The University of Rwanda has been accorded the second opportunity to host the 13th EACA Annual Conference 2023, under the organization of the School of Journalism and Communication (SJC) in the College of Arts and the Social Sciences (CASS). It will be held in Kigali, Rwanda from 29th to 30th, August 2023.
The event will be funded by the project: “Preparing Media Practitioners for a Resilient Media in Eastern Africa”. The project which seeks to support the East African media sector through media education, is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)2 , through the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHED II). It is a partnership between the NLA University College, Norway, University of Rwanda (UR), Uganda Christian University (UCU) and the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) in South Africa.
Conference Theme: “Media, Communication and Social Justice”
The theme for EACA 2023, “Media, Communication and Social Justice”, is theorized by the thesis that while media and communication rank high among the approaches to social justice, the current shifts and wider trends around these domains in many parts of the world, particularly the global south, have impacted (both positively or negatively) on their roles in democracy, development and broadly on social justice.
The transition to digital media across the globe, for example, has transformed both media operations and audiences in ways that do not favor the inclusion of perceptions, experiences, knowledge and interests of minority groups in media content, hence, excluding their contribution to policymaking, planning and decision-making processes. As technology continue to facilitate faster and efficient
communication of news and other forms of information, enabling cheap accessibility to wider sections of societies, it has also disrupted the form and quality of information and, in some cases, led to social injustices in society.
These developments require media and communication scholars/researchers to be at the forefront of efforts to understand the developments and changes within media and communication and their impacts on social justice. The EACA 2023 conference therefore, seeks to, among other objectives, create an understanding of the perception and personal experiences of the changing media and communication functions in social justice, development and democracy in relation to current social, political and economic environments in the global south.