This article, by partly adopting a historical perspective, examines the introduction of new media in a Kenyan rural village, Kapkoi, and how it changes the communication ecology in the village. Further it explores how people in Kapkoi use and ascribe meaning to media. The article argues that categories such as gender, age and financial situation influence people’s access to and use of media and demonstrates how media use can simultaneously reinforce and challenge power structures. Moreover, it highlights the clear digital divide between rural areas and urban centres, and yet suggests that the introduction of new media is partly owing to the connection between the urban and the rural and that media and communications technologies sustain and increase the connectedness of the local.
This editorial introduces the thematic issue of “Media and Communication between the Local and the Global”. It does so first by presenting the origin of this thematic issue: the <em>Media, Globalization and Social Change </em>division at the NordMedia 2017 conference. The thematic issue is then anchored theoretically through discussion of the widely conceived notion of mediation as a technological, symbolic and ethical process―highlighting the interest in how media actors and communication technologies, practices and artefacts mediate between global phenomena and local contexts, which is what unites the contributions to this thematic issue. Last, the final section of this editorial introduces the articles, which coalesce around three broad themes: migration, marginalised communities, and consumption.
This article aims to discuss changing media ecologies in rural, peri-urban and urban Kenya. The article is based on a comprehensive baseline survey of 799 individuals carried out in October 2014 in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. The survey recorded media access and media use in relation to demographic data. The findings suggest that media ecologies in rural, peri-urban as well as urban Kenya have undergone dramatic changes. The much hyped and unprecedented spread of mobile telephony has taken place simultaneously with the introduction of or increased access to radio and television, including satellite television. Different emerging communication ecologies can be identified, often with radio providing a solid foundation and combining in different ways with television and mobile phones. Even though mobile ownership, for example, has increased in all segments and areas, gender inequalities are reproduced in relation to mobile phone access especially in the rural areas, while in urban areas the inequalities are less significant. This pattern is also visible in connection with television and social media use, thereby highlighting the fact that the urban–rural and gender divides often intersect.
This article explores how increased media access and use influences Kenyan women’s everyday life and alters the domestic space. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with women in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya, the article demonstrates that women have incorporated newly gained media into their daily lives and routines. Increased media access has opened up the home and turned the domestic sphere from a secluded place into a connected space in which women can receive input from, connect with and interact with the world beyond their immediate surroundings whilst simultaneously remaining at home and fulfilling their traditional gender roles. Women’s media use thus reinforces their connection to the domestic sphere and the gendered division of labour. Although it has the potential to challenge gender inequalities, the extent to which this occurs depends on the individual woman’s ability to act on the imaginaries and ideas that media carry.
Taking as point of departure three recently conducted empirical studies, the aim of this article is to theoretically and empirically discuss methodological challenges studying the interrelations between media and social reality and to critically reflect on the methodologies used in the studies. By deconstructing the studies, the article draws attention to the fact that different methods are able to grasp different elements of social reality. Moreover, by analysing the power relations at play, the article demonstrated that the interplay between interviewer and interviewee, and how both parties fit into present power structures, greatly influence the narratives that are co-produced during interviews. The article thus concludes that in order to fully understand complex phenomena it is not just enough to use a mixture of methods, the makeup of the research team is also imperative, as a diverse team are better equipped to gather a diversity of stories.
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