Katrien Pype has contributed a chapter to the book "Palgrave Handbook for Media and Communication Research in Africa", edited by Bruce Mutsvairo, and published with Palgrave MacMillan (2018).

The goal of the volume is to identify new challenges and opportunities for media research in Africa. Contributors work in African universities and beyond.

Katrien's paper is called "The Devil is in the Rumba Text. Commenting on Digital Depth", and deals with the possible meanings of digital clips that circulate in the Congolese digital sphere in which music (and audiovisual clips) of contemporary Congolese rumba musicians are interpreted as embedded in occult worlds, especially the Illuminati world.

The main challenges described are (a) the lack of a generic label for this genre of instructive clips; (b) the inaccessibility of the uploaders and producers (refusal to be interviewed, to identify themselves); and (c) the lack of interest or consideration by many of my interlocutors in Kinshasa regarding the message and intentions embedded in these clips. 

Methodologically speaking, I was inspired by Fabian's proposal (2008) for producing commentaries - as a more appropriate genre of ethnographic writing in the digital era. In Ethnography as Commentary. Writing from the Virtual Archive (2008), Fabian argues that the easy accessibility of empirical data online significantly transforms theory production, ethnography and analysis. 

update (May 16 2018): The chapter has now been published - DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-70443-2_14
In the book: The Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication Research in Africa, pp.245-262