No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Situating Ghana’s new media industry: liberalization and transnational entrepreneurship
Jamaica and Ghana approached audiovisual liberalization in different ways. This chapter examines the commercialization of television in Ghana as it moved from public service broadcasting to commercial broadcasting in Jamaica to television-as-enterprise. The seven characteristic CCI changes were identified across cultural and creative sectors due to commercialization—commerce, creative work, convergence, conduits, content, copyright and consumption. These are the units of analysis used to explore the specific transformational factors from television as institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Ghana between 1997 and 2017 and up to the end of the decade of the millennium. This chapter examines changes in four of those—commerce, copyright, convergence and conduits.
With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. While the Jamaican government divested itself of its public service broadcaster, the JBC, Ghana kept the GBC intact but marketized many functions. That cushioned the jolt to the new market change could have brought. Additionally, amid the commercial changes, over time Ghana’s centuries-old cultures of cooperation and propensity for family-in-business caused the African nation to begin to approach the competitiveness of liberalization differently. This chapter continues to trace the trajectory of transition of the Ghanaian audiovisual sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work—the creation of content for consumption. Like for Jamaica, understanding these changes in the AV subsector provided insight into the unique characteristics of the subsector itself; thematic clues that assist in addressing endemic challenges. Three of the seven characteristic changes used to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017 are examined in this chapter—creative work, content and consumption.
In this chapter the years 1989 and 1997 are identified as milestone years for changing global economic systems. A series of developments in different places align in ways that have lasting significance; around which several changes in civilization as we know them seem to coalesce in time and space (Flew, Digital communication, the crisis of trust, and the post- global, Communication Research and Practice, https://doi.org/10.1080/22041451.2019.1561394, 2019: 1). These eras of present periods of “psychic centrality” (Hickling et al. “Psychic centrality: reflections on two psychohistoriographic cultural therapy workshops in Montreal”. Transcultural Psychiatry 47(1): 136–158, 2010) mark significant global zeitgeist shifts. These periods provide clear indicators of change through which the changes in television in Jamaica and Ghana are examined. In Jamaica and Ghana, cases were being made for the divestment of public service broadcasting. In 1997 the Jamaican government divested itself of the Jamaica Broadcasting Commission as part of a complete broadcast liberalization process. Ghana’s government retained the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, but liberalized the broadcast sector in other ways as outlined in this chapter.
A World Bank Group Flagship Report / http://www.doingbusiness.org
projects to promote poverty reduction globally. DFID provided funds for this study as part of that goal but the views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) alone.
Migration is an enduring theme of human history and is considered one of the defining global issues of the twenty-first century. In Ghana, as in other parts of Africa, migration is largely informal and undocumented, making accurate data on the phenomenon extremely scant. Despite this lack of data, the literature points to a long history of population mobility with migration playing a central role in the livelihood and advancement strategies of both rural and urban populations. This study provides an account of the evolution of migration in Ghana and highlights the changing trends and dynamics that have occurred. The paper begins by providing a situational analysis of the socio-economic environment of the country and an historical context to migration in Ghana and then discusses the different trajectories of migration research, highlighting the changing trends and theoretical orientations in migration research in Ghana. It also discusses the changing causes, drivers of migration and emerging issues on migration in Ghana. Key gaps and unanswered questions in Ghanaian migration research are identified and emerging areas that may be considered for future migration research such as migrant labour and the potential of the recent petro-chemical industry in Ghana for changing and accentuating migration dynamics in Ghana are highlighted. A profile of stakeholders in migration research in Ghana, as well as organizations, institutions, networks and a list of researchers on migration in Ghana are also appended.
Skilled immigrants have achieved great success in founding U.S. engineering and technology startups, which have in turn contributed greatly to the country's economic growth over time. In this work we explore the educational attainment and career trajectories of these immigrant entrepreneurs. Our research confirms that advanced education in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is correlated with high rates of entrepreneurship and innovation among both immigrant and U.S.-born founder populations. To maintain and grow the U.S. entrepreneurial landscape, future policy endeavors may target means of attracting and retaining innovative, highly skilled foreign minds.
Between 1987 and 1999, Ghana's privatisation programme generated revenues for the government equivalent to about 14 per cent of GDP from a moribund public sector which had previously been dependent on state subventions, and thus succeeded in fulfilling a key role in easing the fiscal crisis and in fostering the Structural Adjustment Programme. The big question remained, however, whether the privatisation process would help the growth of Ghana's economy and help maximise political gains. This article reviews the experience of Ghana in privatising public enterprises, and assesses the impact of the ongoing privatisation programme on the Ghanaian economy. It suggests that, in spite of the high proceeds, the net direct revenues from privatisation have been relatively modest, due to the high outstanding credit sales, the high costs of divestiture and high outstanding liabilities of privatised firms. It also appears that the programme has placed too much emphasis on public finance rationalisation and faith in the market system, and too little on sociopolitical and regulatory issues. Equally, the inadequate attention given to post-privatisation regulation of privatised businesses, and the use of the divestiture programme as a political patronage instrument to reward the regime's friends and political insiders, has conferred limited success for privatisation in achieving its goal of enhancing efficiency, private sector investment and employment.
