Impact of mass media on the political participation among Kenyans: a case study of Nairobi youth

Abstract

The past decade has witnessed fundamental changes in the Kenyan mass media environment. Contemporary media technologies and format innovations have created new ways of communicating and reaching audiences. New actors, such as talk show hosts and tabloid reporters, have entered the political communications environment, altering the rules by which journalists, leaders, and citizens negotiate the public sphere. The nature of the political media product has changed, becoming almost inextricably infused with entertainment content. Furthermore, with the convergence of electronic media in the recent past, and with technologies such as the internet have rendered print communication electronic, as traditional news organizations establish online counterparts to their newspapers and magazines. Further, the substance, form, and style of electronic communication have been altered radically. New-style electronic formats, such as internet discussion groups and chat rooms have created new public spaces and provided for unprecedented opportunities for political discourse. It is clear that the transformation of the Kenyan mass media system has important implications for democratic citizenship, especially as audiences' relationships to mass communication have been influenced significantly. Communication plays a central role in stimulating and enabling political participation on a variety of levels for many people. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have enhanced citizen interactions with their governments where the internet and web have fostered greater public deliberation and consensus building (Noam, 2001; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Davis, 1999) These technologies have been described as possessing the potential to revitalize the public participation by enabling citizens to gain unprecedented access to government information and allowing them to interact with public officials in decisionmaking at the local, state, and international levels (Horrigan, 2004; Regan, 2002), while at the same time endangering diverse public debate by facilitating online interaction limited to groups of likeminded individuals (Galston, 2002; Sunstein, 2001).