Media development aid and the Westernisation of Africa: The case of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA)

Abstract

The article explores and questions the dynamics which daily play out between the donor community and aid recipients. It interrogates the assumption that these relations are cooperative and balanced. Instead, the authors argue that the contestation of power defines the impulse for development. This contest is played out within the complex communicative exchanges between the two sides. Although based on a single case study, the purpose of this discussion is to provoke debates around the intricacies of donor/receiver relations, so as to further deepen an understanding of the changes taking place in southern Africa, more especially since the end of the Cold War in 1989.

Keywords:

• Development
• grant-giving institutions
• media
• modernisation
• Open Society
• participatory approach
• power