Journal of African Media Studies - Current Issue

This article focuses on cross-cultural adaptation issues among international students. Its main focus is on Nigerian students in China, coming from one of the leading African countries with a pro-China policy. The increasing number of students from Africa in China is a big shift as such students would, in the past, prioritize Europe or North America. This new reality provides an important focus for analysing issues raised by cross-cultural exchange between two nations. The findings have wider implications as China pro-actively works not just with Nigeria but all the 54 African countries. The research relied on qualitative and quantitative research methods, specifically interviews and questionnaires. It explored five dimensions of cross-cultural adaptation: natural environment and daily life adaptation, language adaptation, academic adaptation, psychological adaptation as well as the character of communication through media between Nigerian students and Chinese people. The overall findings show unique challenges as well as opportunities available to international students in the context of cross-cultural adaptation.

This study examines the safety and security of journalists in Ghana, assessing their satisfaction with key media stakeholders and the state of press freedom through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) journalists’ safety indicators. Using a predominantly quantitative, integrative mixed-method approach, it surveyed 80 journalists from broadcast, print and online outlets, conducted ten in-depth interviews and analysed two policy documents. The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with stakeholders such as law enforcement, politicians, regulatory bodies and journalists’ associations. The independent t-test shows that the editors and reporters did not differ significantly in their assessment of their satisfaction with stakeholders in the media landscape. Only the online media journalists reported satisfaction with their management’s efforts to ensure safety. The absence of formal safety policies and the frequent closure of broadcast outlets signal a decline in press freedom. This study highlights a concerning gap between Ghana’s democratic credentials and the unsafe working conditions for journalists. Recent press freedom rankings align with these challenges, affirming UNESCO’s indicator as a predictive tool.

Drawing insights from decolonial theory and Ubuntu ethics, this article examines coloniality practices embedded in conflict journalism in Zimbabwe. It uses election violence reporting between 2000 and 2013 as a lens for gaining insights into how reporting conflicts perpetuates coloniality. How coloniality is reproduced through conflict reporting practices, and the extent to which Ubuntu ethics could be a remedy for coloniality are questions at the core of this exploration. Empirical data for the study were gleaned from in-depth interviews with nineteen purposively selected print media journalists and editors who had experience in reporting election violence in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2013. The article reveals that election violence reporting practices among print media journalists are oriented more towards ‘war journalism’ than peacebuilding which is at odds with Ubuntu ethics. It canvasses for an Ubuntu-centred journalism to mitigate the deleterious effects of coloniality in reporting conflicts in postcolonial contexts.

A functional analysis of 58 political commercials of APC and PDP aired on four purposively selected national television networks in Nigeria (NTA, AIT, TVC and Channels) during the 2019 presidential election campaigns reveals the dominance of positive communication with acclaims (81.24 per cent), while attacks and defences were a mere 16.41 per cent, and (2.36 per cent), respectively, despite the tightness of the race. The data were coded by two experienced coders with no political affiliation using content analysis with an inter-coder agreement score of 0.82 on Cohen’s kappa. Further findings of the study revealed that the two leading candidates were more focused on character (53.84 per cent) than policy issues (46.16 per cent) which corroborates critics’ concerns for the absence of issues during the campaigns. This also validates the development-gap hypothesis of political campaigns in developing democracies. Also, our data revealed the overwhelming entertainment structure of the commercials with music and dance accounting for 87.46 per cent and 70.69 per cent of the total duration of the commercials, respectively. Crowd motif was prominent as a popular building strategy, while images of presidential/vice-presidential candidates were present in 61.40 per cent of the commercials. Our data confirm the overwhelming entertainment and celebratory nature of political campaigns in Nigeria and validate the argument for policy-focused campaigns as Nigeria struggles with socio-economic and development issues that require deep policy thought and approach. It is recommended that political campaigns in Nigeria be structured as serious state matter which requires deep thought on policy issues and how to improve the living standards of the people – and not mere political entertainment designed to attract votes. It is also recommended that political parties differentiate themselves as distinct political alternatives to the electorate, rather than appear indistinguishable from one another.

What stories can a body tell? This is one of the questions raised by the artistic career of Portuguese Guinean actor, filmmaker and performer Welket Bungué, which leads to a broader reflection on the body as a narrative and performative expression in a transmedia practice. The purpose of this article is to analyse Bungué’s artistic method, questioning its relationship with the legacy of Balanta culture and African oral traditions and griots, a social function that can serve as a reference for reflecting on how artists from Africa and its diasporas tell their stories in continuity with this legacy.