Africa’s media landscapes have shifted tremendously in the past 30 years. The end of state run monopolies in most countries brought thousands of potential sources of news, information, and entertainment to the continent. These outlets in the print, broadcast, and digital sectors vary widely. Some are doggedly independent, while others are known mouthpieces for partisan actors. Some vet information carefully before dissemination, while others are vehicles for mis-, dis-, and mal-information. And some are parts of large, even multinational, media houses, while others are shoestring community-run efforts.
The latest Afrobarometer data from 39 African countries document important changes in how Africans use media to access news and information. Radio remains the most-accessed medium, although digital use continues to grow. However, despite significant gains in Internet and social media access in recent years, inequities in access across gender, education, age, urban/rural, and income lines persist, and on some dimensions have actually grown larger than when overall access rates were much lower. Radio, on the other hand, continues to be accessible across demographic groups more evenly.
Africans are generally supportive of media playing important roles in democratic governance. They are overwhelmingly supportive of media reporting on government mistakes and corruption, and a strong majority support media’s right to report without government interference. And while there is great variation on this measure, a solid majority see media in their country as mostly free.
These results suggest that, in spite of continued attacks on media freedom in many countries, Africans generally support media helping to hold politicians accountable, even if they feel their governments don’t always provide such environments. That said, continuously changing media contexts are bringing both new opportunities for Africans to be informed about important political, economic, social, and health issues and new challenges in the form of false information and divisive language.