Introduction
Media systems existed long before colonialism. Though most of the pre-colonial media systems were more localized, nonetheless, they served the same purpose as the contemporary media. In Africa, communities utilized their folk media structures to pass on information. This was in addition to the role of media as an educational tool. This paper covers media in the colonial era, media in the post-colonial era and its functions over these periods. The paper also covers how the pre-colonial and post-colonial government has interfered with the operations of the media.
These folk media included songs, drama folktales, as well as village meetings headed by village elders (Eribo p. 35). These meetings were used to pass on important information about diseases and other topics of concern to the public. Just like in Africa, India’s messages were also passed on orally through music and poetry. Traditional dances and festivals were also regarded as very important forms of media (Kulke p. 304). Young children were educated on the expected societal norms through these traditional forms of media.
The media during the Colonial Era
The media industry underwent a major transformation with the onset of colonialism (Shaw p. 95). Consequently, traditional forms of media were slowly altered or completely done away with. More sophisticated forms of media were introduced and these mainly served the communication purpose of the colonizers. Nonetheless, the new media differed from country to country depending on the favored ideologies by the colonizers. Most of the colonizers either embraced socialism in line with the Soviet Union ideology or America’s capitalism (Giddens p. 50). Due to the high rates of illiteracy among the traditional folks, not much was achieved in terms of communication between the colonizers and the people. As a result, the colonizers continued to utilize traditional forms of media to communicate with the people. In Africa, most of the countries like Kenya were governed at the local level by chiefs selected by the colonizers. The chiefs acted as information mediators between the colonialists and the people. Indians embraced their cultural beliefs and practices and as such it took some time before the British colonizers in India broke the ice. Britain is known to follow the American ideologies of capitalism and this is what they introduced in India.
How Europeans have influenced media development
The media in India has been accused of having slow progress because of a low self-confidence caused by colonization. India was colonized by the British. The media reports negatively portray the Indians and the Indian culture hence promoting the negative view that western press hold. The Indian media also measure aspects of media using European standards.
In Africa, the fact that the country was a British colony made it easier to embrace media development that had earlier on been adopted in India. At the height of colonialism, the media was largely state-owned. There is a need to appreciate the fact that the economic and media development between Kenya and neighboring countries such as Tanzania has been different. This is perhaps due to the ideological differences between the two countries with Tanzania embracing socialism commonly referred to as ‘Ujamaa’. On the other hand, Kenya is regarded as a capitalist society (Swainson p. 214). Due to this difference, the Kenyan economy grew tremendously during and after colonialism to the envy of most African states. Up until now, the developmental progress of Kenya has been tremendous in comparison with a majority of her neighbors.
British colonialists in Kenya introduced the state-owned British East African Broadcasting Corporation in 1929 to serve mainly the British elites. In 1959, the second station, African Broadcasting Service, was opened before the two merged to form the Kenya Broadcasting Service. Things changed in 1962 when the Kenya Broadcasting Service was disbanded to form the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation; a TV station that is still owned by the state even to date. During colonialism, the media industry was closely vetted by the government in terms of ownership and the information distributed. Nevertheless, things did not change with independence. The colonialists had already instigated a culture of controlling the media for their benefit as perpetuated by most post-colonialist leaders.
Africans were thirsting for information and a newspaper that addressed their concerns. This led to the proliferation of vernacular newspapers alongside the Aga Khan founded East African Newspaper established in 1959. Surprisingly these are still the most famous and widely read newspapers in Kenya till now with the Daily Nation top on the list followed by Sunday Nation and ‘Taifa Leo’.
Nonetheless, most Africans were neither conversant with English nor Kiswahili. Therefore, most political activists then introduced vernacular newspapers such as ‘Wiyathi’ among the ‘Agikuyu’, the weekly ‘Luo Ramogi’, the Swahili ‘Jicho’ and the Asian, ‘Colonial Times’. Most of these vernacular publications were used by the colonial political activists to educate and urge Africans to fight colonialism (Ochieng & Maxon p. 137). As a result, the publishers were always at loggerheads with the colonialists. The ‘Mau Mau’ uprising was so successful partly due to the information they had received in regard to the European colonizers from these publications. The case was almost similar in India, though the Indians experienced more freedom of the media in comparison with African countries. Just like in Kenya, the print media in India developed first before the electronic media.
