Media Across the African Diaspora: Content, Audiences, and Global

Media Across the African Diaspora This volume gathers scholarship from varying disciplinary perspectives to explore media owned or created by members of the African diaspora, examine its relationship with diasporic audiences, and consider its im- pact on mainstream culture in general. Contributors highlight creations and contributions of people of the African diaspora, the interconnections of Black American and African-centered media, and the experiences of audiences and users across the African diaspora, positioning members of the Black and African Diaspora as subjects of their own narratives, ac- tive participants and creators. In so doing, this volume addresses issues of identity, culture, audiences, and global influence. Omotayo O. Banjo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Com- munication at the University of Cincinnati, USA. She focuses on rep- resentation and audience responses to racial and cultural media. Her work has been published in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Communication Theory, Journalism and Mass Communica- tion Quarterly, Journal of Media and Religion, and Race and Social Problems. She most recently coedited a volume on the topics of race, ethnicity, and faith called Contemporary Christian Culture: Messages, Missions, and Dilemmas. Routledge Transformations in Race and Media Series Editors: Robin R. Means, Coleman University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Charlton D. McIlwain, New York University Interpreting Tyler Perry Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Edited by Jamel Santa Cruze Bell and Ronald L. Jackson II Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press Framing Dissent Sarah J. Jackson The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting Kristen J. Warner The Myth of Post-Racialism in Television News Libby Lewis Representations of Black Women in the Media The Damnation of Black Womanhood Marquita Marie Gammage Race and Contention in 21st Century U.S. Media Edited by Jason A. Smith and Bhoomi K. Thakore Race, Gender, and Citizenship in the African Diaspora Travelling Blackness Manoucheka Celeste Media Across the African Diaspora Content, Audiences, and Global Influence Edited by Omotayo O. Banjo Media Across the African Diaspora Content, Audiences, and Global Influence Edited by Omotayo O. Banjo NEW YORK AND LONDON First published 2019 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. With the exception of Chapter 11, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 11 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. They have been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data has been applied for. ISBN: 978-1-138-06548-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-15965-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents List of Figures and Tables ix Foreword xi CATHERINE R. SQUIRES Acknowledgements xv Introduction 1 OMOTAYO O. BANJO PART I Contributions to Mainstream Media Culture 5 1 The Early Black Press in Canada 7 TOKUNBO OJO 2 Increase Your Faith: The Domestication of Black Televangelism 18 MARK WARD Sr. 3 Wrestling with Races: When Sitcoms, Families, and Political Struggles Meet 35 JUDY L. ISAKSEN PART II Owning Images and Narratives 49 4 “(Re) defining Images of African Women”: A Postfeminist Critique of the Ghanaian YouTube Series “An African City” 51 GODFRIED ASANTE AND RITA DANIELS vi Contents 5 Walking through Wakanda: A Critical Multimodal Analysis of Afrofuturism in the Black Panther Comic Book 69 CHRISTOPHER BROWN, BRANDON Mc CASLAND, MANDY PARIS, AND SACHI SEKIMOTO PART III Bridges Across the African Diaspora 83 6 Stereotyped Representations of African Cultural Values in Black Media: A Critical Analysis 85 MARQUITA MARIE GAMMAGE AND JUSTIN T. GAMMAGE 7 NollywoodUSA: Opportunities and Challenges in Forging a Pan-African Storytelling and Identity 98 ADEDAYO ABAH PART IV Audiences’ Responses and Effects 123 8 Exploring African Female Immigrants’ Perceptions of Their Portrayal in the U.S. Media 125 GLORIA NZIBA PINDI 9 Hardly Ever, I Don’t See It: Black Youth Speak about Positive Media Images of Black Men 147 VALERIE N. ADAMS-BASS AND ERIN JOANN HENRICI 10 For Us Only? Examining the Effect of Viewing Context on Black Audiences’ Perceived Influence of Black Entertainment 163 OMOTAYO O. BANJO PART V Digital