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Three new handbooks from the FXI |
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Monday, 04 February 2008 |
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The Freedom of Expression Institute has published and has just started distributing a set of three new handbooks that were developed last year. The three handbooks are:
The Right to Protest developed out of research conducted by the FXI into the implementation of the Regulation of Gatherings Act and out of FXI's work done mainly with social movements into the right to protest. The finalisation of the material for the handbook followed a number of workshops held with social movements and community organisations as well as with police. The Media and the Law covers aspects of the law that affect the work of journalists. It is particularly aimed at journalists working in the community media sector which, unlike the commercial media, often do not have the resources to employ the services of attorneys to provide pre-publication advice or to defend them when they are faced with court cases. The Broadcasting Independence Handbook examines the period of the early to mid- 1990s when a myriad changes were taking place in South Africa, including on issues of broadcasting and broadcasting regulation. Two of the very important players in helping with these latter changes were the Campaign for Open Media (COM) and the Campaign for Open Broadcasting. The Handbook covers the history and struggles of these two organisations. It is accompanied by an archive of about 500 documents. This handbook is targetted at journalists and activists in the Southern African region who are facing similar changes to legislation around broadcasting. Some of them look to the South African experience as a 'model' to learn from. This handbook shows that that 'model' is not as ideal as it is sometimes made out to be and points to the pitfalls in the South African example. All three handbooks have been published in hardcopy (with the broadcasting archives available on CD) and on this website. |
