SECOND WORLD JOURNALISM EDUCATION CONGRESS AFRICA-REGIONAL PREPCOM: RHODES UNIVERSITY, GRAHAMSTOWN

Rhodes University, through the School of Journalism and Media Studies, has offered to host the 2nd World Journalism Education

Congress (WJEC-2) in 2010. The bid, which has received wide-ranging endorsements, is currently being considered by the Council of the WJEC.

The bid document can be visited at: http://www.ru.ac.za/jms.

As a consequence, the SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media and Democracy, Professor Fackson Banda, is convening a high-level "prepcom" of African journalism educators on the 9th of September 2009 (during this year's Highway Africa conference), so as to co-ordinate African-regional input into the WJEC.

Funding for this is already available from South African company Telkom and the Open Society Network Media Programme. The rationale behind this

Africa-regional preparatory meeting is partly underpinned by the realisation that African journalism educators are underrepresented in international

initiatives of this kind, as was evidenced by the low number of African attendees at the 1st WJEC held in Singapore in July 2007.

In addition, the practice of journalism in Africa is in flux, constantly answering to the global influences of liberalisation, privatisation,

commercialisation and internationalisation. At the same time, the local exigencies are conditioning the practice of journalism in ways that render

it neither global nor local. The 'glocalised' nature of journalism in Africa must surely raise many questions for journalism educators. Such questions,

if they are to be properly answered, must be placed within the historical conditions that have shaped and reshaped African journalism -- colonialism,

post-colonialism and globalisation. Such a historical contextualisation of journalistic practice in Africa should hopefully spur African journalism

educators to launch a critical enquiry that will deconstruct most of the 'received' conventional wisdom about the theory and practice of journalism

in Africa. This should become an organic process of 'owning' African journalism as a social practice that can be transformational in many of our

countries which are wrestling with the very real problems of underdevelopment, bad governance, poverty, social exclusion, xenophobia,

sexism, and the like.

The papers thus prepared for the colloquium could cover a variety of topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Journalism studies and media studies -- theoretical divergences and convergences

2. Theorising journalism education in Africa

3. Journalism education for democracy and development

4. Journalism education and xenophobia

5. Journalism education and experiential learning

6. Journalism education and technological innovation

7. Models of sustainability of African journalism amidst the global financial and economic crisis

8. Journalism education research in Africa

9. Peace journalism education in conflict-ridden African countries

10. The theory and practice of community journalism in Africa

11. Citizen journalism versus conventional journalism

12. Journalism education and industry

13. Journalism education and community-building

14. Assessing the quality of journalism education in Africa

15. African journalism education in the 'global village'

The Chair is able to sponsor up to 40 African journalism educators, subject to stringent conditions. Here are the conditions:

1. Each sponsored educator will be required to prepare and present a scholastically sound paper during the Africa-regional preparatory

colloquium.

2. For such a paper to be considered for inclusion in the programme,educators are invited to submit abstracts of their papers by the 17th of

June 2009.

3. Full papers must be submitted by the 10th of August 2009 in order to allow sufficient time for respondents to prepare their reviews of the

papers.

An added incentive is that most if not all of the papers presented during the meeting stand a chance of being published in peer-reviewed journals. The

organisers are negotiating with potential journals in order to finalise this aspect of the initiative. As such, younger journalism educators, especially

those associated with the UNESCO Potential Centres of Excellence, are encouraged to apply for consideration for sponsorship. Some of the papers

will be presented during the WJEC itself.

Needless to say, this is a rare opportunity for African journalism educators to showcase the unique variety and richness of African journalism

educational experiences. You are most welcome!

Abstracts, as well as finished papers, can be submitted to:

Professor Fackson Banda

SAB LTD-UNESCO Chair of Media & Democracy

School of Journalism & Media Studies

Rhodes University

Africa Media Matrix

Upper Prince Alfred Street

PO BOX 94

Grahamstown 6140

SOUTH AFRICA

Tel: +27 (0) 46 603 7156

Fax: +27 (0) 46 603 7101

Mobile: +27 (0) 78 208 7529

e-mail: f.banda@ru.ac.za

Website: http://jms.ru.ac.za/sabchair

N computing

This could be of interest to some of you saw it at the energy week exhibition at the national theatre.

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seminar on journalism and democracy 2009

Journalism and democracy are an important component in our societies, especially in our developing countries and it is indeed a honour that i am one of the 20 participants who have been invited to attend a seminar in the town of kalmer in Sweden. The theme of the seminar is journalism and democracy and will take place from the 7th to the 26th September 2009. Will keep you posted on the same

WEB 2.0 technologies training

After i had been commissioned to develop a website for Jinja Senior secondary school, i couldnt leave without giving back and that is when i started training free of cost 35 students and 2 teachers in new and innovative technologies. The students responded well and even went ahead to create a social network for their school, it is probably the fiirst school in Eastern Uganda to have a social network. On fourth of July at an ICT workshop, they were given their certificates.

After a long time

Well its taken me a while to post anything but that is just because i have been on the road for the last couple of months. Well as it is several people have gotten websites thanks to the efforts of ICT movement Africa. Some of the websites that have been developed over the last couple of months are www.jinjasecondsryschool.co.cc, unitedworldwideforwarders.com.

PIONEER BLOGGERS TRAINING KICKS OFF

One week ago i started a month long training program in web 2.0 techs with christian youth from Oasis of life ministries located in the Jinja Town of Uganda. Although a bit confusing for them in the beginning, progress has been good and they are catching up fast. The objective of the training program is to use technology in glorifying God while giving the participants knowledge they could use in earning a living. For in areas like ministry in Uganda online presence is rare thus they could charge a minimum fee to get the said ministries on the internet.

Please pray for us and any contribution towards this effort is highly welcome.

Be blessed
Higenyi K Phillip