DCI 5.0 Concept Document
Concept document for the Digital Citizen Indaba 2010
Theme: Africa’s Underdevelopment: Digital Citizens Talk Back
Date: 7 July 2010
Venue: Eden Grove Complex, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
1. Background and objectives
The main objective of the Digital Citizen Indaba (DCI) is to bring together bloggers, podcasters, vodcasters, mobile media users, citizen journalists, new media practitioners, online industry experts and civil society representatives, as citizens who try to empower themselves using new media technologies.
The purpose of bringing them together is to enable this empowerment to take place through participation in debate about the state of digital media, information sharing and skills transfer using experts in the field. The DCI was established after it was recognised that – given its focus on new media and journalism – Highway Africa (HA) could do more to encourage new media take-up by non-journalists, thereby ensuring that citizens have a digital voice too.
The first DCI was held in 2006, which took place immediately before the HA Conference in Grahamstown, 14-15 September 2006, and since then has taken place shortly before the HA conference so that HA delegates can also participate in DCI if they so wish. The second DCI attracted high-level speakers and participants and these included Africa’s foremost bloggers, Ory Okolloh and Daudi Were. While the first DCI focussed on blogging in Africa, subsequent DCI ‘s focussed on a broader array of digital technologies used to promote citizen involvement, such as Web 2.0, mobile media and microblogs.
This DCI also held debates on the conditions needed for activist digital media to flourish, and focussed on the myriad restrictive laws and policies constraining the development of a digital public sphere.
The third DCI in 2008 had the theme ‘Technology for the digital citizen’, which complimented HA’s overall theme of ‘Citizen journalism, journalism for citizens’, while maintaining its focus on citizens rather than journalists. This DCI focussed on questions of appropriate technology: with all the new media technologies available to citizens it has become increasingly difficult to identify the technologies we should take note of and those we shouldn’t spend any time on. Therefore, the DCI concentrated on the technologies that have proven to empower Africa’s digital citizens.
The fourth DCI in 2008 focussed less on technology questions, and more on the social appropriation of technology. This event had the theme ‘Digital civil society and journalism in Africa’, and focussed on the explosion of new media at civil society level, and its impact on mainstream media reporting. It explored linguistic diversity in the blogosphere, gender and digital media, civil society use of mapping tools and technology for social change. It also explored how much of a voice civil society has in the digital public sphere, whose voices are represented and whose voices are under (or un) represented. These questions were explored via formal presentations, interactive panels and workshops.
2. Theme: Africa’s Underdevelopment: Digital Citizens Talk Back
According to Wikipedia, Africa is the world’s second largest continent, and accounts for just under 15 per cent of the world’s population. The continent is extremely rich in natural resources, yet it remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent. The average poor person is likely to be poorer than s/he was two decades ago. Much of the continent’s natural wealth is exported out of the continent; some have referred to a ‘new scramble for Africa’ among the world’s big powers, as they seek to benefit from the continent’s resources.
Citizen journalists have become central to exposing the ‘development of underdevelopment’ in many countries, often giving a voice to communities that would otherwise not be heard and exposing deals that may be against their interests. In Nigeria, for instance, citizen journalist are tracking and analysing the exploitation of the country’s oil reserves, the complicity of local elites in negotiating deals with multinational corporations that may be disadvantageous to many, and local resistance to these deals using digital media. The Congo has been described by local citizen media as ‘the central storehouse of strategic minerals for the functioning of the information society’, and is home to a large deposit of coltan.
Bloggers have exposed the extent of natural resource exploitation by foreign companies, the ways in which these activities fuel conflict, and China’s role in the new scramble for Africa. In these situations, citizen media fills a media void on these issues, as mainstream media may be too afraid to expose powerful actors in these industries, or may be unable to owing to censorship. The DCI will profile some of the most important citizen media projects in this regard, and encourage an interaction between these projects and full-time journalists.
When disaster strikes in underdeveloped countries, whether in Africa or not, the consequences can be even more severe than for developed countries, as an afflicted country may lack the essential facilities to respond effectively: the recent earthquake in Haiti is a case in point. Citizen media played a crucial role in exposing the conditions in the country after the earthquake, and provided a space for analyses not carried in the mainstream media about why the country lacked the resources to defend its people from disaster. With climate change, natural disasters such as droughts and floods are likely to occur more frequently in Africa. The DCI will extract some of the lessons of Haiti’s recent experience for African citizen media, to ensure that they are equipped to tell the stories of those who are worst affected by disasters.
In an attempt to address their myriad development challenges, African countries may look to mega-events to assist them to create employment and infrastructural development. Mega events may also present opportunities to challenge negative perceptions of Africa as a continent of wars and disaster. Africa will host the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 2010. Many hope that the event will bring massive development benefits to Africa generally, and South Africa specifically, and will lead to positive images of Africa to the international community. Yet the true development benefits of mega-events are contested. These events involve huge financial outlays on facilities that may barely be used afterwards, and they may further lead to mass evictions and the criminalisation of the poor. The DCI will focus on how citizen media is being used to give a voice to critical perspectives on these important questions.
The questions to be addressed include:
• How can citizen media tell the development story?
• Should citizen media tell the development story differently from mainstream media?
• Which new media tools are most effective in exposing crucial information about natural resource exploitation, mega-events and disasters?
• What role should citizen media play in exposing how Africa’s rich natural resources are being used?
• What is the role of citizen media in natural disasters? Which stories are important to tell, and how? What technologies enable effective communication after disasters?
• How does Africa perceive mega-events generally, and South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup specifically?
• What debates are taking place about the development benefits of the 2010 World Cup, which media enable these debates, and whose voices are heard ? Are these the voices that should be heard?
• How can the mainstream media and individuals therein work with others in raising neglected issues and viewpoints in the public sphere?
These questions will be explored through panel sessions in the morning, where citizen media projects and bloggers will be invited to share their experiences. In the afternoon, there will be three practical themed workshops to assist citizen journalists to develop skills to blog, tweet, build sites and more, on natural resource exploitation, disasters and mega-events.
3. Venue and participants
The DCI takes place in Grahamstown, close to the South African city of Port Elizabeth. The venue is the Rhodes university campus which provides access to state-of-the-art facilities. These include the ‘intelligent’ building called the ‘Africa Media Matrix’ which houses the School of Media Studies and Journalism. The Rhodes campus also has a number of wireless internet access points, including the Eden Grove complex.
Accommodation ranges from University residence rooms through to B&B’s, guest houses, hotels and two backpackers. The Indaba is open to bloggers, podcasters, vodcasters, mobile reporters, citizen journalists, new media practitioners, new media students, online industry experts and civil society representatives.
4. Parallel and linked events
• Highway Africa Conference 5 & 6 July 2010
• World Journalism Education Conference, 5 & 6 July 2010
One Ping