Author: Dr Mustapha Ali.
Publisher: Image Publications.
Reviewer and Photographer: Odhiambo Orlale.
By the touch of a button either on your cell phone, laptop or television set remote control, you can get the latest local news from all over the world. No longer does one have to wait for ‘breaking news’ in the special editions of the newspapers, or the evening news bulletin to catch up with local and international news events.
It is in view of the on-going developments in the media landscape that Dr. Mustafa Y. Ali put pen to paper to capture them in a book with an apt title: Globalization and the Kenyan Media. Says the author: “This book is a product of two critical processes. A keen interest on the disciplines of Political Science, International Relations, Sociology and the media on the one hand; and a rigorous academic exercise leading to an award of an interdisciplinary Doctoral degree in these areas from a British University.”
Product of two critical processes
Dr. Ali had a keen interest in international relations, political science and how the media impacts on the processes of relations between states and the changing dynamics within the media, which led him to study and get a deeper understanding of the confluence of those two disciplines.
The media practitioner reveals that he was intrigued by the tactful and immensely successful (mis)use of the media by some non-state actors to reach their targeted audiences with political messages through violent means. Says the author: “This prompted me from 2000 to research on the use (exploitation) of media by these actors, and how their activities – mostly terror -had affected relations between States.”
He recalls how terror groups remarkably and in extraordinary ways exploited the media in the aftermath of the twin bombing of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania, in 1998, and later after the 9/11 attacks of the Twin Towers in New York, the U.S., in 2001.
According to Dr. Ali, the terror groups exploited the links between public opinion, decision-making and the news media with devastating results.
New York’s Twin Towers
This phenomenon – the calculus of violence’ became an interesting subject matter when religion was mentioned alongside terror by the sensational media. The well-written book is split into six chapters. These are the globalization debate and media globalization; the history of the Kenyan media from pre-independence to 1989; the globalizing media environment in Kenya from 1990 to 2008.
The other chapters are: the transnational mass media agencies and services impact on the Kenyan media; multinational corporations and corporate sector influences on Kenyan media; conclusion and recommendations.
In his review of the book, former Vice-chairman of Kenya National Commission on Human Rights Hassan Omar Hassan, said: "A penetrating account of how the corporate world and its negative Globalizing impact influences the news and programmes we consume every day. I now watch and read news then make my own conclusions, and never taking those from the media with finality."
Penetrating account
Similar views were shared by Tervil Okoko, Vice-President of Eastern Africa Journalists Association saying: "No other work captures the subject impact of globalization on the less industrialized countries' media systems than Mustafa's. It is a book for all journalists, media practitioners, information scientists, researchers and policy makers in the area of communication, information and the media. Without doubt, his is a seminal work - a first on the Kenyan media scene, and indeed Africa."
The author notes on the chapter on the history of Kenyan mass media that the sector in Kenya during the pre-liberalization era was hamstrung by a monolithic and authoritarian grip of the colonial government before independence, and then by the governments under the one-party rule after independence.
As the 1980s ended, the global media scene began experiencing profound changes in their structures and processes. Those effects were not only felt globally, but we're also felt locally. These developments resulted in tremendous changes in the sector.
In most cases, the changes were democratizing and pluralizing and they also ensured an increasingly vibrant and dynamic sector as compared to the previous era, according to the author.
In his conclusion, Dr. Ali notes that in the 21st century and beyond as the media globalization is increasingly influencing the local, national and the regional media, there is need for Kenya to build available diverse, robust, independent and plural mass media.
"To achieve this, there must be an enabling policy environment. Clear, coherent and comprehensive regulatory frameworks devoid of manipulation from both government and the corporate sector must be enshrined," says the author.
Meanwhile, globalization in general and media globalization in particular are ongoing processes that are accelerating at dizzying paces today, some 11 years after the book was published.
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