In 2006, The Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller stated that ‘gays are the new Jews’, asking i... more In 2006, The Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller stated that ‘gays are the new Jews’, asking if our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves has plummeted to dangerous levels.
The rip and shred of flesh being hacked and sliced and bone being broken at the centre of the cir... more The rip and shred of flesh being hacked and sliced and bone being broken at the centre of the circle were so distinct in the darkness it was as if it was happening inside my very head. Except that it wasn't. I was sitting on my haunches on the very edge of the circle. The dry, sparse earth was still hot from the relentless day. I faced outwards, into the darkness and the wildness. My hunched back shielded me from the hellish epicentre just five metres behind me. There was no moon. They weren't corpses yet; they were still bodies warm and supple with their life stories, but these would quietly leach from them and into the night as they stiffened. In the fading light they had scratched and pilfered their way through the pockets and pouches of the dead men: red square Russian-made soap as bleak as the Soviet bloc architecture I'd once learned about in a veld school state documentary. The dead men were almost all too young for death. And what they had died for; snapshots of girlfriends and family folded neatly into creased paper. There was one notebook, cheap paper, foreign looking. Was one of the young men also scribbling words for his survival and sanity? There were letters too, handwritten in spindly ballpoint, wrapped in plastic for re-reading, safe keeping.
Promises, Pedagogy and Pitfalls. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2016
Empathy is the antithesis of selfishness and therein lies our species’ only hope of survival. For... more Empathy is the antithesis of selfishness and therein lies our species’ only hope of survival. For too long our selfishly anthropocentric approach – that which considers human beings as the most significant entity of the universe – has powerfully held sway. This has seen our world disintegrate on countless levels; climatic change being the main case in point. As a species, not only have we turned anyone not in our group(s) into the other, we have even othered nature. I explore how globalised cultures and economies, because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, threaten our planet’s sustainability. My chapter argues that, thankfully, a historic wave of empathy is challenging our highly individualistic, self-obsessed cultures, in which most of us have become far too absorbed in our own lives to give much thought to anyone else. That is why we have to take difference and diversity – the embracing of the other on every level – as our main point of reference. We must suspend belief that political participation, moral empathy, and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Empathy, maintains Roman Krznaric, is an ideal that has the power both to transform our own lives and to bring about fundamental social change; it can create a radical revolution. Furthermore, within my sphere of influence as a journalism lecturer, I am agitating for the incorporation of empathy into journalism curricula so that future young African journalists (tomorrow’s information gatekeepers) will be taught ‘empathy skills’; because the communications industry, especially print media, digital journalism, television, and radio, are critical in this revolution. Key Words: Empathy, African media, anthropocentric, othering, selfishness,revolution, communications industry, change.
In Wain, V. & Pimomo, P, (eds) (2015) Encountering Empathy- Interrogating the Past, Envisioning the Future. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp 151 - 162, ISBN: 978-1-84888-390-1
In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and ques... more In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and questioned whether it was his imagination or our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves that was plummeting to dangerous levels. ‘With all the misery that's going on in this world, I cannot understand why some people are so fixated on preventing loving people from committing to each other and receiving the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.’ The world since then has altered substantially, for better and worse. Meanwhile, studies on empathy in journalism maintain that although, historically, emotion has been generally considered inferior to reason, a single concept – empathy – serves as the principle for emotional development and decision making. Some philosophers employ empathy’s synonym, ‘sympathy’, instead, and assert that ‘through learning to empathize with other sentient creatures, human beings develop morally.’ In this chapter I explore the relationship between homophobic representations in African mainstream news media and the resultant and unfettered Twitter representations of empathy directly in response to these acts of active homophobia. By examining the ways in which African mainstream media and Twitter users relate to this definition of empathy – compassionate modes of relating with others – I shed light on the role the Twitter[uni]verse plays in providing a voice to the marginalised, while simultaneously nurturing the development of emotion, thus empathy, in the Twitterverse’s constituents. My chapter suggests that Twitter – contrasted with examples of state-controlled African media – provides a platform for some of its users to make an ethical decision to retaliate against state-sanctioned homophobia and hatred, thus fulfilling the liberal pluralism media theory that the free exchange of ideas is crucial to a democracy’s health.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
