Contents:
Regional cooperation and Development, Boulder: Westview press, , p. Editions du CNRS, , p. Croom Helm, , p. Presses de la Fondation nationale des Sciences Politiques, , p. Brunswick publications, , p.
Alternative Perceptions and Projections, Londres: C - Articles in peer reviewed journals. XX no , janvier-avril , p. LXVII, octobre , p. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Paris: Encyclopaedia Universalis , Paris, , p. Encyclopaedia Universalis, , p. L'Etat du Monde , Paris: Encyclopaedia universalis, , p. L'Etat du monde , Paris: L'Etat du Tiers monde, Paris: Enclyclopaedia Universalis, , p. Phil thesis, , mimeo. Africa as a crucible". Keynote lecture "Africa in International Relations: What is at Stake?
Thick Regionalism versus Lean Integration; invitation as guest speaker for the research seminar on "new regionalisms". The Neopatrimonial State in Africa: A Comparative Overview, lecture. Old templates vs new scripts? Africa in international relations: Can the African neopatrimonial state be developmental? Ile-Ife, 22 September A model lost in translation? A Comparative Perspective of Conceptual Flow. Africa as a counterpoint". France and Britain in Africa". The Challenges of Trans-state Regionalisation".
Regionalism as a Trump Card? Department of Government staff seminar: Public lecture at the European Union Centre: Woodrow Wilson School of International relations. Department of Political Science: Ligue des Droits de l'homme, Paris ; round-table with A. Institut international d'Administration publique: Centre for Federal Studies, University of Leicester: London School of Economics: African Affairs seminar, Oxford university: Contribution to the panel 'Africa: Guest speaker, session 3, 'exploring the building blocks of a future partnership relation'.
This criticism was first directed against the theorists of the modernization school. Based on diffusionism and behaviorism , they thought that with a broad convergence of discourses, modern media could have a decisive power to conform behaviors needed to the development of countries whose economic development is lagging behind. But events did not prove them right Mody, However, Karl Popper had already warned: But it is rare that they succeed, because social life cannot be reduced to a showdown between opposing groups.
It is part of a more or less rigid framework of institutions and customs, each causing a multitude of unexpected reactions. In this case, the author defined the vocation of social sciences and humanities, precisely in this rigorous analysis of reactions, "as far as possible" Popper, and , pp. Despite this, even today, pioneers of these deterministic approaches still inspire certain contemporary readings of social networks Ba, b , sometimes called "African theories" Gokra Dja, The theme of a global manipulation had a second life with the Dependancy School.
From its theoretical basis, the pioneers had called for an "African revolution" Fanon, , working to demystify key experiences of contemporary liberalism in Africa, e. Herbert Schiller formalized a famous theory of cultural imperialism, in line with the seminal works of cultural industry theory. The public media are the foremost example of operating enterprises that are used in the penetrative process. This occurs largely through the commercialization of broadcasting. The decolonization of the history so requested had logically opened the way for the decolonization of the media Bourges, The demand for a New World of Information and Communication Order NWICO had thus been structured since the Non-Aligned Conference in Alger , against the ethnocentrist cultural crushing, for example "from the sky" with satellite television, without really taking into account the opportunity of new coproduction options Duteil, , Ba, a.
The stagnation of the reference to the NWICO has not deterred perilous intellectual exercises, of comparing crushed African cultures and "Western culture" Amouzou, But systematizing the critique of manipulation on a planetary scale, like the previous ones, these analyzes have similarly tended to forget the concrete and conflictual experiences of social groups in their relation to the spectacle. For Africa, this confusion had been added to the radical interpretation of Negritude, as a revenge, however ligimate in itself for the reconstruction, against the dehumanized portrait of the colonized people, as analyzed by the Tunisian psychiatrist Albert Memmi Memmi, Thus, this distended conceptual patchwork had sometimes provoked, on the one hand, confinement in racisant analyzes of manipulation by the "White Power"; on the other hand, the inversion of stigmas, logically called by this "junk ethnology" Lacorne, The diasporic communitarisms Chaumont, , the Islamist negationists Lewis, Martinez-Gros, Roy, Valensi, , or other promoters of "genuine" African spirituality had thus nourished their pamphlet against " the ideas of the white man, inventor of capitalist imperialism and religious imperialism ", as the Malian writer Fakoly still analyzes Fakoly Some fifty years ago, some academic works could still fight, against the "manipulations of the White Power", insisting for example on the links between the segregationist regimes of Southern Africa and the "white nations of the world" rich, northerner " Ansprenger Analysis of northern media from Africa then accompanied these unilateral readings, e.
