The tendency of internet communications being shutdown in most African countries is real as citizens in certain parts of the continent have used the internet to mobilise themselves to stand against issues especially bad governance and oppressive behaviours.
Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), the leading media development and freedom of expression advocacy organisation in the West African sub-region noted that “citizens had to use the internet to mobilise each other to get around issues of censorship and arbitrary arrest.”
Again, the internet was used to mobilise people to demand the release of a journalist who had been arbitrarily arrested for saying something critical about the government, Mr Braimah argued at the recent Rhodes University’s Highway Africa panel discussion on ‘Hands Off Our Internet! Internet Regulation and Journalism in Africa’.
In his home country –Ghana, he stated: “In June, the police leadership in Ghana have threatened that during the elections, there’s the potential to shutdown the internet because of what people could use it to do”. But the government came out to assure the citizens and the international community that it won’t shutdown the internet during the December elections.
Using the internet for political action
Edet Ojo, Executive Director at Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a Nigerian-based freedom of express NGO, contributed that there is a growing trend of people being increasingly anxious of using the internet for political action.
“Governments are seeing citizens online being quite vocal around a variety of political issues and are trying to control, to suppress that.”
This organisational capacity has been harnessed by citizens across the continent, taking their activism offline to effect material transformation beyond the space for the exchange of ideas, according to him.
Contributing to the discussion, Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), an international network of organizations working with Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to support social justice and development noted: “There really is a moment where we need to escalate the awareness amongst journalists and the media sector and also the responses on what is happening around internet restrictions”.
She was quick to add that the trend of deliberate shutdowns of communications in Uganda, the two Congos and Zimbabwe, provided a continental context for local experience of interference in public broadcasting at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
Madam Esterhuysen stated: “Around four days before the election, social media became inaccessible,” in Uganda, stressing that this was effected on a “completely arbitrary basis”, as no discernible process was engaged.
She observed that “these experiences can directly influence on the potential and power of journalism as a transformative force”.
Ability of journalism on the internet
The capability of journalism on the internet to be transformative is limited by the ability of digital citizens to access the conversations online, Tusi Fokane, Executive Director of the South Africa-based Freedom of Expression Institute argued.
He stressed: “One of the challenges is that of access. Particularly in South Africa where anything from about 30 to 50 percent of the population is able to access the internet and that is something that we need to address.”
For Thandi Smith, Director of Policy at the Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) which acts in a watchdog role to promote ethical and fair journalism that supports human rights added that the potential of the internet is endless but market forces are preventing several people from getting to the internet.
Besides these, over the 20 years since the internet was introduced in Africa, it has culminated (in April 2016), in the Panama Papers scandal that showcased the potential for global collaboration among journalists.
Access to internet spreads
These concerning trends indicate that as access to the internet spreads, and enables greater participation by digital citizens, governments have shown a desire to limit the transformative power of the internet through regulation. However the panelists have warned that any attempt to regulate it would limit the freedom of express.
The five panelists agreed that the internet is used to defend the rights of the people including journalists. “The internet has become part and parcel of our lives. So, regulating it will be like regulating our lives”.
Furthermore, the panel drew specific attention to “The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms” as “a Pan- African initiative to promote human rights standards and principles of openness in Internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent”.
The Declaration is intended to elaborate on the principles which are necessary to uphold human and people’s rights on the Internet, and to cultivate an Internet environment that can best meet Africa’s social and economic development needs and goals.
The Declaration builds on well-established African human rights documents including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981, the Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press of 1991, the African Charter on Broadcasting of 2001, the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa of 2002, and the African Platform on Access to Information Declaration of 2011.
Its mission is for the Declaration to be widely endorsed by all those with a stake in the Internet in Africa and to help shape approaches to Internet policy-making and governance across the continent.
Journalism is no more limited
Earlier, Guy Berger, Rhodes University Emeritus Professor and UNESCO’s Director for Freedom of Expression and Media Development, observed that journalism is no longer limited to journalists with the advent of the internet.
In his keynote address at the Digital Citizens Indaba, Prof Berger said journalism is a way of understanding and transcending one’s identity. Therefore, to him, it is important that journalism should not be limited to just journalists. “You don’t have to be a journalist to do journalism,” he argued.