Abstract:
South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual ori... more Abstract: South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual orientation, race and gender equality, as well as – crucially – ensuring the “freedom of the press and other media”. However, consequent national debates appear to indicate that the country is still grappling with issues of sexual orientation and of sexual practices. It is against the complexity of this background that this research examines – through a focus on reported conflict over South Africa’s blood transfusion service – how certain debates and controversies around issues of race and sexual orientation arose and played out in the media. The editorials and opinion pieces of both The Star and The Citizen newspapers were more than mere platforms for debates to unfold upon. While both publications did undoubtedly provide a seemingly neutral platform for the two controversies to play themselves out, which included ample input from their readers, both publications from their editorial position intervened in a wide range of editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries and one cartoon. Thus, in fact, they played a powerful role in the curating manipulation of the debates. Description: M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities (Journalism and Media Studies), 2012
Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2017
In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and ques... more In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and questioned whether it was his imagination or our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves that was plummeting to dangerous levels. ‘With all the misery that's going on in this world, I cannot understand why some people are so fixated on preventing loving people from committing to each other and receiving the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.’ The world since then has altered substantially, for better and worse. Meanwhile, studies on empathy in journalism maintain that although, historically, emotion has been generally considered inferior to reason, a single concept – empathy – serves as the principle for emotional development and decision making. Some philosophers employ empathy’s synonym, ‘sympathy’, instead, and assert that ‘through learning to empathize with other sentient creatures, human beings develop morally.’ In this chapter I explore the relationship between homophobic representations in African mainstream news media and the resultant and unfettered Twitter representations of empathy directly in response to these acts of active homophobia. By examining the ways in which African mainstream media and Twitter users relate to this definition of empathy – compassionate modes of relating with others – I shed light on the role the Twitter[uni]verse plays in providing a voice to the marginalised, while simultaneously nurturing the development of emotion, thus empathy, in the Twitterverse’s constituents. My chapter suggests that Twitter – contrasted with examples of state-controlled African media – provides a platform for some of its users to make an ethical decision to retaliate against state-sanctioned homophobia and hatred, thus fulfilling the liberal pluralism media theory that the free exchange of ideas is crucial to a democracy’s health.
Key words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
In Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) (2017) Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, pp 193 - 216, ISBN: 9789004350748
And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback, 2021
And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback – January 5, 2021
And Morning Will... more And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback – January 5, 2021
And Morning Will Come is an anthology of short fiction and creative non-fiction. It features the 2017 Koffi Addo Writivism Prize for Creative Non-Fiction winner, "Meat Bomb" by Charles King, and the 2017 Writivism Short Story Prize-winning "Stolen Pieces" by Munachim Amah, alongside short stories in French by Regine Gwladys and Dondedieu Richtel Ollier, besides other stories shortlisted and longlisted for the two prizes.
Published by Black Letter Media (South Africa) & the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (Uganda)
by Esther Nangobi Mirembe (Author), Eloghosa Osunde (Contributor), Munachim Amah (Contributor), Charles King (Contributor), Vivian Ogbonna (Contributor), Saaleha Bhamjee (Contributor), Regine Gwladys Lebouda (Contributor), Andrew Dakalira (Contributor), Blessing Christopher (Contributor), Sada Malumfashi (Contributor)
'Journalism is not dying, won't die, and is merely in the process of sloughing yet another skin. ... more 'Journalism is not dying, won't die, and is merely in the process of sloughing yet another skin. The challenge, though, is that skin after skin is sloughing at a terrific pace.'
