Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2009

This article engages with contemporary debates on the state of media studies in Africa. It comments on the dialectic between metropolitan centres of knowledge production and dependent peripheries. A brief discussion of Fordism and post-Fordism and their implications for Africa follows. Nation-building discourses are opposed to hyper-real notions of meaning, calling on Africans to transcend their idealized understanding of culture, African values and identity as unchanging absolutes. The often alarming anti-democratic conceptual, policy and ideological shifts that occur when theories travel between different contexts are examined. Some research agendas for Africa in the postmodern age are proposed.

One of the main dilemmas facing journalism education across Africa is whether one can argue for a universal set of journalistic standards while at the same time maintaining a culturally sensitive journalism practice. Underlying the dilemma is the question of whether there is a need to identify an African journalism philosophy that is normatively different from its Western counterpart. In light of a newly started MA programme in journalism at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, this article argues that rather than seeing journalistic practices as a negotiation between journalism universals and cultural particulars they ought to be seen as the interplay between the two. Following this argument, the article calls for a rethinking and distinction of the roles of conventional news media and alternative media.

The emergence and development of communication and media studies in Africa is related to the continent's colonial experience. Concerns with domination and the denial of their right to self-determination under European colonialism gingered Africans into establishing media institutions and to acquiring training to equip themselves with the professional competence and theoretical and methodological tools to enquire into the roles and relationship of modern media and society. To that extent, in the early days, concern with power relations and the desire to bring change played a role in the rise of communication and media studies.

The replications of curricula from Western universities, as well as the training of many African scholars in the field, were major factors in the reproduction of some conservative scholarship in communication and media studies. The importation and imposition of social scientific models of development in the post-independence era resulted in the negative appropriation of the earlier focus of communication and media studies on power relations, but the field has also suffered under-funding and the intimidation and harassment of radical scholarship by some African ruling elites. The ascendancy of a neo-liberal market system has only exacerbated and consolidated domination suffered by Africa in most facets of social life. This paper examines the extent to which the present era has provided communication and media studies in Africa with an opportunity to return to its earlier focus on unequal power relations and how these could be changed.

This article revisits the position of African media and communication research in the era of globalization. It examines the settings and philosophy of African media research, and its development and enmeshment in the contemporary context of globalization. It asks: what is the status of African media research and what are its recurrent themes? How can African media researchers influence the dominant paradigms that have guided the field of media and communication research? Through a review of literature and dominant themes of media and communication research in Africa, the paper argues that the parameters for research in African media research have closely followed the research paradigms set by external scholars, especially Western scholars. Despite the increasing number of African media researchers, they have yet to extricate themselves from the methodological and theoretical entrapments that have hindered the growth of new models and theories that are inherently African in perspective.

Political and economic developments in many African countries in the last two decades have led to significant transformations in the media and enhanced academic scholarship in the field. Despite the tremendous growth and the changes in media and communication systems, there is a dearth of feminist media scholarship in Africa that needs to be addressed. This article provides a feminist reappraisal of African media in the context of democratic and economic change and proposes a tall research agenda for Africanist feminists aimed at filling the gaps in media and gender scholarship. The author argues that research should interrogate afresh old concerns as well as new opportunities and challenges brought about by redemocratization, an expanded public sphere of civil society activism, rapid technological developments and legal and policy reforms of the media.

The paper discusses how Nigerian journalism education has been heavily influenced by the American model. Nigeria, being a former British colony, at first followed British models of vocational training in journalism. This is evident in the fact that the country's universities did not initially embrace journalism and mass communication studies. Formal university-level training in journalism only started in Nigeria in 1962, with the establishment of Jackson College of Journalism at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The college later developed into the Department of Mass Communication. Other departments/schools of journalism or mass communication have sprung up at various Nigerian universities, notably that of the University of Lagos. In the past few years, there has been an upsurge in the number of mass communication programmes across the country. The programmes, apart from journalism, offer courses in broadcasting, public relations and advertising, among other areas. The paper also discusses how contemporary postcolonial Nigerian media education has achieved a large degree of uniformity in all the programmes as a result of initiatives taken by Nigeria's National Universities Commission.

