African youth, media and civic engagement

Speaking Up and Talking Back? Media, Empowerment and Civic Engagement among East and Southern African Youth. This is the title we have given to the book. The fundamental aim is to question if and how citizens in Africa engage with media and communication technologies and platforms in their pursuit to be included in the change processes of their societies. The theme echoes some of the claims made by disenchanted and frustrated youth and other citizens in the streets of the North African cities of Tunis and Cairo in 2012. Severe critiques were articulated against the governance structures of their countries; mass social mobilisations were seen, governments fell, and in the aftermath, the slow process of deep change continued, now with one tyran less, but still with huge challenges in the social and economic development of these countries. Youth in particular engaged massively, visibly, loudly and dramatically around claims to be involved and included in their countries’ development process. Our book taps into the less visible and dramatic, but nevertheless highly dynamic and influential process of media development and enlargement of youth-driven, deliberative spaces which sub-Saharan Africa seems currently to experience.