Mapping structural conditions of journalism in Kenya (original) (raw)
Related papers
2013
This study investigates how journalists experience economic and political pressures on their ethical decisions at the Nation Media Group (NMG) conglomerate in Kenya. The study uses qualitative semi-structured interviews to examine how journalists experience these pressures on their professional ethics as they make their daily decisions. Grounded in the critical political economy of the media tradition, the findings of the study indicate that economic and political pressures from advertisers, shareholders' interests, the profit motive and the highly ethnicised political environment in Kenya largely compromise the ethical decisions of journalists. The study draws on the work done by Herman and Chomsky in their 'Propaganda Model' in which they propose 'filters' as the analytical indicators of the forms that political and economic pressures that journalists experience may take. The study explores the ways in which journalists experience these pressures, how they respond to the pressures and the ways in which their responses may compromise their journalism ethics. The findings indicate that aside from the pressures from the primary five filters outlined in the Propaganda Model, ethnicity in Kenyan newsrooms is a key 'filter' that may compromise the ethical decisions of journalists at the NMG. The study therefore argues that there is a need to modify the explanatory power of the Propaganda Model when applying it to the Kenyan context to include ethnicity as a 'sixth filter' that should be understood in relation to the five primary filters. iii From the findings, it would seem that the government is no longer a major threat to journalists' freedom and responsibility in Kenya. Market forces and ethnicity in newsrooms pose the greatest threat to journalists' freedom and responsibility. The study therefore calls for a revision of the normative framework within which journalists' and media performance in Kenya is assessed. As the study findings show, the prevailing liberal-democratic model ignores the commercial and economic threats the 'free market' poses to journalism ethics as well as ethnicity in newsrooms and only focuses on the media-government relations, treating the government as the major threat to media freedom. iv
Political economy of the Kenyan media - towards a culture of active citizen journalism
Global Media Journal African Edition, 2011
This paper utilises Hall's (1977) 'encoding-decoding' theory in the context of critical political economy theories of the media and cultural studies to explain the political, economic and cultural factors that influence media operation and content both at a macro and micro level. While political economy provides the setting in which the Kenyan media operates, cultural studies show how media content is not only shaped by the political and economic environments comprising those in power positions. Audiences are also actively engaged in the process of meaning construction. Considering Hall's (1977) encoding-decoding theory, the audiences can reject, negotiate or accept media content based on their own value systems and cultural orientation. Meaning, therefore, becomes a product of continual struggle between different discourses and power cannot be located in a top down manner as to who influences meaning as seen in a propaganda model. This is due to the fact that texts are diffused in different locations in society. The 2008 Kenya Communication Bill is utilised as an example to trace briefly the political and historical developments of policy issues that have influenced the Kenyan media. The Bill, furthermore, indicates how a weak socioeconomic , political and cultural environment is marred by ineffectual policies meant to safeguard and guarantee the freedom of the press as an extension of individual freedom of expression as enshrined in the Kenyan constitution. This weak policy context has ensured the Kenyan media remains subject to easy political manipulation and control. However, the paper concludes by showing how citizen journalism is growing out of a regulated mainstream media through internet technology.
SSRG International Journal of Communication and Media Science, 2021
Influential discourses on news presentation across conventional newspapers consistently undervalue the final causality of insufficient journalistic professionalism in the embodiment of biased news on such platforms. This undervaluation manifests primarily in manifold media discourses in Kenya, where ongoing ampliative and existential statements on the concatenation of lower levels of journalistic professionalism, and biased news on newspapers, are either rudimentary or bland and vague. An iterative review of these discourses suggests that newspapers' news biases are products of external interference from market-forces and the most influential actors' egoism. This functionalist conceptual traction, which is deeply entrenched in the cognitions, affective, and evaluation of the kleptocratic class in the production of biased news in Kenya's press, intends to reproduce unhelpful topoi of looking at the dialectic consilience of such bias in its entirety. In the context of this straw position, there is a need to subsume this framework of thinking into that of a news reporter's unpropitious conduct in newsgathering and delivery. This paper is ergo pedestaled on interactionist dualism in demonstrating how a news reporter's deficient rectitude underpins a legacy of biased news in Kenya's press. It provides a perfect backdrop for a systematic and rigorous analysis by propounding, in a rationalist fashion, the exclusionary and inclusionary decisions that are derivable from a professional journalist ipso facto a print medium's news reporter. It makes an ineliminable link to the ideal observer theories of ethics in affording leverage points to reconcile journalistic unprofessionalism with pejorative news production. It adopts a qualitative systematic review research design in its underlying commitment to bring about such linkage to the fore by analyzing relevant secondary data. This analysis demonstrates inter-rater reliability through media experts' holistic views that many news reporters succumb to coercion in the form of goodies to produce biased news. There is Pyrrhonism that the trend will change, given the zeitgeist of this era that contributes to news reporters' lack of probity. It is proposed that individuals such as these experts are better placed to advocate for adopting a desirable and obligatory approach to news reporting in Kenya's press.
