Media in Somalia

Media in Somalia 

Somalia, a country in Africa with the capital, Mogadishu. Mogadishu has been bearing scars of decades of fighting. The country has been usually involved in civil war. It is comprised of a former British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia was created in 1960 when the two territories merged. Since then its development has been slow.

The region remains flawless with no effective administration or institution in place.

Federal government of Somalia, the first permanent central government was formed in the start of the civil war but due to the absence of power residents reverted to local forms of conflict resolution consisting of civil, religious and customary laws.

The main few regions in Somalia are: - Somaliland , Puntland and Galmudug who emerged for the process of decentralization. Radical group such as Al-Shabaab battled with the groups for the control over the country. 

The media environment in Somalia varies significantly from region-to-region, with different conditions in the unstable parts of Somalia. 

Somalia’s new provisional federal constitution, adopted by the National Constituent Assembly in August 2012, provides, Freedom of Speech. However due to violence in the country, journalist face restrictions on the reporting in practice. No freedom of information to guarantee access. Many cases are resolved outside the court either according to Xeer (customary law) or Islamic law. 

Somalia is considered having the most literate in Africa anda country where power has overtime been abused more constantly. Media has been used and misused; often to manipulate, control and inflame tension, hate and conflict. This shows the media’s role in shaping Somalia’s present and future. 

Without a central government since 1991; making it the longest running instance of complete state collapse in postcolonial history. This development is been driven by the evolving role of business groups, traditional authorities and civic groups.

Al-Shabaab means the youth and has been banned as a terrorist group by both the US and the UK They are building a media empire and creation chaos in Kenya. Though they use social media; they have been a group always against and killing journalist and shutting down the media outlets in Somalia.

The Somali government recently shutdown two independent radio stations, accusing them of inciting violence among Somali’s. 

Latest news from the BBC – Blast near airport in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, linked to the Al-Shabaab. 

Journalists in all regions receive no or low pay. Many media outlets prefer to hire cheaper, less skilled workers the ones who ask for more pay are threat to be replaced.

At least six journalist and media workers killed this year with continuing reports of further targeting and harassment.

No doubt; journalism is in deep trouble in Somalia along with the media; but this is one of the country where journalist have risked or resisted more in the face of appalling attacks. Many people fled but they still have a large number and some even say that they would rather die defending the freedom of Somali media.

Training on human rights, good governance and to fight forthe truth and being the right source for the people. 

Journalist need to learn their rights because some of the media owners do not know the laws of media and some of the journalist don’t know the ethics of journalism and thus people have faith that one day this country will be a land of opportunities.

Brazil - A Country Analysis

Today let us talk about South America’s largest nation- Brazil. We are going to discuss some questions, such as – How is social media influencing Brazil? What is the status of Brazilian journalists? What problems is Brazil facing at the moment? And perhaps, what’s going to be Brazil’s future?

Looking back in the history, Freedom of Speech in Brazil was most restricted during the military regime in 1967, when Article 151 was added to the constitution, limiting citizen’s liberty. It was until when Brazil became democratic and all this came to an end. It is a democratic country and has been democratic ever since 1985. There are three types of governments – Presidential, Federal Judiciary and Congress. Since the end of military rule in 1985, unionization, collective bargaining, and frequent strikes have become commonplace among federal employees in all the three branches of government.The current president of Brazil is Dilma Rousseff.

Investigating journalism in Brazil, we can see how it is facing crisis at the moment. This is because of two main reasons – one being the growing competition with new technologies and internet, which means how Brazilians have started believing online comments and broadcasted news. The second reason being, economic pressures to cut costs and do more with less of journalists and other costly reporting.

According to the World Press Freedom Index, Brazil is a country which exposes journalists to physical danger. In 2013, there were five journalists murdered and this made Brazil one of the deadliest countries for media personnel in western hemisphere. Now, due to all these cases journalists find it risky to cover subjects like – corruption, drugs and illegal trafficking.

