Katrina Daly Thompson is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics and an affiliated faculty member in African Studies, the Center for the Study of Women, and Islamic Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"A welcome corrective to the lack of serious scholarship in this area and of interest to a variety of disciplines, in particular, communication studies, ethnic and area studies, and media and cultural studies."—Lucia Saks, University of Cape Town"A nuanced and convincing approach to evaluating the role of media in shaping African identities."—James Burns, Clemson University"Katrina Daly Thompson has made a fine contribution to scholarship on African cinema . . . This is a book that will enrich discussions of African film and media studies for years to come."—African Studies Review"Thompson (UCLA) analyzes identity discourses through cinematic arts—films, documentaries, television programs, videos—consumed (whether or not produced) in Zimbabwe. . . . Beside bringing issues of race, financing, ethnicity, and language to the discussion, she also considers the 2001 Broadcasting Services Act, which was meant to liberalize the field and stem Western influence. . . Recommended."—Choice"Katrina Daly Thompson's study of Zimbabwean film and television presents a valuable addition to the ever-expanding corpus of analytical and historical studies on African film and media."—Africa"Most compelling in Thompson's study is her close attention to uses of language and culture, which she argues contest state-defined and state-controlled meaning in broadcast media. Recognizing culture as a socially negotiated process, the book uses critical discourse analysis to interrogate power structures and flows."—African Arts

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Cultural Identity in Discourse1. A Crisis of Representation2. Cinematic Arts before the 2001 Broadcasting Services Act: Two Decades of Trying to Build a Nation3. Authorship and Identities: What Makes a Film "Local"?4. Changing the Channel: Using the Foreign to Critique the Local5. Power, Citizenship, and Local Content: A Critical Reading of the Broadcasting Services Act6. Language as a Form of Social Change: Public Debate in Local LanguagesConclusion: Possibilities for Democratic ChangeNotesBibliographyFilmographyIndex