Effective communication is the corner stone upon which any society is founded. However, to what extent that effective communication is used remains a challenge to many societies, Kenya included. Media’s role in society, as the conveyor of information and news is a great determinant of the path that any society takes. It could lead the society into progress and social cohesion, or into a path of destruction and insurrection.
In Kenya, the role of media in national cohesion and integration is integral, especially during this healing period. In the aftermath of the post election violence, the role of media in the conflict, both as a contributor and as a conciliator, was put to focus. Several guidelines, statutory and internally generated, have been issued to guide the media in their important role as disseminators of information.
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), established as part of the Agenda Four reforms, is mandated with ensuring that like any other arm of state, the media as fourth estate plays their role in integrating the society. The commission has come up with several guidelines to help media deal with issues likely to develop conflict in society. Top among them is the Guideline for Monitoring Hate Speech in the Electronic Media in Kenya that the commission launched at the fall of 2010. Such guidelines, among many other strategies, can be helpful in fighting hate speech, the principal catalyst for conflict in society.
Again, after the 2007/08 post election violence, self-examination of the media industry and their coverage of the elections and the period preceding it, offers vital lessons for harnessing social cohesion and integration. Without learning lessons, and taking stock of the systemic and structural failures, the likelihood of repetition is real.
Therefore, it is important to understand how this effective communication can be used as a tool for social cohesion and integration. The new hate speech guidelines, commonly referred to as Kibunja Guidelines, propagate for blacking out hate mongers. The media, local and national, have a responsibility to the society they serve not to sow seeds of discord and conflict. Challenges to effective enforcement of such guidelines in a liberalized media market abound.
To ensure adherence to these rules, the commission should adopt a persuasive approach that is participatory and inclusive. Constant training of media practitioners on what constitutes hate speech is important. Lack of capacity to analyze and sift through news to weed out inflammatory content remains a hindrance to integration. The media are required to engage in “contextual and corrective reporting” for purposes of promoting social integration and cohesion. For it to competently discharge such a function, practitioners must have the capacity and expertise to do so. Hence, with such a capacity gap, there is need for the commission to engage the media industry in capacity building and awareness.
The commission could also put in place mechanisms to help communities use their local media to address the root causes of historical problems bedeviling them. Grievances over historical injustices remain emotive and highly divisive, causes for conflict and social disintegration. For example, the commission could use the vernacular radio to bring the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu communities to address, in open fora, the longstanding issue of land ownership in the Rift Valley. This form of peace journalism, where content and stories are professionally selected and reported with the aim of bringing warring parties together, can be steered by the commission, whose mandate is to bring communities to live as one.
The Waki report on post election violence noted the role hate speech in the local media played in exacerbating the violence. Section 13(1) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act lays out what constitutes hate speech. Without doubt, that remains the most flouted provision of law today. The ongoing debates about the ICC, KKK alliance, judicial appointments and the tribal talk accompanying them are reasons for concern. Importantly, the commission can engage the media on the need to practice conflict sensitive journalism.
Ross Howard, in My Tribe is Journalism - A Handbook on Conflict Sensitive Journalism, developed after the election violence of 2007/08, argues that media have a role to play in conflict. Not by denying its existence, but by reporting objectively, covering all conflicting sides in depth and abandoning traditional journalism that sacrifices sensitivity at the altar of sensationalism.
In conflict, the role of the media is to “provide the public with full, reliable and non-partisan information to mange the conflict and make intelligent decisions,” Howard writes. Hence, while the role of the media is not to resolve conflict and disintegration, the manner of reporting can help resolve and create harmony and cohesion in society.
Therefore, to achieve a coherent and integrated society, the NCIC can engage the local and national media in several ways. By promoting professionalism and ensuring that journalists are constantly trained on social values and norms that promote integration.
By strictly enforcing the law and other delegated legislative rules on hate speech and sensationalism, the commission can enforce compliance to principles of ethical journalism. This can be possible by working together with media bodies, like the Media Council, The Editors Guild, Media Owners and the Kenya Union of Journalists to ensure high professional standards of journalism are maintained.
Again, the commission can sponsor programs in the local media that seek to address societal problems. By providing the communities with a platform to ventilate and seek negotiated solutions, the commission could use the local media – and their languages, to reach out to reduce conflict. This has the opportunity to demystify stereotypes and myths, create home grown solutions and foster cohesion.
Media concentration in any given society is an issue of great concern. In Kenya, this controversial subject of media ownership and concentration has not been adequately addressed. Concentration of the media, and especially vernacular and local radio in the hands of a very few elite does not augur well for social integration and cohesion. More so, when management of these entities is not independent of the owners, media content is likely to be skewed and highly probable to create disintegration. To mitigate against misuse of these media, as was cited in the Waki report, diversity in ownership should be encouraged and cross media ownership, or over concentration in the hands of a few, should be highly discouraged.
Therefore, by persuading the media, through creating a working partnership, to foster national unity, observe professionalism and embrace conflict sensitive journalism, the NCIC could use the national and local media to bring the country back to repair the torn social fabric. And by creating a strong social structure that respects diversity, the media, even when they report on hate speech, albeit in a professionally probing way, will not run the risk of exacerbating disintegration. For, as Dr. George Nyambuga wrote, blacking out hate mongers completely is “to some extent denying [their] existence, and to promote ignorance of such people in a nation-state like Kenya where differences and diversity should be celebrated.”
Ultimately, an integrated approach to the issues affecting the society, and the role of the media in solving them without creating new conflicts is important to foster national integration and cohesion.
