Journal of African Media Studies - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2017

How do African cultures transform when they appropriate new media? This introduction to the following five articles raises and reflects basic questions related to the many transformations that African societies currently go through when they are faced with new media. It situates the concept of mediality in the social practice of those who deal with and experience media. As instances of the in-between, as bridges between actors and their life-worlds, media reveal specific aspects of social life and hide others. They simultaneously nourish curiosity and suspicion and thus, the users transform their life-worlds through media. What media do to culture depends as much on their specificities as on the actors and their agency: their habits, judgement and imagination. Studying media and cultural transformations in Africa hence calls for thorough empirical research that analyses how the use of media has affected sensory experience and the sense that the actors make of their experience in new meaningful practices. Media in Africa also call for new research methodologies. The findings presented in this collection are the outcome of an international research network that allowed African and European scholars to cooperate and to share their experiences with new media in the field sites.

Generally, images in art forms occupy a controversial position in the Islamic world. The Sunni branch of Islam, considered more conservative and strict does not approve or condone representational art of the human form for fear that it would eventually turn into an object of worship. The Shi’ite branch of Islam, however, has a radically opposing perspective and consequently allows figurative representation in its art forms. The situation becomes more complicated when it comes to depicting prophets, who, starting from the Prophet Muhammad, are prohibited in Sunni Islam from being figuratively represented in any form. This article discusses the representation of spirituality in religious media in Nigeria, especially the reception of the representation of Biblical and Islamic prophets in dubbed Iranian films targeted at popular culture consumption. I situate my discussion within the matrix of social control and censorship in northern Nigerian Muslim cultures.

The protests that took place in Nigeria due to removal of fuel subsidy by the Jonathan administration in January 2012, tagged ‘Occupy Nigeria Protest’, have been labelled the social media revolution by the conventional media commentators in the country. For the first time in the history of the country, ethnic, regional and religious differences were set aside to confront the State in an arena without any State control: the Internet and its social communities, unrestricted, uncontrolled, uninhibited; the images, imageries and imaginations of the protestors deconstructed State authority and control − often in the face of brutal State attempts at offline suppression − and spread messages of solidarity and ‘anti-State’ forces. Using semiotic analysis and grounded within the theories of intermedialities, the findings suggest that the images on social media had played a significant role in mobilizing the protesters to come out and keep them on the street for the period of the protest.

The profile of radio talk shows seems to be rising in recent times. In both research and industry spaces radio talk shows continue to hold a lot of attraction, making discourses about them not just prevalent but almost pervasive in a way. This article seeks to identify silences in radio talk shows as well as understand the role of silences in the setting up of these shows. Using two radio talk shows in contemporary South Africa as an entry point, it seeks to bring to the fore how such silences may impact on the identities of participants and perhaps by extension the culture of the larger society. The article concludes that silences are critical communicative practices that are just as significant as the verbalized utterances we encounter in the performance of self-identity which characterize the transmission of radio talk shows. In doing this, the article will contribute to the understanding of the radio talk show space as one of immense possibilities as a participatory interactive cultural performance genre while pointing at the different shades of meaning that may emerge through non-verbal communication embedded in talk itself.

The article focuses on the public radio station Ukhozi FM, part of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and operating through the medium of isiZulu. It argues that Ukhozi FM has radically changed in the ‘new dispensation’ of post-1990 South Africa, yet has maintained the creative and resistant identity forged in the apartheid years under the name Radio Zulu. Through an examination of selected programmes and announcers, in particular the once iconic ‘Mr Magic’, the article shows how aspects of the ‘new South Africa’ are a robust feature of its broadcasting style. Through expanding notions of ‘community’ embedded in the Zulu term ‘umphakathi’ presenters have constructed new dimensions of the concept. The station has produced ideas of ‘community’ which are simultaneously local and national. Popular culture, personal aspirations, religious fervour and the heat of modern politics all subsume within aspects of the linked notions of community with which the station juggles. Inclusive constructions of identity pull in those on the margins of the post-apartheid state and extend the station’s appeal in the uncertain new millenium.

Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Cameroonians in Switzerland, Germany, and Cameroon, this article demonstrates transformations induced by the new communication media − particularly the mobile phone – in Cameroonian transnational social relationships. Many narratives revolve around ambivalences, tensions and non-communication that arise from different and often, contradictory expectations as well as dissimilar life-world experiences of the actors. We employ the notion of an ideal ‘African sociality’ to serve as guideline for the valuations of the mediated ties, which is reflected in, and opposed to the notion of migrant or ‘bushfaller disease’ – migrants’ attributive tendency to detach from these ideals when abroad. In these narratives, technological means for communication and related users’ agency serve as catalyst through which changing sociality is observed and articulated by migrants abroad and non-migrants in Cameroon.

This article presents a textual examination and reception analysis of a HIV/AIDS poster used by the University of KwaZulu-Natal students during 2006–09. It examines how discourses construct self-responsibility for sexual health among female students. Discourse analysis, language and visual strategies are applied to reveal gender stereotypes. The article argues that an alternative discourse of femininity is used centring on female power bordering on active participation through the use of the discursive self ‘I’ in order to promote self-surveillance and individual agency.

