Africa: regional media powers

Who tells the stories of Africa?

Masai in Kenya

Kumasi-Ghana

Kumasi King Festival-Ghana

What are we to make of this? On Kumasi's Wednesday festival day, I've seen visitors from England and the United States wince at what they regard as the intrusion of modernity on timeless, traditional rituals - more evidence, they think, of a pressure in the modern world toward uniformity. They react like the assistant on the film set who's supposed to check that the extras in a sword-and-sandals movie aren't wearing wristwatches. And such purists are not alone. In the past couple of years, Unesco's members have spent a great deal of time trying to hammer out a convention on the "protection and promotion" of cultural diversity. The drafters worried that "the processes of globalization. . .represent a challenge for cultural diversity, namely in view of risks of imbalances between rich and poor countries." The fear is that the values and images of Western mass culture, like some invasive weed, are threatening to choke out the world's native flora.

KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH

"[Satanic Verses] celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Mélange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world."

Salman Rushdie

Big Brother Africa-2003

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

“Diversity-key feature of South Africa: 11 official languages, community leaders include rabbis and chieftains, rugby players and returned exiles. Traditional healers ply their trade around the corner from stockbrokers and housing ranges from mud huts to palatial homes with swimming pools.” [BBC]

History

Until 1994 South Africa was ruled by a white minority government.

The white government which came to power in 1948 enforced a separation of races with its policy: apartheid.

Black and white communities should live in separate areas, travel in different buses and stand in their own queues.

Apartheid EffectsSocial engineering schemes such as the forced resettlement; poisoning and bombing opponents, etc.

The apartheid government eventually negotiated itself out of power, and the new leadership encouraged reconciliation.

The cost of the years of conflict will be paid for a long time: lawlessness, social disruption and lost education.

Racist Video from Free University

Today

The continent's biggest economy: strong financial and manufacturing sectors; leading exporter of minerals; focused on tourism.

Many South Africans remain poor and unemployment is high.

Highest number of HIV/Aids patients in the world.

Post-Apartheid Media

SA appears to be at the receiving end of cultural products brought by media globalization.

News and entertainment imported from elsewhere.

Yet, thinking about media homogenization is misleading.

SA as an example of ‘contra-flow’

Local/Global Divide

On the one hand, SA occupies a marginal position in global media flows.

On the other hand, SA occupies a central role in the regional context of African media > export to and influence on other African countries.

Internally, SA media are marked by uneven power distribution.

Regional Flow

MULTICHOICE AFRICA: Anglophone Africa

Created by M-Net (SA’s 1st commercial channel)

By 1992, it reached +20 countries.

Expanded also to Greece, Thailand, China.

+2 million subscribers: elites and foreigners ($60/month)

Regional FlowM-NET: 1st private channel; focus on children’s programming, entertainment, sports, films.

Mix of local and foreign productions.

Glocalization: “Big Brother Africa” (2003, 2007)

SABC Africa: emerged from SABC (state-owned network).

Mix of news and entertainment.

Motto: “To celebrate the positive side of Africa and being African.”

Focus on national or regional productions.

Yizo YizoNew approach to educational broadcasting in post-apartheid era.

During apartheid: both broadcasting and education were reflective of ethnic and racial divides.

Educational model that contributes to empowerment of learners.

Educational broadcasting becomes a central feature of general programming.

This is due to increasing commercialized nature of media and complex social situation.

No more top-down didacticism.

Yizo Yizo

Importance of music: kwaito

SA mix of pop, hip-hop, traditional styles.

Typical of township life; used to create more realistic effects.

Fast-paced editing

Public broadcasting

Media globalization opens up the possibility of using multi-media strategies to facilitate dialogue in educational broadcasting.

Here, children become active subjects of public discussion.

Yizo-Yizo as an example of the creative possibilities of using the conventions of global media cultures to provide more inclusive models of citizenship.