Mass Media & African Renaissance

The African Renaissance is a concept that Africa, African people and African nations can overcome the challenges that they are currently confronting and achieve cultural, scientific, economic and social renewal. Popularised by Thabo Mbeki the former President of South Africa, the concept was first articulated in the 1990s and resonates with hope for a new and refreshed Africa.

What if any, is the role of the Mass Media in the African Renaissance?
The type of information that is produced by the mass media has a significant influence on the way that Africa and Africans can address particular socio-economic, development or environmental issues. Africa’s colonial background which resulted in the concentration of black people in small regions in the country with little access to resources, limited investment in development resulted in the excessive exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of the coloniser. Mass media coverage of such issues must reflect these imbalances for purposes of reconstruction and development in Africa.

The achievement of the African Renaissance requires that Africans develop a comprehensive information creation and dissemination system for all countries on the continent at both the national and sub-national levels. The information should reflect African development ethos, African development values, African development concepts and the fundamental aspect of Ubuntu. Mass media coverage needs to address the origins, the direction and path through which development issues should be addressed. The ability to develop such a system requires commitment from all African countries to work together and to allocate sufficient financial and institutional resources.
URTNA
URTNA is a professional body with more than 48 active member organizations committed to the development of all aspects of broadcasting in Africa. It encourages the exchange of indigenous programming via satellite and videocassette; strives to obtain preferential satellite tariffs to facilitate news and program exchange; represents the African point of view on legal matters such as conventions and agreements; and works with the ITU as an advisor for the PANAFTEL project.
Since 1972, a working group conducted jointly with other international organizations has been studying the contribution of communications satellites to education, culture, and development in Africa. URTNA has conducted a long-term project with governments of member organizations to evaluate rural telecommunications needs in Africa. URTNA also presents seminars, workshops, and conferences on topics such as news, educational broadcasting and television development of communications, satellite communications, and training.

URTNA is composed of the national radio and television organizations of African states that are members of the OAU. Associate members are national radio and/or television organizations from non-African countries.

The URTNA initiative was and still is a step in the right direction in terms of addressing Africa’s information needs. African countries will have to work together and possibly set aside their own national interests to ensure that poor countries spruce up investment in developing incountry Mass Media structures that can play an important role in bringing about reconstruction and development. Only through this approach will Africa be able to use the Mass Media to drive the African agenda for Africans and counter information from the north whose development agenda may not reflect the will and aspirations of the African continent. By so doing, Africans can slowly lift their standards of living to levels that may make the African Renaissance a reality.