Sylvain Bemba, calling for a decolonization of information Bourges, Elsewhere, in the aftermath of decolonization until the end of the s, the pioneers of African documentary filmmaking and production had thus systematically analyzed any North-South partnership, within this deterministic reading grid of a manipulation of the image Fronty, Kifouani, The inflamed defense of a new economic order and a new information order, is often a happy masquerade, in order not to do the internal social change" Mattelart, Mattelart, Delcourt, , Criticism of the manipulative order was approved only as a collective and unidimensional one.
If not, it should be considered as counterproductive, even threatening for the unity of the struggle, as we have already noted for critical documentary cinema of the s in sub-Saharan Africa Cabedoche, Even today, the theory of conspiracy persists in some authors, who intend to confuse together, pell-mell, members of the G8, heads of state of the South and the Western press, working in secret to plan, control and guide the affairs of the world.
Somalia is the very model of the "conspiracy" against Africa Diangitukwa, Thus, the paradigm of a global manipulation has been maintained. Thus, documentary filmmakers gives more and more place to the individual "I" together with the social "Us", beyond the anti-imperialist claim Diallo, , chapter 3. For more and more authors today, the objective is not to minimize the multiple complicities of the former colonizing countries and United States to counteract the inclinations for social change, even this needs to support the worst African dictatorships and the often deleterious action of major financial institutions IMF, World Bank.
But they consider dangerous this "conspiracy thesis": The confusion is classic for the ideological discourse, which systemic analysts have already dissected Easton, These beautiful theoretical constructions could not integrate, Audiences and Reception not to collapse Balima S. But to remind this role is not making a clean sweep and falling back into the naivety of those who overestimate the capacity of audiences for dissonance, and forget the constraint imposed by the dominant industries of culture and communication, as Ien Ang Ang, was accused of doing Mattelart T.
Thus combining various options of Audiences and reception studies and taking into account the global processes of domination, authors from the s already reveal the relative immunity of populations of the lower classes or traditional cultures to the attempts of ideological inculcation by mass-media, despite their exposure and apparent availability to these messages. In the sense of beyond and not after , and to break with linear, binary, chromatic and sequential readings of history, postcolonial studies also suggest we go beyond the great narrative colonial paradigm, which would see power relations only based on global western domination and manipulation, i.
North on the South, "Whites" on "other colored people" These reconfiguration are mainly initiated by Indian intellectuals Chakrabarty, and they are progressively taken into account in francophone research. In Africa, they already inspire those who analyze the way in which identity groups are done and undone, according to the logic of the moment in the fundamentally unstable world Collignon, , away from any general theory of "conspiracy".
In that spirit, Douala 's proposals discourage any conspiracy theories that would assign to ICTs an exclusively manipulative role, the situation can only be recognized as ambivalent. In addition, a more detailed sociology of uses reveals that in Cameroon, for example, a majority of actors — individuals and organizations — make use of double subscriptions to several competing access providers, because of gaps in network coverage and differentials in the tariffs. Others not least among the less privileged are well aware of the business strategies of dominant telephone operators on Facebook Atanga, Wemgue, and tend to avoid networks and social media altogether, to protect themselves Kemayou, Elsewhere, while migrant populations are particularly vulnerable to phishers , cybercriminals, and other swindlers, some also know perfectly well how to find assistance from official government websites, from which their own e-mail messages constitute a cumulative transmission of collective cognitive resources and an a priori effective reaction Goulet, with protective law uses, for example in Zimbabwe Chikakano, Mhiripiri, Finally, if the presidential SMS can flatter the fringe of a targeted population, it can also provokes skepticism, even alienating a majority of the population Atanga, Wemgue, In Tunisia, as elsewhere, sites exist to fight rumors and offer clues to verify or deny them Ghosn, Lahouij, Even if manipulation does exist, considering the intentionality of social actors in terms of misuse of interests and information Ghosn, Laouij, and incitement to hatred Marques, Vieira, , the warning is now clear and systematic, in Africa as in other sites for the elaboration of scientific tools: Beyond the category of manipulation, such observations and conclusions invite us to rethink prevailing concepts; thanks to such findings we are able to go beyond mere descriptive approaches.
If further proof were still needed, we can note that these findings dissuade us from lazy recourse to all-encompasing theories that claim to explain everything, as well as from simple perspectives of linearity that claim to predict everything. As Maya Velmuradova observed in Douala , ultimately, the social integration of ICTs as a means of accompanying social change appears to depend foremost on the multiple representations and variable imaginaries of their end-users; this holds true in the global North as well as in the South Velmuradova, This is underscored by Serge Proulx in his use of the notion "appropriation" Giroux, Millerand, Proulx, ; Proulx, Therefore, the works presented in Douala in reinforce a conviction that gradually has gained support, one that explicitly positioned itself against quickly formulated affirmations at the beginning of the millennium.
