Political Economy of Reporting Presidential Politics: Towards Ethnopolitical Oligarchy Construction in Kenya

This book interrogates the utility of ethnopolitics to political players, examines the value of ethnopolitical journalism, analyses the utility of ethnopolitics and ethnopolitical Journalism, and models the electoral process players’ interaction matrix that leads to ethnopolitical oligarchy construction in Kenya. The book notes that in recent years, ethnicity has become a divisive factor in politics, where political players use it to gain mileage and relevance in their ethnic constituencies and regions. At the same time, cultural institutions like the media exploit it for economic gains. The author avers that ethnopolitics is responsible for ethnopolitical oligarchy establishment and sustenance because it empowers a few ethnic groups to rise to political power and isolate the rest. The phenomenon (ethnopolitics) ensures that national resources are concentrated within a few ethnic groups controlling power. The author shows that the gladiators of ethnopolitics are the implicit beneficiaries of the same, where the mass media is at the fore. The book’s subject matter pumps new perspectives to the existing knowledge in communication and media studies and the political economy of mass media. It is a book that scholars interested in political science, political communication, and the political economy of elections should have.