Silicon Valley's workforce is among the world's most ethnically diverse. Not only do Asian and Hispanic workers dominate the low-paying, blue-collar workforce, but foreign-born scientists and engineers are increasingly visible as entrepreneurs and senior management. More than a quarter of Silicon Valley's highly skilled workers are immigrants, including tens of thousands from lands as diverse as China, Taiwan, India, the United Kingdom, Iran, Vietnam, the Philippines, Canada, and Israel. Understandably, the rapid growth of the foreign-born workforce has evoked intense debates over U.S. immigration policy, both here and in the developing world. In the United States, discussions of the immigration of scientists and engineers have focused primarily on the extent to which foreign-born professionals displace native workers. The view from sending countries, by contrast, has been that the emigration of highly skilled personnel to the United States represents a big economic loss, a "brain drain." Neither view is adequate in today's global economy. Far from simply replacing native workers, foreign-born engineers are starting new businesses and generating jobs and wealth at least as fast as their U.S. counterparts. And the dynamism of emerging regions in Asia and elsewhere now draws skilled immigrants homeward. Even when they choose not to return home, they are serving as middlemen linking businesses in the United States with those in distant regions.
Introduction 1. Surprising Success 2. Learning the Silicon Valley System 3. Creating Cross-Regional Communities 4. Taiwan as Silicon Sibling 5. Taiwan as Partner and Parent 6. Manufacturing in Mainland China 7. IT Enclaves in India 8. The Argonaut Advantage Appendix A: Immigrant Professional and Networking Associations, Silicon Valley Appendix B: Survey Results: Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley Notes References Abbreviations Acknowledgments Index
Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) policies have inaugurated a new paradigm in postcolonial governance that is characterized by a predilection for market instrumentality in policy articulation. A review of colonial and, indeed, early post-colonial communication policies demonstrates that the state had always resisted the lure of the market because of the quest to democratize media access. The early postcolonial state thought of national resources as to be regulated more by the requirements of national community need than by the rules of exchange-value. This article puts the development of broadcasting policy in Ghana into historical perspective and shows how commodification has been resisted until the implementation of SAP policies in the last two decades. It argues that the state’s abandonment of responsibility in relation to the business of broadcasting will come at a heavy price of a non-democratized electronic media, as rural areas remain unattractive to broadcasting-for-profit enterprises.
This article presents a combination of factors as a framework for examining how globalization and media impact developing democracies in the Global South. In particular, it pays attention to the interplay of changing technologies, regulatory regimes and local entrepreneurs with global expertise (obtained primarily through education overseas) and their combined impact on the media ecology in such countries. Using a historical analysis of the trends that started in the early 1990s, the article shows how countries like Ghana took advantage of key changes in globalization to create a vibrant media ecology that directly impacts the role of citizens. Specifically, the author posits that in Ghana the liberalization of the broadcast industry, the expertise of glocal entrepreneurs, and the explosion of new communication technologies like the Internet and mobile phones have led to a reconstitution of the public sphere and the creation of a new cultural elite.
Between 1987 and 1999, Ghana's privatisation programme generated revenues for the government equivalent to about 14 per cent of GDP from a moribund public sector which had previously been dependent on state subventions, and thus succeeded in fulfilling a key role in easing the fiscal crisis and in fostering the Structural Adjustment Programme. The big question remained, however, whether the privatisation process would help the growth of Ghana's economy and help maximise political gains. This article reviews the experience of Ghana in privatising public enterprises, and assesses the impact of the ongoing privatisation programme on the Ghanaian economy. It suggests that, in spite of the high proceeds, the net direct revenues from privatisation have been relatively modest, due to the high outstanding credit sales, the high costs of divestiture and high outstanding liabilities of privatised firms. It also appears that the programme has placed too much emphasis on public finance rationalisation and faith in the market system, and too little on sociopolitical and regulatory issues. Equally, the inadequate attention given to post-privatisation regulation of privatised businesses, and the use of the divestiture programme as a political patronage instrument to reward the regime's friends and political insiders, has conferred limited success for privatisation in achieving its goal of enhancing efficiency, private sector investment and employment.