A major problem faced by Brazil this year was when Brazilians in São Paulo protested against the massive amount of money spent on 2014 Football World Cup and 2016 Olympics. They said that all that money could have been used in hospitals and education. Another thing which was quite astonishing was when state military police was still using the methods it used during the time of dictatorship. Around 100 journalists were victims of violence and two-third of the blame went on the police.

Looking at these scores stated by the Freedom House this year, we can say that Brazil is neither the best nor the worst in context with press freedom.

Moving on to media, Brazil has South America's largest media market – thousands of broadcasting radios, TV channels and a strong press. Social media has influenced Brazilians in many ways like in purchase decisions, brands interacting directly with social networks and job recruitment.

Now let’s go to the vital part – Future of Brazil. Due to the growth of social media, people have started doubting what is being told to them by politicians and journalists. 

Instead , they have started drifting towards other sources like – online broadcasted news, posted comments by people on face book, articles and even blogs. They find it trustworthy, and unbiased. Old newspapers have now taken a backseat.

Journalism in Brazil won’t improve if media reforms are not taken seriously and discussed in a mature manner.This cannot be achieved by journalists’ good intentions and individual commitment alone.It is important to recognize that more structural and long lasting improvements in the media will necessarily depend upon- deepening of the Democratization Project and  Economic force. 

After reading all this the questions that come to our mind are-How will the media industry protect their institution? How will they retain positive public perception of their journalistic integrity and regain the trust of their readers?

(Can also refer to Power point presentation on this topic)

  

Media's effect on moral development

A person with bad morals is likely to have a tough life; this is when moral development plays a role of being extremely important in a life of a human being. Morality is the key of  human mind that enables an individual to take moral decisions and actions between those that are right or wrong.

 Criticism often levelled against the media is that they are contributing to the decay of morality, which refers to the way people choose to live their lives according to a set of guidelines or principles that govern their decisions about right versus wrong. 

Media’s creation of moral panics has caused our society towards a big concern for the youth. Now-a-days as soon as we turn on the news, we are never short of a shocking scandal involving gangs of youths, kidnapping and assault. With these headlines popping up here, there and everywhere, stereotypes are gradually formed. However, every single youth of today really that dangerous, or are the media creating a moral panic. This is used to control the way in which the public behaves. The dangers of creating these moral panics are that they are continuously exaggerated in the media, which results in public concern constantly heightening. For example, the media frequently reports on criminal activity as it has a right to do. However, some believe that the media sensationalises crime so as to create moral panic and that this is used as a way of controlling how the public behaves.

Media usually has been portraying incidents and the happenings around to the society in such a way that they want the public to react to it in a panicky manner.

In recent years moral panic and media presentation have covered a wide-range of topics from HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s to asylum seekers into the UK in the 2000’s. This goes back as far as World War 1 when the wartime government used the media to portray the Germans in a certain manner in the hope of provoking a response. The same happened in World War 2. In this case, the media did not have to portray Hitler in a certain manner as the public already had its view on him. 

There is a deep connection between media and morality which has always been taken for granted, a movie Zero Dark Thirty, which tells the story of the tracking and eventual killing of Osama Bin Laden, has received several Oscar nominations but its attracting another kind of attention where it has been accused of influencing the point of view of right or wrong.

The media's act in launching certain perceptions of deviance, and have the power to create and instill particular thoughts towards certain groups within society.

There are journals, blogs and articles on the youth/teenagers or the future in terms of media, moral development, the working of internet by Ulises A. Mejias. Newspapers often point towards the debility of our society in regard to their reporting of moral panics, and repetitively refer back to the ‘good old days’.

This leads us to an on going concern that media is influencing the mind and working of the people, harming their moralities but also on the other hand media has got its good sights which has made it become the source of knowledge which enables us to get information of the activities around the world and creating a big impact on an individual's moral's.

Should Scotland Be An Independent Country

There was just one question – should Scotland be an independent country? The answer was as simple as a yes or a no, but it decided the future of the UK.  September the 18^th of this year was an important date, on this day the final decision according to the votes came out to be a no.