A road movie of stills on a journey through the Egyptian desert, Fata Morgana was the original hallucination or mirage conjured from the heat bending light on the extremes of the horizon. Here the natural is supplanted by the cultural world of commodity free trade, which comes to obliterate the visible desert and instead presents us with the desert of the commercial signage which is made strange by its juxtaposition with the barrenness of the Egyptian landscape.

This article discusses discourses on development in the social space of Kinshasa's post-Mobutu teleserials. The producers (dramatic artists and born-again Christian leaders; some are both) contend that their work will transform society, counter the social and political crisis and improve the nation in various ways. Pentecostalist Christianity meets the genre of the melodrama in the way the teleserials focus on the individual's spiritual development. This article argues that the fictive representation of witchcraft relates to a Pentecostalist diagnosis of the crisis and that the narrative unfolding of the teleserials points towards the cultural key scenario asserted by Pentecostal-charismatic churches.

In Cte d'Ivoire, popular music genres such as reggae and zouglou have served as a domain for the articulation of ideas about politicians, corruption, citizenship, national history and identity. This paper specifically analyses the divergent dynamics of reggae and zouglou. Reggae, in Cte d'Ivoire as in its country of origin Jamaica, has characteristically been associated with commentary on socio-political issues. zouglou emerged in the 1990s in the context of the student demonstrations for political liberalization and, along with reggae, served as a platform for criticism of prevailing social and political conditions. Ivorian popular music has consequently been associated with the return to multi-party politics. It has also been very outspoken against divisive political rhetoric such as Ivoirit. However, after the outbreak of open conflict in 2002, new themes have emerged in zouglou. In compilations that have been termed patriotic albums, many well-known artists have aligned themselves with the government and the Alliance of Young Patriots, depicting a partial, southern portrayal of the conflict. Thus ideological positions in Ivorian music have varied over time and across genres, and a category such as protest music is ill suited to fully capture its dimensions.

Journalists and writers in Malawi were crucial in the resistance to Dr Banda's hegemony between 1964 and 1993. The contested terrain was orality. This paper concentrates on the role of musicians and asserts that musicians in Malawi were, and arguably are, much braver and more persistent political critics and social change advocates than their counterparts in print journalism. While journalists censored themselves, and were censored, oral practitioners' lyrics and texts were usually much more explicit. Musicians exploited aspects of traditional culture to point out the politicaleconomic suffering of the peasantry. While journalists' critiques and analyses have, since 1995, become more muted, musicians have continued to provide more independent, forceful voices on behalf of the poor in a country where literacy levels remain low and English is the official legislative, political and economic voice. This paper argues that an assessment of Malawi's public sphere excluding oral critiques misses significant and critical inputs important for social and developmental change.

This paper explores the linkages between debates about corruption and the role of the media in Africa. It advances arguments about how citizens in Africa encounter corruption both grand and petty and how they perceive it, as well as factors that may contribute to the development of corrupt practices. These reflections are then linked to a discussion of how the press in Africa deals with corruption and whether the media may serve as a strong deterrent in combating this form of criminal behaviour.

Politics and Persuasion: Media Coverage of Zimbabwe's 2000 Elections, Ragnar Waldahl (2004) Harare: Weaver Press, 148 pages, ISBN 0 779220278, Pbk, $24.95

Mixed Reception: South African Youth and their Experience of Global Media, Larry Strelitz (2005) Pretoria: UNISA Press, 199 pp., ISBN 1-86888-287-X, Paperback, $34.78

Bling bang: diamonds for dummies Blood Diamonds, Directed by Edward Zwick (2006) USA: Warner Bros

Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood South African release 3 February 2006; USA & Canada, Miramax, 24 February 2006; UK, Momentum, 17 March 2006