Media Ownership in Africa in the Digital Age: Challenges, Continuity and Change

310 Pages·2022·3.381 MB·English

by  Winston Mano, Loubna El Mkaouar

Media Ownership in Africa
in the Digital Age
Who owns the media and communications in Africa today and with what
implications? This book elegantly answers this urgent question by unpacking
multiple dimensions of media ownership through rare and authoritative
perspectives, including both historical and contemporary digital developments.
It traces the evolving forms of ownership of media and communications in
specific African contexts, showing how they interact with broader changes in
and outside the continent.
The book also shows how Big Techs, such as Meta (formerly known as
Facebook, are involved in a scramble for Africa’s digital ecosystem and how their
advance brings both opportunities and concerns about ownership and control.
The chapters analyse evolving forms of ownership and their implications on
media concentration and democracy across Africa. The book offers a nuanced
account of how media ownership structures are in some instances captured
with an ever-growing and complex ecosystem that also has new opportunities
for public interest media.
Offering a significant representation of the trends and diversity of existing
media systems, the book goes beyond the postcolonial geographical divisions
of North and Sub-Saharan Africa to highlight common patterns and significant
similarities and differences of communications ownerships between and within
African countries. The contributors expose media and communications
ownership patterns in Africa that are centralised and yet decentralising and in
some cases, battling, resurging and globalising.
Winston Mano is a Reader, Course Leader of the MA in Media and
Communic ation and a member of the top-rated Communication Research
Institute’s at the University of Westminster, UK. He is also the Founder/
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Media Studies and a senior research
fellow at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Loubna El Mkaouar is a Lecturer and Deputy Course Leader of the MA in
Media and Communication and a member of the top-rated Communication
Research Institute’s at the University of Westminster, UK.
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For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Contemporary-Africa/book-series/RCAFR
Media Ownership in Africa
in the Digital Age
Challenges, Continuity and Change
Edited by
Winston Mano and
Loubna El Mkaouar
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Winston Mano and Loubna El
Mkaouar; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Winston Mano and Loubna El Mkaouar to be identifed as
the authors 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.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mano, Winston, editor. | El Mkaouar, Loubna, editor.
Title: Media ownership in Africa in the digital age : challenges, continuity
and change / edited by Winston Mano and Loubna El Mkaouar.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2022013352 (print) | LCCN 2022013353 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367482077 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367630225 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003111924 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media—Ownership—Africa. | Mass media—
Economic aspects—Africa. | Mass media policy—Africa.
Classifcation: LCC P96.E252 A35 2023 (print) | LCC P96.E252 (ebook) |
DDC 384/.041096—dc23/eng/20220801
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013352
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013353
ISBN: 978-0-367-48207-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-63022-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-11192-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003111924
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures viii
List of Tables ix
Acknowledgements x
Contributors xi
1 African Media Ownership in the Digital Age:
An Introduction 1
WINSTON MANO AND LOUBNA EL MKAOUAR
PART ONE
Regional Mapping: An Overview of Media Structure
in North and Sub-Saharan Africa 13
2 Big Tech’s Scramble for Africa: An Afrokological
Critique 15
WINSTON MANO
3 The African “Hidden Media Capture” 31
JULIA CAGÉ AND ELISA MOUGIN
4 Perverted Loyalties: Media Capture, Control and
Patrimonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa 50
HAYES MAWINDI MABWEAZARA, CLEOPHAS TAURAI MUNERI
AND FAITH NDLOVU
5 Media From the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean,
Communication Systems in Portuguese-Speaking
Africa 69
ASLAK ORRE AND HELGE RØNNING
vi Contents
PART TWO
The Current State of Private and State-Owned
Media Models: Policy, Licensing, and Advertising 97
6 Telecommunications and Broadcasting Regulation
in Ethiopia: A Dialectical Discussion of Policy
and Politics 99
TÉWODROS W. WORKNEH
7 Economic Precariousness and Political Ownership
of Media in Nigeria: Implications for Democratic
Consolidation in Nigeria 119
BABASOLA SHINA
8 Media Ownership, Politics and Propaganda: The
Nigerian Example 143
ANTHONY AKAEZE
9 Privately Owned But Government “Tele-Guided”:
The Paradox of Private Media Broadcast
in Cameroon 159
FLORIBERT PATRICK C. ENDONG
10 The Senegalese Council for Broadcasting Regulation:
A Giant With Feet of Clay 177
LAYIRE DIOP
11 Cosmetic Reforms and Elite Continuity
of Media Ownership Patterns in Post-Colonial
Zimbabwe 191
STANLEY TSARWE AND ADMIRE MARE
12 Media Ownership and Development
in Post-Qaddaf Libya 210
NABIL OUASSINI AND ANWAR OUASSINI
13 Egyptian Media Ownership and Pluralism:
Overview, Performance, and Challenges 223
RASHA ALLAM
Contents vii
PART THREE
Change & Challenges: The Way Ahead 235
14 Community Media Ownership in the Context of
Donor Funding 237
ROSE N. KIMANI
15 Media Ownership and Digital Authenticity in Slum TV 248
DANIEL PAUL O’BRIEN
16 Are Traditional Platforms Mufed by Cyber Media?
A Review on the Shift in Media Ownership in Nigeria 266
JANET AVER ADIKPO, PETER IORPER UGONDO AND
GABRIEL T. NYITSE
Index 278
Figures
3.1 Freedom Status is sub-Saharan African between 1990 and
2017 (using Freedom House data) 32
3.2 Media plurality and government interference in Tanzania
between 2006 and 2015 (African Media Barometer) 39
4.1 The driving forces behind media capture in sub-Saharan Africa 58
4.2 Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister of Information threatening
the proprietor of a leading private media organisation with
commercial and financial penalties 63
6.1 Charting broadcasting regulation, licensing types, and
broadcasters in Ethiopia 106
7.1 This chart is the list of radio and television stations operating
in Nigeria on zonal basis 123
7.2 Advertising spending in from Nigeria 2016–2018 124
7.3 A graphic description of the numbers of pages of fours
newspapers for May 2018, June 2018 and July 2018 126
7.4 Reflects the political affiliation of main newspapers selected
for this study 131
7.5 Reflects the political affiliation of main newspapers selected
for this study 132
7.6 Shows daily trust findings on elections published on Friday,
August 3, 2018 (P 1 & 6) 133
7.7 Population (MILLION) 134
7.8 GDP PER CAPITA (USD) 136
7.9 UNEMPLOYMENT RATE 136
7.10 INFLATION RATE (CPI, ANNUAL VARIATION IN%) 136
7.11 EXCHANGE RATE (VS USD) 137
13.1 Number of media entities owned by one media group called
United Media Service 230
Tables
6.1 A comprehensive annotation of Ethiopian
telecommunications and broadcasting regulation legal
frameworks (1943–2014) 109
7.1 Analysis of Nigeria print media 131
13.1 Increase in expenditures and deficit against revenues 229