Research
In developing and deploying FrontlineSMS:Radio, FrontlineSMS is partnered with the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) at the University of Cambridge. The Centre investigates how new communication technologies are integrated into local governance practices and how they may contribute to the facilitation of innovative forms of governance and political participation.
Radio stations and related organisations are offered the opportunity to be part of “Africa’s Voices”, an African wide research initiative aiming at analysing citizens’ opinions on a wide range of issues.
Radio stations wishing to be involved in this initiative will ask a monthly question to their audiences. After being duly amonymised, the SMS received from listeners will be shared with CGHR for analysis. Stations will then be provided with first hand results of an exclusive continent-wide consultation process on core development and governance issues, from Niamey to Lusaka, from Kampala to Maputo.
To notify interest in taking part in the research initiative or for any further information, you can check the Africa’s Voices’ website and contact the researcher in charge, Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault
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CGHR has developed an innovative research framework to analyse how different media are used by citizens to ensure that their voices are heard. This allows researchers to capture the need for communication and better governance emerging from the grassroots, alongside the concrete ability of new media to match those needs.
As Sharath Srinivasan, Director of CGHR explains: ‘Without question, ‘hybrid media’ that combine for example the interactive power of mobile SMS with the reach of radio have the potential to expand citizens’ political capabilities and enrich public sphere interactions. But a major challenge has been to develop an empirical sense of how transformative this can be in relation to public debate, political participation, accountability and governance.’
The research is aimed at providing evidence of these on-going transformations, moving beyond template approaches which indicate how the media should be used to analyse the creative applications promoted by individuals and groups in their everyday interactions. They are currently developing a macro-comparative approach to analyse interactions between citizens and radio stations via mobile phones all across the African continent.
For an article explaining the project from CGHR entitled “New communications technologies and citizen-led governance in Africa : Investigating the Socio-Political Implications of New Technologies” please click here.
In November 2011, CGHR convened a conference called “Beyond revolutions: the use of ICTs for political mobilization and participation in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The event gathered scholars from a range of disciplines to examine the ability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to affect and transform governance processes in Africa. The conference helped to extend this research agenda, exploring how ICTs are affecting and possibly transforming the nature of political mobilization and participation across Africa. For information and videos from the conference please click here.
The CGHR research is being led by Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault and you can read more about her below.
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Dr Florence Brisset-Foucault (feb37@cam.ac.uk) is Cambridge CGHR’s post-doctoral Research Associate on the New Communication Technologies and Citizen-led Governance in Africa research project, 2010-2012.She leads CGHR’s research into the impact of new media and communication technologies on forms of governance and political participation in Africa, working in collaboration with FrontlineSMS as well as local radio stations, media development organisations and research partners in Africa. Building from this pilot research, Florence is helping to shape CGHR’s longer-term research agenda in this increasingly important subject area.
Prior to joining CGHR, Florence completed her PhD in political science at the University of La Sorbonne, for which she explored repertoires of criticism and imaginaries of citizenship in contemporary Uganda through the analysis of open radio debates (ebimeeza). Her interests lie in political imaginaries and processes of State and public sphere formation in Africa, and she works on a variety of topics with a focus on East Africa, from the contemporary manifestations of nationalism in Buganda to the history and sociology of the media, practices of oratory (especially ‘street parliaments’ and radio talk shows), as well as political education. She has also been a member of several research projects focused on electoral politics in Uganda and in Kenya.