More and more, through citizen journalism movements and self-publishing tools now freely available to anyone with internet connection, the web is used as a platform for ordinary people to exercise their right to freedom of expression.
However, even in this social media saturated environment, Prof Berger empasised the importance of journalism; in particular, journalism that challenges norms of state and business, and attempts to create its own norms.
For Prof Berger, journalism is not limited by its traditional definition. “Your journalism doesn’t have to be in classic format.” However, one thing that does need to remain and increase is support for people whose safety is at stake because of the journalism they make. “We need to show more solidarity with people who are doing journalism, whether they are journalists or not.”
Rethinking journalism
Part of rethinking journalism, Prof Berger added, is addressing issues of identity and citizenship. “Journalism does not mix well with an identity of national citizenship.” Repeating Cheriff Sy’s sentiments at this year’s Telkom Highway Africa Awards and Gala Dinner, Prof Berger said: “Journalism is not a business. Media is a business. [Journalism] is a fight”.
“I think the challenge is to reshape these institutions, so that everybody can do journalism. A key part of this, is creating partnerships as doing journalism alone is limiting. Journalism still has a vital role in the public sphere and as a tool of civil society. While technology has been used successfully for organisation and mobilisation, there is also a need for information, and this is where journalism fits in and why it is still important”, he stated.
“Journalism, and in particular the safety of journalists is integral to the information society we find ourselves in. Even within an information-riddled society, access is crucial if we aim to achieve goals in various sectors of society”, Prof Berger who is one of the founders of the Highway Africa conference and the previous head of the School of Journalism & Media Studies at Rhodes University, noted.
Chris Kabwato, Highway Africa Director added that because the practice of journalism has changed radically, media producers need to learn new skills for the newsroom and have to find out how one can respond to the changes.
“Through the theme: ‘The Internet and the Media – Celebrations, Reflections and the Future’, Highway Africa is beginning to reflect in a deeper way exactly where we are, where the internet has brought us and where our future is taking us,” Mr Kabwato indicated. “We thought: how could we prepare ourselves for that digital future that is coming? And decided to change our game in a way that is even more radical than what we have witnessed to date.”
The Highway Africa, Africa’s largest annual gathering of journalists brought together a host of media practitioners from across Africa. The two-day event on August 28-29, 2016 was hosted in South Africa by Rhodes University’s School of Journalism and Media Studies, in partnership of South African companies including the MTN Group.
For the past two decades, the conference founded by Professor Roland Stanbridge in 1997 has grown and developed since its inception, becoming the top annual journalism event on the continent – with delegates coming from across Africa and quite a few international delegates added to the mix.
The discussions this year ranged from the challenges of media sustainability in the digital age to digital activism and internet regulation in Africa.
This year, the conference’s programme included pre-conference workshops, presentations, hands-on training workshops, lectures addressing a variety of social issues. Fortunately, two Ghanaians were among the speakers- Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), and the Executive Director of Penplusbytes, Kwami Ahiabenu II.
Kwami Ahiabenu II named Highway Africa Fellow 2016
Mr Ahiabenu II was conferred the highest award of Highway Africa Fellow during the 2016 Telkom-Highway Africa Awards & Gala Dinner held in Rhodes University, South Africa.
The citation accompanying the award read: “Kwami Ahiabenu is a Ghanaian visionary. 15 years ago he set Penplusbytes – an institution dedicated to the training of journalists in digital media. From the outset Kwami reached out to Highway Africa and sought to collaborate around joint training and the covering of elections on the continent using mobile and social media. Over the years, Kwami has made his way to Highway Africa to deliver presentations and training workshops. This year he will be focusing on Social Media and Elections. A true friend of Highway Africa, we wish to recognise Kwami Ahiabenu II as a Highway Africa Fellow”.
Elated about the award, Mr. Ahiabenu II said “It is a great honor to be named Highway Africa Fellow, I dedicate this award to my family, hardworking board and team members of Penplusbytes and it is our expectation that this award propels us forward in our vision of being a leading institution for promoting effective governance using technology in Africa and beyond”.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Back from South Africa, courtesy MTN Ghana