Let us first have a look at the reason behind Scotland wanting independence. The proponents of the Yes Campaign believed that Scotland would be richer if it separates from England. They wanted Scotland to make its own decisions about how resources are controlled and money is invested. They opposed investing billions of pounds in nuclear weapons and wanted to focus on social issues such as; childcare and programs to retain talent and encourage young Scots to stay.

Investigating the opposition and throwing some light on the Better Together Campaign we get to know about the arguments it placed against the yes campaign. They said that by being a part of the UK, Scotland can easily trade across other parts of the UK and therefore have access to more jobs. It also mentioned that Scotland has the protection of the UK armed forces and influence on the UN Security Council.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Salmond said he accepted the defeat and called for National Unity. He told supporters: “The unionist parties made vows late in the campaign to devolve more powers to Scotland. Scotland will expect these to be honoured in rapid course – as a reminder; we have been promised a second reading of a Scotland Bill by March 27th next year.” Mr Salmond urged the Yes voters to reflect on how far they had come."I don't think any of us, whenever we entered politics, would have thought such a thing to be either credible or possible", he said. He also claimed the campaign had put "a scare and a fear of enormous proportions" at the heart of the Westminster establishment."Today of all days as we bring Scotland together, let us not dwell on the distance we have fallen short, let us dwell on the distance we have travelled and have confidence the movement is abroad in Scotland that will take this Nation forward."

BBC’s Nick Robinson said: “This referendum may have ended one debate in Scotland – for now. It has however, lit the touch paper on the explosive question of where power lies in the UK.” David Cameron also committed himself to be offering Scotland new powers, but it made clear that this would depend on the next general election and a settlement that would exclude Scottish MPs from voting on many issues confined to England. Robinson suggests that this would create two classes of MP with the possibility of a government having a majority to pass certain laws but not others.

Hence for now, Scotland and the UK will carry on as they have for the past 300 years; but there will be some changes and they will not be the same as it was before.

Social Media Influencing Journalism

This is the era of social media; where the journalists have been affected by new technologies, which has got a huge impact towards the working and practice of journalism. Journalism, which plays an indispensable role in notifying the people of the nation, who are a pillar of public life and pluralistic, democratic societies. They are a source where the general public rely on them for the facts and quality information.

The past working of journalism was usually practiced without the involvement of the public and their point of view. Over the years, there have been different factors, which have come up leading for a huge impact on journalism. But “Social Media” is one of the factors which has been significantly influencing the working of journalism. Social Media or in other words new Internet technologies has changed the business of journalism, where the journalists are no more the gatekeeper’s but sharing the news in the public where social media is playing a big role; for example:

•  Blurred the difference between opinion and fact
• Anyone can be a journalist; citizen journalism

These are few ways through which the social media has replaced traditional journalism. Now a day’s this topic has been taken into account by the organizations like, The Guardian just published an article on, “How social networking is changing journalism”, even the Oxford Social Media Convention focused the impact of social media's impact towards the working of journalism. 

With the drastic use of social media it has got a detailed look on how the public relations and the journalists communicate.  To get maximum reach towards the depth of the happenings around, journalists must engage with the different forms of social networking sites.  

• One of the biggest news that broke via social media, “ The 1^st person to tweet about Osama bin Laden raid was a neighbor who, while complaining about the noise next door on Twitter, unknowingly tweeted about one of the "biggest news" stories of the decade. 

On the other hand, online news sources aren’t always reliable or 100% fact.

Social media being a source of spreading the news with speed doesn’t mean the data it carries is truly factual.  

Old or past information is circulated on social sites which causes an environment of unnecessary fear in society.   

At times the people who post on the social networking sites become the source for the reporters.

Though,“Reading news online” is an increasingly important Internet activity. In some OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, more than half of the population read newspapers online.

• Political Parties in India especially BJP used social media during the Loksabha elections in a big way. This can be useful for few but harmful for many. With such an effective tool one can malign any one within minutes. Hence needs to be handled properly. Looking at these changes, Election Commission had made it mandatory to fill details of Social Media Accounts in recently conducted Maharashtra polls.

“Social media was an add-on originally,
 a little something extra you used to do,
 now its intrinsic to everyday life, its completely woven into the newsroom."