AN ASSESSMENT OF DEMOCRATIC DELIBERATION IN UGANDA: A CASE STUDY OF THE FRAMING OF KEY POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE PRESS
Open Access
- Author:
- Lugalambi, George William
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 09, 2006
- Committee Members:
- Dennis Karl Davis, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Shyam Sundar Sethuraman, Committee Member
Anthony Olorunnisola, Committee Member
John Philip Christman, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Ugandan politics
Public opinion
Media discourse
Deliberative democracy
Framing analysis
African democracy - Abstract:
- In public deliberation about Uganda’s democratic future, citizens were engaged in animated debates concerning the type of political system and the mode of presidential succession that the country should embrace. This study analyses media discourse about the issues that these debates raised. Two issues were at the heart of public deliberation: whether the country should return to the multi-party system or retain the no-party Movement model of government; and whether presidential term limits should be upheld or scrapped. The evolution of the democratization process during the political transition from 2000 to 2005 is the setting of the research. In view of the country’s turbulent history, Ugandans anticipated that the transition would ultimately yield and sustain a political culture anchored in civil politics, democratic legitimacy, and a stable constitutional order. Drawing specifically on press coverage of the political discourses of elite actors, the study assembles evidence that illuminates the manner in which political elites constructed and framed the issues that were at stake. Public opinion data on citizens’ attitudes toward democracy, political leadership, and democratic institutions are cited and used to underscore the climate of opinion in which the key issues were deliberated, framed, and contested. Accordingly, the issue framing strategies that the elite employed in constructing meaning out of key political developments as reported in the press are explored. The quality of media discourse is assessed from the normative standpoint of the theory of deliberative democracy. Informed by the social constructionist paradigm in framing research, a set of frame packages was generated from media discourse through a case history analysis and then subjected to a quantitative assessment through content analysis. The core framing processes and dynamics of frame sponsorship and alignment were then examined. In addition to revealing the dominant frames and frame sponsors, the results indicate that frequently the same frame packages were proliferated and contested across competing claims by rival claims-makers. This tendency reflects the desire by elites to ground their claims in political values that have resonance in the larger political culture.