancipation in true sense. How women even after being qualified suffers from several negative effects undermining her own status? It will also be interesting to delve into the ways in which gendered media is far more subversive and ubiquitous in the developing world than developed world. And lastly how the gender bias in media can be curbed in the light of social and political awakening in women in particular and the development of human ingenuity and consciousness in general.


2019 ◽  
pp. 151-155
Author(s):  
Jonas B. Bunte

Qualitative evidence is useful in tracing the process by which borrowing decisions are made. However, the question is how generalizable the findings from Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru are to other developing countries. Statistical analyses can provide insights into whether domestic political dynamics within recipient countries affect borrowing portfolios across developing countries. This chapter describes three challenges that need to be resolved before such analyses are possible: First, data on incoming loans must be obtained, which is particularly difficult for Chinese loans. Second, estimating the political strength of societal interest groups is challenging, as it cannot be observed directly. Third, analyzing a compositional variable (i.e., the loan shares of four creditors that must add up to 100%) presents a methodological challenge: increasing the share of loans obtained from one type of creditor must be matched by a corresponding decrease in the share of loans obtained from other creditors.


Subject The non-appearance of an expected EU anti-corruption report. Significance The European Commission’s cancellation of its second report on anti-corruption efforts across member-states and EU institutions removes a key benchmark against which to hold European governments to account at a time when several are attempting to roll back anti-corruption reforms and disable checks and balances. Given the political sensitivity of the first report, the move also feeds populist criticisms that the EU itself is prone to corruption and unwilling to expose itself to scrutiny. Impacts Populist governments appear to be learning from one another that they can remove limits on their power. This will allow interest groups to entrench their political and economic dominance, hindering economic growth in the long run. The US president’s attacks on parts of the media for ‘fake news’ may encourage use of anti-establishment rhetoric to discredit critics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob I. Ricks

AbstractIn the aftermath of the 2006 and 2014 Thai coups, observers declared the resurrection of the bureaucratic polity. Bureaucrats, though, remained influential even during the period of 1992–2006, when elected politicians were thought to command the Thai state. Bureaucratic involvement in politics poses a challenge for dominant political science theories of politician–bureaucrat relationships, which draw heavily from principal–agent frameworks. I apply agency theory to Thailand, testing three different hypotheses derived from the theory. Examining legislative productivity and control over bureaucratic career trajectories, I find that elected politicians increasingly acted as principals of the Thai state from 1992 through 2006, and to a lesser degree from 2008 to 2013. Thai bureaucrats, though, have frequently engaged in the political sphere, blunting political oversight and expanding their independence vis-à-vis politicians. This suggests that the principal–agent model overlooks the range of resources that bureaucracies can bring to bear in developing countries, granting them greater autonomy than anticipated. As such, theories of the politician–bureaucrat relationship in developing states need to better account for the mechanisms through which bureaucrats exercise policy discretion and political influence.


Author(s):  
Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano

Franco’s Dictatorship (1939-1975) used Spanish Television (TVE) as a key element in the political propaganda of its apparent ‘openness’ during the 1960s. The propaganda co-existed with political interest in showing the technological development of the media and the international co-operation established with other European broadcasters, mainly in the EBU. In a country ruled by strong political censorship, the Eurovision Song Contest was used as a political tool to show the most amiable image of the non-democratic regime. Spain’s only two Eurovision wins (1968 and 1969) are still, 50 years on, two of the building blocks of the history of TVE and of televised entertainment and popular memory in Spain.


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