AjricaMediaReview Vol. 5No. 2.1991
@African Council for Communication Education

Development Journalism in Africa:
Capitulation of the Fourth Estate?*

by Lewis O. Odhiambo**

Abstract

of development

journalism.

no longerevok~

traces the historical underpinnings

lacks organic relevance to make it a legitimate professional pursuit

It
This paper
argues that, like the ideology of development which is its raison d' etre, develop-
though a welcome departure from Western mass media para-
ment journalism,
digms,
for
sub-Saharan Africanjournalists. This is because 'development'
patriotism in the present socio-political environment of the region. The paper also
and
postulates
international
roles in
thereby (a) limiting the capacity of
stultifying sub-Saharan Africa's development
its journalists
roles in society, and (b) hampering the devel-
opment of mass media in the region.

factors, political and economic mismanagement,
and ideological

interests have played major

that historical
economic

to play meaningful

A version ofthiJ paperentided
ProspeCll' wu presented at the Encounter 90 Conference
University eX Western Ontario, London. Canada.
Mr. Lewis Odhiambo is • lecturer at the School eX Joumalilll1, Univenity of Nairobi

'Deve1opmentJournaliJm in Africa: Problems and

<Xl NC1'Iember, 2-4, 1990 11The

••

17

Joumalisme de Developpement en

Afrique

Resume

de developpement.

Cet article retrace les bases historiques du joumalisme
II
affirme que, tout comme l'ideologie de developpement qui constitue sa raison,
d'etre, Ie joumalisme de developpement, malgre qu'elle represente un eloigne-
ment bien accueilli des paradigmes des medias occidentaux, manque une per-
tinence fondamentale pour Ie transformer en activite professionelle valable pour
les joumal~tes africains sud-sahariens.
Ceci est dii au fait que "developpement" n 'evoque plus patriotisme dans l'envi-
ronement socio-politique actuel de la region.
L' article postule aussi que des facteurs historiques, mauvaise gestion politique et
economique, et Ies interets intemationaux economiques et ideologiques ont joue
des roles importants en abrutissant Ie developpement de I'Afriq ue sud-saharienne
et par consequent
(a)- ont diminue Ia capacitt de ses joumalistes de jouer des
roles importants dans la societe, et (b)- ont entrave Ie developpement des medias
dans la region.

18

Introduction

theory posits that one of the preconditions

Mass communication
for the develop-
ment of the mass media is the availability of a potential audience. The other
preconditions
technology. and evol-
ution of freedom of expression (Hicks. 1977).

are the development of symbolic language.

their

'copying'

(a) population

(b) complex social organization

numbers and density for convenience

The criterion of availability of mass media audiences comprises

six compo-
and economy of
nents:
individuals do not rely
such that
distribution;
information.
opinion and linguistic
entirely on face-t.(}.face sources of news.
i.e. existence of a high degree of
diversion to meet
needs,
(c) shared interests and cultural
specialization and functional
religion, aesthetics,
orientation,
economics, politics and ideology so that there is enough commonality to permit
meaningful
of
leisure time that can be spent on the consumption
and enjoyment of the mass
to enable appreciation, enjoy-
media; (e) literacy and intellectual comprehension
ment and absorption of mass media content; and (0 discretionary income for the
purchase of the mass media contents (Hicks, 1977).

from standardized media content;

in matters of literature,

interdependence;

(d) availability

for instance.

experience

science,

It has been suggested that the mass media in Third World countries do not
received only parenthetic
(Kunczik, 1988). Sub-Saharan Africa is often

qualify as such by these criteria and have,
attention in academic discourse
cited as having the lowest mass media consumption figmes in the world.

therefore,

I ~

the significance

However, measures using mass media consumption levels mask fundamental
and role of the mass media in developing
issues regarding
countries. They also mask the nature of relationships
and
established powers in such societies. Demographic.
economic and social condi-
tions may have seriously hampered the growth and profitability of mass com-
munication
the
in Third World countries. Yet
between the mass media, established political power and social
relationships
change, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where multilateral
to
boost mass media development have floundered in the same way as have other
socioeconomic policy and structural

this only partly explains

between journalists

interventions.

interventions

and normative attributes of the media institutions.

