ECAS 2013

News about the Mali conflict in 2012 came first through the communication of a person in Paris, next was the website of one of the main 'movements', and third were the phone calls we received of friends from Northern Mali, called Azawad, or 'occupied zone' depending on the actors, who range from Tuareg rebels, Islamists, the Malian government to the international community. Facebook pages where news on the situation was exchanged, united people from Azawad, Bamako, USA and Europe. A similar situation in the 1990's, when the North of Mali was also under rebellion, did not have such exposure and there was hardly communication with the outside world. What has happened in the period between 1990 and 2012 that can explain these changes? What has been the role of communication technology 'revolution' in the region? Douentza (southern Azawad) received its first wireless spot in 2002, other towns in the North (Boni, Tombouctou, Kidal) were connected from 2005 onwards. How did this connectivity impact on the manifestation of the conflict in the international world? Is there a relation between the development of the conflict and its mediation? This paper is based on empirical research in Northern Mali during various periods between 1990 and 2013, including two field visits to South Azawad, and internet and media screening of the conflicts' development.

These empirical data will help to understand how media -especially social media and mobile phones- have become part and parcel of 'warfare' as a social process.

The absence of a functioning state in parts of Somalia has not prevented the diffusion of new communication technologies or traditional mass media such as radio. On the contrary, it can be argued that the absence of institutions controlling and regulating the communicative space has facilitated their spread. There is intense competition between telecom companies that provide mobile and internet services, offering some of the lowest rates on the continent. Dozens of radio stations broadcast across Somalia and there is a competitive newspaper industry in Somaliland.

This paper explores the role of media in Somalia and examines how media have been used in political conflict and violence. It also examines the ways in which media have been regulated in the absence of formal laws or in the situations characterized by the lack of ability to implement and enforce law which are common in South Central Somalia or in Somaliland where legal frameworks do exist. By considering how conflicts between media outlets and the state, or individuals, have been resolved outside of a formal court system, sometimes using customary law (xeer), insight into the relationship between media and public authorities is probed. The paper concludes by reflecting on conflict and post-conflict media policy making, and the relevance and potential impact of such efforts, by discussing current efforts by the government in South Central Somalia to implement media and telecommunications legislation.

Sub-Saharan Africa has recently experienced a rise of self-determination movements. This does not seem surprising as borders are arbitrary and internally contested due to colonial rule. Resulting ethnic diversity can easily be instrumentalised to mobilise combatants. Furthermore, there are opportunities for violent struggle due to weak state capacity and the availability of small arms. Hence, one could deduce that the continent is especially affected by armed conflict over secession. However, violent secessionist conflicts in Sub-Sahara Africa were - and still are - scarce. Instead, in many instances social movements seek self-determination through non-violent strategies.

This paper aims to elucidate why some African self-determination movements choose non-violent collective action, while others claim secession through violent rebellion despite similar circumstances. Prevailing theories on violent conflict cannot explain this variation in collective behaviour. Thus, the paper will integrate the framing approach into conflict studies. Framing focuses on communication processes within social movements. It reveals how movements interpret and construct their environment, how they diffuse their message and calls to action, how this translates into specific strategies of mobilisation, and finally - violent or non-violent - action. The framing approach will be applied to a most-similar case study design, which compares self-determination movements in the cases of Senegal and Zambia that adopted violent and non-violent strategies, respectively.

Not only does this approach help to identify micro-mechanisms explaining the escalation of violence, but it also yields insights into communication processes and internal dynamics of protest movements as well as their strategic interaction with their environment.

Media and afflictive identity in post-conflict Uganda

Nodding Syndrome (NS) is an unknown affliction which has been reported to affect thousands of children in post-conflict northern Uganda, South Sudan and in Tanzania.

This qualitative study compares the discourse of affected families, health workers and politicians (during five months of fieldwork in northern Uganda) with media conceptualization (based on available mediatised reports and newspaper articles). Focus is put on how meanings of key terms related to Nodding Syndrome are produced and negotiated. Attention is being paid to the circulation of different discourses and explanatory models with a clear divide between hegemonic biomedical accounts and counter-hegemonic social-issue analyses. We argue that NS is an instance of afflictive identity obliquely recounting a people's political history.

Given Garfinkel's position that sensemaking is essentially a moral phenomenon, we look into how information technologies impact on people's accountability frameworks and how mobile communication (e.g. via cell phones) alters the moral landscape of users. The evidence on which we draw is collected from Ushahidi ('testimony' in Kiswahili), an open source project that allows users to 'crowdsource' crisis information sent via mobile. The project is an internet-based initiative that started in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election. An application was developed that (1) enabled local observers to submit reports of violence using their mobile phones (text message) or the internet (email) and (2) brought together these eyewitness reports on Google Maps, thus creating a temporal and geospatial record of acts of violence. Soon thereafter, similar sites were set up for other regions affected by crisis and civil war. We seek to elicit the discursive modes and codes, adding and comparing data on initiatives in Tanzania (a.o., Mzumbe U) and South Africa (a.o. UWC).

The conflicts in Tunisia and Lybia produced a great interest in the Spanish audience. In the coverage of the public television, TVE, a great number of women journalists were sent to these two countries. They were young, without not a great experience on the field and not specialized on the Arab-Islamic world. Their profile was, then, very different from the one of their male counterparts. But, did they use their gender to get into the lives of local women? Did they pay special attention to some topics normally not considered by men? To sum up: did they change the communication patterns about the Arab revolutions if we compare them with the work of the Spanish male journalists? And, in addition to these questions: what did they job offer as new elements to the Spanish audience?