Jornal de Comunicação de Massa e Jornalismo

The Media, Ethnicity and Regional Development in the Lake Victoria Basin

Abstract

Charles Ongadi Nyambuga and David Odhiambo Onuong’a

This article discusses how the mass media has been able to assist national and regional development. The
concepts of media, ethnicity, and regional development are discussed as critical elements that influence regional development. The discussions focus on how the concept of ethnicity was used by the colonial and independent governments in Kenya to perpetuate conflicts amongst the different ethnic groups through the mass organs of communication. While the colonial regime used ethnicity to consign different ethnic groups to different sectors of the economy, the post independence regimes have refined the use of ethnicity to help sustain their regimes in power and to either support development or frustrate development efforts in specific regions. The article acknowledges the critical role undertaken by the media in rationalizing the politics of ethnicity and how that eventually feeds into national and regional development. Different scholars have reasoned differently on the role of the media in influencing events. The present discussion focuses attention on one of the early argumentations by media scholars. Their argumentation on the role and effect of the mass media is contextualized in the Kenyan media scene and analysed for relevance.