Shepherd Mpofu – författare

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 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 images of men, women, and individuals across the gender spectrum on African social media platforms are socially, culturally, and politically embedded with ideologies that continue to shape our understandings of gender. Social Media and Gender in Africa: Discourses on Power and Politics of Everyday Life explores gender debates expressed through social media and the political, social, and cultural discourses surrounding them. The book addresses issues of gender-based violence, gender in political and economic spaces, gender activism, challenges faced in the LGBTQIA+ community, and gender harassment. It looks at how gender issues such as misogyny, gender-based violence, and sexism on African social media are products of African political, social, and cultural conundrums. It is through these platforms that sexual and gender identities are being freely expressed, political expressions are made without fear or favor, and political participation is achieved. Organized into four thematic parts, Shepherd Mpofu, Kealeboga Aiseng, and the contributors use case studies from countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe to engage in further discussions on gender on African social media.

Through African case studies, this book explores how gender and sexuality are articulated on social media. While the representation of gender in mainstream media has been studied for many decades, this book fills a gap by focusing on social media platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, and Tik Tok, and examining representation, commodification, and sexuality on these platforms. The contributors hold a mirror to society and reflect on the issues in our current world of empowerment, where sexuality and gender preferences are respected, and sexual rights are protected by constitutions in progressive democracies. Through their research, Shepherd Mpofu, Kealeboga Aiseng, and the contributors strive to alter the male gaze, commercial benefits of commodification, and African culture as benefited and influenced by patriarchal societies.

Edited by Lungile Tshuma, Trust Matsilele, Shepherd Mpofu and Mbongeni Msimanga, Media, Social Movements, and Protest Cultures in Africa: Hashtags, Humor, and Slogans provides a rich array of protest cultures in Sub-Saharan Africa, delving into the motivations for protests, how protests are carried out and how those targeted by protests try to undermine the protesting movements. Organized into three parts, this book examines social media and social movements, online protest strategies, and media texts used in various protest movements within Sub-Saharan Africa. The contributors shed light on the brutality of various post-colonial regimes in Africa while also giving the reader hope for the current movements that seek to wrestle their societies from the jaws of autocratic leaders. This book offers a theoretically rich and methodologically diverse engagement of protest cultures in countries like Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The wide tapestry of how these protests are formulated and executed speaks to Africa's diversity and dynamism. This book makes an important intellectual contribution on social and political movements and is relevant to policy makers and researchers in the social sciences and digital humanities.

This book brings together contributions that analyse different ways in which migration and xenophobia have been mediated in both mainstream and social media in Africa and the meanings of these different mediation practices across the continent.

This book brings together contributions that analyse different ways in which migration and xenophobia have been mediated in both mainstream and social media in Africa and the meanings of these different mediation practices across the continent.

Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South offers a groundbreaking intervention on how digital media were used from below by ordinary citizens to negotiate the global pandemic humorously.

Digital humour in the COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives from the Global South offers a groundbreaking intervention on how digital media were used from below by ordinary citizens to negotiate the global pandemic humorously.

The Politics of Laughter in the Social Media Age: Perspectives from the Global South brings to critical and intellectual attention the role of humour in the digital era in the Global South.

The Politics of Laughter in the Social Media Age: Perspectives from the Global South brings to critical and intellectual attention the role of humour in the digital era in the Global South.

This volume presents case studies of news media employing and integrating social media into their news production practices.

This volume presents case studies of news media employing and integrating social media into their news production practices.

This book explores how popular cultural artifacts, literary texts, commemorative practices and other forms of remembrances are used to convey, transmit and contest memories of mass atrocities in the Global South. Some of these historical atrocities took place during the Cold war. As such, this book unpacks the influence or role of the global powers in conflict in the Global South. Contributors are grappling with a number of issues such as the politics of memorialization, memory conflicts, exhumations, reburials, historical dialogue, peacebuilding and social healing, memory activism, visual representation, transgenerational transmission of memories, and identity politics.