Abstract
Nicole Stremlau’s book is unique in many ways and provides essential insights into the issues that have shaped media development in two East African countries, Uganda and Ethiopia, through a comprehensive comparative analysis. The general aim of the book is to analyze the complexities of media and politics in their contexts and logic to provide an understanding of why the media is the way it is in these two countries. She describes Ethiopia and Uganda as exhibiting autocratic tendencies and their governments as trying to navigate the challenges and opportunities posed by media and communications. The countries have similar political histories and share political ideologies currently, but the media environments are very different; Stremlau considers them ripe for comparative analysis. Stremlau is the Head of the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford and a Research Professor in Humanities at the University of Johannesburg.
In Chapter 2, Stremlau introduces the readers to Ethiopia and Uganda’s political and media development, including heightened political moments such as elections. During such events, there is increased arrest and detention of bloggers, killings of protesters, blocking of the Internet and particularly social media platforms, repression of the media, and also detaining opposition leaders. She acknowledges that some of Africa’s greatest postcolonial founders were journalists themselves and held compassionate views on how the power of the media could be harnessed for the challenges they faced, particularly unity and integrity; this was shortlived, however.
In Chapter 3, Stremlau discusses the emergence of the Ethiopian developmental model and the role of ideology from the era of the guerrilla insurgency and the 1960-1974 student movement, including the ideologies shaped during the armed struggle of the Marxist-Leninist military government that followed. The chapter proceeds to understand how ideologies of the opposition before 1991 come to be applied by Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Movement (EPRDF) to the task of the governance after it came to power, and to explain the international appeal the EPRDFs governance model has held for other countries on the continent.
In Chapter 4, Stremlau discusses how EPRDF approached the institutional and ideological legacy that it inherited from the previous regime and how that has proved to be a significant determinant of the shape of contemporary institutions and broader issues of reconciliation. She describes EPRDF as having purged the older ideologies but at the same time failing to address historical grievances, which set in motion processes of resentment and distrust that have contributed to the highly polarized media landscape that exists today in Ethiopia. Stremlau also describes how issues of regionalism came to the fore of public debate as protests erupted in 2005 and 2006, affecting the development of the media system.
In Chapter 5, Stremlau highlights nongovernmental media and how they serve as an opposition in the political process that has been anything but transparent and open. The dissenting voices in these oppositional media have come from various sectors of society, including youth and religious groups, diaspora communities, and political parties. Stremlau discusses how critical elements of this oppositional media have reflected these competing ideas and interests, as well as the efforts of the government to curb them through legal and extra-legal means, some planned and well-articulated and others more reactive. EPRDF has increasingly been restricting the media as more in the interest as in the interest of maintaining its rule.
The next three chapters discuss the sociopolitical, economic, ideological, and cultural issues that shaped the media environment in Uganda. In Chapter 6, Stremlau discusses the early days of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government. Personal characteristics of Museveni as an NRM leader are discussed, as well as NRM ideology and the justification for the single-party rule, and how these political ideologies were embedded within the Ugandan Constitution.
In Chapter 7, Stremlau explores the development of media institutions under the single-party rule in Uganda and the extent to which efforts of reconciliation were incorporated in the process. By focussing on the new vision for the rebuilding of state institutions by NRM, Stremlau describes this vision as including publication of newspapers, as a unique experiment in creating a party-led, but semi-independent, initiative that set much of the tone and character of the media system as a whole. She also notes that many of the reforms Museveni put into place soon after coming to power have slowly been reversed.
In Chapter 8, Stremlau discusses how the government has sought to shape opposition media and co-opt critical voices as a way of consolidating power. It questions what it means to have a critical media in the context of the NRM’s single-party rule and how interests beyond those of the ruling party are reflected within the media system. The focus here is on Museveni and how he sought to advance the political interest of the NRM through the law and patronage networks. This chapter also demonstrates that the change in priorities has been differently felt across regions and generations in Uganda.
In the concluding chapter, Stremlau discusses the role of the media in the development of a nation of citizens and in state building and draws comparative conclusions as to why the media environments in Ethiopia and Uganda are different. The unique thing about this book is the depth Stremlau gives on the historical, sociopolitical, cultural, and ideological context of Ethiopia and Uganda and the role of the media in such complex nations. The other success of this book is the process tracing methodology it uses to compare the media environments. It is an essential addition to the literature on the media in Africa, and specifically Uganda and Ethiopia.
