Studies in political communication have dominated the disciplines of political and communication sciences for many years with the ‘proliferation of communication, media abundance, ubiquity, reach and celerity’ (Blumler and Kavanagh 1999: 213) aggregating and maximising, in cross-disciplinary oriented scientific interest in these two key areas of research. Several definitions of political communication have been proposed by various scholars with Chaffee’s (1975: 15) easily identifiable because of its noticeably invigorating simplicity: ‘the role of communication in the political process’. Norris (2004: 1) defines political communication as ‘an interactive process concerning the transmission of information among politicians, the news media and the public’. McNair (2011: 4) takes it further with an all-inclusive approach that stresses the academic field is not just centred on the political relationship between media and democracy but on ‘all forms of communication undertaken by politicians and other political actors for the purpose of achieving specific objectives’. While research in political communication is abundantly available in the West (see Graber 1981; Denton and Woodward 1990; McKinney et al. 1999; Esser et al. 2001; Street 2001), the same cannot be said about Africa, where the introduction of constitutionalism in several countries across the continent following years of colonial subjugation was expected to play a leading role in determining the destiny of party politics.
This book seeks to investigate the current state of political communication in Africa. A book attempting to conceptualise political communication in an African perspective is long overdue in an era when stories of successful emerging democracies continue to dominate headlines in leading newspapers of the world. Why would a political communication convener at an African university recommend a book that hardly makes reference to the continent, especially when considering that the dynamics of political communication in Africa cannot be the same as experiences in other regions? Africa as a region has its own shared yet sometimes complicated history in addition to very diverse religious and social cultures. Remarkably, and complicating things further, it is possible to discover many cultures or religions within one African country. History is key to understanding the complex African political terrain. A historical account will therefore be provided, with the collection not only historicising the field of political communication but also examining how the propagation of emerging digital discourses such as social media influences is aiding or inhibiting its influence. Africa’s Internet boom has seen the continent claim the second highest growth rate at 1100% (Miller and McKerrow 2010).
While the same study concluded that the continent was home to the lowest percentage of population penetration at 5.6%, we must point out here that things have changed to an extraordinary extent over the years. Recent statistics have shown Internet penetration levels rising to about 20%, while mobile subscriptions are close to 70% (Nyirenda-Jere and Biru 2015). Internet penetration has developed more than tenfold, rising from 17 million users in 2005 to an estimated 172 million in 2014 (ITU 2014). This escalating rise is hugely important given that previous studies have long pointed to the Internet’s influential role in political mobilisation (see Rheingold 1994; Grossman 1995; Schwartz 1996). Besides, new media technologies are not only influential in connecting inaccessible populations to markets but they also increasingly provide platforms for innovation and engagement, which in turn helps to enhance political awareness and the potential for social openness and freedom (Madon 2000).
Relations between the media and state players in several post-colonial African countries have always been guarded, with members of the press corps working to actively promote the ruling party in what has been called the Soviet media model (Seibert 1956). For example, Ansu-Kyeremeh and Karikari (1998) argue that radio and television broadcasting fell victim to state monopoly in 1935 and 1965 when they were respectively unveiled in Ghana . In a similar vein, Banda (2006) posits that in a state-sponsored regulation exercise, post-independence Zambia sought to issue broadcast licences on religious merit, with Christian applicants supporting President Fredrick Chiluba’s Christian-centred views being favoured and securing the much-needed ticket to the airwaves. The colonial legacy has been critical in media development across Africa. In Zimbabwe , for example, the tendency to use radio for hegemonic political purposes has been reported both in the pre- and post-colonial state (Moyo 2005). Indeed, McQuail (1994) has propounded that one key characteristic for countries transiting from colonialism has been the lack of human and infrastructural resources to develop media systems without state intervention, a development which has unfoundedly seen dominant media models in practice and in principle becoming prevalent. For many in Africa, it was nearly impossible to find alternative sources of news content before the digital revolution, which took shape between the late 1950s and 1970s. Lack of funding weighed down upon potential independent players, leaving the government the lone supplier of one-sided news bulletins, which took the obvious narrative of supporting the incumbent. That trend is changing, and this volume explains why and how.
Problems holding back political participation, including illiteracy, cannot be ignored, especially in Africa where uninformed citizens , constrained in terms of communicating their views, rely on media messages to explain and articulate pressing political issues. Seeking an African perspective in this field, we also analyse the theory of media politics as proposed by Zaller (1999: 1) as a ‘system of politics in which individual politicians seek to gain office, and to conduct politics while in office, through communication that reaches citizens through the mass media’. That is, we seek to identify how and with what effect politicians across the continent use or misuse mass and social media to advance their ideologies and political goals.
1.1 Historical Background to Political Communication in Africa
Writing a historical overview of political communication in Africa proved to be an almost impossible task both from a theoretical and practical point of view. This is in part because political communication as an independent discipline has only recently developed in many parts of Africa and because the countries making up the African continent are very diverse, not only with regard to culture, religion and geographic dimensions (even regionally), but also political infrastructures, political cultures and political communication. Worse still, there is no significant body of work to draw on and very little comparative analysis (between countries), with little accessible data. Not only are these diverse contexts significant, but so are their histories. And these diversities do vary greatly from one another, from one African state to another. For instance, in the case of political crisis, one state might institute a state of emergency, mobilising armed troops, while another country might create a new policy or even generate and create new strategic policies in order to deal with a similar crisis.
There are many prevalent socio-economic limitations, such as the Internet divide, illiteracy and economical apartheid ; and each of these conditions, to varying degrees, has impacted not only on several African communities, but also on political communication as a field, along with access to information and the media. More so, governments in different countries have had different responses to the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution. And statistics show that many Africans encounter political communication (from the different players/actors) through radio. For example, South Africa only saw the introduction of televised political advertisements in 2009, fifteen years after democracy was introduced to South Africa. Studies about the use of such advertisements then, and in the 2014 elections , are only now emerging (Dhawraj 2013). However, this is not to say that southern Africa does not practice, teach or study political communication. We are simply making the point that the field falls under the guise of i...