A popular variant of Third World mass media theory is that which emphasizes
functionalistic
It views the
mass media institutions as both instruments for, and aspects of, wider socioecon-
omic development
The theoretical

foundations of this view of the mass media are in structwal
functionalism of the 1950s through to the 1970s propounded by Schramm (1964)
and Rogers (1962, 1976). After many years of gestation and maturation in U.S.
of the mass media was
administrative
domiciled in Third World countries where it has become both an intellectual and

this perspective

and effects

research.

19

political philosophy. This new paradigm has come to be known variously as
development

journalism or development communication.

This paper sketches the historical basis of development

how the troubled socioeconomic
prejudices and imperialist
the development and role of the mass media in sub-Saharan Africa.

interests extant

realities

journalism.

It shows
the region coupled with the
in global rehitions have marginalized

of

The Ideology of Development

rationalistic and 'willed'. He argues that

Gramsci (1979) makes a distinction between 'historically organic ideologies' and
ideologies that 'are arbitrary,
'To the
extent that the ideologies are historically necessary they have a validity which is
'psychological';
they organize human masses and create the terrain on which men
move, acquire consciousness of their position,
that
they are arbitrary,
polemics and so on'
(p.99).

struggle, etc. To the extent

they only create individual

'movements',

'development'

We postulate that at independence

had the attributes of an
it was
historically organic ideology in the Gramscian
'modified and denatured'
(Gramsci's phrase) by established powers in sub-Sa-
haran Africa thereby making it an arbitrary rhetoric. We argue further that at the
beginning African politicians and journalists were seeing one big picture of the
continent's
future, but that later each party progressively focused on different
areas thereby leading to the present conflictual situation.

sense, but

later

that

The 1960s was a period of great hope and expectation in Africa. It was a time
when many African countries were emerging from the dark ages of colonialism
and, so to speak, entering the dawn of a new age, an age of glorious economic
growth and intellectual emancipation.

Africa had 450 million population that was mostly young and growing;
geographically it occupies 23 percent (11.7 million square miles) of the earth's
land mass.

Historically, Africa could boast of being the cradle of mankind and origin of
human civilization: 3-million-year-old fossils found by anthropologists Louis and
Mary Leakey had established without equivocation that the evolution of man took
to Zimbabwe;
place in East Africa - in a long swath of landmass from Djibouti
the Nok culture flourished in Nigeria in 500 B.C. against
the backdrop of a
burgeoning iron smelting technology; Benin exchanged ambassadors with Por-
tugal in the mid-fIfteenth century;
the splendours of the Songhai empire in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
it will be recalled, were legendary; and, now-
priceless bronze busts were being cast in Nigeria's ICeState long before Columbus
set sail for America.

Economically, Africa is to this day virgin, unexploited. As journalist David

Lamb (1984) described it, Africa:

20

that

hides the riches

the future generations

like a closet millionaire,
on distant
continents will need to prosper, produce and survive. It has 40 percent of the world's
potential hydroelectric power supply,
the bulk of the world's diamonds and chro-
mium, 30 percent of the uranium in non-communist world, 50 percent of the world's
gold, 90 percent of its cobalt, 50 percent of its phosphates, 40 percent of its platinum,
7.5 percent of its coal, 8 percent of its known petroleum reserves, 12 percent of its
natural gas, 3 percent of its iron ores, and millions upon millions of acres of untilled
farmland. There is not another continent blessed wi th such abundance and diversity.
So during that decade of the 1960s the path of Africa's bright futme seemed
clear and well-defined. The objective was to regain lost glory and enter a new
age of restoration and cultural
level, such novelists
as Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Nigeria's Chinua Achebe, and poets such as
Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal and Okot p'Bitek of Uganda, composed epics
situation in Africa - between the past and the present, and
about the crossroads
between bondage and freedom. These were quality literary works in English and
French of unequi vocal acclaim about the cultural ferment that erupted as pastoral
Africa encountered
technological Europe. They were cultural and ideological
benchmarks for the inexorable changes that expectedly were to heave the massive
continent forward.

renaissance. At the cultural

But with hindsight,

it is illuminating to recall the words of philosopher Joseph
Mbiti (1971) who, exploring the notion of time found that African time was 'a
composition of events which have occurred,
those which are taking place now
and those which are immediately to occur. What has not taken place or what has
no likelihood of immediate occurrence falls in the category of 'no time'. What is
certain to occur, or what falls within the rhythm of natural phenomena,
is in the
Is

