Academic literature on the topic 'Presse – Cameroun – 1990-'

Chapter 2 examines Forest’s work from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which was characterized by greater emphasis on simulation, symbolism, and the sensory; a more varied “palette” of artistic production ranging from more conventional multimedia installations to ambitious attempts to create temporary alternative channels of networked mass communication; and a series of conceptual experiments in metacommunication as defined in the Aesthetics of Communication movement. Works discussed in Chapter 2 include The Territory of the Square Meter (1980), The Stock Exchange of the Imaginary (1982), Here and Now (1983), Press Conference of Babel (1983), Learn How to Watch TV with Your Radio (1984), In Search of Julia Margaret Cameron (1988), The Electronic Bible and the Gulf War (1991), Telephonic Faucet (1992), and The Watchtowers of Peace (1993). Chapter 2 also discusses Forest’s greater interest in ecological themes, the ramifications of globalization, and more explicitly political subjects (e.g., the collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Gulf War, and the Yugoslav Wars) in the late 80s and early 90s.

Since the 1990s, Black African states have been subjected to endogenous and exogenous political pressures which have compelled them to variously adopt a number of pro-democracy reforms. Though lauded in a number of quarters, these sweeping political reforms have merely been on paper. This is so as, cardinal democracy indexes such as freedom of expression, press freedom, freedom of thought and political pluralism among others, have remained more a myth than a reality in these countries. Using a comparative analysis of the political situation in Cameroon and Nigeria, this chapter argues that press freedom and liberal democracy are still mere ideals, not yet backed by evidential political will in both countries. The same multifaceted abuses of the press still prevail in the two states. This chapter however, underscores the vibrancy and political maturity of the Nigerian press which differentiate it from its counterparts in other African countries, notably in Cameroon.

Theoretical discussion of the role of natural selection in shaping behavioral variation in different habitats has been an integral part of the study of animal behavior since the late 19th century. Herbert Spencer (1888) was among the first to argue that migrating populations that fail to adjust to environmental circumstances “are the first to disappear.” A common rationale for comparing populations or related species is the desire to identify behavioral differences that correspond with habitat properties providing different patterns of selection (Tuomi 1981, Riechert 1993, this volume). Behavioral similarities are often ignored or are treated as less interesting because the thrust of the research program emphasizes behavioral differences as an empirical test of the theory of natural selection. Nevertheless, these similarities can be as revealing of evolutionary process as are differences when they reflect behavioral convergence or slow disintegration of behavior under relaxed selection (Coss and Goldthwaite 1995). When populations invade novel habitats, they not only experience new selective regimes; they can also experience relaxed selection on specific behavioral phenotypes. This is particularly common when the new habitat is missing a class of predators that was abundant in the ancestral habitat (e.g., Curio 1975, Pressley 1981). Under relaxed selection, characters may disintegrate, presumably because mutations that result in loss of the phenotype are not at a selective disadvantage. Disintegration is not always observed, however. Instead, behavioral characters are sometimes retained for long periods of time after selection has been relaxed (Coss 1991b, Kaneshiro 1989). Inferring relaxed selection requires that the history of the contrasted populations be relatively well known. Both ancestral selective regimes and behavioral characters must be known if character polarity is to be established. Character polarity must be established to distinguish disintegration from parallel evolution of novel behavior patterns. This often is a problem in population contrasts because differentiation is usually too recent to have resulted in the evolution of enough derived characters for the use of standard cladistic methods of phylogenetic reconstruction, although recent advances in statistical and molecular techniques are promising (Foster 1994, Foster and Cameron 1996). Instead, inference of character polarity has typically relied on geological evidence and comparison with closely related species.

The Population Council initiated its work on adolescents in the mid-1990s. At that time, those advocating greater attention to adolescent issues were concerned about adolescent fertility—particularly outside of marriage—and adolescent “risk-taking” behavior. As an international scientific organization with its mandate centered around the needs of developing countries, the Council sought a more nuanced and context-specific understanding of the problems confronting adolescents in the developing world. In working with colleagues inside and outside the Council, it became clear that information on