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- Volume 3, Issue 2, 2011
Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2011
Volume 3, Issue 2, 2011
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'Paroles de vie': Christian radio producers in the Republic of Benin
By Tilo GrätzIn the Republic of Benin, we are currently witnessing an enormous proliferation of religious radio broadcasting in various forms, especially with regard to Pentecostal churches. Apart from already established Christian broadcasters such as Radio Immaculée Conception, Radio Alléluia or Radio Maranatha, operating on a regional or even on a national scale, various smaller groups and individual pastors, mainly from evangelical and Charismatic churches, are increasingly contracting broadcasting hours with public, private or community radio stations. Furthermore, many pastors have started to record CDs with prayers and gospel sounds to broadcast, or hire professional media production companies to ensure a large media coverage of their appearances in various media. On the one hand, these strategies represent a particular form of media appropriation, an attempt to obtain a greater share in the changing public sphere, and are part of the growing competition between various religious media actors, especially with regard to their ambitions of moral guidance. On the other hand, these programmes could be seen as stages for creative individual religious actors, among them also laymen, offering moments of self-assertion and granting social prestige.
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Business of the Spirit: Ghanaian broadcast media and the commercial exploitation of Pentecostalism
More LessThis article takes a critical look at Ghana's rapidly evolving broadcasting scene and in particular at the expansion and popularity of religious broadcasting. Sketching the developments of the Ghanaian media landscape, it analyses the changing politics of representing religion in this field. The much-celebrated processes of media deregulation and democratization, and the new opportunities for ownership, production, and participation they entail, have led to a dominance of Pentecostalism in the public sphere. While this development has been analysed from the perspective of churches and pastors, this article explores the intertwinement of commercial media and Pentecostalism from the perspective of a number of private media owners and producers in Accra. Whether these media entrepreneurs are themselves Pentecostal or not, they all have to deal with, and commercially exploit, the power and attraction of Pentecostalism. Their experience that commercial success is hardly possible without Pentecostalism makes clear that the influence of Pentecostalism in the Ghanaian public sphere reaches way beyond media-active pastors and born-again
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Peace-making, power configurations and media practices in northern Uganda: A case study of Mega FM
More LessThis article analyses the uses of the 'community' and 'peace media' labels in northern Uganda. It tries to assess their effect on power configurations and on the practices and the representations of media workers. In order to do so, it analyses how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have penetrated the local media and have modified the rules of the game, in terms of access to resources and protection from repression, but also in terms of the definition of professionalism. It shows how a local radio station, Mega FM, has managed to negotiate its dependence on the state and on international NGOs, including how it has succeeded in dominating the local media market, by embracing these media models. Finally, all these dynamics are illustrated and nourished by a shift in the professional values: the media workers now value the 'responsibility' of the media understood as a support to the peace process.
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Ghanaian entertainment brokers: Urban change, and Afro-cosmopolitanism, with neo-liberal reform
More LessThis article deals with entertainment in the neo-liberal age. The key aim is to describe the emerging brokering practices of certain entrepreneurs within the entertainment industry in Ghana, and to explore the effects of these practices. On the one hand these entrepreneurs receive sponsorship from major transnational corporations, in order to produce reality TV shows and major entertainment events. The shows are meant to appeal to the target market of the corporate sponsors, and in this way these entrepreneurs fill the role of a power broker. On the other hand, the entrepreneurs also fill the role of a culture broker as they try to tune into a larger market by producing entertainment that is aimed to be popular not only in Ghana, but to a larger market across Africa. In this article I refer to this shift in style of entertainment as a shift towards an Afro-cosmopolitan style of entertainment. The strategic epicentre for the fieldwork of this study is one of Ghana's major production houses, Charterhouse Productions.
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Revisiting the 'Leapfrog' debate in light of current trends of mobile phone Internet usage in the Greater Johannesburg area, South Africa
Authors: Nathalie Hyde-Clarke and Tamsin Van TonderAt first glance, mobile technology appears to have the potential to allow countries in Africa to technologically 'leapfrog' across the digital divide and provide much needed Internet access to a wide range of people currently unable to participate in the Information Society. This study investigates whether this potential is being actualized through the survey of a non-purposive sample population living in Johannesburg, South Africa. Studies have shown that aside from being able to engage with the new technology, people must also perceive it as reliable and user friendly. As such, this article examines user's attitudes and current behaviour with regards to this apparently highly accessible and relatively affordable medium. It also seeks to determine whether people believe that mobile technology could eclipse (or leapfrog) the use of computer technology for online activities – and if they believe that to be true, how have their usage patterns shifted, if at all?
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Young people, computers and the Internet in Niger
By Gado AlzoumaThis article explores how computers and the Internet are represented among young, educated people in niger and the social expectations that are attached to their use. it argues that pre-existing social and economic conditions play an important role in shaping the meanings associated with these devices. thus, in a context of poverty and unemployment, the internet and computers are perceived as technologies that may help young people and their country integrate into a modern world of economic opportunities and well-being via the transnational and transcultural interactions that take place in cyberspace. the internet is associated with the ideas of modernity and 'leapfrogging' development. however, because of the lack of computer equipment and adequate infrastructure, these expectations are largely exaggerated, and they divert attention from the actual possibilities for change that reside in people and not in technological devices. the research is based on fieldwork conducted among young, educated computer and internet users during the summers of 2003 and 2004 in niamey, the capital city of niger and further complemented by data collected in 2008. semistructured interviews were used to explore the reception of the internet and the representations associated with them. although the term 'educated' may sometimes refer to traditional or arabic/islamic education in niger, we restricted the use of the word to refer to modern western-style education (without prejudice or pejorative label to those who are not in that category).
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