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- Gustafsson, Jessica, 1980-
(författare)
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Voicing the Slum : Youth, Community Media and Social Change in Nairobi
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since late 2006, several small media projects have emerged in the slums of Nairobi with the aim to counterbalance the ignorance from mainstream media, provide the slums residents with news, information and an opportunity to voice their needs and discuss relevant issues. These media are best labelled community media, since their main concern is to serve the interests of the community, in this context the slums. The aim of this project is to assess the potential impact community media have on the community in which they operate. Moreover, it considers the role community media play in promoting community development and democracy, especially in relation to young people living in the slums of Nairobi. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Nairobi (January 2007 to April 2010) including interviews with producers and audience, the study not only maps the establishment of the community media landscape in the slums of Nairobi but the advent of community broadcasting. The study reveals that community media and community radio in particular play an import role in the local youth’s identity construction. By promoting a “slum identity” and ascribing to it positive connotations they help the youth strengthening a sense of pride in who they are and where they come from. Moreover, community media and especially community broadcasting provide the audience with information and a platform for debate where the community can interact directly or indirectly with civil society group, local power holders and experts whether in health, law and finance. This can improve the living situations of the audience but also their engagement as citizens. On a macro level, community media’s biggest contribution to social change is their proactive work to combat tribalism by encouraging their audiences to perceive themselves as Kenyans rather than clinging on to identities based on tribal belonging, which is further reflected in their use of Swahili. The political economy of community media is the biggest challenge that prevents the media projects from fully fulfilling their objectives and being a progressive force for social change. The weak financial situation not only affects their output negatively, it makes them dependent on external funding and (mis)use youth as unpaid labour.
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| 2. |
- Strand, Cecilia
(författare)
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Perilous Silences and Counterproductive Narratives Pertaining to HIV/AIDS in the Ugandan, Lesotho and Namibian Press
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Research on Western mainstream media’s framing of HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s, showed that media narratives influenced audiences’ understanding of the epidemic, as well as society’s responses. Subsequently, by analyzing a society’s mass media and its framing of HIV/AIDS, it is possible to explore what understandings are given preferential treatment in that society, as well as explore what social change those narratives indirectly or directly facilitate. Such an analysis is particularly important in Sub-Saharan Africa, the continent most affected by HIV/AIDS and which has struggled to reverse the course of the epidemic. This dissertation has in five separate articles, not only identified and described media narratives on HIV/AIDS and the closely related topic of same-sex sexuality in three countries hard-hit by the epidemic –Lesotho, Namibia and Uganda – but also discussed the potential effects of persistent silences, as well as narratives that are counterproductive to the countries’ ability to respond to their epidemics. The research uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches: content analysis of independent and government-controlled print media products, semi-structured interviews with media practitioners and representatives from organizations that seek to influence the media agenda, as well as analysis of legislative and policy documents.The articles discuss a range of persistent silences and counterproductive narratives on HIV/AIDS in the three countries. Overall, the media is found to largely fail in providing its readers with narratives that contain many of the particular factors – economic, social, cultural, biological, as well as those related to stigma and discrimination –that fuel their epidemics. The research however also finds differences between the countries and the types of media. In particular privately-owned media is found to play important role in terms of acknowledging the existence of same-sex sexuality as well as relevance in relation to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services in Namibian and Ugandan.
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| 3. |
- Sartoretto, Paola, 1978-
(författare)
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Voices from the margins : People, media, and the struggle for land in Brazil
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study looks into communicative processes and media practices among members of a subaltern social movement. The aim is to gain an understanding of how these processes and practices contribute to symbolic cohesion in the movement, how they develop and are socialized into practices, and how these processes and practices help challenge hegemonic groups in society. These questions are explored through a qualitative study, based on fieldwork and interviews, of a subaltern social movement. The empirical object of the study is the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), which was founded in 1984 to promote agrarian reform and defend the rights of rural workers in Brazil. At the macro-level, the discussion addresses social realities marked by the meta-processes of globalisation, neo-liberalisation, and mediatisation. Against this background, the experiences of MST militants and of the movement as a whole help us to understand how different communicative processes play a role in the ways people experience globalisation, neo-liberalisation, and mediatisation in their daily lives. Departing from an understanding of communication as a process that structures practices (mediated and non-mediated), this study questions the media-centric understanding of communication, arguing that media practices are created through appropriation processes. The results show that communicative processes are crucial to reinforcing values and symbologies associated with the rural worker identity. There is also a high level of reflexivity about media practices and an understanding that they must serve the principles of the collective. As a consequence, the movement seeks to maintain control over media, routinely discussing and evaluating the adoption and use of media. The interviews show ambivalence towards the alleged dialogic and organisational potential of digital media and to the adaptability of these media to the MST’s organisational processes. Through observation, it is possible to conclude that media have an instrumental function, as opposed to a structural function, in the processes of social transformation engendered by the MST.
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