Africa’s media, democracy and the Politics of Belonging

This exploration of the role of the mass media in promoting democracy and empowering civil society in Africa reaches some startling conclusions. Francis Nyamnjoh contextualizes Africa within the rapidly changing global media, shows how patterns of media ownership and state control have evolved and the huge difficulties facing most African media workers. Drawing on the example of Cameroon, he explores the question of media ethics and professionalism in Africa, and the important roles that rumour and political satire have played as sources of information and opinion formation. He is critical of the Western-derived institutional framework for multi-party democracy that overlooks the social realities of African citizens’ multiple identities. He argues that African governments have done very little to encourage independent media, but that the media must also share some of the blame. He concludes by laying out some ideas for the reform of public policy and journalistic behaviour.