Mediastudiesblog

The Open Society of South Africa (OSF-SA) launched a guide  [link to updated pdf] for journalists to write in-depth, accurate and balanced stories on the day of Local Government Elections - 18 May.

The election resource for journalists titled "A touchpad to our future: local government elections manual" can also be used by civil society. It was launched by the OSF-SA and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

OSF-SA executive director, Zohra Dawood, said the manual aims to build capacity of journalists to effectively prepare for, monitor and report on the 2011 municipal elections, as well as educating voters on elections and democracy.

Two sites that could be of interest to Political Communication students.     The Straight Choice  contains election leaflets from UK general election candidates while the Election Champion documents election billboards.

 Spotted this via ResearchBuzz.

Spotted on intute.ac.uk

A paper by Josh Goldstein, Juliana Rotich which was published in September 2008 by the Internet and Democracy Project, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University. The 10 page paper offers a case study of the use of the Internet to mobilise political protest, focusing in particular on the aftermath of the 2007-8 disputed Kenyan presidential elections. It describes how blogs, SMS text messages and websites were used by activists to expose human rights abuses.

Spotted on intute.ac.uk

The African Elections Project is co-ordinated by the International Institute for ICT Journalism in association with other partners and funding from Open Society Initiative for West Africa.   Looks at  developing the use of ICT for elections in West Africa. The main case studies cover presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana, Cote d ‘lvoire, and Guinea from 2008/9.

The website provides information on the aims, methods and activities of the project. Each country section contains the full election results, plus access to examples of selected blogs, online videos and websites developed to cover the election campaigns.

From Intute.ac.uk 

This site provides free access to the full text of the 28 page report published by Social Media Affairs in May 2009. It provides an overview of the state of online political communication in Britain in 2008/9. It includes chapters on usage by political parties (Conservative Party, Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats); assessments of party political websites, blogs and Twitter activity. Also provided are overviews of influential Uk political bloggers by stance, topic and region; comparisons of online political activity by MPs; MEPs; councillors and local government organisations and discussion of the use of Twitter by politicians. Access to the full text requires free registration.

 <snip>

Social Media Affairs contains all influential political blogs based in the UK.
Full detail is provided on each blog’s focus and political stance. Social Media Affair’s unique BlogScore rank system also provides an easy measure of both a blog’s influence and its visibility in search engines. Providing you with all the necessary information to determine which bloggers to engage with. Full contact details for each blog are also provided.

Spotted on bizcommunity

News  (and photos) about a company called Provantage who branded taxis, buses and mobile trailers with ANC branding as part of election campaigning in all nine provinces.  

 

Spotted on Global Voices Online:

Malawi's presidential and parliamentary election campaigns have moved into cyberspace with politicians and political parties setting up websites, blogs and creating Facebook profiles.   It does seem rather ironic, in the face of this,  that the Malawi Electoral Commission does not have a website of its own.  

ANC held a debate on Twitter yesterday.  

Here's the story   as covered by Global Voices Online, highlighting some of the questions that were asked and answered.    A full transcript of the questions and answers are available from here.  

Spotted on IOL,  the story and a link to the controversial puppet show, Z News, which was shelved by the SABC.     

The pilot episode shows news reader Mahendra Raghunath interviewing Mbeki and Zuma, who is also depicted as the ogre Shrek. There are skits in between the interviews which show Tshabalala-Msimang as a princess and a crazy doctor, as well as DA leader Helen Zille, who is depicted as a dragon.

One skit is an episode of Idols where Zuma is shown singing De La Rey and Awulet' uMshini Wam'; Zille sings a rap song, Hey, Hey, Hey Don't Mess With My City; and Mbeki sings I Will Survive.

 Z-News formed a part of the discussion on a documentary episode of Special Assignment on political satire  -  which was also canned.

 

 

Pew Internet & American Life Project have released a report on the role the Internet played during the 2008 Presidential election.  Here's the full report online.

Quoting from the overview:   Some 74% of internet users--representing 55% of the entire adult population--went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election. This marks the first time that a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey has found that more than half of the voting-age population used the internet to get involved in the political process during an election year.

 

 

News24 reports that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa)  has allocated free time slots for pre-election broadcasts to political parties.  

Period of broadcasting starts today until April 19, 2009, broadcasting on SABC 1, 2 and 3 as well as all SABC radio stations. 

According to the statement, there are four Party Election Broadcasts (PEB) slots each day.

The ANC, Cope, Independent Democrats, and the African Christian Democratic Party each received five slots.

The DA, the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania received three slots. The United Democratic Movement received four slots.

The Minority Front and the Pan Africanist Movement were allocated two slots, and Women Forward received one slot.

 

Spotted on bizcommunity.com

With the upcoming elections we are joined by two of South Africa's biggest political parties; the ANC and the Democratic Alliance to get an understanding of their online campaigns.

News24 has given eight political parties a blog ahead of the April 22 elections.

BLOG: African Christian Democratic Party

Also from bizcommunity.    

There is to be a free seminar on Reporting on the 2009 Election and Beyond, hosted by frayintermedia and featuring some of the country's leading political analysts, editors and party policy-makers, such as Dr Frederick van Zyl Slabbert, Jovial Rantao, and Smuts Ngonyama will speak. The programme begins with a debate hosted by Prof Adam Habib, VC of the University of Johannesburg, on today's volatile social and political landscape.   (Sadly, taking place only in Jhb.) 

The seminar concludes with a two-hour policy debate - to be broadcast by SABC Radio - between the leading policy-makers from the ANC, COPE and other political parties, discussing their attitudes towards migration in the shadow of the election.