Firewood has been used as fuel since the beginning of mankind resulted in health problems and deforestation. The solar cooking technology has been first developed in 1767 by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure but did not find development due to lack of reliability. Studies showed the necessity of having a backup facility. The primary goal of this study is to design a fully functional kitchen for National Park in Nairobi, Kenya. The kitchen will be serving up to 100 people daily. The study is done with five steps, the first step is literature and exploring of solar cooking products as well as backup facility products around the world. The second step is interviewing a local entrepreneur to get familiar with the parameters of a restaurant in Kenya. The third step is evaluating the solar cooking and backup facility to make an educated decision. The fourth step is integrating the systems into a functional kitchen. The fifth and last step is to analyse and discuss the results to draw conclusions. As a result, choosing Scheffler reflector as a solar cooker and backed up with a biogas plant would be the chosen solution. / Ved har använts som bränsle sedan mänsklighetens början som resulterade i hälsoproblem och avskogning. Solar-matlagningstekniken utvecklades först 1767 av Horace-Bénédict de Saussure men hittade ingen utveckling på grund av bristande tillförlitlighet. Studier visade nödvändigheten av att ha en reservfacilitetenhet. Det primära målet med denna studie är att designa ett fungerande kök för National Park i Nairobi, Kenya. Köket serverar upp till 100 personer dagligen.  Studien gjordes av fem steg, första är litteraturstudie och utforskning av produkter för sollagning samt reservfacilitet alternativ från hela världen. Andra steget är att intervjua en lokal entreprenör för att bekanta sig med parametrarna för att gestalta en restaurang i Kenya. Tredje steget är att utvärdera olika solkokare-enheter och reservfacilitetsenhet för att fatta ett välgrundat beslut. Fjärde steget är att integrera systemen i ett funktionellt kök. Femte och sista steget är att analysera och diskutera resultaten för att dra slutsatser. Som ett resultat skulle det vara den bästa lösningen att välja Scheffler reflector som solkokare och biogasanläggning som reservfacilitetsenhet.

This thesis examines the media discourse surrounding Kibera, an urban informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Using a qualitative content analysis, this study identifies and critically analyses reoccurring themes in the descriptions of Kibera in the UK broadsheet paper The Guardian. The claimed relevance of such analysis rests upon the assumption that discourse matter; certain narratives can influence beliefs and policy concerning the management of urban informal settlements, with material effects for these places and their residents. The result of the analysis shows there are varying and conflicting themes in the portrayal of Kibera, describing the community in both negative and positive terms. However, the imageries move between two extremes, either describing Kibera as an urban dystopia of crime, suffering and filth, or emphasising stories of hope, success and the entrepreneurial spirit of Kibera’s residents. Missing in the articles are descriptions of Kibera in terms of being an ‘ordinary place’, where people live their everyday lives and make ends meet. Drawing on earlier research about connections between language and representation in the construction of marginalized places, this paper discusses the possible consequences of hyperbolic and sensationalistic discourse, arguing for a more nuanced portrayal of the Kibera community and its residents – depictions that won’t further marginalise Kibera and its people, nor romanticize life in this highly populated low-income community.

News in our contemporary newspapers has come to be associated more and more with what the elites do and say. Both their deeds and misdeeds are treated as newsworthy events and in the process they become newsmakers, both actors and sources of news. Even when they are not directly involved in news events they are sought out by journalists to validate those events and to interpret the social reality to the readers as news sources. This study is about the selection of news sources in the Daily Nation, a contemporary, independent newspaper based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this study, I set out to unravel the complex processes that underlie newsmaking and source selection. This study is informed by the theory of news values and the paradigm of the role of media in democracy. Based on qualitative interviews, observations and content analysis of the front-page stories, it investigates the process of news and source selection in front-page stories. Through these approaches, I established that news values are significant criteria that inform journalists in both the selection of front-page news stories and the sources of these stories. I also established that social values of the society in which this newspaper operates are heavily embedded in the news. For example, the journalists preferred male politicians as sources of news in the front-page stories to women, and the elites to ordinary people, and this reflected on the social structures and cultural norms that are prevalent in this society. This study, further, established that the news values of this newspaper share commonly with the Western news media in terms of journalistic conventions and ways of interpreting the social reality in the news. Ideally, the newspaper embraces the principles of democracy in news reporting, but in practice it does not satisfactorily adhere to the full requirements of its democratic role in terms of source selection. The democratic principles in news reporting require, among other things, that the newspaper should allow a diversity of views in the news, representing various groups that are found in real society including the elites, non-elites, women, ordinary people and minorities. In the case of the Daily Nation, a tiny group of elite male professional politicians made up the largest majority of its front-page news sources.

Determining what is newsworthy is a daily challenge even to the very people who source news, produce and disseminate it. This study is part an exposition and exploration of the different approaches that media researchers have used to explain and determine the value of news. Like similar research before it, this study more specifically delves into the news selection process of news of one particular newspaper with the goal of investigating why and how news is selected for publication in the front page. News is the 'result of many forces: ranging from source power, journalistic orientation, medium-preference and market model, news values and production routines and processes. The study briefly expounds on the different definitions of news as perceived in terms of the developed and developing world. Just as journalists do not operate in a vacuum, a close examination of the various definitions reveals that news cannot be defined in isolation. Its definition is intrinsically tied to that of news values. Also explored here are debates about news values and their Western rootedness. Here reference is made to literature regarding theories on the social construction of meanings and on the gatekeeping concept.The study is informed by similar research in gatekeeping studies and sociology of news studies. It is important to state at the outset that the study is not concerned with how news is produced but why there is a bias for certain kinds of news. I am interested in explaining why and how the writers and editors at the East African Standard make decisions about what is worthy of being published on the front page of the newspaper. This distinction is necessary because the theories that inform this study transcend news sourcing and production. This study takes cognizance ofthe fact that one cannot separate social processes from the individual and vice versa. For this reason, this study investigates and analyses the biases of individual gatekeepers at the East African Standard as well as their collective biases. In the concluding section, this study calls for an alternative paradigm for journalism and news. The foregoing discussions in the other sections prove that a universal definition of news and what is newsworthy will not suffice and there is need to contexualise it.

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Cover title. "June 2002." AD-A405 990. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-80). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Familia yake, ndugu, jamaa, marafiki na jumuiya ya wasomi watamkosa sana Omar Babu. Mungu aiweke roho yake mahali pema.