, category of 'potential time' (p. 70). The question may therefore be posed:

Africa a victim of this philosophy, of inane inability to project,

to forecast?

the continent's

Up to this point

intellectual and political

leadership was in
agreement
that its emancipation was predicated on rapid socioeconomic devel-
opment. Thus socioeconomic development became the historically organic ide-
ology,
Development was historically necessary given the prevailing structures of post-
colonial backwardness

and programmes.

the organizing

principle,

for

social

policy

or

and poverty.
Meanwhile, politically, Africa,

like the rest of the world, was being divided
along the east-west
ideological divide and was becoming a playing field for cold
war politics that were ranging at the time. Africa was split between communism
and capitalism with their centrifugal epicentres in Europe and North America. To
this extent contemporary political history of Africa is very much the history of
if nineteenth century African history was the
east-west contentions. Therefore,
history of European activities in Africa,
then twentieth century African history
has been the history of African reaction to Europe (and its diaspora). As a result,
for two centuries, Africa was largely a passive object of history. Come political

21

independence and Africa was craving to become an active player in the historical
game.

Thus the 1960s was a period for the formulation of our own political philos-
ophies that did not have the blemish of foreign origination, east or west. We came
up with African socialism (Kenya), ~ugu
or com-
munity, Tanzania), humanism (Zambia), and other variants of such terminologies
It was a period of political and
that suited our temperament and sense of purpose.
cultural reification of the ideology of nationalism and natural
identity. But it was
also the time when we were entering the first stage of Gramsci's
'modification'
and 'denaturing'
i.e. when ideology is 'identified as distinct from
structure, and it is asserted that it is not ideology that changes the structure but
vice versa'

or ujamaa (brotherhood

(Gramsci 1979: 100).

of ideology,

In Kenya,

the government published a policy paper entitled Sessional Paper
No. 1 on African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya in 1965
which formed the benchmark for the country's mixed economy development
radicalism, allowed public and
model. The sessional paper eschewed political
private sector participation in the economy, and emphasized government
invest-
ment
the document
in health, education
and its author as an agent
dismissed it as a blueprint
of American capitalism. Such critics were, of course,
similarly dismissed as
communists.

and rural
for capitalist development

infrastructure. Critics of

The basis of the sessional paper was faster economic development which has
remained the official
ideology to-date. The rationale of this policy is that as a
young nation, all energies and resources should be pooled to achieve faster growth
(A national rallying cry harambee (Kiswahili
together) was
coined to popularize the ideology of development.) The mass media put their
weight behind the ideology of development

for pushing/pulling

direction,

although the more socialist

The Kenyan example is not exactly typical, but it illustrates the basic assump-
adopted for
tions, strategies and approaches which many African countries
followed more
socioeconomic
overtly radical paths. As a rule, however,
the path adopted determined the lens
through which the particular country was viewed from the centres of investment
capital and technical assistance. To a large degree,
it also determined the level of
militarization and the scale of civil turbulence experienced in each country since
independence.

leaders

Having underpinned the normative and intellectual bases of the ideology of
it is necessary to point out that subsequently the ideology ceased
development,
it became arbitrary,
and willed. In other
to be historically organic;
'national
development'
words,
the ideology became perverted. For
the expansion and en-
become an excuse for suspending individual
trenchment of state capitalism, and for the growth of unwieldy bureaucracies
fraught with corruption, nepotism and every variety of patronage. When, how
and why this came about is beyond the scope of this discussion.

rationalistic
instance,
liberties,

22

The Role of the Mass Media in National Development

that

that will

'with values, beliefs and codes of conduct

structures of the large society.' They postulate

Herman and Chomsky (1988) attribute to the mass media the role of inculcating
integrate them
individuals
into the institutional
in
societies which are characterized by major social conflicts and concentration of
the mass media can fulfil this role only by systematic propaganda. They
wealth,
'In countries where the levers of power are in the hands of a state
continue:
bureaucracy,
by
official censorship, makes it clear that the media serve the ends of the dominant
elite' (p. 1). Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model focuses on inequality of
wealth and power and its effects on mass media interests and choices, and how
these 'are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow
the government and dominant private interests to get their message across to the
public'

control over the media, often supplemented

the monopolistic

(p. 2).