The changing (or is it?) role of the Fourth Estate in a changing technologically-empowered world. An informed citizenry is vital in our democracy and an unbiased press is vital to serve that citizenry. But digital media, citizen journalists, fake news, misinformation, etc comes at us from so many different directions. Mistrust is growing. Governments often take advantage of this, while politicians actively talk nonsense (oh Trump!) and tell lies and simply don’t care. Fact-checking sometimes appears to be a dying art, as proper sub-editors are a dying breed. The 24-hour news cycle requires journalists to break the news first, and often fact-checking goes out the window. So what now is the role of the Fourth Estate and how do we play it in such a complex environment?
In 2006, The Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller stated that ‘gays are the new Jews’, asking i... more In 2006, The Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller stated that ‘gays are the new Jews’, asking if our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves has plummeted to dangerous levels.
The rip and shred of flesh being hacked and sliced and bone being broken at the centre of the cir... more The rip and shred of flesh being hacked and sliced and bone being broken at the centre of the circle were so distinct in the darkness it was as if it was happening inside my very head. Except that it wasn't. I was sitting on my haunches on the very edge of the circle. The dry, sparse earth was still hot from the relentless day. I faced outwards, into the darkness and the wildness. My hunched back shielded me from the hellish epicentre just five metres behind me. There was no moon. They weren't corpses yet; they were still bodies warm and supple with their life stories, but these would quietly leach from them and into the night as they stiffened. In the fading light they had scratched and pilfered their way through the pockets and pouches of the dead men: red square Russian-made soap as bleak as the Soviet bloc architecture I'd once learned about in a veld school state documentary. The dead men were almost all too young for death. And what they had died for; snapshots of girlfriends and family folded neatly into creased paper. There was one notebook, cheap paper, foreign looking. Was one of the young men also scribbling words for his survival and sanity? There were letters too, handwritten in spindly ballpoint, wrapped in plastic for re-reading, safe keeping.
Promises, Pedagogy and Pitfalls. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2016
Empathy is the antithesis of selfishness and therein lies our species’ only hope of survival. For... more Empathy is the antithesis of selfishness and therein lies our species’ only hope of survival. For too long our selfishly anthropocentric approach – that which considers human beings as the most significant entity of the universe – has powerfully held sway. This has seen our world disintegrate on countless levels; climatic change being the main case in point. As a species, not only have we turned anyone not in our group(s) into the other, we have even othered nature. I explore how globalised cultures and economies, because contemporary market economies profit from the control and commodification of all that lives, threaten our planet’s sustainability. My chapter argues that, thankfully, a historic wave of empathy is challenging our highly individualistic, self-obsessed cultures, in which most of us have become far too absorbed in our own lives to give much thought to anyone else. That is why we have to take difference and diversity – the embracing of the other on every level – as our main point of reference. We must suspend belief that political participation, moral empathy, and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Empathy, maintains Roman Krznaric, is an ideal that has the power both to transform our own lives and to bring about fundamental social change; it can create a radical revolution. Furthermore, within my sphere of influence as a journalism lecturer, I am agitating for the incorporation of empathy into journalism curricula so that future young African journalists (tomorrow’s information gatekeepers) will be taught ‘empathy skills’; because the communications industry, especially print media, digital journalism, television, and radio, are critical in this revolution. Key Words: Empathy, African media, anthropocentric, othering, selfishness,revolution, communications industry, change.