James Augustus Hicky is credited with having established the Bengal Gazette, the first-ever newspaper in India. This was in the year 1780. Other newspapers were soon to follow, and they included the Bengal Journal, the Madras Courier, the Calcutta Gazette, and the Oriental Magazine. Whereas a majority of these appeared to address the concerns of Indians, nonetheless, the Indian government favored the Indian gazette to the extent of allocating the paper-free advertisements and postal circulations (Sankhdher p. 25). Just like in Kenya where most of the vernacular publications earned the government’s wrath, the Hicky’s Bengal Gazette was constantly at loggerheads with the government due to its criticisms of the governance leading to a ban on its circulation.
This was a common phenomenon in most colonies especially if a publication threatened to instigate an uprising against the respective rulers. In Kenya,’ Muiguithania’, published by Kenyatta landed him in prison for challenging some of the policies used by the colonial government against Africans.
The British rulers in India were not left behind in establishing a newspaper, the Statesman, which looked into the issues of the English rulers. As more newspapers were published in India (for example, Calcutta Gazette, India Gazette, and Bengal Gazette), these became useful tools for the government to pass down orders to the citizens (Sankhdher p. 30).
Due to an increase in the colonialists’ ruthlessness toward the common Indians, the patriotic movements also proliferated. This led to the use of information published in these newspapers as a tool for freedom struggle. Apparently the journalism case was replicated in India with most of the politicians being the main journalists’ of these colonial publications.
India was multicultural and multi-ethnic just like Kenya. Considering the illiteracy level of the populace the publication of vernacular newspapers was of paramount importance if nationalism was to be achieved. The electronic media namely television broadcast was introduced in India in 1959 (Bhattacharjee p. 65).
The media after independence
After attaining independence, the Kenyan government brought the control of the media under its jurisdiction with the transformation of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation to Voice of Kenya (Ochieng & Maxon p. 137). The Voice of Kenya included both television and a radio station. Due to the perceived role of the media in development and uniting this multiethnic and multi-cultural state the government opted to bring the media industry under its tight control.
During this post-colonial period, the electronic media aired programs that were carried in English, Kiswahili and Asian languages to ensure that all the inhabitants of Kenya were greatly reached. Due to the high illiteracy levels of the Kenyan folks the government subdivided the airtime of the national radio to air programs using most of the vernacular languages especially those the government believed had more political control.
Just like in the contemporary world, radio which was affordable to most families was used as a tool for political communication, commercial advertising and national integration (Ochieng’ & Maxon p.138). Unlike the electronic media which was mainly state-owned and controlled, the print media was a bit liberalized. As a matter of fact the first newspaper was privately owned by an Asian back in 1902 under the name African standard. However due to the great influence of the written word the Europeans bought the newspaper and renamed it the East African Standard which was mainly used to serve the European elites. Alongside this, the Europeans published ‘Baraza’, a Swahili newspaper whose main aim was to pass the European ideologies to the Africans. As earlier indicated, the literacy level of most Africans at this time was very low. As such this newspaper did not serve any congruent purpose.
Contemporary Media
Most of the regulations applied by the colonial government are still being applied by most contemporary governments especially in Africa (Okigbo and Eribo p.106). However the case is different in India with the press enjoying full independence (Reeves p. 9). Years after Kenya gained independence the media industry was still closely monitored by the government. Any station that criticized the government faced the risk of closure. This was the case in 1997 when royal media services license was withdrawn for criticizing the incumbent government. Though no such incidences have been experienced in the recent past, constant laws being introduced by the Kenyan government are intimidating the total autonomy of the media industry. On the other hand, India experienced such closure only once in 1975 when an emergency rule was imposed by Indira Gandhi’s government (Jeffrey 213). Most of the legal framework of these countries regarding policy formulation and regulation is based on their colonial legacy.
Kenyan media and the second Liberation
The Kenyan media reports of its darkest period of 15 years which ended when Kenya became a multiparty in 1992. During the dark period, the only people with a voice were those who were pro-government. The media shifted from being government-centered to audience-centered. The new media freedom has encouraged responsibility of the media, especially mainstream media. This is seen by the way the media handled post-election violence in Kenya. First, it encouraged the warring principals to sit together for the sake of peace. The media also brought out the seriousness of the conflict to international attention prompting the arrival of mediator Kofi Annan.
Criticism of the Indian media
The Indian media has been accused of airing lies with superstitious stories like an American has been kidnapped by aliens. The media then said that this incident happened in 1975. This is an attention-grabbing strategy that is very unethical. This has made scholars ask themselves, “Where has factual news gone?” The media also airs predictions from astrologers who claim that certain things will happen. They offer such conflicting reports that they confuse the audience.
