MEDIeA

by Admin on 9 November 2009

Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa (MEDIeA) is a collaborative research program between Denmark, Kenya and Tanzania. Three universities –one Danish and two East African– have teamed up for the program, started in 2009 and scheduled to end in 2015: Roskilde University (RUC) from Denmark, the University of Nairobi from Kenya, and the University of Dar es Salaam from Tanzania. The program will comprise six individual research projects with a Kenya focus and a Tanzania focus, supplemented by an International Reference Group of leading experts in media, empowerment and democracy –theorists and practitioners. Dissemination, capacity building and policy dialogue are additional components of the program.

The MEDIeA research project is hosting a concluding seminar which is taking place 7-8 May 2014  in Nairobi, Kenya. The seminar will assemble around 40 academics, media practitioners and opinion leaders in Kenya and Tanzania to discuss the research findings of the MEDIeA project.

The MEDIeA research project began in late 2009 and includes six researchers from Tanzania, Kenya and Denmark (Rose Reuben, Grace Githaiga, Datius Rweyemamu, Winnie Mitullah, Norbert Wildermuth and Thomas Tufte). Their common interests have been exploring through in-depth empirical studies how East Africans were making use of the media and communicative ecologies that were part of their everyday lives, and with particular attention given to young marginalized girls. The primary focus has been on trying to understand the altering relations between media use, citizen engagement and societal changes.

The seminar is hosted by Winnie Mitullah, director of IDS and Thomas Tufte, director of the MEDIeA project. The programme is available here.

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Media are crucial to the exercise of freedom of expression. Public opinion can only be formed if a public that engages in rational discussion is able to create and occupy a communicative space that is, ideally, free and independent of established interests and as well as, open and accessible to all citizens. The ongoing emergence and convergence of the electronic media has changed notions of the public sphere radically.

MEDIeA invites to a full-day seminar on Social media as a tool for social transformation: Encouraging Civic Engagement, Good Governance and Democratisation? – to be held in Nairobi, 17 May 2011. Participation is free, but we kindly ask you to register with Norbert Wildermuth (norbert@ruc.dk) or call +254 (0) 724 391 980) to facilitate our logistic planning.

For more information on seminar content and venue, download information sheet here. [Added 11 May 2011:] See also the full seminar programme, and the list of participants.

MEDIeA Seminar presentations

by Nikita Junagade 18 June 2010

Presentations from the MEDIeA seminar on Media, Empowerment and Development – Strategies to explore information and communication needs of citizens held in Copenhagen on 7th June 2010 are now available online.  Click here for access.

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Seminar: Media, Empowerment and Development – Strategies to explore information and communication needs of citizens

by Admin 22 May 2010

[ 7 June 2010; ] This MEDIeA seminar is to be was held in Copenhagen, 7 June 2010, 9 to 15 hrs. For full details see the programme flyer. Register here.

The Danida-supported research project People Speaking Back? Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa (MEDIeA) was launched in Dar es Salaam in December 2009. The project, running from 2009 to 2013, comprises of [...]

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PhD Scholarship on Media, Empowerment and Democracy in Tanzania

by Admin 17 February 2010

The MEDIeA research programme calls for applications to a PhD scholarship on “Media, Empowerment and Democracy in Tanzania – media ethnographic perspectives”. The full call may be downloaded here (pdf).
Applications are invited from primarily Tanzanian citizens with an MA in Social Sciences or Humanities and with experience in qualitative empirical research, preferably in the field [...]

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MEDIeA researchers meet Advisory Board

by Admin 3 December 2009

The MEDIeA researchers met with the Advisory Board on 2 December 2009 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The agenda and some of the presentation slides are made available below (all as pdf-files):

Agenda for the day
James Deane: Media, Empowerment and Good Governance: Some dissonant concepts
Grace Githaiga: PhD project outline: Appropriation of ICTs by Youthful Women in [...]

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Full seminar programme online

by Admin 29 November 2009

The final and full programme for the seminar on “Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa” is now available online (pdf). The seminar is held at the Giraffe Ocean View Hotel, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 3–5 December 2009. Plenty of the MEDIeA researchers and advisory board members are among the organisers, speakers, and session chairs [...]

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Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa

by Admin 9 November 2009

[ 3 December 2009; 4 December 2009; 5 December 2009; ] A seminar hosted by the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in collaboration with MEDIeA and Malmö University, Sweden, 3-5 December 2009.

The seminar will explore the potential role of civil society-driven media and communication technologies in enhancing participatory governance processes in East Africa, particularly in Kenya and Tanzania.

The seminar will bring together eminent media [...]

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MEDIeA collaborative research program: presentation

by Admin 22 September 2009

For an introduction to the MEDIeA program, click here (pdf).

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