Call for Papers: Beyond
Normative Approaches: Everyday Media Culture in Africa
An international
conference organized by the Department of Media Studies at the University of
the Witwatersrand, the Department of Communication Studies at the University of
Michigan and with support from the Communication and Media Research Institute
(CAMRI), University of Westminster
Dates: 27-29 February 2012
Venue: University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Website: http://bit.ly/oPUsPu
Deadline for abstracts: 30
October 2011
We invite contributions
that address 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. All over the continent today, country by country,
there are signs of growth and change—a buzz of energy stimulated, in part, by
the rapid spread and impact of new mobile communication technologies and the
new economic, political and social affordances which they help to create. The
rise of these technologies, and the new forms of media practice and use
associated with them, is in parallel with the emergence of new forms of
commercial mediation and communications enterprises across the global South,
which arguably complicate the role of the media in African cultures and
societies.
Since media studies began
in the 1970s, its object of study has changed in fundamental ways. Media were
at first conceptualized almost wholly within the frame of the nation-state, its
national politics and culture. The bulk of academic research on media and
communication in Africa has studied media through the lens of media-state
relations, hereby adopting liberal democracy as normative ideal and focusing on
the potential contribution of African media to development and democratization.
This approach has insufficiently looked at the actual role of media in
African societies but instead focused on what roles media ought to play
on the continent. Instead of understanding media on the continent on its own
terms, scholars have often produced ahistorical accounts that posture as
negative imprints of Western models of media-state relations. Furthermore, the
heavy focus on media-state relations in studies on media in Africa has ignored
both the way in which ordinary people relate to media and the increasingly
important role of private capital and the market in the realm of African media.
Since the 1990s, the
diffusion of continuing technological innovations in digital media and
telecommunications, driven by the world economy, has changed the media
landscape beyond recognition, producing the globalized world that all of us
inhabit today. The question which then arises is what the study of media can
tell us about Africa, in all its diversity, and the position of African
societies in the world today. Among other issues, we invite participants to
engage with one or more of the following questions:
Audiences, lived
experience and changing notions of identity
·
How can we research and
theorize media cultures in today’s Africa?
·
What roles do different forms
of media play in the everyday lives of Africans?
·
How do global and national
media contribute to changing notions of African identities?
Media, participation
and resistance
·
What role do old and new media
play in forms of resistance on the continent?
·
To what extent are media
contributing to emerging participatory cultures in Africa?
·
What does the diffusion and
uptake of new media technologies tell us about social change taking place in
Africa today?
Consumer culture and
the media
·
How can we understand the
contribution of media to the rise of consumer cultures and consumption
practices in Africa?
·
What role do media and communications
play in the increasing commodification of development?
·
Who are the new entrepreneurial
elites who are driving the diffusion of technological innovation in Africa?
For Africa-based scholars
who would like to participate but require travel funding (primarily for
airfare) to do so, please include a funding request with an estimated travel
budget. A small amount of funding will be available to support presenters’
participation.
There will be a modest registration fee (R
175 for graduate students, R350 for faculty) to cover the costs of snacks and
some meals.
Proposals for 20-minute papers should include the
following: paper title, author, institutional affiliation and postal address,
email address, abstract of no more than 300 words. Proposals should be sent on
or before 30 October 2011 to Wendy Willems at: [log in to unmask]