At the time, Robert Putnam, for example, still could declare that ICTs were in a sense fostering a decline in social connections Putnam, Today Douala affirms this perception of the digital public sphere, which is not locked into any uniform approach. From the very beginning of the millennium, working on the relationship between television, internet, citizenship and public sphere, Peter Dahlgren stressed that public sphere is characterized by a tension between a unitary model and a plural model.
The proposal is perfectly appropriate for the analysis of African societies, when the Swedish researcher advocated a dynamic and plural conception of public sphere, driven by the interaction between a dominant public sphere and multiple, opposing and alternative public spheres, in order not to "marginalize and suppress the diversity of complex societies" Dahlgren, It is indeed necessary to distinguish the powers tactics and strategies of the actors, depending on whether they are mobilized at the Center or at the Periphery of the political national system.
Christian Coulon observed that on the African continent, modes of production of politics and power are being set up, without the organization of societies by a central State Coulon, But it was not until the 90s that research developed from African researchers on the theme public sphere and media. Then, research first followed the analytical frameworks developed in Europe and proceeded by analogy Mamdani, , leading to the "complexe du tailleur" tailor's complex when Africa was accused not to be able to adapt to the models.
At the turn of the 3rd millennium, scientific works gained independance, to better take into account the grounds. Constituted on the basis of specific affinities, for example between members of secret societies Nkem , this immense variety of traditional circles of deliberation works in the sense of a constant re-adaptation to the demands of a particularly unstable environment. It constitutes particular public spheres, that the analyzes of the rational global public sphere do not reflect Tchoupie, Still others reject global grids to analyse the relationship between media and their publics, because these tools are unable in grasping the phenomenon of community radios in Africa, due to their Eurocentrism Capitant, Enlarged with supra and inter-state relations, Georges Balandier's analysis in the mid-twentieth century regarded the democratic co-construction as a dynamic operating both within and without Balandier, However, members of diasporas have already been able to perceive themselves as major actors of social change, thanks to online protests and other activities Marcotte, , particularly observable during peak interactions Najar, , that they have been able to carry to the very depths of their native territory, with the complementary contribution of their own family ties Cabedoche, a.
Thus, researchers combined the pioneering work in Europe Habermas, , Mouffe, With different success in Gabon, Togo, or Congo Brazzaville, this includes the contemporary version, imposed by the opposition movements Gueye, , of Sovereign National Conferences in francophone African countries, Gabon, Togo, Brazzaville Congo and particularly in Benin as a model Eboussi Boulaga, in contrast to the controversial Cameroon's Tripartite Conference Atenga, But the revision of concepts can be more radical, concerning communicational approaches. This is the case of Development , for example, too much ideologically connotated Cabedoche, b even if it is used for the actions of the national states in their Communication for development Ibouldo, and legitimated by international UN organizations Mezzalama, First, the word Development affects researchers.
The term does not allow the questioning of the incoherence, the contradictions, the gaps of the promoted public policies. Their communication is unidirectional, disconnected from the social, reduced to a "panoply of techniques", part of an asymmetrical relationship. As a result, the very reference to the term model is problematic: On the contrary, to speak of Communication for Social Change means a holistic and resolutely dialogical approach. It integrates the historicity and the specificity of the companies invested, in terms of uses , social acceptability and appropriation by the populations involved.
Thus, the expression rehabilitates the long time, mediation as a sense sharing. At the same time, it avoids the tendancy of the synecdoche, when a part refers to the whole. Because the fact that that communication is implemented in all social life does not allow us to conclude that everything is communication: Similarly, now, it seems wrong to analyse the African mutations, which can be — or not - accelerated by the digital social media, as a shift from one type of society to another one, definitively and in a linear way.
The same error, underlined by Misse Misse Misse, , had been ever made by thinkers of modernization theory, sixty years ago. Thus, Wilbur Schramm had promoted the mass media at the center of a process that accelerate social transformations and Daniel Lerner as promoters to supplies the knowledge and fosters the attitudes and behaviors needed by a social formation to enter into a new transitional phase towards modernization. Then, the disappointments that followed the promises have completely destabilized the paradigm of modernization and the model of media as the agent of the transition to development, without ever having taken into consideration power structures, social relationships and very power dynamics of a social body.