Riegel (1977:63) cautions that 'the objective of governments

in communica-
or education in the sense of increased
tions is not to promote 'world-mindedness'
understanding and appreciations of the ideas and cultures of other nations and
peoples in a world community, but rather to preserve and strengthen the sense of
nationality and the national status quo.'

structures

institutional

into the twentieth century in communications

Expropriation of the media of mass communication was a major feature of the
countries in Africa, even though these countries had neither
newly-independent
a sense of nationhood to preserve, nor national
to which
the mass media could integrate citizens. The disparate peoples in former Euro-
pean colonies that gained independence
as African nations with full status at the
United Nations had no consensual values in culture, politics, or economics, nor
was there agreement on the mode of political
leadership and how those leaders
'Bringing emerging
were to be chosen and changed. As Riegel
(supra) says,
nations
usually translated into
providing governments with tools to combat differences
and tribal and other
fragmenting loyalties for the purpose of promoting national unity and discipline.
Bluntly stated, this translates into turning nomadic Africans into soldiers'
(p. 63).
Discounting Riegel's sarcasm and overstatement, he aptly captures the essence
of the problem. Most African countries explicitly stated that it was the role of the
In fact this was
mass media to create national unity and foster development.
that many governments
deemed so important
through
and government
suddenly became
nationalization.
spokespeople. Most journalists did not object
and actively
in the belief that this was being done for
snpported government nationalization
patriotic reasons, and that politicians would play their traditional
role of leader-
to play theirs of watchdog and sentinel. Some were
ship and leave journalist
effusive in their support. For instance, Tanzanian journalist Ng' wanakilala (1981)
argued that what was crucial was whether
the media were used for liberation or

became the mass.media
civil
to this development

Journalists

servants

23

oppression of the popular masses. He enthused:
is com-
mitted to the development of all the people, media takeover by the government
is an act of liberation and emancipation.

'where a government

Others such as Kenyan editor and publisher Hilary Ng'weno

(1969) were
willing to accept a certain amount of limitation of press freedoms associated with
democratic societies. He suggested that the media should impose limitations upon
themselves rather than have the government
impose censorship, and that such
action was justified because:

'

(of poverty,

'The challenge to the press in young countries
fOlmdations upon which future freedoms will
conditions
Africans and Latin Americans
freedom, for freedom loses meariing when human swvival
upon which a people live ...
o,fany other institutions or individual,

is the challenge of laying down the
some of the
in which vast numbers of Asians,
to talk about press
is the operative principle
the first duty of the press, as indeed

is to encourage greater national unity.'

it would be sacrilegious

illiteracy and disease)

In such countries,

thrive ...

Under

live,

Some politicians like the late president of Ghana, Kwarne Nkrumah, a former
journalist who used his paper to whip up support for his political party 'during the
rejected the idea of an independent press. He
struggle for Ghana's independence,
argued that
system of capitalism the press cannot
function in accordaI)ce with strict regard to facts' (Nkrumah, 1965).

'Within the competitive

Nkrumah believed in activist journalism,

insisting that journalistic practice
involves choice of topics and arrangements of facts in a way that fits in with the
preferences of the owners. He argued that, in privately-owned media,
the jour-
nalist often 'finds himself rejecting or distorting facts that do not coincide with
the outlook and interest of his employer or the medium's advertisers. Under the
trivialities are blown up, the
pressure of competition for advertising revenue,
vulgar emphasized, ethics forgotten,
the important
trimmed to the class outlook.
Enmities are fanned and peace is perverted. '

Nkrumah believed that a journalist

should have high ideals, be a political
activist and party member, and 'His newspaper a collecti ve organizer, a collective
instrument of mobilization and a collective educator, a weapon first and foremost
for the overthrow of colonialism and imperialism and to assist
total African
independence and unity. The true African journalist often works for the organ of
the political party to which he himself belongs and in whose purpose he believes.
He works to serve a society moving in the direction of his aspirations.

'
Ng'weno and Nkrumah's arguments remain the two most powerful

inspira-
for African's mass media policy. They also provide the
journalism as an occupational self-per-

tions and justifications
utilitarian underpinnings of development
ception and a theory of the press.

In the decade of the 1960s, arguments such as these provided the rationality
for government action. Radio and television stations were nationalized where
they existed because, after all, they had been mouthpieces of colonial authorities.

