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Deriving from innovative new work by six researchers, this book questions what the new media's role is in contemporary Africa. The chapters are diverse - covering different areas of sociality in different countries - but they unite in their methodological and analytical foundation. The focus is on media-related practices, which require engagement with different perspectives and concerns while situating these in a wider analytical context. The contributions to this collection provide fresh ethnographic descriptions of how new media practices can affect socialities in significant but unpredictable ways.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A Social Science Perspective on Media Practices in Africa: Social Mechanisms, Dynamics and Processes
Jo Helle-Valle and Ardis Storm-Mathisen Part I: Economy Chapter 1. Digital Development Imaginaries, Informal Business Practices and the Platformisation of Digital Technology in Zambia
Wendy Willems Chapter 2. Botswana's Digital Revolution: What's in it?
Ardis Storm-Mathisen and Jo Helle-Valle Part II: Gender and Social Relations Chapter 3. Bolingo ya face: Digital Marriages, Playfulness and the Search for Change in Kinshasa
Katrien Pype Chapter 4. Texting Like A State: Knowledge and Change in a National mHealth Programme
Nanna Schneidermann Chapter 5. New Ways of Making Ends Meet? On Batswana Women, Their Uses of the Mobile Phone and Connections through Education
Ardis Storm-Mathisen Part III: Localities and New Media Chapter 6. The Public Inside Out: Facebook, Community and Banal Activism in a Cape Town Suburb
Nanna Schneidermann Chapter 7. From No Media to All Media: Domesticating New Media in a Kalahari Village
Jo Helle-Valle Afterword: The Electronic Media in Africa, with an Addendum from Mauritius
Thomas Hylland Eriksen Index
About the author
Jo Helle-Valle is a social anthropologist and Professor in the Development Studies Department at Oslo Metropolitan University. He has published in journals such as Journal of African Media Studies, Africa, Ethnos, History and Anthropology, and New Media & Society.
Ardis Storm-Mathisen is Research Professor at Consumption Research Norway and at the Faculty of Education, Oslo Metropolitan University.
Summary
Deriving from innovative new work by six researchers, this book questions what the new media's role is in contemporary Africa. The focus is on media-related practices, which require engagement with different perspectives and concerns while situating these in a wider analytical context.