A National Survey on the Professional Role Conceptions of Journalists in Kenya
Journalism Practice, 2016
The professional role conceptions of journalists have for many years remained a central strand in journalism studies. The present research investigates the professional role conceptions that Kenyan journalists perceive to be the most important in their work. Similarly, the professional role they consider the most important is further analyzed in relation to demographics (age, gender, education, contract type, media type, and media ownership). Findings from a national survey of 504 Kenyan journalists indicate that "providing citizens with information" is the most important role (61.3 percent), followed by "advocate for social change" (51.7 percent). The other major roles include to "support official policies" (46.9 percent), "motivate people to participate in civic activities" (45.6 percent), and "act as watchdog of government" (35.3 percent). The most important role-providing citizens with information-is backed across all demographics with a strong mean of 4.4 on a five-point scale ranging from 1 ("not important at all") to 5 ("extremely important"). However, the difference of means across all the analyzed demographics are not statistically significant.
The International Journal of Humanities & Social Studies, 2019
The performance of the mainstream media in Kenya is closely blamed on its relationship with the level of journalism training. It is believed that appropriate training provides Journalists with the knowledge and skills to write accurate, fair, balanced and impartial stories (Mbeke, 2010). In the 21 st Century, there has been a shift from traditional journalism to online journalism, bringing on board mixed news media which requires professional journalism across many media platforms. According to Haak, Parks and Castels (2012) in a technology-driven process of accelerated change, journalism is being transformed in the way it is produced, distributed and used. This therefore shows the need for better training of Journalists. Haak et.al. (2012) further argue that many journalists are of the view that journalism is facing a crisis because competition has increased, forcing media owners to overwork personnel in the news organizations to do more for less. This increase in workload, however, is not comparable to investment in staff training. The lack of innovation and poor working culture could be an indicator that training in new trends has been lacking. A number of researches have indicated that training institutions have failed to impart skills and knowledge to students that would be transferred to the industry upon graduation and employment (Wefwafwa, 2014; Gichobi 2015). Lando (2013) adds that the media in Kenya are increasingly criticized fortheirone-sided reporting, sleazy tabloid style of pornographic content and failure to control business interests of proprietors and advertisers. The critical question of this research was to examine what the training institutions and media houses in Kenya were doing to salvage the industry, gain the trust of the public and continue to mentor young, up and coming journalists. 1.1. Statement of the Problem A study done by Wefwafwa (2014) on training standards in Kenyan media colleges established that they lack common journalism training standards and as a result, the quality of journalists graduating from the colleges is wanting. Part of the reasons for this low journalism practice standards is inadequate training, inexperienced lecturers, ineffective regulation of the training institutions and inadequate funding (Ireri, 2017). Berger (2009) notes that complaints have been made by media players that most training institutions offer substandard courses, consequently, flooding the industry with "half-baked professionals". Due to this short fall, recruiters from news organizations are not always satisfied with the qualifications of recent graduates and that skills acquired by the college and university graduates often do not meet the expectation of employers (Blom& Davenport, 2012; Kaane 2014).
2020
The main aim of this paper is to investigate media ownership patterns and analyse the implications of such patterns in Kenya-while thinking globally. Notably, media industry has attracted politicians and business tycoons around the world. It is one of the most lucrative industries that come with a lot of power and influence. From the literature reviewed in this analysis, it is evident that very few studies have been done to critically look at the media ownership patterns in Kenya and the implications such ownership have in the media market place. The paper is aimed at answering three questions. 1) What has been the media ownership pattern in Kenya since independence? 2) What does media ownership patterns mean to the Kenyan Media industry? 3) How does this pattern in Kenya compare to the rest of the world? Analysis from this research seems to demonstrate that most media outlets in Kenya are either politically owned or have some political agenda attached to them. As a result of such pattern, the Kenyan media experience narrow content and lack of alternative viewpoint of news and information disseminated to the public. Secondly, there is lack of balance since the main aim of the media is to advance political agenda as opposed to being the fourth estate-that watchdogs the government on behalf of the society. The findings also indicate that there are similarities in media ownership in Kenya and those around the world. When the political class owns the media, its normative roles are compromised, the editorial independence is skewed, and the media loses its impact as a cultural institution. The recommendation is that only community media can undo the pattern that is being established by politically owned media industry.
2017
Kenya boasts one of the vibrant media markets by the standards of East Africa. According to the Media Council of Kenya, there are about 3000 journalists operating in the country and who are registered with the statutory media regulating body. The number of journalists listed by the Media Council includes those who work for the media houses on a full time basis, correspondents, stringers or freelancers, and also students at the nation’s media schools. In order to appreciate the kind of journalist working in the Kenyan media it is helpful to first consider the Kenyan media landscape. There is almost an even spread of radio in the urban and in the rural, even if the urban may appear to have more stations. The majority of the media established in the city are the traditional ones: print, television, and radio. Most of these urban-based legacy media target the entire country and largely operate in either of the national languages of Kiswahili and English. The country has four national ne...
Journal of New Media and Mass Communication, 2015
The theme of this paper is that the communal approach should be used in solving moral hitches in journalism. The individualism and divisionism that permeate the practice of journalism in Kenya today should be thrown away since they are not only unKenyan but also professionally unpleasant. The article asserts that Kenyan journalism should have an ingrained self-correcting mechanism that facilitates journalists counseling one another. It is submitted herein that world journalism, equally overwhelmed with divisionist and selfish styles to the practice of ethical journalism, could learn from Kenya the value of journalistic solidarity and common problem-solving. The paper ends with a recommendation that the world needs journalism with a human face.