Uncritical Citizenship in a Low-Information Society: Mozambicans in Comparative Pespective
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2013
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
Mozambique is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped societies in the world. While poverty and the lack of infrastructure have many social and political consequences, perhaps the most important from the standpoint of the country’s democratic development are the limitations these obstacles place on the ability of its people to act as full citizens. Yet even compared to other poor societies, Mozambicans suffer from extremely low levels of formal education (the adult literacy rate is 46 percent, compared to an average of 61 percent across all low income countries),1 and extremely low levels of access to public information: the country has just three newspapers per 1,000 people (compared to 44 for low income countries), 14 television sets per 1,000 (compared to 84), and 44 radios per 1,000 (compared to 198).2 Extremely low rates of formal
education, high levels of illiteracy and limited access to news media strike at the very core of the cognitive skills and political information that enable citizens to assess social, economic and political developments, learn the rules of how societies and governments function, form opinions about political performance, and care about the survival of democracy.
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Reference:
Mattes, R., & Shenga, C. (2007). Uncritical Citizenship in a “Low-Information” Society: Mozambicans in Comparative Perspective. In Conference Paper no (Vol. 23).