Francophone Africa: The rise of ‘pluralist authoritarian’ media systems?

The Hybridization of Journalistic Cultures: A Comparative Study of Journalistic Role Performance

“…As the complexity of media systems across the world requires special attention, different scholars have attempted to develop new conceptual frameworks—albeit without proposing specific classifications of countries—such as the “delegative democracy or one‐party predominance” used as a model to categorize transitional democracies (Voltmer, ); the “captured‐liberal” model said to prevail across Latin America (Guerrero & Márquez‐Ramírez, ); the “pluralist authoritarianism” for the Francophone sub‐Saharan Africa (Frère, ); or the “partisan polyvalence” in Asia (McCargo, ). One of the key implications of their analyses is the suggestion of a potential hybridization of journalistic cultures.…”

A Mouthpiece for Truth: Foreign Aid for Media Development and the Making of Journalism in the Global South

“…These international aid efforts where followed years later by the new Black Republic of Haiti, which supplied Simon Bolívar in 1815 of a print and resources to establish in Venezuela a pro-independence and pro-abolitionist newspaper (Blackburn, 2006;Fischer, 2013) and subsequent financial and logistic support from Great Britain to also foster new media outlets in that country. In fact, as it is widely documented, the geo-political struggles of the old European empires were key in the development of the international media systems and particularly in relation to news agencies (Boyd-Barrett, 1980;Boyd-Barrett & Rantanen, 1998;Frère, 2015;Paterson & Sreberny, 2004) as it continues to be Jairo Lugo-Ocando DOI: https://doi.org/10.25200/BJR.v14n2.2018.1101…”

“…expose today in the case during the recent diplomatic standoff between Saudi Arabia and Qatar in relation to Al-Jazeera (Aldroubi, 2017). In this sense, Marie-Soleil Frère (2012Frère ( , 2015 has argued that the interventions of the great powers of the time shaped deeply the media systems in their then African colonies, which explains partially the Francophone and Anglophone media systems' distinctiveness of today. In more recent times, the notion of 'free-flow of information'…”

“Radio France Internationale” and “Deutsche Welle” in Francophone Africa: International Broadcasters in a Time of Change

“…It is generally accepted that 21 countries make up Sub‐Saharan, French‐speaking Africa; they are mainly located in west and central Africa and retained French as one of their official languages when they gained political independence from France or Belgium. It is obvious that the media systems operating in these countries all have their own specificities but it is still possible to identify a number of similarities (Frère, ). Radio broadcasting, for example, remains unchallenged as a form of mainstream media because it is easily accessible and understandable, cheap to acquire and to operate, and, at the same time, it replicates oral African culture (Manyozo, ).…”

“…Local competition has been increasing rapidly ever since and is further heightened by the emergence of new (inter)national actors such as religious radio stations or competitors from China. Despite liberalization, violations of the freedom of the press, the arrest of journalists and attempts at political interference remain prevalent in much of French‐speaking Africa (Frère, ).…”