Mass media have had varied roles and possible impacts on a number of internal and external conflicts, according to Kellow and Steeves (1998) and Blondel (2008). These scholars have advanced varied arguments on the role and impact of the mass media on political conflicts. These arguments have centered on the strong and weak media effects on political conflicts. Noelle-Neuman (1984) suggests a “spiral of silence” theory to explain the strong effect that the media have on their audience. This theory state that the media have an overwhelming effect, and those whom the media do not favour tend to be silent when faced with intense opposing public opinion. On the other hand, scholars such as Gans (1993) have reasoned that the media have a limited role in impacting on people‟s opinions in political conflicts. These opposing viewpoints have served to propel further research on whether or not the media impacts political conflicts. These arguments have been backed by a rather limited line of research. This is not surprising, as Blondel (2008) observes that the study of violent conflicts and media‟s role in political conflicts is a relatively new subject which emerged in the 1940s as a discipline in its own right as a reaction to the destructiveness of the two world wars. However, internal conflicts which have been experienced after the collapse of the Berlin Wall continued to increase. The Berlin Wall symbolized the collapse of communism. The upsurge of democratisation led to conflicts between
Media and Political Conflicts Page 80 authoritarian regimes and those who were championing for democratic change in their countries.
This increase of internal conflicts has been manifested in several countries and in various forms, as pointed out by Kaldor (1999). She argues that it is the revolution in information technology during the 1980s and 1990s that has led to a particular type of universalism which has in turn led to the need for a re-definition of what we think of as war. The new information technology has compelled a re-focus on the arguments on media‟s role in internal conflicts in weak democracies such as Kenya. Countries which have experienced an information explosion from the Internet and freedom of expression have continued to consolidate. This consolidation and improvement in transmission channels could have impacted on the existing internal conflicts in Kenya, as typified in a weak liberal democracy discussed earlier in this chapter.
In a number of unstable democracies, the media have been accused of being responsible for the political conflicts in these countries. An example is Rwanda, where the media were accused of inciting hatred that led to violence by using an ethnic framework to report what was essentially a political struggle (Kellow and Steeves, 1998). The Rwandan media used existing political conflict to “engage the ethnic gear”, just as in the other weak democracies such as Kenya where the media have continually imposed ethnic frameworks on political conflicts. This topic will be discussed in this section. It starts from a clarification of the concepts of ethnicity and conflict in Africa, and how this has contributed to conflicts in the continent. The discussions eventually spotlight Kenya and how the ethno-cultural divide has contributed through the press, to violent political conflicts.
The terms “ethnicity” and “conflict” are central to this study as they form the critical basis of this investigation. Ekanola (2005) describes ethnicity as the awareness of real socio-cultural differences among several groups of people with different territorial and ancestral origins. This awareness, if exploited by different groups, causes conflict. It is important to note that ethnicity is not necessarily a negative phenomenon. It may become a problem in national integration and cohesion only when one group is mobilized against the other (Young, 1996). “Conflict” is
Media and Political Conflicts Page 81 described by Ekanola (2005) as strife, collision, struggle, difference and disagreement. Deustch (1991) defines it as a struggle in which the aim is to gain objectives and simultaneously neutralize, injure or eliminate rivals.
The terms “ethnicity” and “conflict” are interrelated in this study as the former ignites the latter. Ethnic consciousness and awareness are sometimes manipulated to create a sense of hatred by the mass media in their audience with varying results, amongst which are conflict and conformity. In their research on ethnicity and electoral politics in Kenya, Bratton & Kimenyi (2008, 6) observe that the genesis of ethnic-based conflict is the feeling of being left out. They state that
“In stark contrast to the Kikuyu, the Luo are more likely to say that the government treats their ethnic group unfairly”. These feelings by the Luo that they are not part of government and that they have been ignored could be an indicator of how the feeling of exclusion could have contributed to ethnic conflicts in Kenya. Bratton and Kimenyi (2008) also state that felt ethnic discrimination can be traced to the performance of the central government. This performance may reflect how the government performed in the distribution of national resources and to some extent, in the appointment of people into positions of responsibility in the government. Their conclusion is even more damning when they state that Kenyans mistrust members of other tribes, and consider the tendency of these other groups to be influenced primarily by ethnicity. Consequently, voting could be narrowed to ethnic lines in Kenya.
M‟Bayo (2005) argues that the media are used to gain a vantage point in conflicts.
He cites the example of Rwanda, where the media were used to incite emotion in civilian populations in Rwanda. Images of horrors of war were used to heighten fear among uncooperative populations. This skilful use of the media to advance the interests of different ethnic groups served to considerably amplify the conflicts.
Competition over natural resources in the absence of effective institutional structures has fuelled many violent conflicts on the African continent, with internal conflicts often being internationalized by such agents as ethnicity, the refugee question and the idea of the existence or absence of human rights in a country. Many promising transitions to multi-party democracy have, since the late 1980s, failed to yield genuine democratic change, thanks to a political culture
Media and Political Conflicts Page 82 where opportunism supersedes principle (Mulenga, Chileshe, Chikwanha &
Msoni, 2004). Structural violence plays a fundamental role in Africa‟s resource conflicts. “Structural violence” refers to a state where there is no physical violence, but governing frameworks inhibit the realization of people‟s full potential. It is possible that anomalous social structures favour the elites, who then strive to safeguard the status quo because it serves their vested interests. If society is frustrated by the system, it mutates into a social pressure-cooker, and if the exploitative conditions prevail for a long time, violent political conflicts emerge.
