Full Description
This ground-breaking volume examines enduring and emerging discourses around communication rights in Africa, arguing that they should be considered an integral component of the human rights discourse in Africa.
Drawing on a broad range of case studies across the continent, the volume considers what constitutes communication rights in Africa, who should protect them, against whom, and how communication rights relate to broader human rights. While the case studies highlight the variation in communicative rights experiences between countries, they also coalesce around common tropes and practices for the implementation and expression of communication rights. Deploying a variety of innovative theoretical and methodological approaches, the chapters scrutinise different facets of communication rights in the context of both offline and digital communication realities. The contributions provide illuminating accounts on language rights, digital exclusion, digital activism, citizen journalism, media regulation and censorship, protection of intellectual property rights, politics of mobile data, and politicisation of social media.
This is the first collection to consider communication in Africa using a rights-based lens. The book will appeal to researchers, academics, communication activists, and media practitioners at all levels in the fields of media studies, journalism, human rights, political science, public policy, as well as general readers who are keen to know about the status of communication rights in Africa.
Contents
Introduction: Communication Rights in Africa: Theoretical and Practical Considerations Part I: Cultural and Minority Rights 1: Language-Cultural Barrier in Ubang Community: A Critical Assessment of the Communication Rights of Women and the Girl-Child 2: Silicon Savannah or Digitising Marginalisation? A Reflection of Kenya's Government Digitization Policies, Strategies and Projects 3: Please do not call it human right: a Southern Epistemological perspective on the digital inclusion of people with disabilities in South Africa 4: The Interdependence of Communication, Political, and Socio-Economic Rights: Examining the Lived Experiences of Digitally Marginalised Netizens Before and During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Lagos State, Nigeria. Part II: Digital Citizenship 5: Cabo Delgado Também é Moçambique: The Paths of Youth Digital Activism in a Restrictive Context 6: Citizen journalism and the entrenchment of communication rights in Zimbabwe Part III: Freedom, Censorship and Intellectual Property Rights 7: 'The right to tell my story as I please': Regulation and self-censorship in the Nigerian film industry 8: A critical review of intellectual property rights: The case of Nigeria 9: Internet shutdowns in semi-authoritarian regimes: The case of Cameroon 10: Fake news v Freedom of expression. Legislating media trademarks infringements on Social Media Platforms in Kenya and South Africa Part IV: Politics of Digital Infrastructures 11: Politics of Digital Infrastructures in the Global South: The Case of #DataMustFall Campaign in South Africa 12: Silence and Silent the SóróSoké Generation: The Politicisation of Social Media in Nigeria
