Back to Index

Broadcasting Pluralism and Diversity: Training manual for African regulators
Article 19.org
June, 2006

http://www.article19.org/pdfs/tools/broadcasting-manual.pdf

Download this document
- Acrobat PDF version (2.25MB)
If you do not have the free Acrobat reader on your computer, download it from the Adobe website by clicking here.

Introduction

Purpose of this manual
The past 10 to 15 years have seen a dramatic growth in pluralism in broadcasting in Africa. From a broadcasting scene overwhelmingly dominated by government-controlled or state media, the landscape has evolved considerably with the licensing of many private commercial and community broadcasters. This process has happened, inevitably, in a haphazard and piecemeal fashion. Many of the old government broadcasters have survived these changes and most fall well short of the ideals of public service broadcasting.

The African Charter on Broadcasting, adopted in 2001 on the tenth anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, alongside the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa establish a series of important principles that should guide the development of African broadcasting. These include:

• The crucial important of independent broadcasting regulators.
• The transformation of state and government broadcasters into public broadcasters.
• The importance of encouraging pluralism and diversity in ownership of broadcasting.

The task of implementing these principles lies to a large extent with African broadcasting regulators. This manual is aimed at members and staff of African broadcasting regulatory bodies, along with others, such as journalists, broadcasters and civil society groups who are seeking to realize the ideals in these declarations.

How to use this manual
This manual can be used in three basic ways:

• As a teaching guide for trainers running courses for broadcasting regulators.
• As a learning tool by such officials - in other words they can work through the manual on their own.
• As a reference tool by regulators who have already gone through a training course.

In practice, the same group of broadcasting regulators may use the manual in all three ways:

• They work through the manual on their own.
• Then they attend a workshop in which the learning points in the manual are elaborated and discussed.
• They keep a copy of the manual to refer to in their future work.

This would be the ideal way of using the manual. Workshops are usually much more effective if participants have had a chance to acquire most of the basic informational content on their own, at their own speed. The workshop can then focus on:

• Issues that participants have not fully understood.
• Points of controversy or disagreement.
• Developing the skills needed to complete their work on a day-to-day basis.

However, it is recognised that officials will often not have the chance to work through the manual individually before a workshop. The Notes for Trainers section offers advice on planning a workshop based on this manual that would be suitable for officials.

Download full document 

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP