非洲发展传播的理论范式与实践进路

Theoretical Paradigm and Practice on Development Communication in Africa

发展问题一直是非洲各国面临的核心议题。梳理非洲国家通过大众传播促进发展问题解决的历史性实践与尝试,有助于我们更加全面地理解非洲发展问题并拓展中非媒体对话空间。非洲国家在长达几十年的发展传播探索中积累了丰富的实践经验,也亲历了发展传播学话语情境与研究进路的变迁,其中,现代化范式、批判范式及参与式传播的赋权范式为非洲发展传播实践注入了动力。然而,由于政府与媒体未能形成良好的协作关系,发展传播在非洲一直未能取得预期效果,尤其是冷战后西方自由主义媒介体制的引入更使非洲媒体一度脱离了发展传播的初衷。非洲国家学者对此开展了一系列理论反思与实践探索,发展新闻、建构性新闻等实践成为非洲国家探索发展传播“中间道路”的重要尝试。展望未来,非洲发展传播实践的前景在于从宏观上重新反思其媒介体制的设置及自由主义的新闻理念,在新媒体传播技术赋权的历史机遇下,建构政府与媒体的良性合作与共生关系,重新发现符合非洲本土理论与实践的发展传播路径。

Development has always been a core issue for African countries.Reviewing African countries’past practices in tackling developmental problems via mass media will generate a more comprehensive understanding of African development issues and a dialogue in media communication between China and Africa.African countries have accumulated rich practical experience on the decades-long journey of exploring development communication.And they have also undergone the changes of discourse context and research approach in the field of development communication,among which the modernization paradigm,the critical paradigm and the empowerment paradigm of participatory communication have injected impetus into the development communication of Africa.However,due to government’s failure to form a cooperative relationship with media,development communication didn’t gain the expected effect for a long period of time,especially during the time when Western free media system was introduced into Africa after the Cold War,which made its development deviate from its original vision.Therefore,scholars from African continents have reflected and explored both in theory and practice on development communication.As a result,practice including development journalism and constructive journalism represents an important milestone as African countries try to seek a“middle way”for development communication.Looking forward,the future of African development communication lies in not only reshaping its media system and liberal journalistic concept from a macro perspective,hut also in government’s building a cooperative and symbiotic relationship with the media,to reinvent a path that is in line with African theories and practices in the era when new technology greatly empowers media transmission.