Browsing by Author "Semujju, Brian"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Climate Change in Ugandan Media: A ‘Global Warming’ of Journalism Ethics
    (Journal of African Media Studies, 2013) Semujju, Brian
    The idea of climate change has reached a contentious breaking point at an international level where its major causes, existence and intensity are separating informed minds. This article is an examination of the four major schools of thought on climate change and how two newspapers in Uganda are covering those divergent views. The article argues that in the coverage of global warming in particular the hitherto treasured notion of objectivity has been replaced by a form of blind journalism instigated by frames from local and international stakeholders. The study analyses content from two newspapers in Uganda to show that media in Uganda cover the resonating frame, which argues that climate change is a time bomb, with total disregard for other views or their existence. Guided by the framing theory, the article suggests that a detachment of climate change from international meanings and an introduction of the ‘scientific spirit’ will restore balance by inviting media to explore counter-frames.
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    Feminist Power and its Implications on Uganda’s Malaria Communication
    (Feminist Media Studies, 2019) Nakiwala, Aisha Sembatya; Semujju, Brian
    This paper examines power and its manifestation in Uganda’s “Stop Malaria Campaign.” It specifically questions the apparent radical feminism, which is conceptualized as a quest for power, and how such excesses drive implementation of the campaign. The paper explains data collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews using feminist communication theory as informed by the critical ideas of feminism and power. These three ideas help to put into perspective: domination of the campaign by one gender, interpretation of the campaign’s objectives to suit that one gender, and communication methods used in the campaign. Analysis of the above three processes shows that men are the weaker gender in the malaria prevention drive, an idea that has clashed with the existing male chauvinism on which several families still thrive in Africa. A view that radical feminism should be seen as an organized form of power that needs to be checked if Uganda’s malaria communication campaign is to be implemented successfully is herein proposed, along with some solutions to the challenges.
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    Frontline Farmers, Backline Sources: Women as a tertiary voice in climate change coverage
    (Feminist Media Studies, 2015) Semujju, Brian
    Gender meaning construction and interpretation, which suggest women's inferiority to men, is deeply rooted in social-cultural signs and codes drawn from traditional contexts. In Uganda, girls start to face this reality at an early age. Among low income earning families, very few are enrolled in school, thus as they grow up they suffer from invisibility created by low education and income levels. This paper notes how such gender realities in the media have been investigated in other parts of the world and that the general thesis has been that the media have “marginalized women in the public sphere.” Turning to the position of women as both sources and reporters, in Uganda this area of inquiry has been given little scholarly attention. To fill that gap, this essay draws upon feminist media theory to help contextualize findings obtained through content analysis (N = 671) data drawn from two Ugandan newspapers. Using climate change as a coverage issue, since 56 percent of women in Uganda are farmers, the results of this study show that the gender gap in Uganda is highly pronounced, with women as sources ranked third in importance after men and anonymous sources.
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    Newsmaking Practices in Uganda: A Comparative Framing Analysis of Two Leading Newspapers
    (Newsmaking Cultures in Africa, 2018) Semujju, Brian
    Studies on newsmaking cultures in general identify Media routines and norms, Organisational influences and several other factors as the major influences on newsroom behaviour. However, there has been research from the global South arguing that the above mainstream influences alone cannot explain how journalists deal with the news in countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya and Tanzania, due to differences unique only to such countries. This chapter analyses content published about Uganda’s Electoral Commission in two newspapers (New Vision and Daily Monitor) to understand the newsmaking practices of Uganda’s press with the aim of situating the country’s newsmaking culture within or outside of the above-established factors. This, in addition, is intended to show the realities that create a climate for such newsroom behaviour. The chapter uses a combination of content analysis, key informant interviews and framing theory to explore and reflect the findings respectively.
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    Theorizing Dependency Relations in Small Media
    (Communication Theory, 2020) Semujju, Brian
    The paper questions the pervasive western intellectual universalism which disregards Global South imaginations for generalized approaches. Using field data from Uganda about Community Audio Towers (CATs), the western-generated community media theory is interrogated, accentuating its failure to account for the intricate relationship between the individual, society, and small media. To cover the gap, the Small Media System Dependency theory is herein introduced as a geocultural response to lack of theory from the South.