In anticipation to his seminar in Trinity Term 2016 Seminar Series on Adolescent Ecologies convened by Dr Jaco Hoffman, Prof Thomas Tufte blogs about Media, communication, and the capacity to aspire amongst Kenyan youth.
The rise of the network society and growing ubiquity of media and communication technologies across the globe has in recent years led to a fascination and acclaim regarding the power and potential of media and communication technologies to enhance processes of development and social change. However, the reality on the ground often shows far more complex social dynamics in the everyday use of media and communication. My current research project explores media and communication as social practices and processes in everyday life thereby moving beyond the techno-optimist discourses emphasizing the merits of information and communication technologies and channels.
Our fundamental interest in social change is tied to exploring if and how current media developments and new communication practices are enhancing opportunities for citizens to influence processes of change and improve their own life conditions. It sparks the question as to what it is that enables people to improve their own life conditions and potentially move out of poverty. To answer such questions we are inspired by Arjun Appadurai’s notion of ‘the capacity to aspire’ where he argues that this capacity to aspire for a good life is unevenly distributed and fundamentally it requires participation and empowerment to address the questions of poverty and injustice (Appadurai 2004, 2007). Appadurai in a recent interview states: ‘I continue to struggle with precisely the question of how one moves from the affective and imaginative space of opened aspiration to the exercise of voice in, let’s say, concrete political settings’ (Stade, In Press).
The focus of the project I am presenting at The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing is to identify, amongst Kenyan youth some of the ‘affective and imaginative spaces of opened aspiration’ Appadurai speaks of. I critically assess the opportunities and capacities of youth to actually act upon these aspirations. What we are looking for in this project is to understand the role media and communication practices and processes play in the creation and articulation of ‘opened aspiration’ and the social action that potentially can follow in the social process from aspiring for change to articulation of voice and social action.
The questions we are grappling with are:
- How are ordinary citizens engaging with and consuming media in these new media environments and what patterns of everyday media practices at individual and household levels emerge in such contexts?
- What are the implications of the emerging everyday media cultures in such contexts on people’s social and cultural identities and local processes of social change?
- In what ways do rapidly changing media environments create or alter existing spaces for citizenship engagement at local levels and what are the implications of the emerging everyday media cultures in these areas on the propensity for ordinary citizens’ engagement in politics?
- In what ways and to what extent do new media and the patterns of ordinary citizens’ everyday media practices challenge existing power structures and ordinary citizens’ perceptions of and relationship with the state?
References:
Appadurai, A (2004). ‘The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition’, in Rao, V. and M. Walton (eds). Culture and Public Action. Standford CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 59-84
Appadurai, A (2007).’Hope and Democracy’. In: Public Culture 19: 1.
Stade, Ronald (In Press). ‘On the capacity to aspire. Conversations with Arjun Appadurai’. In: O. Hemer and T. Tufte (eds). Voice & Matter. Communication, development and the cultural return. University of Gothenburg: Nordicom.
About the author
Thomas Tufte is Professor in communication at Roskilde University (2004-), co-founder and co-director of the bi-national research centre Orecomm – Centre for Communication and Glocal Change. Professor Tufte also serves as Senior Research Associate to University of Johannesburg, South Africa (2013-). He has been a visiting scholar at University of Cadiz (Spain) 2012, Rhodes University (South Africa), 2002. He also served as UNESCO Chair of Communication at Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona in the spring semester of 2003. He currently directs the international research project Critical Perspectives on New Media and Processes of Social Change in the Global South (2013-2017) focusing on Kenya, and recently also directed People Speaking Back? Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa (2009-2015) focusing on Tanzania and Kenya. From September 1st Professor Tufte will join University of Leicester as a chair in media and communication.
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