| Summary: | This thesis, titled “Normative Media Theory and the Rethinking of the Role of
the Kenyan Media in a Changing Social Economic Context,” is a theoretical
study that discusses the role of normative media theory in shaping and guiding
debate on the role of the media and attendant policy making processes in a
changing Kenyan social economic context. This is done against the background
of acknowledgment of the general state of flux that characterizes normative
media theory in a postmodern, globalized and new media landscape.
The study thus extensively describes the Kenyan media landscape, with a view
to demonstrating how it has and is continuing to be transformed by a variety of
developments in the social economic set up of the Kenyan society. In order to
provide a theoretical basis for explaining these developments, the study then
indulges in an extensive theoretical discussion that presents a synthesis of
current arguments in the area of normative media theory. This discussion
fundamentally brings to the fore the challenges which characterizes normative
media theory in a changing social economic context and therefore the inability of
traditional normative theory to account for new developments in the media and
society in general. In an attempt to integrate normative media theory and practice, the study then
discusses (against the backdrop of theory) the views and opinions of key role
players in the Kenyan media landscape, in regard to how they perceive the role
of the media. Particular attention is given, inter alia, to matters such as media
ownership, media accountability processes, changing media and communication
technologies, a changing constitutional landscape, the role of the government in
the Kenyan media landscape, the place of African moral philosophy in explaining
the role of the media in Kenya, and the growth of local language radio. Finally, on the bases of theory, experiences from other parts of the world and the
views of key role players in the Kenyan media landscape, the study presents
several normative guidelines on how normative theory and media policy making in Kenya could meet each other, taking into account the changes occasioned by
globalization and the new media landscape. These proposals are essentially
made to enrich general debate on the role of the media in Kenya, as well as
attendant media policy making efforts. === Communication === D.Litt. et Phil. (Communication)
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