24

In some countries such as Tanzania,

The broadcast
of the masses, creation of a sense of national

facilities were required, so the argument went, for the education
identity, and to unify the new nations.
for instance, not only was the broadcast
system put under the powerful ministry of information, but newspapers were also
nationalized and turned over to the ruling party. In others, such as Kenya, only
the broadcast networks were nationalized and made a part of government bure-
aucracy;
remained. But many
governments or the political parties in power established their own newspapers
as well. Kenya's
and Broadcasting, Rarnogi
Achieng Oneko,
in newspaper publication on
egalitarian grounds. He said the government would establish rural newspapers
because 'commercial newspapers aim primarily at making profits, so they are not
likely to undertake
linguistic groups'
(quoted in Mytton, 1983).

for
justified government

the publication of newspapers

Information
involvement

some independent

(foreign-owned)

first Minister

newspapers

for small

Oneko's reasoning makes sound social policy and business sense. But it should
also be borne in mind that the political
strengths of a vast majority of African
politicians are in their rural homes where they return every election time for votes,
not in the cities where they live. More importantly,
the other thing Oneko did not
say was that the government aimed to fill the vacuum left by private investors
with newspapers through which government officials could talk down to the small
linguistic groups. Through UNESCO support,
the Kenya government has estab-
lished a network of rural newspapers which, by and large, have become just
another voice of the government whose information officers publish them.

interests

(1969) put

As Ng'weno

that could invest

It is hard to argue against

the principles behind government participation and
control of the mass media in Africa given the fact that in some of these countries
there being
the only newspapers present were those established by government,
no able individuals or private sector
in newspapers,
leave alone broadcast systems. There were no models for co-operative ownership
of mass media, and this has not been encouraged to-date.
it, the need for self-restraint

by the mass media in
fragile democracies will always be there given the forces at play in their politi-
co-economic
of
flagrant neglect of responsibility by the people in power. It is a truism that a cowed
and subservient press has served African dictators superbly and no politician or
It can no longer be
soldier
legitimate to urge restraint by journalists who .daily witness wanton profligacy
from government officials and politicians
some of whose only qualification to
leadership is that they bombed their way into power. And neither is it legitimate
to ask the media to look the other way when some elected leaders betray their
vows to defend the constitution and instead tinker with it constantly.

in power would wish to change

ring hollow in an environment

arenas. But such arguments

the status quo.

Bagdikian (1983: 213) says that

in history when all
established power becomes uneasy. He says such are usually 'times of social
change when those in control are operating with an obsolete picture of the world

there are moments

25

and are alanned at suggestions of flaws in the system they govern.
hostility at such times may be directed at what they most need to recognize.

(But) their

'

Most of the established powers in Africa today are operating with obsolete
threats to
pictures of the world. Here's the most salient picture they see: constant
from armed bandits lurking to seize power on behalf of some
their governments
hostile foreign government;
their own
policies and actions. The rest of the world, on the other hand, sees this: Sudan =
hunger, war; Liberia = mass murder, breakdown of civil society; Mozambique
and Angola = civil war, communist
tribalism;
Tanzania = benign neglect of economy, communism; Nigeria = military dictator-
ship, tribalism; Zaire = corruption, political
tribalism; and just outright
medieval societies in many parts of Africa.

threat; Kenya = corruption,

for this they blame everyone

thuggery,

else but

These pictures may be distorted. But consider

these other pictures that are not
instability in Third World nations
seen: the linkage between the endemic political
and their poverty;
the linkage between poverty and the integration of the global
economy; and the linkage between an integrated global economy and the history
and perpetuation of empire.

in government

By some inexplicable conjuncture of bad luck and sheer circumstance, we are
often told, the private interests of local and international political economic elites
so merged that Africa's development must now be negotiated with endogenous
multilateral and bilateral agencies. This is hardly surprising given the fact that
and the economy remained largely intact at
colonial structures
independence
govern-
ments undertook measures
the result was
often military take-over of government, drying up of economic aid coupled with
a blitz of negative foreign media propaganda and, invariably, very well financed
and armed 'liberation' wars. Against
this backdrop is a vast majority of African
people who feel that the trust which they placed on their politicians had been
betrayed.

