New publication: overview of "anthropology of media in Africa"

Katrien Pype co-authored with Alessandro Jedlowski a chapter that provides an overview of the main themes of the anthropology of media in Africa”. The chapter is included in A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa, 2019, co-edited by R.R. Grinker, S.B. Lubkemann, C.B. Steiner, and E. Gonçalves.

You can read a summary of the chapter here:

Karin Barber's emphasis on an anthropological approach to the study of cultural texts, publics and audiences, and modes of address had a particular influence on emerging research on African media. This chapter focuses on a variety of different topics: from the role of media in shaping political communities to their interaction with the emergence of new modes of conceiving intimacy, morality, and religion, from the role of media in the mobility of people across Africa and beyond, to the impact of technological innovation on the mobility of media contents and on the emergence of new genres and styles. One of the more common topics in the study of African media is political communication. The emergence of new media technologies has also transformed the way space and distance are understood and managed by people around the African continent and in the diaspora.