Media in Africa: Theory, Critique and Industry

(To be published by Routledge)

The media landscape in Africa is changing with innovations driving huge
media developments. There is increasing access to the Internet,
streaming media are becoming popular, and digital satellite platforms
provide opportunity for multiple TV and radio channels creating diverse
mass media. Increasingly, African youths are becoming more media-savvy,
not only in media use, but also in content creation and in appropriating
digital media platforms for activism and social change. However, the
typical challenges persist: the urban-rural divide and unequal access;
corporate and state capture of media and telecommunication services;
concerns about power and control of media and telecommunications; need
for more local content and funding support for local productions;
capacity and resource constraints to tell African stories; and digital
inequalities seem unrelenting, amongst other challenges.

Teaching media in Africa

Our teaching and understanding of media in Africa today should address
critical questions such as: How do we generate new theories or
conceptual framings of the current state of media in Africa? In what
ways do ‘traditional’ theories help in understanding media in Africa?
How does power, in the forms of state and corporate capitalism, shape
what is (not)presented on media platforms? How do transnational media
corporations shape the media landscape in Africa, and what content do
these corporations purvey? Critically, how do media in Africa
(re)construct identity in relation to race, gender, sexuality,
nationalities, and migration? What is the state of local content in the
Africa media? In what ways are new media technologies shaping the
African media landscape? How is the growing telecommunication sector
across Africa enhancing citizens’ communicative potentials? How
participatory are the media in Africa? What are the factors shaping the
telecommunication regulatory environment in Africa? How are the
streaming platforms re-configuring the dynamics of media in Africa?
Also, in what ways are the media shaping social change and developments
in Africa. These and many other questions form the basis of this book.

The book description

This book is intended as an edited volume of instructional chapters,
with potential as a survey text for students and instructors of
communication and media studies. As a textbook, the book will include a
theoretical section, sections on exemplar cases of media issues in
Africa, and a section containing contributions from practising
journalists and media practitioners. Chapter contributions will be
presented in instructional style to cover many themes such as, but not
limited to:

Theories and historiography of media in Africa

+ Appropriating media theories to the media in Africa

+ Emerging media theories for Africa

+ Theorising media in Africa

+ Historical analysis of media in Africa

Power and control

+ State capture of communications and media in Africa

+ Propaganda, censorship and media suppression

+ Transnational media in Africa

+ Ownership and control of media in Africa

+ Public versus State  Broadcasting

Indigeneity, localisation and media in Africa

+ Media diversity and pluralism

+ Indigenous media

+ Local content on African media platforms

+ African films

+ Community media in Africa

+ International content on media in Africa

+ Decolonizing the media in Africa

Africa, Identity and the Media

+ Race, gender, class, sexuality, migration and African Media

+ African media and representation

Media and telecommunications policy in Africa

+ Media policy and regulation in Africa

+ Telecommunication policy and regulatory environment

Media audience in Africa

+ Popular media platforms, shows and programs in Africa

+ Understanding media audience in Africa

Social / New Media in Africa

+ Internet and Africa

+ New digital media platform and traditional media

+ Streaming media in Africa

+ Digital culture in Africa (social network, digital streaming, blogging
etc)

+ Digital inequalities in Africa

Communication, media and development in Africa

+ Development communication and media in Africa

+ Media and social change in Africa

+ Media and government communications

+ Participatory media in Africa

+ Media and public health

Journalism in Africa

+ Media freedom in Africa

+ Mobile journalism

+ Citizen journalism

+ Misinformation, disinformation and ‘fake news’

+ Development journalism

Voices from the Industry

+ Challenges of investigative journalism in Africa

+ Reporting the government in Africa

+ Photojournalism in Africa

+ Journalism and media practice in Africa

Abstract : About 300 words.   Deadline for abstract submission: August
15, 2022.

Feedback on accepted Abstracts : August 31, 2022.

Chapters: 6,000 words. Deadline for chapter submission: November 31, 2022

Abstracts to be submitted to the Editors:
Editors:  Toks D. Oyedemi (PhD) and René A. Smith (PhD)

Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:mediaafrica.book@gmail.com>