The African National Congress-led South African government has implemented numerous neo-liberal economic reforms, reforms grounded in the idea that the individual is a more effective unit around which to orient economic policy than the collective. During this implementation, a similar neo-liberalization occurred in news narratives, which came to focus on individuals rather than collectives. This article illustrates the neo-liberalization of news narratives through the narrative of the 1993 murder of Chris Hani, an important leader of the anti-apartheid struggle. His murder was initially framed in news narratives as having collective and not individual importance. As his killers’ legal cases progressed over the next sixteen years, news narratives came to centre on his family’s interests and desires, bracketing out the collective’s. This article’s analysis of the structure of news narratives contributes to the analysis of the broader struggle over neo-liberalism, one that demands examining all moments of neo-liberal logic.

As different governments have assumed power in Zambia since the democratic tide that swept across Africa in the early 1990s, the conundrum of a free press continues to complicate governance and journalistic practices. This study investigated how members of Parliament (MPs) felt about press freedom. A survey administered to current MPs, which had a response rate of 52%, revealed that almost 95% (94.6%, n=70) agreed or strongly agreed that press freedom in Zambia should be increased. A parallel measure of questionnaire reliability asked Parliamentarians to respond to the statement, Press freedom in Zambia should be decreased. The majority 81.1% (n=60) disagreed or strongly disagreed. The study’s overall results indicate that there is an awareness of the importance of press freedom among the MPs, but there appears to be a reluctance – rather than resilience – to implement changes that would provide for a freer press system.

With the Civil Union Act in 2006, South Africa passed the first national-level same-sex marriage legislation on the continent. Both proponents and opponents ascribed importance to this legislation based on the idea that it would fundamentally change the institution of marriage. Has the Civil Union Act changed the depiction of marriage in media, and by extension, changed representation of this institution in the public sphere? This article investigates marriage as it appears in South African media through an analysis of 736 English language newspaper articles from 2005–2011. We demonstrate that discourses around marriage changed in the short term, with more attention paid to sexual minorities. Over the medium term, however, there was no significant shift in media discussions of marriage, suggesting that the legislation did not significantly alter depictions of the institution of marriage in the public sphere.

‘Woman “auctions” hubby’s big organ, sex prowess’, ‘Witches undo act: Use herbs to remove the juju they planted in victim’s body’, or ‘Woman ditches husband over enlarged manhood’ is a typical headline in the popular tabloids, the B-Metro and the H-Metro, in Zimbabwe. A closer scrutiny though into the stories reveals a lot of gender stereotyping: witchcraft, supernatural phenomena, sex, sexual deviancy, love triangles, and sexual violence against women are some of the issues that dominate the tabloids. The portrayal of women and men in these papers enforces certain negative images such as witches, gossips, adulterers and prostitutes. The focus of this article is on the portrayal of gender. This article takes an analytical look to uncover the various images that these papers portray the argument being that the media plays an important role in the construction of male and female identities and hence these negative images can distort identity, and disadvantage both men and women. A textual analysis of both the H-Metro and B-Metro was done to uncover these images, and the sample was randomly selected from January 2015 to January 2016.

This article aims at investigating the relationship between the concept of mediated citizenship and participation through radio talk deliberation. It intends to offer an analysis of the content mediated through public discourses by determining the way in which participants draw their identities through different topics articulated in radio talk shows. This article will focus on a breakfast radio talk show – Jambo Kenya, a programme broadcasted on Radio Citizen, the second largest radio station in Kenya. This highly interactive programme airs from 7:15 a.m. with thought-provoking dialogue, giving a voice to groups that would otherwise be unheard. The article focuses on how the call-in listeners gain access to this media space to contest their various ideas.

Rural print media journalists in Africa tap into perceptions about their readers to produce newspapers. The evolving aesthetic perceptions of the rural print media in Ghana have in turn produced social domains of consumption and affiliation with the newspapers and print media. The style of Ewe-language newspapers produced in Ghana has generated different newspaper-reader affiliations and discursive spheres. This article examines some of the stylistic features of Ewe newspapers, investigating the way in which rural print media consumers and producers use these to articulate perceptions of the language domain of Ghanaian rural newspapers and print media.

This article analyses the performance and professional culture of journalists in situations of armed conflict, based on the results of research using qualitative techniques and conducted in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (2008–09) and Europe (2010–14), focusing on the case of the Congolese media women. It investigates the case of the Association of Media Women of South Kivu (AFEM-SK) in order to create greater awareness of the new African mediascapes and the emerging roles of women in journalism. The local Congolese organization has been fighting for women’s rights and against sexual violence through radio for more than a decade and is becoming a paradigmatic case of media activism and women’s rights on the African continent.

NOLLYWOOD: THE CREATION OF NIGERIAN FILM GENRES, JONATHAN HAYNES (2016) Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 416 pp., 9 halftones, 3 tables | 6×9 | ISBN: 9780226387956, p/bk, $35.00; ISBN: 9780226387819, h/bk, $105.00; ISBN: 9780226388007, E-book $35.00

MYTH, POPULAR CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN MAAMI BY TUNDE KELANI Director: Tunde Kelani, Writer: Femi Osofisan, Stars: Funke Akindele, Wole Ojo, 1h 33min, Drama, released 3 February 2012 (Nigeria)