The Wits LINK Centre and WitsX course entitled, Civil Society and African Media Policy in the Digital Age’ kicks off today, October 10, 2018.
Available online for free on edX, the leading online learning platform founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the course unpacks Africa’s media environment by drawing on a network of experts and recent case studies from across the continent.
This course is aimed at empowering civil society actors – including advocacy coalition members, NGO/CBO representatives, union members, journalists, editors, researchers, academics and post-secondary students – to work in support of free, pluralistic and independent African media.
Media owners, government policymakers, parliamentarians and regulators working towards media sector reform are also positioned to benefit form this course.
The course was developed to honour and sustain the legacy of South African media freedom and freedom of expression activist Jeanette Minnie, who passed away in November 2016. Minnie devoted her professional life to ensuring robust civil society engagement with African media policy.
This six-week course, requiring a dedicated effort of 2 to 3 hours of study per week, provides participants with the knowledge necessary to contribute towards more African countries becoming favourable media-freedom environments.
The course offers the following:
- Tools for identifying core elements of the principles of freedom of expression, media freedom, and access to information.
- An understanding of policy and practical components required for a democratic media ecosystem.
- Knowledge regulatory and other measures that build media pluralism and diversity.
- A grasp of mechanisms of self-regulation, co-regulation, statutory regulation and regulatory independence in democratic media ecosystems.
- Skills to identify the practical and policy dimensions introduced by online media, online expression, and online information access.
- Strategies for effective civil society engagement with policy and practice in support of democratic Africa media ecosystems.
Participation in the course includes discussion forums, assignments and assessments, all these are entirely free of charge. Participants who want to receive the Verified Certificate of Achievement endorsed by edX and Wits University can pay $49.
The course instructors are Prof. Justine Limpitlaw (Wits LINK Centre), Paula Fray (frayintermedia), Zoe Titus (Namibia Media Trust), Dr. Sarah Chiumbu (University of Johannesburg), Koketso Moeti (Amandla.mobi), and Dr. Chris Armstrong (Wits LINK Centre).
Course content was developed by the instructors with support from an international Advisory Committee and frayintermedia.
The Bertha Foundation, Namibia Media Trust (NMT) and fesmedia Africa provided funding for course research, development, piloting and marketing.
To enrol for the course go to this edX course link.
