Everyday Media Culture in Africa ― Audiences and Users

This book addresses the everyday lived experiences of Africans in their interaction with different kinds of media: old and new, state and private, elite and popular, global and national, material and virtual. The ongoing targeting of African audiences and users by global media companies such as CCTV, BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN as well as social networking platforms and mobile phone networks testifies to their increasing global importance. So far, the bulk of academic research on media and communication in Africa has studied media through the lens of media-state relations, thereby adopting liberal democracy as the normative ideal and focusing on the potential contribution of African media to development and democratization. This volume contributes instead to the project of provincializing and decolonizing audience and internet studies, focusing here on the lived experiences of African audiences and users.

Wendy Willems is Assistant Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK and Associate and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Media Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is co-editor of Civic Agency in Africa: Arts of Resistance in the 21^st Century.

Winston Mano is Director of the Africa Media Centre and Reader in Media and Communication Studies at the University of Westminster in London, UK and Editor of the Journal of African Media Studies. He is also a Senior Research Associate in the School of Communication at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.