Contenu du sommaire : Médias, journalistes et espace public

Media and democracy in Mali
The Malian press, having played a crucial role in March 1991, was granted near-total freedom of expression for a decade. This resulted in a significant growth of the media. With the emergence of electoral pluralism, close links were forged between the press and nascent political formations. Corruption and opportunism flourished. As increasing numbers of unqualified journalists and amateur radio stations have joined the fray, the media sector has become less and less professional. Attempts to impose some manner of order – by outside lending agencies, national regulatory bodies and within the profession itself – have for the most part failed.

Private press and political power in Cameroon
In 1990, the beginnings of liberalization came to Cameroon : the noose of political intervention was relaxed, allowing a modicum of freedom in the realm of public life. A new era dawned for the private press. The relationship between those in power and the private press have, since then, known many ups and downs, characterized by tension and mistrust on both sides. In a period of fifteen years, four hundred trials have been held centering on issues of freedom of expression and, on no fewer than one hundred occasions, journalists have been remanded to prison. This state of affairs has resulted in numerous condemnations of the regime by organizations monitoring the right to free speech and by human rights organizations more generally.

DRC : Media in transition
Hundreds of newspapers, dozens of radios and television stations crowd the mediascape in DRC. The country today counts over 4 000 media professionals. Following decades of dictatorship, a chaotic democratization process and five years of war, the media sector is in desperate need of reconstruction. Despite the damage inflicted on it by corruption and violence, it remains a vital actor : it has an important role to play in the peace process and in helping to bring about fair elections to close the period of transition and allow the nation to move forward.

Media and electoral trauma in Burundi
Following eleven years of civil war and a period of political transition, Burundi today faces the challenge of organizing fair and democratic elections. This state of affairs recalls a previous election year – 1993 – which many remember as a year of trauma. Then, the media were seen as catalysts of conflict. In 2005, they are looked to as neutral entities whose role is to speak for all political tendencies. This article addresses the evolution of Burundi's media, public and private, and the part they have come to play in processes of national reconciliation and democratization.

Liberal traditions of the Kenyan media
The article underlines the « historical » vitality of the Kenyan media. The economic weight of this sector is due to a long tradition of private press that survived under a single party state. The liberalization of the 1990s made criticism of the regime possible, but did not fundamentally alter the media landscape. Broadcasting was liberalized later ; this explains the current dynamism of television and radio. The Nation Media Group is becoming a leading entity in a scene that tends to concentrate and expand towards the East African market.

Public Media Reform in West Africa
Faced with competition from the private press and international radio and television stations, in the 1990s the media sector in West Africa undertook to reform itself. The goal of this process was to bring into being autonomous public media focused on the needs of citizens and engaged in the quest for democracy. In the absence of real will on high and serious engagement in the field itself, the undertaking has for the most part failed.

Ivory Coast : Jacques Chirac's little water gourd
Unlike the Marcoussis Accords, the documents signed at the Accra III conference, under the patronage of the AU and the UN, were initially seen as the beginnings of « an African solution to an African crisis ». Soon, however, hope collapsed. Barely two months after they were signed, the cease fire was broken. Shortly, it turned out that the central problem was not the one everybody had expected : instead of renewed fighting between government and Forces Nouvelles batallions, new battle lines emerged, pitting the French army against groups of Jeunes Patriotes allied with the regime in power. This, however, must not allow us to forget that the underlying causes of the Ivoirian crisis are internal to the country and, as yet, remain thoroughly unsolved.

The 2004 elections in Ghana : anatomy of a two-part system
Despite predictions of a landslide for the incumbent NPP in the December 2004 Ghanaian elections, the NDC performed much better than expected. In the Presidential polls, J. A. Kufuor narrowly avoided a second round, while NDC Parliamentary losses were counterbalanced by a resurgence elsewhere, notably in Greater Accra. The NDC showing, when set against the disappointing performance of the smaller parties, underlined the entrenchment of a two-party system. This paper examines the campaign strategies and accounts for voting patterns in terms of historic allegiances, the playing out of ethnicity and perceptions of the NPP record.