Dibussi Tande: Scribbles from the Den

Rhodes Journalism Review: Cracking down on the Diaspora and Dissent

My article on the Cameroon government's attempts to crack down on diaspora and online dissent, which appeared in Rhodes Journalism Review No. 31 of September 2011, is now available online. Click here to read or download the article (pdf).

Click here for all the articles in RJR, no. 31.

2011 Presidential Election: How Candidates Are Navigating the Social Media Landscape

By Dibussi Tande

The use of social media for political campaigns received a major boost in 2008 thanks the Obama presidential campaign which used social media platforms in a creative way to engage and mobilize voters. Since then, practically all candidates running for political office have tried to replicate the Obama social media strategy, with more or less success. Recent events in North America and the Middle East have also helped to highlight the power of social media as a tool for building a community of supporters or voters, engaging your audience, reaching out to supporters, converting skeptics, generating much needed media buzz, and raising funds.

The Biya Regime and Cameroon’s Diaspora-driven Cyberspace (Part 2)

By Dibussi Tande

In the Part 1 of this posting, we highlighted the fact that the Biya regime has never viewed the Cameroonian cyberspace as a viable space for civic engagement and public discourse, and instead sees it as a threat to the regime – a space that must be controlled, co-opted, contained, or simply coerced into submission.

In this second part, we continue with more landmark moments in the Biya regime’s decade-long attempts to control political discourse in the Diaspora and muzzle political activism on the Cameroonian virtual public sphere.

Cameroon’s Diaspora-driven Cyberspace: A Platform for Civic Engagement or a Threat to the Biya Regime?

By Dibussi Tande

Simply put, the Biya regime has never viewed Cameroonian cyberspace as a viable space for civic engagement and public discourse, instead, it sees it as a threat to the regime – a space that must either be controlled, co-opted, contained, or simply coerced into submission.

Why and how the Biya Regime is obsessed with controlling online speech and muzzling Diaspora political activism.

On February 22, 2011, Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon’s Minister of Communications and the Government Spokesperson organized a press conference in which he lashed out at Cameroonians in the Diaspora for using Facebook and Twitter to try and launch Egypt-type protests in Cameroon:

Cameroon Bans Twitter Via SMS to Insulate Itself Against Digital Activists

Dibussi Tande

In a bid to insulate Cameroon against popular uprisings similar to those that have toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt in recent months, the government of Cameroon has forced mobile operator MTN end its five-month old partnership with the microblogging giant Twitter, and to discontinue its Twitter short code service.
  
This service allowed MTN subscribers to receive tweets for free and send tweets at the standard SMS rates.

Introducing "Cameroon on Twitter Daily" - An Online Newspaper

Cameroon on Twitter Daily is a collection of links to all Cameroon-related stories shared on Twitter which are then published daily in an easy to read newspaper-style format. Click here to read or subscribe to the daily newspaper.

Focus on Africa Magazine (With Special Report on Cameroon) Now On Sale

The January-March 2011 issue of the BBC's Focus on Africa Magazine, which includes my article on how the government of Cameroon is dealing with online dissent, is now on sale worldwide.

 
This issue has a special report on Cameroon, which according to the magazine's Twitter page, covers issues such as the country's the current leadership, the fight against corruption, Pentecostal churches and how they are affected by Biya's leadership, etc.

Get your copy now!

Milestone - Scribbles from the Den Crosses the 500,000 Hits Threshold

Half a million hits, 266,867 unique visitors, 521 posts, and 3032 comments since January 2006. Thanks to all those who made this possible.

Twitter Partners With MTN to Establish an SMS Shortcode in Cameroon

Thanks to a partnership between the microblogging platform, Twitter, and MTN Cameroon, MTN subscribers in Cameroon can now send tweets from any mobile phone. To get started, they simply  text "START" to 8711.  Using this shortcode means not having to pay international SMS charges when using Twitter from Cameroon - standard messaging rates apply, but receiving tweets is free. For details watch the following interview with Jessica Verrilli, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Corporate Development at Twitter. Interview conducted by Edouard Tamba during the Africa Media Leaders Forum in Yaoundé.

Note: Short codes (also known as short numbers) are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter than full telephone numbers, that can be used to address SMS and MMS messages from mobile phones or fixed phones (Wikipedia)

 

 

Article in Next Issue of Focus on Africa Magazine

The BBC's Focus on Africa Magazine tweets about my article in its December print edition.

 

Role of Bloggers Comes Under Spotlight at African Media Summit

Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership (SPI), Rhodes University, South Africa

Are bloggers journalists? Are they operating ethically by upholding the rights and limitations of media freedom? If not, should bloggers be regulated by statutory boards? These and similar questions framed some of the key debates of the just-ended Africa Media Leadership Summit.

Panel Discussion/Debate on the Blogosphere & the State at the AMLC

Is The Blogosphere The New Public Sphere, And What Should The Role Of The State Be, If Any?

MODERATOR: Dr. Andrew Kanyegirire, Communications Manager, Nepad, South Africa

Panelists:

• Francis Wangusi, Director of Special Projects and Broadcasting, Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK)
• Innocent Mungy, Manager of Corporate Communications, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority(TCRA)
• Mabel Masasi, Senior Broadcasting Officer (TCRA)
• Daudi Were – Blogger, Mentalacrobatics, Kenya
• Ndesanjo Macha - Blogger, Global Voices, Sub-Saharan Africa editor, Tanzania
• Omar El Hyani, blogger, Morrocco
• Dibussi Tande, blogger, Scribbles from the Den, Cameroon

Follow it live (and ask questions) on Twitter using the #amlc10 hashtag

Is The Blogosphere The New Public Sphere? Should the State Control It?

