This book provides a comprehensive approach of the media, journalism and politics in Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa. The author argues that there are common features that the media and journalism share in the seventeen countries of Francophone Africa and these make the local media systems different from what they are in neighboring English-speaking African countries, and in the rest of the world. The approach of the media in French-speaking Africa has not only to be “de-Westernized”, but also to step out of general overviews considering “African media." This project shows the historical, political, economic and sociological characteristics of the media systems of seventeen French-speaking countries of Africa.

This book examines the claims that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are catalysts of democratic change in Africa. It takes optimist, pragmatist-realist and pessimist stances on various political actors and institutions, from government units and political parties to civil society organizations and minority groups.

Over the past ten years, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Rwanda all organized pluralist elections in a post conflict context, having experienced an armed conflict which either interrupted or prevented democratization processes. These polls were organized with the support of the international community, which viewed them as a crucial step in the peace-building process. The local media's role throughout was supposed to be to ensure that an electoral process is actually 'free and fair' - a role that becomes even more crucial in countries where the media have previously being perceived as warmongers or peace-builders in the conflicts. Giving a voice to African journalists and analysing the work they have been publishing or broadcasting during these elections, African media specialist Marie-Soleil Frere explores if and how the local media fulfilled their duties. In doing so, the book reveals journalists' professional challenges at a time when much is expected from the media, as well as the intense political pressure faced that can make their work particularly difficult. Insightful and comprehensive, Elections and the Media in Post-Conflict Africa underlines both the importance and the fragility of the role of the media in a democratic system.

The significance of press freedom in contemporary society and the attitudes of governments to freedom of expression and democratic practices have taken on a new garment since the end of the cold war. In Africa, a strong awareness of the advantages of a free press and the inalienable rights of the people, to unfettered communication has sparked an unstoppable demand for freedom of the press across the continent. The increase in the number of independent newspapers, radio and television stations on the one hand and the frequency of government censorship of press and arrests of journalists on the other hand are evidence of a continent at a crossroads. In this volume, twenty communications scholars examine, from a variety of perspectives, the past and present developments in Africa's quest for press freedom. The essays focus on the media in Anglophone, Arabic speaking, Francophone, and Lusophone Africa, capturing the inherent problems and benefits-where they exist- of colonial legacy and the fragility of press freedom in the fledgling post-colonial administrations bedeviled by underdevelopment and political instability. As the essays in this volume reveal, Africa's unquenchable thirst for freedom of expression continues to play a central part in the socio-political and economic spheres from Cape Town to Cairo and from Accra to Dar es Salaam. The authors' analytical approach to the subject matter provides to a fresh understanding of the historicity, complexities, difficulties of the mass media on a continent in search of "a free market place of ideas".

An overview of the press and mass media in Africa today and their contribution to democratization

Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa analyzes how historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and stylistic factors have shaped media products in African radio, television, and newspapers. Bourgault investigates three principal influences: the pre-colonial legacy of the oral tradition, the presence of an alienated managerial class, and the domination of African nations by systems based on political patronage. The first two chapters provide the theoretical framework. Subsequent chapters look at the management of the electronic media, radio and television broadcasting in content and practice, the history of print media, and the discourse style found in the press. This work provides a wealth of historical information on media systems, particularly those of the former anglophone and francophone countries, together with recent developments in satellite communication, small-systems technology, and the current move toward decentralization and privatization. Bourgault also considers the political shifts affecting Africa in the 1990s and offers a radical blueprint for more responsive and informative media in the sub-Saharan area.

In this book, Marie-Soleil Frère synthesises the interaction between the mass media and conflict in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African Republic, Chad, Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.