In Wain, V. & Pimomo, P, (eds) (2015) Encountering Empathy- Interrogating the Past, Envisioning the Future. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, pp 151 - 162, ISBN: 978-1-84888-390-1
In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and ques... more In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and questioned whether it was his imagination or our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves that was plummeting to dangerous levels. ‘With all the misery that's going on in this world, I cannot understand why some people are so fixated on preventing loving people from committing to each other and receiving the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.’ The world since then has altered substantially, for better and worse. Meanwhile, studies on empathy in journalism maintain that although, historically, emotion has been generally considered inferior to reason, a single concept – empathy – serves as the principle for emotional development and decision making. Some philosophers employ empathy’s synonym, ‘sympathy’, instead, and assert that ‘through learning to empathize with other sentient creatures, human beings develop morally.’ In this chapter I explore the relationship between homophobic representations in African mainstream news media and the resultant and unfettered Twitter representations of empathy directly in response to these acts of active homophobia. By examining the ways in which African mainstream media and Twitter users relate to this definition of empathy – compassionate modes of relating with others – I shed light on the role the Twitter[uni]verse plays in providing a voice to the marginalised, while simultaneously nurturing the development of emotion, thus empathy, in the Twitterverse’s constituents. My chapter suggests that Twitter – contrasted with examples of state-controlled African media – provides a platform for some of its users to make an ethical decision to retaliate against state-sanctioned homophobia and hatred, thus fulfilling the liberal pluralism media theory that the free exchange of ideas is crucial to a democracy’s health.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
Abstract:
South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual ori... more Abstract: South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual orientation, race and gender equality, as well as – crucially – ensuring the “freedom of the press and other media”. However, consequent national debates appear to indicate that the country is still grappling with issues of sexual orientation and of sexual practices. It is against the complexity of this background that this research examines – through a focus on reported conflict over South Africa’s blood transfusion service – how certain debates and controversies around issues of race and sexual orientation arose and played out in the media. The editorials and opinion pieces of both The Star and The Citizen newspapers were more than mere platforms for debates to unfold upon. While both publications did undoubtedly provide a seemingly neutral platform for the two controversies to play themselves out, which included ample input from their readers, both publications from their editorial position intervened in a wide range of editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries and one cartoon. Thus, in fact, they played a powerful role in the curating manipulation of the debates. Description: M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities (Journalism and Media Studies), 2012
Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2017
In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and ques... more In 2006 columnist Danny Miller stated in The Huffington Post that gays are the new Jews, and questioned whether it was his imagination or our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves that was plummeting to dangerous levels. ‘With all the misery that's going on in this world, I cannot understand why some people are so fixated on preventing loving people from committing to each other and receiving the legal protections that heterosexual couples enjoy.’ The world since then has altered substantially, for better and worse. Meanwhile, studies on empathy in journalism maintain that although, historically, emotion has been generally considered inferior to reason, a single concept – empathy – serves as the principle for emotional development and decision making. Some philosophers employ empathy’s synonym, ‘sympathy’, instead, and assert that ‘through learning to empathize with other sentient creatures, human beings develop morally.’ In this chapter I explore the relationship between homophobic representations in African mainstream news media and the resultant and unfettered Twitter representations of empathy directly in response to these acts of active homophobia. By examining the ways in which African mainstream media and Twitter users relate to this definition of empathy – compassionate modes of relating with others – I shed light on the role the Twitter[uni]verse plays in providing a voice to the marginalised, while simultaneously nurturing the development of emotion, thus empathy, in the Twitterverse’s constituents. My chapter suggests that Twitter – contrasted with examples of state-controlled African media – provides a platform for some of its users to make an ethical decision to retaliate against state-sanctioned homophobia and hatred, thus fulfilling the liberal pluralism media theory that the free exchange of ideas is crucial to a democracy’s health.
Key words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
In Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) (2017) Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, pp 193 - 216, ISBN: 9789004350748
And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback, 2021
And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback – January 5, 2021
And Morning Will... more And Morning Will Come: The 2017 Writivism Anthology Paperback – January 5, 2021
And Morning Will Come is an anthology of short fiction and creative non-fiction. It features the 2017 Koffi Addo Writivism Prize for Creative Non-Fiction winner, "Meat Bomb" by Charles King, and the 2017 Writivism Short Story Prize-winning "Stolen Pieces" by Munachim Amah, alongside short stories in French by Regine Gwladys and Dondedieu Richtel Ollier, besides other stories shortlisted and longlisted for the two prizes.
