projects

Topic
„In East Africa, mobile phones are now so much
more accessible than fixed lines that in everyday
Swahili these new technologies are referred to simply
as simu (phones), and less as simu ya mkononi
(handheld [i.e., mobile] phones). The fixed-line telephone (simu ya kawaida) is now largely disregarded“
(Molony, 2008, S. 341).

Many nations in sub-saharan Africa can be described as having rather rudimentary media househould equipment as well as some digital/media divides when it comes to media access and usage. It seems likely that a combination of sociostructural as well as socioeconomical factors are playing a role in this context. Although some urban regions are increasingly well connected to global media flows – this mostly being companies and (governmental) institutions – there is still a considerable rural-urban-divide as well as significant social inequality when it comes to media usage, access or possession.

While the (community) radio is widespread and established, there has been another star rising on the horizon: the mobile phone. This medium seems to revolutionise the media landscape in a manifold manner. In this context, but also because of the rapid spread of mobile phones in society, questions on the specific meanings, usage and embeddedness of this technological artifact in peoples everyday-life seem relevant.

Since media usage and appropriation is situated right in the midst of people’s everyday-lives and, hence, influenced by different socio-structural aspects, those life contexts and also media-related resources such as everyday media competencies are taken into account.

Desideratum and research-guiding questions
The research was aiming for scrutinizing the coherences mentioned above in urban Kenya. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the academic fields of media pedagogy, media sociology, media anthropology, and the communication sciences should perspectively enrich the research on its intersections and benefit from a mutual interrogation.

The research-guiding question – which was further dissected in a subordinated set of questions – were as follows:

“How are mobile phones embedded into everyday-life in an urban Kenyan context and what role do everyday-media competencies play?”

Hence, the research project focussed on the description of peoples life-contexts as well as the empirically grounded analysis of everyday-media usage and -competencies.

The study has been conducted through a media ethnographic field research-approach and concentrated on a particular neighborhood in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Research methods
Since there was rather little and scattered knowledge about the research topic in question, the study and its conceptualisation were based on an inductive paradigm, following a qualitative-ethnographic approach. Hence, the aim was ‘thick description’, having the concept of ‘verstehen’ (understanding) rather than the one of ‘erklären’ (explaining) as a foundation.

In order to approach the research guiding questions, the study drew on a triangulation of observational methods and field notes, group interviews, ethnographic interviews, field questionnaires as well as document collection.

Besides that, the field research has brought forth a new method that is called MediaMap. The MediaMap has been developed from a set of existing research methods and is a visual and sensory media research method. Further information on the MediaMap as well as a couple of photographs of the method are to be found on the MediaMap-Website. The methodology and set-up of the MediaMap is also published as a book chapter:

Waltinger, Michael (2017): Die MediaMap – Eine explorative Forschungsmethode zur Entwicklung einer kontextualisierten Mediennutzungsperspektive. [The Media Map – An explorative method for researching media usage in context.] In: Knaus, Thomas (ed.): Forschungswerkstatt Medienpädagogik. Projekt – Theorie – Methode. München: kopaed, pp. 253-286.

Institutional affiliation
The research project was affiliated to the University of Education, Ludwigsburg (Germany), Faculty I (Education and Social Sciences), Department of Media Pedagogy.

Supervised by:
Prof Dr Horst Niesyto (University of Education, Ludwigsburg)
Prof Dr Oliver Zoellner (Stuttgart Media University)