The Press and Decolonization of Africa

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INTRODUCTION The Oxford Dictionary defines the press as newspapers or journalists viewed collectively, coverage in newspapers and magazines. According to Scheafer (2003), sociologists refer to the print and electronic instrument of communication that carries messages to often widespread audiences. Print media include newspapers, magazines, and books; electronic media include radio, Television, motion pictures, and the internet. Advertisement falls on both categories, is also a form of mass media. According to Wikipedia Free encyclopaedia, decolonisation refers to the undoing of colonialism, the unequal relation of civil government whereby one people or nation establishes and maintains dependent Territory over another. It can be understood politically as attaining independence, autonomous home rule, or culturally, removal of pernicious colonial effects. The term refers particularly to the dismantlement, in the years after World War II, of the Neo-Imperial empires established prior to World War I throughout Africa and Asia. The history and development of the press in Africa are inextricably linked to the continent’s political history. Under colonialism, the newspaper was introduced and used more as a periphery than as a tool for dissemination of information. During the struggle for independence, newspapers were used to organise and galvanise the people to fight to liberate the country from colonialism. Immediately after independence, they became tools for political mobilisation, organisation, and education and weapons for the total liberation of Africa, but later as tools for suppressing dissent. The press played a seminal role in the struggle for independence, which ultimately resulted in the liberation of the Africa from colonialism. The press are seen as “a window on events and experience”, “a mirror of events in society and the world”, “a filter or gatekeeper”,
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