Ørecomm

Centre for Communication and Glocal Change

Critical Perspectives on ICT in Kenya

by Yuliya on 2015 April 17 23:58

“In Kenyan urban centers it is common to see many people walking around with their phone visible in their hands,” writes Jessica Gustafsson in her study of the means of communication in and around the Kenyan city of Eldoret. With such insights from the field Ørecomm begins a series of the fieldwork reports from researchers.

Jessica Gustafsson is the post-doctoral researcher in the Nordic-Kenyan research project Critical Perspectives on New Media and Processes of Social Change in the Global South. After having earlier completed her PhD about comimage(4)munity radios in the slum areas of Nairobi, she joined a research on the usage of media in the rural, semi-urban and urban areas in the Rift Valley, Kenya. In the fall of 2014 she conducted a major household study amongst 800 households and presented a working report at Malmø University in November 2014.

One of Jessica’s observations is the gender inequality in media usage. According to her findings in the areas in and around Eldoret, ”the more advanced and expensive the technology is the greater the gap between women and men seems to be.” Furthermore, when studying online debates, Jessica comes to conclusion that “religious issues are the only issues that seem to be more popular among women than men, as family issues, interestingly enough, are more discussed by men online.”

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Critical Perspectives

With researchers from four Nordic countries and Kenya, this research project examines the patterns of new media appropriations by ordinary citizens in rural and semi-urban areas in the Global South and the implications of these on different processes of social change in the region. In doing so, the project aims to specifically achieve the following three things:

  • Provide an empirically-grounded and Nordic-led search for cross-disciplinary and cutting-edge responses to the theoretical and methodological challenges in understanding contemporary new media appropriations and their implications for social change in the Global South.
  • Offer empirically-grounded reflections that can inform Nordic development policy especially with regards to issues like the opportunities; challenges and prospects of ordinary citizens’ appropriations of new media platforms in the Global South to exercise civic agency; (re)claim their rights and alter lines of political; social; gender and generational inequalities.
  • Deepen collaboration among Nordic researchers interested in examining the role of media in processes of social; cultural and political change and provide empirical research from the Global South that speaks into existing Nordic-based research on these themes.

The project is financed by the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS) and runs in the period 2013-2016. The full project title is: Critical Perspectives on New Media and Processes of Social Change in the Global South.

Participating universities are:

Denmark:
Roskilde University (Lead Partner)
Aarhus University

Norway:
Hedmark University College
Oslo  and Akershus University College

Kenya:
Moi University

Sweden:
Malmö University
Uppsala University

Contact:

Project Director
Thomas Tufte


Special issue: Critical Arts:
South-North Cultural and Media Studies

by Robin on 2013 March 3 17:17

The current issue of Critical Arts (Vol. 27, No. 1, 2013) comes with a number of articles on entertainment education and social change, based on case studies mainly in Africa and Asia. The ToC is available here, with link to free download of the introductory article by Arvind Singal, “Fairy tales to digital games: the rising tide of entertainment education”.

If interested in the main content, hopefully your library provides access. If it does not, you may buy your own access to this issue for USD 116, or USD 37 for a single article. Critical Arts is co-published by Taylor & Francis and UNISA Press.


New: Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies

by Robin on 2009 September 17 09:11

The inaugural issue of the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies is now available online. From the presentation blurb:

It seeks to champion the move away from overtly narrow, singular and over simplistic readings of globalisation that understand it to be purely economic and nation-state centred, the result of dominant and steadfast narratives based upon ideas such as borderlessness, re/de-territorialisation and internationalisation. In other words, the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies is an attempt to move beyond the usual dichotomies of state/non-state, particular/universal and inside/outside amongst others.

Still, some of the articles are definitely interesting!


Call for essays: Critical Arts: ‘UNDER FIRE’

by Ørecomm on 2009 March 25 07:48

Critical Arts –A journal for South-North Cultural and Media Studies– invites short, punchy, challenging articles on some aspects of resistance, struggle and/or coping under conditions of siege – conceptual, bureaucratic and situational.

The post-millennium world has seen a rapid escalation of violent conflicts in the Middle East, West, Central, North, and some areas of Southern Africa, and ongoing civil wars and human rights abuses in a variety of other regions across the world. As a means to engage these developments, Critical Arts instituted a new Section, "Under Fire" [read more →]


Special Issue of the Journal of Communication: Call for Submissions

by Yuliya on 2016 July 11 12:42

The special issue titled “Communication for Development and Social Change: Experiences & Future Convergences”, published in 2017, will provide in-depth understanding of the role of communication in social movements and various forms of collective action. Have your study included in the special issue.

 
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