Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in Africa

This free course aims to empower activists, students, regulators, journalists, lawyers, and everyone interested in ensuring a free, pluralistic and independent African media.

As highlighted in times of COVID-19, the media play a critical role in democratic societies by informing citizens, facilitating and building freedom of expression, and fostering access to information.

This course will help you to identify the principles and components of democratic media policy and practice, and to identify strategies for effective engagement with these matters in African settings.

Drawing from a network of experts and recent case studies from across the continent, we will explore what freedom of expression is and why it is important for democracy.

We will discuss the components and actors of democratic media policy and practice for print, broadcast and online media.

Together, we'll take a look at media pluralism and diversity; media regulation in a democratic media environment; and issues concerning the Internet.

The course is dedicated to and seeks to deepen the work of the late Southern African activist, Jeanette Minnie, who was devoted to robust civil society engagement with African media policy.

What you'll learn

• Core elements of the principles of freedom of expression, media freedom, and access to information
• Policy and practical components necessary to democratic media ecosystems
• Regulatory and other measures that build media pluralism and diversity
• Mechanisms of self-regulation, co-regulation, statutory regulation and regulatory independence in democratic media ecosystems
• The practical and policy dimensions introduced by online media, online expression, and online information access
• Strategies for effective civil society engagement with policy and practice in support of democratic Africa media ecosystems
• The impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on journalists and on the media.