African Unification Front
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AUF POLICY ON AFRICAN MEDIA
Egypt TV Building in Cairo
There is need to redirect the overall programing of media content in Africa. Television and Cinema are transmitting programs designed for the American and European domestic market. Most of these programs are irrelevant and alien to Africans. Much foreign programming serves as a stimulus for the glorification of deviant and anti-social behaviour, including racist attitudes that denigrate Africans.
Many Africans want to leave Africa and settle abroad because of the propaganda that gives a glossy veneer to life outside Africa, WHILE at the same time transmitting unbalanced images of African life. Foreign media and the press engage mostly in Africa bashing, and in presenting only the negative developments and dismissing positive news, and this is demoralizing.
Media literacy would seek to generate a recognition that all messages are constructs and carry with them the hidden ideology of both their creator and of the creator’s context. A democracy based upon participative citizens requires the capacity to read all media texts critically, even those with which one might agree. Therefore the AUF is working on implementing a massive public media literacy project for the African Union.
The AUF is planning an all-African news service. Moreover, the AUF will also work to strengthen the African media, to promote it internationally, and to encourage and fund African radio, film and television productions for both the domestic, Diaspora and the international markets.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA
Radio is ubiquitous in Africa. Everyone in Africa has access to radio receivers of all kinds. Radio Programming is also unique to Africa, and public education is just one service that radio provides to communities.
In the African Union television is a major factor in the dissemination of popular or national culture. The television industry in Africa is largely free-to-air. Most TV stations are state owned and operated for free public service. The state owned stations are not dependent on advertising revenue, so the advertisement intervals in Africa are 30 minutes or longer. Private stations do exist and are becoming more common. Most are owned by large foreign MultiNational Corporations.
Kenya Televison Network was the first non-pay privately African owned TV station in Africa. KTN was established in 1990 in Nairobi. The African Union's largest, free-to-air television network is TVAfrica, with headquarter offices in Johannesburg, South Africa, became operational in July 1998. It transmits a staple diet of American programming in sitcoms and soaps, European Sports (soccer especially), via satellite, without the need for a decoder, satellite dish or subscription. TV Africa operations over 20 republics in the African Union.
TVAFrica has one of the world's largest viewing audineces (over 100 million viewers have access to the signal). The other large broadcaster is MNET in South Africa. Most of the local state broadcasters are affiliated with large media outlets including CNN, MNET and TVAFrica.
AFRICAN PRINT MEDIA
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWS MEDIA IN AFRICA
The newspaper is very old in Africa, dating back to ancient times. Produced by ancient scribes and used for public edicts, the papyrus was less durable than the clay tablet or the more labour intensive slab of granite, preferred by heads of the "great houses", to commemorate heroic actions.
Ancient Egyptians (correctly "kem") and the Kushites excelled at hieroglyphs. In other parts of Africa, writing has not survived, and only the Vai script of Liberia and Amharic script remain in extensive use today. Much of the other ancient Africa writing remains indecipherable and is yet to to reveal its secrets.
Click: List of Television Stations in the African Union
Click: List of Newspapers in the African Union
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printable version