However due to the technological changes and globalization, most of these colonial rules have been laidback. In addition, communication policies introduced by international bodies such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), influence communication policies adopted by individual governments (Winseck & Cuthbert 164). Just like in Africa, India is faced with an exacerbating number of FM stations, most of which broadcast in vernacular languages. According to Hackett and Zhao (81), in India, the proliferation in the number of radio stations was noted 1985 and 2003.However, this proliferation of FM stations has come with numerous accountability problems. This is the same case in Africa where a majority of these vernacular stations are being accused of causing ethnic rifts in the continent (Okigbo p. 59). A case in point is Rwanda were one of the FM stations incited the Hutu’s to rise against their Tutsi brothers in the infamous Rwandan genocide of 1994. Further, after the presidential elections in Kenya in 2007, communities rose against each other with an accusing finger pointed at the vernacular FM stations for allegedly inciting the masses.
The ownership of the media industry has also changed. During the colonial era and a few years after independence the media was largely owned by the government. At this time, the media was largely used as a tool to convey the wishes of the incumbent government. This notion is still held by some political leaders and hence their perennial meddling with the freedom of the media. Ironically, with the objective outlook of issues in the contemporary media industry the politicians are agitated whenever they are portrayed in bad light by the media.
Society views the contemporary media as the government watchdog (Wolseley p. 59). The mandate of the media is to unearth any illegal dealings of the government especially in regard to squandering the taxpayer’s money. This is what has aggravated the animosity between the Kenyan government and the media industry whenever they expose the government’s corrupt dealings. However with globalization and an increase in regional and international media houses such as CNN and BBC, this interference does not bear much (Barrett p.137).
This globalization of the media structures has succeeded in instilling professionalism in the media industry (Hamelink p. 7). This is in contrast to some of the local media industries that are known to overlook the ethics of journalism tainting this profession. Apart from the concept of globalization, technological advancement has also brought tremendous changes in the media industry (Mohammadi 87). Satellite and digital technology have enabled news to travel far and wide within the shortest time possible (Hamelick p. 7).
Transformations and growth in the media
Like most other economic industries, the media industry has also undergone tremendous transformation and growth (Briggs and Cobley p. 302). Nonetheless the rate of growth is dependent on various factors that are inherent from the incumbent governments. With most countries inheriting their media policy and regulation systems from their colonial masters, the freedom of the media has been gagged over the years.
The growth of the media industry in a country is dependent on other factors such as population size (Shaw p. 198). The size of the population in India is much higher compared to that of Kenya. As a result the circulation is also higher in India propelling the growth of the print industry. On the other hand due to issues such as the literacy level of citizens, Kenya has also prospered especially in Africa in regard to the print media category.
Indian scholars have recommended that journalists need to be proud of their country. They need to portray the country in good light without being boastful. The West has influenced India’s media programs, Hollywood has influenced Bollywood. The movies made in India are called Bollywood. One example is the movie “Monsoon Wedding” here the actors wear jeans, tight clothes and the western culture of sex before marriage.
Globalization though utilized as a tool for economic development has its shortcomings. Digitization for instance has compromised privacy of information due to the ease at which information can be accessed as well as transferred from one location to the other.
During the colonial era the media was viewed as a political tool. (Mohammadi 85). The colonialists used this to communicate with their fellow elites, while Africans passed on information on how best to oust the colonialists from Africa. However in the contemporary world the media is treated as a tool for nation-building. The news reporting is thus aimed at maintaining social stability, harmony and strengthening national economy (Jorgensen and Hanitzch p. 362).
In Asia, journalists are viewed as government partners closely related to the issue of nation-building. The news reported should be socially, economically and politically sensitive. Unlike the colonialism period the media is currently viewed as a tool for empowering the ordinary man as opposed to the elite. Moreover, the media industry is referred to as the fourth estate mandated by the society to act as a state watchdog and propagators of transparency (Jorgensen & Hanitzch p. 362).
Conclusion
In spite of the transformation that the media industry has undergone, its informational, education and entertainment roles have stood the test of time. The media need to do more; the Indian media has power and hence needs to transform society. It needs to fight social evils such as the caste system, poverty, superstition and communalism. The Kenyan media also has this same responsibility towards its citizens. It should fight and expose vices in the society especially exposing corruption so that the country can develop.
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