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| The Afrocentric Media Governance in Tanzania’s Ujamaa (Socialism) Era |
Khamis Juma Abdalla, PhD Student
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Abstract:
The postcolonial media system of Tanzania initially operated under the literally monopoly structure of government and party. The Single party ordination was concocted into a democratic and revolutionary platform to concentrate the nation building scheme over ethnic division in Tanzania. In the new era of African independence states, the Western-model of capitalist scenery was reasoned unconducive over emerging self-governing African countries. As a point of departure, Tanzania embarked to African Socialism (Ujamaa) ethos to appeal all peripheral communities vis-à-vis the conception of nation building. This Afrocentric modality entailed centrally planned economic transition in which the media regulation evolved keen on the dominant one-party political philosophy to streamline the communal life in accordance with the precolonial African values living in cooperation, collectivism, egalitarianism and obligation to work, tracing the rural development paradigm meant for villagesation. Ujamaa government Tanzania-ize and Socialize the media system through distinctive content regulations, nationalization, centralization and de facto media policies in respect of propagating the socialist ideology across the natives. The utilization of national language Kiswahili was ideal to crackdown the colonial mass communication systems in preference to Afrocentric media typology to generate the common culture and identity. Thus far, the prevailing command economy couldn’t let the private media ownership flourish, until 1980s when the market economic system in proportion of the IMF/WB structural programs spurred the national financial adjustment across the social institutions including media sector. Along with 1990s, state transformation to multiparty politics commonly nurtured the media structure in the hands of multi privately ownership suppressing the government monopoly.
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