Published by Black Letter Media (South Africa) & the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (Uganda)
by Esther Nangobi Mirembe (Author), Eloghosa Osunde (Contributor), Munachim Amah (Contributor), Charles King (Contributor), Vivian Ogbonna (Contributor), Saaleha Bhamjee (Contributor), Regine Gwladys Lebouda (Contributor), Andrew Dakalira (Contributor), Blessing Christopher (Contributor), Sada Malumfashi (Contributor)
'Journalism is not dying, won't die, and is merely in the process of sloughing yet another skin. ... more 'Journalism is not dying, won't die, and is merely in the process of sloughing yet another skin. The challenge, though, is that skin after skin is sloughing at a terrific pace.'
The changing (or is it?) role of the Fourth Estate in a changing technologically-empowered world. An informed citizenry is vital in our democracy and an unbiased press is vital to serve that citizenry. But digital media, citizen journalists, fake news, misinformation, etc comes at us from so many different directions. Mistrust is growing. Governments often take advantage of this, while politicians actively talk nonsense (oh Trump!) and tell lies and simply don’t care. Fact-checking sometimes appears to be a dying art, as proper sub-editors are a dying breed. The 24-hour news cycle requires journalists to break the news first, and often fact-checking goes out the window. So what now is the role of the Fourth Estate and how do we play it in such a complex environment?
Uploads
Papers by Charles King
https://theconversation.com/gays-the-new-jews-african-media-homophobia-vs-twitter-empathy-60571
political participation, moral empathy, and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Empathy, maintains Roman Krznaric, is an ideal that has the power both to transform our own lives and to bring about fundamental social change; it can create a radical revolution. Furthermore, within my sphere of influence as a journalism lecturer, I am agitating for the incorporation of empathy into journalism curricula so that future young African journalists (tomorrow’s information gatekeepers) will be taught ‘empathy
skills’; because the communications industry, especially print media, digital journalism, television, and radio, are critical in this revolution.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, anthropocentric, othering, selfishness,revolution, communications industry, change.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual orientation, race and gender equality, as well as – crucially – ensuring the “freedom of the press and other media”. However, consequent national debates appear to indicate that the country is still grappling with issues of sexual orientation and of sexual practices. It is against the complexity of this background that this research examines – through a focus on reported conflict over South Africa’s blood transfusion service – how certain debates and controversies around issues of race and sexual orientation arose and played out in the media.
The editorials and opinion pieces of both The Star and The Citizen newspapers were more than mere platforms for debates to unfold upon. While both publications did undoubtedly provide a seemingly neutral platform for the two controversies to play themselves out, which included ample input from their readers, both publications from their editorial position intervened in a wide range of editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries and one cartoon. Thus, in fact, they played a powerful role in the curating manipulation of the debates.
Description:
M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities (Journalism and Media Studies), 2012
Books by Charles King
Key words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
In Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) (2017) Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, pp 193 - 216, ISBN: 9789004350748
And Morning Will Come is an anthology of short fiction and creative non-fiction. It features the 2017 Koffi Addo Writivism Prize for Creative Non-Fiction winner, "Meat Bomb" by Charles King, and the 2017 Writivism Short Story Prize-winning "Stolen Pieces" by Munachim Amah, alongside short stories in French by Regine Gwladys and Dondedieu Richtel Ollier, besides other stories shortlisted and longlisted for the two prizes.
Published by Black Letter Media (South Africa) & the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (Uganda)
by Esther Nangobi Mirembe (Author), Eloghosa Osunde (Contributor), Munachim Amah (Contributor), Charles King (Contributor), Vivian Ogbonna (Contributor), Saaleha Bhamjee (Contributor), Regine Gwladys Lebouda (Contributor), Andrew Dakalira (Contributor), Blessing Christopher (Contributor), Sada Malumfashi (Contributor)
Drafts by Charles King
The changing (or is it?) role of the Fourth Estate in a changing technologically-empowered world. An informed citizenry is vital in our democracy and an unbiased press is vital to serve that citizenry. But digital media, citizen journalists, fake news, misinformation, etc comes at us from so many different directions. Mistrust is growing. Governments often take advantage of this, while politicians actively talk nonsense (oh Trump!) and tell lies and simply don’t care. Fact-checking sometimes appears to be a dying art, as proper sub-editors are a dying breed. The 24-hour news cycle requires journalists to break the news first, and often fact-checking goes out the window. So what now is the role of the Fourth Estate and how do we play it in such a complex environment?