'for stability and continuity.' But where 'revolutionary'

to alter neocolonial

superstructures,

Thus, lacking popular support, many African governments have fallen; others
to contain all stripes of
like Ng'weno
is.that
tend to treat themselves as the sole judges of what constituteS the
journalists have been hounded out of town,
foreign paymasters.' Many of the
have been cowed through the calculus of survival and

have resorted to increasingly authoritarian methods
criticism, often interpreted as dissent Even patriotic journalists
(1969:4) began to grumble that the trouble with most African countries
'governments
national
arrested,
remaining journalists
economic necessity.

interest.' Many independent
tortured, or jailed to reveal

'their

Another conjecture of local and international opinion in the 1980s held that

there was need for change in Africa. The international media had just 'di~vered'
that millions of people were dying in Ethiopia and Sudan as a result of drought
and civil war. Suddenly philanthropists
in the west were at hand to marshall aid
for the victims. Pressmes for structural changes of African economies were also

26

stepped up and the international media began to report atrocities of African
governments
and guerrillas engaged in bush combat as though these were new.
Yet most African civil wars have been fought since the early 1970s!

'The root process of peaceful change begins with the right of the aggrieved to
says Bagdi-
'And the voice of the aggrieved. being heard by the general citizenry.

be heard. thus presenting the best evidence of the need for change,'
kian (supra).
can create consensus for a remedy. The media are crucial

to this process. •

problems

It may be argued that in an integrated world such as we have today.

the role
of the mass media in social change is an international co-operative effort, and that
reporting Africa's developmental
requires resources which its media
institutions cannot afford. Moreover, as we have seen, governments are the mass
and this does not allow for the necessary
media in many African countries
critiquing that governments
require for the development of democratic institu-
the narrow ideologism of international media would
tions. Regrettably. however,
seem to make them unlikely supporters of popular
structural and democratic
change in Africa. In addition,
there is little likelihood that they will shed in a hurry
their cold-war approach to news gathering so well documented by Herman and
Chomsky (1988) and Aronson (1990).

Moreover, Bagdikian (1990)

tells of 'private ministries of information and
culture'
in western industrial democracies. He says these private ministries are
media monopolies, endless mass media chains which manufacture public infor-
mation as industrial by-products for sale worldwide. We are told that money from
such sales finance the purchase of oil, mineral and agricultural
concessions
throughout
in the armaments
industry and reap hefty profits from fratricidal wars in Africa and the Middle East
We are also told by Aronson (1990) that these private ministries of information
played a leading role in fuelling the hysteria that came to be known as the cold
that same cold war which has
war through disinformation
transfixed Africa in a dance of hunger unto death, and in a macabre ritual of
fratricide.

the media chains also have interests

the world;

and propaganda.

We see many such 'objective'

reports about African hunger, African inhu-
manity to fellow Africans, and African corruption. What we don't
see are the
causes of such miseries and the linkages between these things and the events that
have shaped the destiny of Africa throughout
and twentieth
centuries.

the nineteenth

Africa played no active role in the events of this century.

It might all together
become invisible at 'the end of history' as the rest of the world simply becomes
too ashamed to acknowledge its existence. The capitulation of African journalism
to local bullying and international calumny is the more regrettable because there
is no one that will be sentinel and watchdog of this unhappy continent; no one to
amplify 'the voice of the aggrieved:) Hence there are reduced chances
for
peaceful social change in the continent

27

Conclusion

and
This discussion has explored the role of the mass media in socioeconomic
of develop-
political development. We have provided historical underpinnings
ment journalism as it relates to the sub-Saharan African environment
and how it
has failed to fulfil its avowed objectives. Like the ideology of development which
underpins
journalism lacks organic-
relevance that would make it a legitimate professional pursuit for African jour-.
nalists. This is not because it is no longer relevant, nor is it because there is no
philosophical basis for it. It has become illegitimate because 'development'
has
become an idea that does not evoke patriotism in the present
socio-political
environment of Africa.

its theoretical

development

foundations,

This discussion has also surveyed the constraints of journalism in Africa with
that historical
and ideological
thereby
role in their

its unstable political and economic
factors, political mismanagement,
interests have all played major roles in stunting Africa's development
limiting the capacity of African journalists
societies.

It has postulated
economic

to play any meaningful

and international

realities.

References

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