A presentation by Dibussi Tande at the 2010 Africa Media Leadership Conference (AMLC) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Blogosphere The New Public Sphere? What Role for the State If Any?

View more presentations from Dibussi Tande.

Africa Media Leadership Conference (AMLC) To Hold in Tanzania

Africa summit to examine sustainable digital media business models.

JOHANNESBURG / GRAHAMSTOWN, South Africa -- CEOs and top editors from South, West, North and East Africa converge on Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam for three days in September to attend Africa’s annual media leadership summit which this year focuses on finding “Sustainable Media Business Models in the Digital Age”.

The Africa Media Leadership Conference (AMLC), which takes place on 26-29 September, is hosted annually by Rhodes University’s Sol Plaatje Institute for Media Leadership (SPI) and Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS).

As in all previous AMLC summits, this year’s conference will be a key learning and reflective platform where Africa’s top media leaders will discuss strategic, operational and other challenges to keep their media credible, relevant and competitive in a fast-changing and  digitalising media landscape. 

Past AMLC summits have debated topics such as “Managing Media in a Recession” (Mauritius, 2002); “The Challenges of Media Convergence” (Cape Town, South Africa, 2003); “Policies and Strategies for Media Viability” (Maputo, Mozambique, 2005); “South Meets East: Strategic Challenges for African Media” (Nairobi, Kenya, 2006); “Revenue Generation for Robust African Media” (Cape Town, South Africa, 2007); “Doing Digital Media in Africa: Prospects, Promises and Problems” (Kampala, Uganda, 2008); and “Learning from the Future: Africa’s Media Map in 2029” (Accra, Ghana, 2009) .

The AMLC is the only pan-African gathering of CEOs and leading editors from across Africa, having been launched by KAS and the SPI nearly 10 years ago.

Cote d'Ivoire: Theophile Kouamouo and Others Freed

The Verdict
Count 1: Theft of an administrative document. NOT GUILTY
Count 2: Resale of stolen documents: NOT GUILTY
Count 3: Releasing information from a legal record not yet made public: GUILTY ($10,000 USD fine and 15-day suspension of Le Nouveau Courrier newspaper)

Kouamouo and others defiant to the end. (C)Twitpic

Click here for additional details.

Cameroonian Blogger/Journalist & Two Others Arrested in Cote d'Ivoire for Publishing Report on Corruption

By Elia Varela Serra (Originally posted on Global Voices Advocacy)

According to the blog of Le Nouveau Courrier, three journalists from this Ivorian daily have been arrested since Tuesday July 13th for publishing a leaked report on alleged corruption in the cocoa and coffee trade in Côte d'Ivoire.

Theophile Kouamouo and Saint-Claver Oula on their way to court (c) twitpic

The three journalists – editor Saint Claver Oula, publisher Stéphane Guédé and managing editor Théophile Kouamouo were arrested by plain-clothes police on public prosecutor Raymond Tchimou Fehou’s orders and taken into custody after refusing to reveal their sources during a surprise visit at the Nouveau Courrier's offices. That morning Le Nouveau Courrier had published the first installment (see original in French here) in a series that was to last the whole week on the embezzlement investigation into 30 people in the coffe and cocoa national industry.

Rhodes Journalism Review: What is Missing from Journalism Education?

In the current issue of the Rhodes Journalism Review, 15 journalists, editors & new media specialists from around the world pinpoint what’s missing from journalism education. Includes a contribution from me.

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Click here to read or download article.

Creative Appropriation of New Technologies: Dibussi Tande at the Forefront of Cameroonian and African Blogging

By Francis B. Nyamnjoh*

"The current context of globalization facilitated by the ICTs offers exciting new prospects not only for Cameroonian citizens and journalists to compete and complement one another, but also an opportunity for new solidarities to challenge undemocratic forces, ideologies and practices that stand in the way of social progress in Cameroon and globally."

When Dibussi Tande sent me an email requesting a preface to this collection of essays on politics and collective memory scribbled from his blogging den since 2006, I readily agreed in recognition of the outstanding contributions he has made in promoting the creative appropriation of ICTs by Cameroonian journalists, intellectuals and the blogging public. In three years Dibussi Tande has established himself not only as a leading and award-winning blogger, but also as a critical reviewer of African blogging in a weekly Pambazuka News column titled “Blogging Africa”. As I write this afternoon of March 20th 2009, his blog, Scribbles from the Den, has registered 305,045 page hits.

The Presentation - State of Social Justice & Digital Media in Africa

The State of Social Justice and Digital Media in Africa

View more presentations from dibussi.

The State of Social Justice and Digital Media in Africa

Summary of a Keynote address delivered by Dibussi Tande at the Highway Africa Conference's "Digital Citizen Indaba", Rhodes University, Grahamstown, Republic of South Africa - September 5, 2009 (Orginally published on the Highway Africa Blog)

We just heard the opening keynote talk by Cameroonian blogger Dibussi Tande (he blogs at Scribbles from the den), who talked about “The state of social justice and digital media in Africa”. Below is a summary of his talk from the Digital Citizen Indaba website: