Routledge Handbook of African Media and Communication Studies


Book Description

This handbook comprises fresh and incisive research focusing on African media, culture and communication. The chapters from a cross-section of scholars dissect the forces shaping the field within a changing African context. It adds critical corpora of African scholarship and theory that places the everyday worlds, needs and uses of Africans first. The book goes beyond critiques of the marginality of African approaches in media and communication studies to offer scholars the theoretical and empirical toolkit needed to start building critical corpora of African scholarship and theory that places the everyday worlds, needs and uses of Africans first. Decoloniality demands new epistemological interventions in African media, culture and communication, and this book is an important interlocutor in this space. In a globally interconnected world, changing patterns of authority and power pose new challenges to the ways in which media institutions are constituted and managed, as well as how communication and media policy is negotiated and the manner in which citizens engage with increasing media opportunities. The handbook focuses on the interrelationships of the local and the global and the concomitant consequences for media practice, education and citizen engagement in today’s Africa. Altogether, the book foregrounds convivial epistemologies relevant for locating African media and communication in the pluriverse. This handbook is an essential read for critical media, communications, cultural studies and journalism scholars.




The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication provides a comprehensive, state of the art overview of language-focused research on digital communication, taking stock and registering the latest trends that set the agenda for future developments in this thriving and fast moving field. The contributors are all leading figures or established authorities in their areas, covering a wide range of topics and concerns in the following seven sections: • Methods and Perspectives; • Language Resources, Genres, and Discourses; • Digital Literacies; • Digital Communication in Public; • Digital Selves and Online-Offline Lives; • Communities, Networks, Relationships; • New debates and Further directions. This volume showcases critical syntheses of the established literature on key topics and issues and, at the same time, reflects upon and engages with cutting edge research and new directions for study (as emerging within social media). A wide range of languages are represented, from Japanese, Greek, German and Scandinavian languages, to computer-mediated Arabic, Chinese and African languages. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication will be an essential resource for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers within English language and linguistics, applied linguistics and media and communication studies.




The Routledge Handbook to the Culture and Media of the Americas


Book Description

Exploring the culture and media of the Americas, this handbook places particular emphasis on collective and intertwined experiences and focuses on the transnational or hemispheric dimensions of cultural flows and geocultural imaginaries that shape the literature, arts, media and other cultural expressions in the Americas. The Routledge Handbook to the Culture and Media of the Americas charts the pervasive, asymmetrical flows of cultural products and capital and their importance in the development of the Americas. The volume offers a comprehensive understanding of how inter-American communication is constituted, framed and structured, and covers the artistic and political dimensions that have shaped literature, art and popular culture in the region. Forty-six chapters cover a range of inter-American key concepts and dynamics, divided into two parts: Literature and Music deals with inter-American entanglements of artistic expressions in the Western Hemisphere, including music, dance, literary genres and developments. Media and Visual Cultures explores the inter-American dimension of media production in the hemisphere, including cinema and television, photography and art, journalism, radio, digital culture and issues such as freedom of expression and intellectual property. This multidisciplinary approach will be of interest to a broad array of academic scholars and students in history, sociology, political science; and cultural, postcolonial, gender, literary, globalization and media studies.




Routledge Handbook of Tourism in Africa


Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive and readable overview of the critical debates and controversies around tourism in Africa, and the major factors that are affecting tourism development now and in the future. Drawing upon research emerging from collaborations between a growing number of African academics and practitioners based in the continent and in the African diaspora as well as international colleagues, the Handbook offers key critical insights into the issues, challenges and trends that Africa and African tourism is facing. Part I covers continent-wide issues such as climate change, ICT, heritage and development. The remaining parts are organised along geographic lines, with each chapter covering the development of tourism, current trends and discussion of critical issues such as community participation, gender, backpacking, urban tourism, wildlife tourism and conservation. Combining an overview of key theories, concepts, contemporary issues and debates, this book will be a valuable resource for students, academics and practitioners investigating the role of tourism in Africa.




Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media


Book Description

The study of Chinese media is a field that is growing and evolving at an exponential rate. Not only are the Chinese media a fascinating subject for analysis in their own right, but they also offer scholars and students a window to observe multi-directional flows of information, culture and communications within the contexts of globalization and regionalization. Moreover, the study of Chinese media provides an invaluable opportunity to test and refine the variety of communications theories that researchers have used to describe, analyse, compare and contrast systems of communications. The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media is a prestigious reference work providing an overview of the study of Chinese media. Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley bring together an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions by an international team of renowned scholars on subjects such as television, journalism and the internet and social media. Locating Chinese media within a regional setting by focusing on ‘Greater China’, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas Chinese communities; the chapters highlight the convergence of media and platforms in the region; and emphasise the multi-directional and trans-national character of media/information flows in East Asia. Contributing to the growing de-westernization of media and communications studies; this handbook is an essential and comprehensive reference work for students of all levels and scholars in the fields of Chinese Studies and Media Studies.




Decolonising Media and Communication Studies Education in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

The book provides insights on decolonising media and communication studies education from diverse African scholars at different stages of their careers. These academics, located on the continent and in the diaspora, share an interest in decolonising higher education broadly and media and communication studies teaching and learning in particular. Although many African countries gained flag independence from different European colonial powers between the 1950s and the 1970s, this book argues that former colonies remain ensnared in a colonial power matrix. Many African universities did not jettison ways of teaching and learning established during colonialism, and even those journalism, communication, and media studies training programmes which were established after the attainment of flag independence did not place decolonial agendas at the front and centre when setting them up. Starting with big picture thematic questions around decolonisation, the book goes on to consider what the implications of change would be for students and instructors, before reflecting on how far it is possible to decolonise curricula and syllabi and what this might look like in practice across a range of subject areas and country contexts. Overall, this book presents a nuanced picture of what a decolonised media and communication studies education could look like in sub-Saharan Africa. This book is essential for researchers in Africa in disciplines such as media and communication studies, journalism, film studies, cultural studies, and higher education studies. More broadly, the concepts and ideas on decolonising teaching and learning discussed in the book are relevant to instructors in any discipline who are interested in doing the decolonial work of contesting coloniality.




The Routledge Handbook of African Linguistics


Book Description

The Handbook of African Linguistics provides a holistic coverage of the key themes, subfields, approaches and practical application to the vast areas subsumable under African linguistics that will serve researchers working across the wide continuum in the field. Established and emerging scholars of African languages who are active and current in their fields are brought together, each making use of data from a linguistic group in Africa to explicate a chosen theme within their area of expertise, and illustrate the practice of the discipline in the continent.




Reflections on the International Association for Media and Communication Research


Book Description

Throughout its 65-year history, the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) has sought to facilitate international exchanges and research collaborations among academics and journalists in the field of media and communication. ​ Created during a time of strong ideological tension following World War II in 1957 and with the support of UNESCO, the contributors to this edited collection highlight how the IAMCR and its members shaped the field of media and communications research. From its beginnings focusing on the mass media, including the press and journalism education, today the Association attracts researchers and practitioners who undertake critical analysis of contemporary media and communications, including online platforms and their governance. Consistent themes throughout the Association’s history have been its concern with human rights, law, culture and the political economy of the media and communication industries. Not content simply to understand developments in the media and communications field around the world, the Association’s membership has sought to ‘change the world’ through its published research and its participation in global, regional, national and local policy debate and practice. This volume is organised in four parts following an introduction authored by editors who are active members of IAMCR. Part I highlights eight prominent scholarly traditions of research which have attracted the interest of scholars from around the world as well as the way the Association has sought to be inclusive of early career scholars. Part II offers seven chapters which bring to light the political struggles of a membership seeking to engage in scholarship across the East – West divide and to contribute to global debates aimed at fostering an inclusive, fair and equitable international information and communication order through engagement with United Nations sponsored initiatives. Part III turns to accounts of the way members from selected countries and regions have contributed to the Association’s scholarly work. The last part highlights the significant scholarly and institution-building contributions of James Halloran, IAMCR’s President from 1972 to 1988 and other prominent contributors to the study of culture and the political economy of media and communications




Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media


Book Description

The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Media is a comprehensive study of the key contemporary issues and scholarly discussions around Japanese media. Covering a wide variety of forms and types from newspapers, television and fi lm, to music, manga and social media, this book examines the role of the media in shaping Japanese society from the Meiji era’s intense engagement with Western culture to our current period of rapid digital innovation. Featuring the work of an international team of scholars, the handbook is divided into five thematic sections: The historical background of the Japanese media from the Meiji Restoration to the immediate postwar era. Japan’s national and political identity imagined and negotiated through diff erent aspects of the media, including Japan’s ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s and today’s ‘post- Fukushima’ society. The representation of Japanese identities, including race, gender and sexuality, in contemporary media. The role of Japanese media in everyday life. The Japanese media in a broader global context. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of use to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, Asian media and Japanese popular culture.




The Routledge Handbook of Disability in Southern Africa


Book Description

This comprehensive ground-breaking southern African-centred collection spans the breadth of disability research and practice. Reputable and emerging scholars, together with disability advocates adopt a critical and interdisciplinary stance to prove, challenge and shift commonly held social understanding of disability in traditional discourses, frontiers and practices in prominent areas such as inter/national development, disability studies, education, culture, health, religion, gender, sports, tourism, ICT, theatre, media , housing and legislation. This handbook provides a body of interdisciplinary analyses suitable for the development of disability studies in southern Africa. Through drawing upon and introducing resources from several disciplines, theoretical perspectives and personal narratives from disability activists, it reflects on disability and sustainable development in southern Africa. It also addresses a clear need to bring together interdisciplinary perspectives and narratives on disability and sustainable development in ways that do not undermine disability politics advanced by disabled people across the world. The handbook further acknowledges and builds upon the huge body of literature that understands the social, cultural, educational, psychological, economic, historical and political facets of the exclusion of disabled people. The handbook covers the following broad themes: • Disability inclusion, ICT and sustainable development • Access to education, from early childhood development up to higher education • Disability, employment, entrepreneurship and community-based rehabilitation • Religion, gender and parenthood • Tourism, sports and accessibility • Compelling narratives from disability activists on societal attitudes toward disability, media advocacy, accessible housing and social exclusion. Thus, this much-awaited handbook provides students, academics, practitioners, development partners, policy makers and activists with an authoritative framework for critical thinking and debates that inform policy and practice in incomparable ways, with the view to promoting inclusive and sustainable development.