https://theconversation.com/gays-the-new-jews-african-media-homophobia-vs-twitter-empathy-60571
political participation, moral empathy, and social cohesion can only be produced on the basis of the notion of recognition of sameness. Empathy, maintains Roman Krznaric, is an ideal that has the power both to transform our own lives and to bring about fundamental social change; it can create a radical revolution. Furthermore, within my sphere of influence as a journalism lecturer, I am agitating for the incorporation of empathy into journalism curricula so that future young African journalists (tomorrow’s information gatekeepers) will be taught ‘empathy
skills’; because the communications industry, especially print media, digital journalism, television, and radio, are critical in this revolution.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, anthropocentric, othering, selfishness,revolution, communications industry, change.
Key Words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
South Africa obtained a new constitution in 1994 that enshrined the right to sexual orientation, race and gender equality, as well as – crucially – ensuring the “freedom of the press and other media”. However, consequent national debates appear to indicate that the country is still grappling with issues of sexual orientation and of sexual practices. It is against the complexity of this background that this research examines – through a focus on reported conflict over South Africa’s blood transfusion service – how certain debates and controversies around issues of race and sexual orientation arose and played out in the media.
The editorials and opinion pieces of both The Star and The Citizen newspapers were more than mere platforms for debates to unfold upon. While both publications did undoubtedly provide a seemingly neutral platform for the two controversies to play themselves out, which included ample input from their readers, both publications from their editorial position intervened in a wide range of editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries and one cartoon. Thus, in fact, they played a powerful role in the curating manipulation of the debates.
Description:
M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities (Journalism and Media Studies), 2012
Key words: Empathy, African media, Twitter, homophobia, liberal pluralism, sympathy, gay, emotivism, ethics, compassion, the other, African journalism students.
In Nelems, R.J & Theo, L.J, (eds.) (2017) Exploring Empathy: Its Propagations, Perimeters and Potentialities. Leiden/Boston: Brill Rodopi, pp 193 - 216, ISBN: 9789004350748
And Morning Will Come is an anthology of short fiction and creative non-fiction. It features the 2017 Koffi Addo Writivism Prize for Creative Non-Fiction winner, "Meat Bomb" by Charles King, and the 2017 Writivism Short Story Prize-winning "Stolen Pieces" by Munachim Amah, alongside short stories in French by Regine Gwladys and Dondedieu Richtel Ollier, besides other stories shortlisted and longlisted for the two prizes.
Published by Black Letter Media (South Africa) & the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (Uganda)
by Esther Nangobi Mirembe (Author), Eloghosa Osunde (Contributor), Munachim Amah (Contributor), Charles King (Contributor), Vivian Ogbonna (Contributor), Saaleha Bhamjee (Contributor), Regine Gwladys Lebouda (Contributor), Andrew Dakalira (Contributor), Blessing Christopher (Contributor), Sada Malumfashi (Contributor)
The changing (or is it?) role of the Fourth Estate in a changing technologically-empowered world. An informed citizenry is vital in our democracy and an unbiased press is vital to serve that citizenry. But digital media, citizen journalists, fake news, misinformation, etc comes at us from so many different directions. Mistrust is growing. Governments often take advantage of this, while politicians actively talk nonsense (oh Trump!) and tell lies and simply don’t care. Fact-checking sometimes appears to be a dying art, as proper sub-editors are a dying breed. The 24-hour news cycle requires journalists to break the news first, and often fact-checking goes out the window. So what now is the role of the Fourth Estate and how do we play it in such a complex environment?