The analysis seems to be perfectly heard, now. All these critical reflections reintroduce too uncertainty, very quickly recognized as fundamentally linked to democratic transitions Banegas, Even the "Beninese model" has been widely criticized Eboussi Boulaga, And it is true that in the field, the famous "democratic transition" may as well be just an avatar of the reciprocal assimilation process of the elites since independence Bayart, Mbembe, Toulabor, as the emergence new social segments, as in Benin Banegas, This is reflected in the abundance of typologies proposed, depending in the one hand on the rhythms, degrees and intensities of the processes involved; on the other hand, on actors, resources and strategies that are deployed during these same processes.
All these works to essentialize the trajectories and to objectify the differences are finally constantly rediscussed. The evolution on the ground of various situations is now qualified as an "unequal political fluidity" Banegas, The same reassasment is observed about rankings with the criterion "level of democracy", to which some international economic magazines use to refer Taffo Nemboue, The conclusive hesitations are significant of this uncertainty, oscillating between continuity , reform , rupture , regression , authoritarian restoration Other terminological promises, such as growth , democracy , equity , progress , good governance , cultural diversity For these critical propositions, analysis of the role of media in so fluid societies folllow the same conceptual revisions, far from the too narrow functionalist visions.
The reference is indeed already mobilized in Africa to designate the margin, the openness, the capacity to separate or to connect inside and outside and the probationary test which accompanies it, before an eventual integration — or not - of any external element. It is the case with the institution of both conservative and subversive rites of passage, e.
Liminality now makes possible to analyze the role of the media: Thus, this Critical questioning extends, of course, to social media, when, as it was previously for the mass media, the abstract reason, which sets them as factors of the emancipation of peoples, operate outside the field of the real and disjointed experience of people. From the 70s, Charles Tilly had already proposed to consider social networks as "changing, contingent, constructed" Tilly, Then, this warning led authors to reconceptualize, for example to analyze the mobilizations in Benin and Togo, from the hypothesis of plasticity and fluidity Banegas, Later, in the same direction, Peter Dahlgren had also foreseen the euphoria that would surround digital devices, including social media, treating them as miracle tools, as a principle: Recently, Evgeny Morozov recalls, on the one hand, the repressive uses of social media in Arab countries, whose contested authoritative powers had very quickly mobilized to maintain their domination, and on the other hand, the ephemerality, superficiality, versatility and diversity of political awareness that other uses of social media could cause Morozov, Therefore, the study of social media needs keep in its sights this mature perspective, which is regularly recommended by Marc Lynch, Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University:.
The real impact of political blogging is still likely to lie in the longer term impact on the individuals themselves, as they develop new political competencies and expectations and relationships. The impact of the new media technologies will likely be best measured in terms of the emergence of such new kinds of citizens and networks over the next decades, not in terms of institutional political changes over months or years.
Lynch, and Some authors have already observed this admonishment in studying African spheres of development Zouari, Their analyses appear much more nuanced, connected to the broader theme of complex social change. Thus, the Douala conference has become part of this research tradition in information and communication sciences, one that is adamantly resistant to any determinism, whether technological or social Jouet, , pp. For example, as well as other countries such as Libya where the tribal communication system in the Warfalla tribes had proved to be more effective than Internet, in Ivory Coast the appearance of new forms of sociability, accelerated by the spread of technical devices of social media, has not yet displaced traditional community life of the population, particularly rural areas.
Similarly, as it was already demonstrated at the end of the 20th century for societies in the global North, the advent of ICTs did not replace the previous technologies among the corporate dominant actors, as it is observed, for example in Burkina Faso Balima D. Such a simulacrum, which focuses only on the visibility of the provision of a digital medium and not on the effectiveness of the interaction, functions, in authoritarian contexts, as the prolongation of other forms of symbolic violence utilized by the powers-that-be Atanga, Wengue, State media can also take advantage of the digital transition, appearing, under pressure from private corporate media actors rather than social media users, to open up to political pluralism and introduce a truly public conception of public service in Burkina Faso or Cameroon.
But in order not to fall into a reductionist technologically determinism, questions must be raised about their real will to respect the basic principles of pluralism Balima D.
Also, it would be erroneous to think that, from the point of view of subordinate media users, social media are gradually replacing mainstream media, which are somehow rejected beacause their extraneity. With this concept, since Algeria, Lotfi Madani describes the feeling of non-identity and the experience of a lack of recognition on the part of local populations, evoked by the contents of national mass media, who are pliant in the hands of central power holders.
