The Role of Mass Media in Women's Participation in 2013 Kenya General Election

This chapter assesses the role and performance of the Kenyan media in women's participation in 2013 Kenya general election with particular emphasis on radio, television and newspapers. Kenya has a diverse, vibrant and largely free media whose coverage of the election was useful in informing, educating and mobilizing women to vote. However, limited and biased media coverage of women candidates, inadequate civic and voter education may have inhibited women's electoral participation as few women contested and won electoral seats in the 2013 Kenyan polls. Therefore, the media should enhance the visibility of women, political rights and issues of women as the country endeavours to enhance gender equality in political representation. To achieve this, the media should partner with women, the electoral body, government, political parties and other stakeholders in Kenya in order to improve women's media coverage and political participation.

Kenya's Difficult Political Transitions Ethnicity and the Role of Media

Kenya's political transitions at different points in its history have had tremendous impact on the country's media. This chapter argues that there is a close relationship between the country's political transitions, ethnicity and the role of the media. Making reference to different transition moments such as independence in the early 1960s, the attempted coup in 1982, the advent of multiparty politics in the early 1990s and the more recent disputed elections of 2007, the chapter demonstrates the manifestations of these connections, on the perceptions of the role of the media in Kenya, and how this ultimately has affected the media, including attendant policies by the state.

Beyond Web 2.0. Social Media and Urban Educated Youths Participation in Kenyan Politics

The purpose of the study, was to contribute to a further understanding of the shifting dynamics in youth political communication enabled by advancements in ICTs and explore the extent to which social media use has impacted on both institutional and extra-institutional political participation. The study sought to critically analyse the relationship between social media use and urban youth political participation by integrating both probability and non-probability sampling techniques to generate data using web based questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions among undergraduate students aged 18-24 years. From the findings it emerged that a majority of educated urban youth prefer to use Facebook to access political information. In addition, the users viewed social media as a free space where they could express their political views without censorship or regulation. As a result, it was established that as the use of social media increases, so does participation in politics, indicating a positive relationship between how youth use social media and their participation in politics.

Interviewing for Television

An examination of television interviewing in Kenya provides an emerging sketch of its practice and theory. This Chapter considers television interviewing at three levels that it considers as prioritized by the times - interviewing at the change frontier site, interviewing on behalf of bio-change beings that Kenyans have become, and interviewing with pollen grains of theory in journalism and consequent echoes of its outcome. The Chapter considers three case studies of interviewing in Kenya - the presidential debate, live field reporting and TV opinion polls.The Chapter concludes with a sketch that also suggests certain claims - that television as a medium has not risen to its natural place because it's cameras are not focused on the space of great needs of the people particularly at the change frontier; that moving to a high value question interviewing and a treatment of interviewing as a full-fledged production is a fresh and a rich depth offer for viewers; and that the television interview is a critical forgery of rhetoric in a change thirsty society.

Mousa-Aboulfotouh the First Arab Presidential Debate in History

This study extends the application of the Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse to investigate the nature of the first Arab presidential debate in history. The study also shows how such mediated discourse has been influenced by rhetorical use of the presidential candidates. It is found that the distribution of speech functions represented in attacks, acclaims and defenses has important significances in such kind of discourse. The theory hypothesizes that ‘acclaims' are more common than attacks or defenses in debates and the analysis confirms such hypothesis. The analysis of this first Arab presidential debate reflects significant rhetorical strategies analysed within the framework of the Theory of Political Campaign Discourse. The findings depict the role of media as an influence on the political situation in Egypt at the climate of political conflict especially when the two candidates have totally different political and ideological backgrounds.

The Press and the Emergent Political Class in Nigeria

This probing thesis in this study is on how the political class in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria established, maintained, improved and controls the machinery of the state through the press. While establishing media ownership and unequal media access as key factors responsible for the emergence of the political class, the study similarly discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised or packaged by the press. Robert C. North (1967:301) says “politics could not exist without communication, nor could wars be fought.” The media are also the playing field on which politics occurs” (Perloff 2014:37). They are also the strategic routes through which aspiring politicians must travel during elections. Through a case study method of analysis, this study discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised, and publicized by the press. For this reason, the political class regarded the press as partners in progress.

Media as Political Actors in Times of Political Crisis

Political crises can (re)configure relations between the media, political institutions, actors, and processes, sometimes in unpredictable ways. By focusing on how two leading Zimbabwean daily newspapers, The Herald and NewsDay framed the controversial entrance of President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace Mugabe into active politics, the chapter assesses media - politics relations during a political crisis. The chapter uses argumentation and rhetoric analysis to analyse the stories published by the two publications in October 2014, as this was Grace Mugabe's most politically active period. It argues that during a political crisis, the media become political players that wittingly/unwittingly persuade citizens using argumentation and rhetoric to support certain political positions with real consequences in the political sphere.

Gender Responsive Election Coverage in Nigeria

This article appraises media coverage of elections in Nigeria with a view to determining the extent it is gender responsive. Specifically, it assesses media coverage of elections and highlights the implications for gender equitable politics in Nigeria; provides data on coverage of both men and women during 2011 general elections; and reviews whether media personnel have fulfilled their social responsibility expectations such as gender equality goals to which the Nigerian state has pledged to in many international instruments. Data for the study were mined from existing documents on media coverage of elections in Nigeria collected, during the 2011 general elections across the six geopolitical zones; and African Media Barometer 2008 and 2011.This score card brings to the fore the extent Nigerian media personnel are implementing the Beijing Platform for Action; and the findings can be used for policy formulation on media reportage and programming for gender responsive election coverage.

Gendered Media and Political Communication in Africa

The African media landscape has grown tremendously in the last 20 years and currently, communication channels are more accessible to various groups, even those previously marginalised in the society. Access to communication channels is important as the media sets the agenda and guides everyday discourses and interactions. However, of concern to this paper is the analysis of the African media landscape that is highly gendered; whereby media owners and practitioners are predominantly male. As a result, the message design and communication favours male over female political candidates because a lot of propaganda and persuasion is often used to entice the electorate. The chapter discusses how political images seen on television are often centered on the male dominant figure in politics, while the women are often discussed from the periphery. Due to a mainly male dominated political scene, women shy away from participating and those who chose to get involved, often have to fight against societal stereotypes enabled by the media which inovertly propagates the notion that competitive politics is a manly affair. In many African countries therefore female stereotyping is prevalent in the media during electioneering period. An analysis of news coverage shows that among the news stories reported by male journalists on television, 76 per cent were often men subjects while only 29 percent of stories reported by female journalists were about women in politics. Even when women featured in the stories in the centre pages and at the end of news bulletins, they were about them as victims of political violence during campaigns rather than males/females participating in campaigns as future leaders and decision makers.

Media Ethics and Elections Coverage in Nigeria

This paper examined media ethics in Nigerian using elections coverage as a lens. It focuses on the gender dimension, a fundamental factor in media and election debates; and brought to the fore the socio-political and economic factors affecting the ethical performance of journalists covering elections in Nigeria. It argues that journalist covering elections in Nigeria are operating in challenging socio-political and economic context, but are beginning to rise up to the occasion having improved on the coverage of women politicians. It concludes that despite the challenges, ethical reportage can promote gender balanced coverage of elections in Nigeria. It recommends that the media should provide platforms for engagements and give equal access to parties and candidates (both females and males); and also provide space in which freedom of expression can be exercised and alternative, dissenting, and minority voices heard.