In Africa, ethno-cultural conflicts have occupied media reports since the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The conflicts have been experienced in several countries that were considered to be relatively peaceful, like Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Kenya (Markakis 1994: Obonyo, Sunday Nation April 2008). The Cold War seemed to have ensured an uneasy peace in these countries. Owing to Cold War politics and the ideological scramble for Africa, countries that were friendly to the West, such as Senegal, Ivory Coast and Kenya, were given preferential treatment in the form of grants and loans that were offered on soft terms (Nyon‟go, 1993).
The levels of compliance by these countries with democratic tenets were ignored.
Instead, it was their loyalty to Western powers that counted. These countries were used by Western countries such as the United States of America, Britain and France, as markets for their products and also as military bases for their troops (Mbai, 2003). The Cold War provided a psychological warfare between Western countries such as the United States of America, Britain and France and those from the Eastern bloc such as the then-Soviet Union, China and Cuba. Countries in Africa supported either of the protagonists in the Cold War, namely the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Support from the then-super powers was uncritical. Pre-conditions such as the practice of free liberal approaches, political pluralism and other liberal democratic criteria, were not placed on countries as happens now. Conflicts soon flared after the end of the Cold War. These conflicts took the form of multi-partyism and demands for pluralism in Africa. These calls and demands by members of the opposition were largely resisted by members of the ruling class in different countries in the continent (Cho, 2004). These resistances could have caused tension and dissonance in most of these countries.
Media and Political Conflicts Page 83 According to Murithi (2007) ethno-cultural conflicts in Africa, just like in other places in the world, denote the de-legitimization of governance by the state.
Ethnicity has brought about the de-legitimization of governance by the state in modern liberal democracy as people tend to bestow statehood according to tribal boundaries. Bayart (1986) argues that the state in African societies is controlled by a few individuals who tend to monopolise power and the nation‟s economy.
This results into a delegitimisation of the legal systems in modern African states.
This is because, unlike the West where a state constitutes those from one ethnic group, in Africa there are multi-ethnic groups in a single state. This has negatively affected state loyalty and patriotism. An example of ethnic loyalty exhibited at the expense of state loyalty and patriotism is the case of the Hutus and Tutsis, who engaged in inter-ethnic conflict at the expense of the state in 1994. This conflict caused the death of over 700,000 people. Another example where ethnic loyalty superseded statehood was the case of the 2007 Kenyan General Elections, where voting was done along ethnic lines. Later, conflict exploded after the disputed tallying, and the battle lines took an ethnic pattern.
Kenya, like Ethiopia to its north, Sudan to the North West, Somalia to the east and Uganda to the west, has several ethnic groups who have competing interests, thus causing political conflicts. Conflicts have occurred along ethnic boundaries, and ethnic loyalty has further fuelled the conflicts. In Ethiopia, conflicts have taken the form of ethnicity. The Eritreans fought battles for separation from Ethiopia for several years, and the main complaint was that Eritreans have a different culture and language from the rest of the Ethiopians (Scholler, 2006). This dissimilarity has propelled the campaign for an independent state. Eritreans defined “state” by ethnicity. To the southern side, bordering Kenya is the Oromo Liberation Front whose main complaint and cause for conflict with the Ethiopian state is that they are Oromos, and therefore must not be merged with the rest of the Ethiopians.
Somalia can be defined as Africa‟s first failed state because the state monopoly of force has been compromised by several militia groups who operate along clan lines such the Dharod, Hawiye, Abgal and Ogaden (Francis, 2005). Each of these clans has formed a powerful militia group which is well armed and fights for its clan rights. Uganda has experienced an eight-year civil war that culminated in the overthrow of the then-Ugandan President Idi Amin Dada. However, there has
Media and Political Conflicts Page 84 been a continuation of guerrilla warfare in the North against the Lord‟s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda. The LRA comprises members of the Acholi ethnic group who feel that the Kampala government has short-changed the people of Northern Uganda (Nyot 1993). Therefore, ethno-cultural conflicts in Africa seem to take the form of conflicts over distribution of natural resources.
Sudan, too, has had decades of civil war that took the form of an ethnic dimension between the Northerners who are of Arabic origin and the Southerners who are of black African descent. For years there was civil war between these groups, with the Southerners feeling that the Northerners were cheating them of their oil wealth. They fought hard to separate from the Northerners whom they viewed as different from themselves (Markakis, 1994). Again, this is an example of loyalty to an ethnic group rather than to a state.
In Kenya, a number of ethnic-based conflicts have been experienced. Such conflicts have occurred in areas such as Likoni in 1997, Enoosopukia in 1992, and Mount Elgon in 2007, where people from different ethnic groups fought against each other (Akiwumi, 2002). The other major ethnic conflicts in the country have been those in the North Eastern Province, where there were Somali separatist movements in the early sixties. Wamugo (2005) explains that in Kenya, ethnic competition has often emerged in periods of acute contestation over resources or state power. He observes that state power has remained the dominant instrument of dispensing resources and patronage. Murithi (2007) argues that the sensitization of the different ethnic groups to be conscious of their communal identity, otherwise known as politicized ethnicity, accumulates a momentum which is manifest in a group‟s drive to make its claim and concerns heard.
This study reflects on the issue of how political conflicts have been influenced by the media in weak liberal democracies in Africa. These liberal democratic situations are also called “unstable liberal democracies”. In order for the political and ethnic actors to obtain public support, the media have had to play a central role in shaping public opinion and attitudes. Terzis & Smeets (2004) observe that the media play an important role in negotiating the structural factors, as well as generating, facilitating and triggering factors that lead up to a crisis and conflict, such as the case of Rwanda in 1994 and Sierra Leone in the late 1990s. They
Media and Political Conflicts Page 85 add that the media play a significant role in conflict situations, not only by provoking panic, hatred and even violence, but also in promoting stability, conflict resolution, management and transformation. These roles that have been ascribed are very significant. They encourage discussion and debate on the influence of the media necessary for a liberal democratic order.