Madani, , or whose language of expression is offered as an instrument of discrimination, as in Madagascar Raharinirina Rabaovololona, , sub-Saharan African countries Dioh, ; Atenga, East African countries, too Damome, Noble-Bart, and other Maghreb countries. But a critical distance does not preclude a recourse, depending on the context and strategic opportunities. Thus, in Tunisia, activists have created numerous sites on Internet working as propaganda tools before and after the elections, but they have also worked via conventional media to make themselves visible.
Thus, we see that political and cultural agitation can proceed through both social and mainstream media. Without such institutionalized links, visibility by social media cannot sustain popular political momentum Dahmen-Jarrin, However, the success of these experiments quickly proved to be a short-lived.
The reasons are several. First, Baka and Bagyeli populations missed a recurrent access to national infrastructures to disseminate their corrective vision. Furthermore, the prevalence and attractiveness in their mind of dominant mainstream media discourses still remain despite the stigmatization, as Ang observed last century Ang, In addition, the strong or light degree of perception of their own marginalization by the same mainstream media were different.
And rapidly, divisions and inequalities — including sexual, ethnic and cultural dimensions — among the participants in the project have once again remerged Barber, Precaution is now systematic among authors who are not satisfied with nominalism: Thus, in sum, in some cases, the so-called alternative media have really promoted a greater social inclusion, building on the cultural demands and the expectations of local communities, encouraged in this way by action-research and rural participative assessment.
Yet in other cases, on the contrary, these same forms of a priori optional expression exacerbated inequalities within the same communities, whose complexity and internal tensions had been forgotten. In some cases, they have even led to a paradoxical result: Thus, manichaeism is no longer an option. Even in the analysis of mainstream media. For example, during the crisis in Ivory Coast in , by outbidding in pseudo-ethnic speech and stigmatizing the opposite camp, the mass media certainly contributed to social divisions and the post-electoral violence.
However, while community radio stations offered less divisive contents, while the messaging center no longer authorized SMS broadcasting at the end of Gbagbo era, and finaly while diasporic sites and blogs had an influence mainly outside the country, national mainstream media may also be considered as institutions whereby social capital and the construction of meaning have been strengthened.
Rather, we have a complex, tension-ridden relationship whose mechanisms have been described as conflictual imbrication in massification Martin-Barbero, , p. Thus, today, we can better understand the reaction of the dominant media facing the emergence of new competitive communication actors: It is now confirmed for Africa Agbobli, Bogui, In the same spirit, many mainstream journalists today make use of Twitter, while yet striving to assert their editorial authority over the material gathered Hermida On the other hand, because visibility exclusively on social media is not sufficient to generate sustainable influence, actors using these forms of digital expression work in parallel with mainstream media, using varying forms of coopetition , i.
One could even research the boomerang effects of this media institutionalization in the eyes of their community of belonging, in an indirect way, when excessive speech and insult are not enough, for example Mezrioui, , As in the case with certain anonymous opponents of the social movements in the Tunisia of Ben Ali Lecomte, b , such as the syndicalist movement, itself hardly audible from Sidi Bouzi after the immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi. As in the case with certain leaders dismissed by extremist spheres of influence, such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar beside Ansar Dine in the sub-Sahara or Boko Haram in North Cameroon, where mainstream media had to choose between neutrality or define a strategy by mobilizing the national population against the sect while maintaining calm and lessening panic and anxiety Kunock, As in the case with certain minorities stigmatized by poor social recognition, such as the LGBTQ communities of the African sub-Sahara, even taking advantage in their quest for solidarity and visibility of the drafting and passage of an anti-gay bill to paradoxically reinforce an overwhelming counter-resistance, despite the risk of an escaladation of persecution, for example in Uganda Guma, , or in Egypt Celis, Kantola, Waylen, Weldon, All of them have thus worked to gain a local, national and regional visibility.
The range of possible strategic options expand, particularly when an objective alliance appears with these same transnational media, for whom the goals can be temporarily convergent, to the fault of being identical, as has been analysed, from the point of view of Al Jazeera Ziani, ; Brahimi El Mili, ; Amri Thus one can understand the "pacts with the devil" that certain indignant actors agree to sign, tacitly or formally, with those whose activities they have previously denounced — or continue to denounce - because they are perceived as opponents of social change.
Then, they threatened to publish the full set of hacked data, to demonstrate the complicity of this politician and thus, to increase pressure on Cabedoche, a. Considering these eminently strategic actions of social actors, the superficially consensual mobilization of concepts is not enough to disentangle complex relationships between technical devices and actors, whether they align themselves with the contours of a new plebeian public sphere or in the power grabs of political powers-that-be and new world communication corporations.
Deconstruction of these entangled relationships is already under way, for such points of entry as cultural diversity in terms of a pluralism of public expression.