Compares the organization of regional economies, focusing on Silicon Valley's thriving regional network-based system and Route 128's declining independent firm-based system. The history of California's Silicon Valley and Massachusetts' Route 128 as centers of innovation in the electronics indistry is traced since the 1970s to show how their network organization contributed to their ability to adapt to international competition. Both regions faced crises in the 1980s, when the minicomputers produced in Route 128 were replaced by personal computers, and Japanese competitors took over Silicon Valley's market for semiconductor memory. However, while corporations in the Route 128 region operated by internalization, using policies of secrecy and company loyalty to guard innovation, Silicon Valley fully utilized horizontal communication and open labor markets in addition to policies of fierce competition among firms. As a result, and despite mounting competition, Silicon Valley generated triple the number of new jobs between 1975 and 1990, and the market value of its firms increased 1 billion for the same time period. From analysis of these regions, it is clear that innovation should be a collective process, most successful when institutional and social boundaries dividing firms are broken down. A thriving regional economy depends not just on the initiative of individual entrepreneurs, but on an embedded network of social, technical, and commercial relationships between firms and external organizations. With increasingly fragmented markets, regional interdependencies rely on consistently renewed formal and informal relationships, as well as public funding for education, research, and training. Local industrial systems built on regional networks tend to be more flexible and technologically dynamic than do hierarchical, independent firm-based systems in which innovation is isolated within the boundaries of corporations. (CJC)
Immigrants have historically provided one of America's greatest competitive advantages. They have come to the United States largely to work and have played a major role in the country's recent growth. Between 1990 and 2007, the proportion of immigrants in the U.S. labor force increased from 9.3 percent to 15.7 percent. Approximately 45 percent of the growth of the work force over this period consisted of immigrants. Moreover, a large and growing proportion of immigrants come with high levels of education and skill. They have contributed disproportionately in the most dynamic part of the U.S. economy - the high-tech sector. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google, Intel, eBay, and Yahoo. And immigrant inventors contributed to more than a quarter of U.S. global patent applications. Since even before the 2008 financial and economic crisis, some observers have noted that a substantial number of highly skilled immigrants have started returning to their home countries, including persons from low-income countries like India and China who have historically tended to stay permanently in the United States. These returnees contributed to the tech boom in those countries and arguably spurred the growth of outsourcing of back-office processes as well as of research and development.Who are these returnees? What motivated their decision to leave the United States? How have they fared since returning?This paper attempts to answer these questions through a survey of 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received their education in the United States and returned to their home country. We find that, though restrictive immigration policies caused some returnees to depart the United States, the most significant factors in the decision to return home were career opportunities, family ties, and quality of life.
Obra donde se analiza cómo el desarrollo tecnológico impulsado por el Silicon Valley atrajo a ingenieros de China, India y Taiwan, y cómo ellos han implantado las técnicas de producción y dirección en sus países, para impulsar el crecimiento de sus empresas y la economía nacional e internacional.
This paper distinguishes between target-earnings and life cycle motivations for return migration by examining how Philippine migrants' return decisions respond to major, unexpected exchange rate changes in their overseas locations (due to the Asian financial crisis). Overall, the evidence favors the life cycle explanation: more favorable exchange rate shocks lead to fewer migrant returns.A10% improvement in the exchange rate reduces the 12-month return rate by 1.4 percentage points. However, some migrants appear motivated by target-earnings considerations: in households with intermediate foreign earnings, favorable exchange rate shocks have the least effect on return migration, but lead to increases in household investment. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Telecommunications in Ghana
- Francis K A Allotey
- Felix K Akorli
Allotey, Francis K.A., and Felix K. Akorli. 1999. "Telecommunications in Ghana." In
Telecommunications in Africa, edited by Eli M. Noam. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another Way for Africa. London
- Dambisa Moyo
Moyo, Dambisa. 2009. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is Another
Way for Africa. London; New York: Allen Lane.
Going around the Drain-Gain Debate with Brain Circulation
- Rubin Patterson
Patterson, Rubin. 2007. "Going around the Drain-Gain Debate with Brain Circulation."
In African Brain Circulation: Beyond the Drain-Gain Debate, edited by Rubin
Patterson. Leiden: Brill.
Technologies of Power: Information Machines and Democratic Prospects, Communication and Information Science
- Majid Tehranian
Tehranian, Majid. 1990. Technologies of Power: Information Machines and Democratic
Prospects, Communication and Information Science. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Pub.
Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones
- Vodafone
Vodafone. 2005. Africa: The Impact of Mobile Phones. In The Vodafone Policy Paper
Series.
SoftTribe (software) Kofi Dadzie -Rancard (mobile and software)
- Herman Chinery-Hesse
Herman Chinery-Hesse -SoftTribe (software)
Kofi Dadzie -Rancard (mobile and software)
Telecoms Policy: Supporting Liberalisation and Harmonisation n.d
- E U European Union
E.U., European Union. 2013. Telecoms Policy: Supporting Liberalisation and
Harmonisation n.d. [cited March 4, 2013 2013]. Available from http://ec.europa.
eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/history/index_en.htm.
Broadcasting Corporation
- Ghana Gbc
GBC, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. 2009. n.d. [cited June, 2009 2009]. Available
from http://www.gbcghana.com/aboutus/index.html.
Telecoms Liberalization: An International Business Guide for Policymakers. International Chamber of Commerce
- Icc
ICC. 2007. Telecoms Liberalization: An International Business Guide for Policymakers.
International Chamber of Commerce.