[FoME] Buch "Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa"

[Christoph Dietz]

Soeben erschienen (September 2009):

Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa
Edited by Herman Wasserman
Price: £24.99, bei www.bol.de und www.buch.de zur Zeit für Euro 28,50;
bei www.amazon.de für Euro 34,99
Binding/Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-415-57794-6
Imprint: Routledge
Pages: 288 pages

Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa examines the role
that popular media could play to encourage political debate, provide
information for development, or critique the very definitions of
‘democracy’ and ‘development’. Drawing on diverse case
studies from various regions of the African continent, essays employ a
range of theoretical and methodological approaches to ask critical
questions about the potential of popular media to contribute to
democratic culture, provide sites of resistance, or, conversely, act as
agents for the spread of Americanized entertainment culture to the
detriment of local traditions. A wide variety of media formats and
platforms are discussed, ranging from radio and television to the
Internet, mobile phones, street posters, film and music.
Grounded in empirical work by experienced scholars who are acknowledged
experts in their fields, this contemporary and topical book provides an
insight into some of the challenges faced throughout the African
continent, such as HIV and Aids, poverty and inequality, and political
participation. Examples are grounded in a critical engagement with
theory, moving beyond descriptive studies and therefore contributing to
the intellectual project of internationalizing media studies. 
Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa provides students
and scholars with a critical perspective on issues relating to popular
media, democracy and citizenship outside the global North. As part of
the Routledge series Internationalizing Media Studies, the book responds
to the important challenge of broadening perspectives on media studies
by bringing together a range of expert analyses of media in the African
continent that will be of interest to students and scholars of media in
Africa and further afield. 

Contents

Part I: The popular media sphere: Theoretical interventions
Chapter 1 De-westernizing media theory to make room for African
experience Francis Nyamnjoh 
Chapter 2 Revisiting cultural imperialism and its critics Eric Louw 
Chapter 3 At the crossroads of the formal and popular: convergence
culture and new publics in Zimbabwe Wendy Willems 
Chapter 4 Theorising development and democracy through popular
community media Victor Ayedun-Aluma
Chapter 5 Talk radio, democracy and citizenship in (South) Africa Tanja
Bosch 

Part II: Popular media, politics and power: engaging with democracy and
development
Chapter 6 Popular Music as Journalism in Africa: Issues and Contexts
Winston Mano 
Chapter 7 Street News: The Role of Posters in Democratic Participation
in Ghana Audrey Gadzekpo 
Chapter 8 ‘If You Rattle A Snake, Be Prepared To Be Bitten’:
Popular Culture, Politics And The Kenyan News Media George Ogola 
Chapter 9 Post-apartheid South African Social Movements on Film Sean
Jacobs 

Part III: Audiences, agency and media in everyday life 
Chapter 10 The Amazing Race in Burkina Faso H. Leslie Steeves 
Chapter 11 (South) African Articulations of the Ordinary, or, How
Popular Print Commodities (Re)Organize Our Lives Sonja Narunsky-Laden 
Chapter 12 Popular TV Programmes and Audiences in Kinshasa Marie-Soleil
Frere 
Chapter 13 New technologies as tools of empowerment: African youth and
public sphere participation Levi Obijiofor 

Part IV: Identity and community between the local and the global 
Chapter 14 Transnational flows and local identities in Muslim Northern
Nigerian Films: From Dead Poets Society through Mohabbatein to So…
Abdalla Uba Adamu 
Chapter 15 Local Stories, Global Discussions. Websites, politics and
identity in African contexts Inge Brinkman, Siri Lamoureaux, Daniela
Merolla and Mirjam de Bruijn
Chapter 16 Survival of ‘radio culture’ in a converged networked new
media environment Okoth Fred Mudhai Chapter 17 Policing popular media in
Africa Monica Chibita 

Author Bio
Herman Wasserman is Professor in the Department of Journalism and Media
Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa and Honorary Senior Lecturer
in Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield, UK. He is editor of the
journal Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies and has published widely
on media in Southern Africa. Recent publications include Tabloid
Journalism in South Africa: True Story! (2010) and Media Ethics Beyond
Borders (co-edited, 2010).