Diaspora 189 11 Social Media and Social Justice Movements after the Diminution of Black-Owned Media in the United States 191 JEFFREY LAYNE BLEVINS Contents vii 12 Science and Online Construction of Identity among the African Diaspora 204 GADO ALZOUMA 13 ‘Prime Time’ Geographies: Dancehall Performance, Visual Communication, and the Philosophy of ‘Boundarylessness’ 223 SONJAH STANLEY NIAAH List of Contributors 251 Index 257 List of Figures and Tables Figures 10.1 Co-viewing condition and attitude measures, p < 0.05 174 10.2 Co-viewing condition and interaction likelihood, p < 0.05 176 13.1 Japanese Dancehall Patron at a Passa Passa event being filmed by Cameraman 228 13.2 Jack Sowah, notable Dancehall videographer 231 13.3 Typical images from a Dancehall scene including dancers and amateur 232 13.4 Flyer of Bass Odyssey’s sound system festival 240 13.5 Flyers for Red Bull culture clash events – Manchester and Johannesburg 241 13.6 Popcaan dropping Drake’s track ‘One Dance’ at the 2014 culture clash 242 13.7 Admiral and Jah Seed playing on African storm sound system, Johannesburg 243 Tables 2.1 Founders and Executives of Evangelical Television Networks 25 10.1 Enjoyment Characteristics across Two Films 172 10.2 Hypotheses One Dependent Measures for Each Condition 173 10.3 Means for Third Person Perception Measures Reported for Each Condition 175 Foreword It is always a pleasure and an honor to be invited to write the Foreword to a new volume. It is an even greater pleasure when the book provides a reason to interact with texts you haven’t revisited in some time. Serendipitously, the new trailer for the filmBlack Panther debuted as I began writing this piece. As an avid comics fan, it was a happy coinci- dence that the movie preview for and a chapter about the Black Panther comic series (from which the movie was adapted) came to my computer at exactly the same time. As I watched the highly anticipated trailer on my laptop, I thought to myself that this snippet from the movie aptly illustrated the dominant Western media’s troubled relationship to representations of the African continent and people of its diaspora. The trailer begins with a white interrogator questioning a white male prisoner. Both are being watched, via a two-way mirror, by two people of African descent. The prisoner asks his interrogator: “What do you know about Wakanda?” Wakanda is the fictional home of the titular hero, the Black Panther. The interrogator answers by reeling off stereotypes of a premodern, pre- industrial culture: “It’s a Third World country. Textiles, shepherds, cool outfits.” Intercut with his glib response are shots of a rural, lush landscape of a nation in Africa: Wakanda. As the interrogator finishes his descrip- tion, the prisoner laughs and tells his captor that he has been fooled: Wakanda is much more advanced. As he speaks, the camera takes the viewer over waterfalls and cliffs, then pulls back to reveal a spaceship, skyscrapers, and other technological wonders created by Wakandans; that is, technological wonders designed by and for Black African people. The juxtaposition of Western assumptions about the “primitive” characteristics of African countries with the “reality” of Wakandan technological advancement provides an interesting launch point for this collection. Professor Omotayo O. Banjo Adesagba and her colleagues deliver an impressive set of chapters that break through the persistent myths and stereotypes of Africa as a land time forgot, a place that does not produce its own industry or narratives, let alone sophisticated modern media. xii Foreword Media Across the African Diaspora is a welcome addition to works on race, media, and international flows and exchanges of representations of Africa, Africans, and Blackness. The book’s chapters deliver subtle insights and introduce new frameworks for thinking not only about media in the context of Africa and its diaspora, but also rethink- ing standard approaches to global media studies, studies which all too often begin and end with the assumption that the West is the main driver of global flows and the key designer of transnational medias- capes. Our field remains quite U.S.- and Euro-centered in terms of topics and locales. The book calls on readers to reconsider what we mean when we say “global” media, how we study diasporic identities,

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