Africa's Media, Democracy and the Politics of Belonging

This major study explores the role of the mass media in promoting democracy and empowering civil society in Africa. The author contextualizes Africa within in the rapidly changing global media and shows how patterns of media ownership and state control have evolved and the huge difficulties under which most African media workers labor. The author also explores the whole question of media ethics and professionalism in Africa. The general analysis is supported by a detailed case study of Cameroon.

"An exceptionally rich and thought-provoking work. Nyamnjoh gives us a vivid, well researched picture of the new African media landscape, while asking probing questions about both journalistic practice and the meaning of democracy."--James Ferguson, Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University

"Nyamnjoh's book is a worthwhile addition to the growing body of knowledge on African communication and politics. It is creatively rendered in a descriptive and critical style that combines the anthropologist's eyes for patterned behaviour and the journalist's nose for social criticism. The result is a delicious rendition on the complex role of communication in democracy. This should be required reading in journalism, political science, and sociology."--Charles Okigbo, Department of Communication, North Dakota State University 'This latest work by Professor Francis Nyamnjoh raises the level of the debate on the media and the democratization agenda in Africa to a very high level with perceptive and insightful analysis of the problematic. The work is informed, detailed, useful, and meaningful. It serves as an outstanding contribution and source for scholars, professionals and top-level decision makers in the area of media and democracy in Africa. It is a "must" text for all students of mass media and development in Africa."--Cecil Blake, Chair, Africana Studies Department, University of Pittsburgh

"Nyamnjoh's analysis innovatively develops a new conceptual framework in assessing studies on, and the state of, African media and how people use them. His theoretical achievement is to critique African essentialism on the one hand, while developing an indigenized critical theory on the other. He speaks from Africa, about Africa, in an engagement with Western theory, assumptions and policies. This study is a breakthrough."--Keyan G. Tomaselli, University of KwaZulu-Natal and President, South African Communication Association

Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Associate Professor of Sociology and Head of Publications and Communications with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).

Acknowledgements * Introduction * In the Name of Democracy: The Press and Its Predicaments * Media Ethics, Professionalism and Training in Africa * Multiparty Politics in Cameroon * The Official Media, Belonging and Democratisation