Media, Power, and Neoliberalism in Africa

Through diverse case studies from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and beyond, contributors to this volume explore the influence of neoliberal economic frameworks on African media and cultural production. Bridging political economy with critical cultural studies, this volume applies a pan-African lens to the shifting terrains of power, identity and media in an era of continued neoliberal transformation, with an emphasis on innovative theoretical and conceptual advances. Contributors draw on theories from David Harvey, Stuart Hall, and African scholars like Francis Nyamnjoh and Assata Zerai and apply them to a wide range of case studies, from university radio programs in Zimbabwe to print media houses in Ghana and fintech in Nigeria. Each approach and context offers unique insights into how media institutions, digital platforms, and popular culture industries in Africa navigate, resist, and at times reproduce market logic, commercialization and marginalization. Organized into four thematic sections – theorizing neoliberalism, media, and popular culture in Africa; media institutions, regulation and neoliberal logics; digital platforms, counterpublics, and subversive cultural politics; and media, identity, and representation – the collected essays cohere around a central argument: while neoliberalism commodifies African media, it also sparks innovative methods of resistance that work to redefine cultural sovereignty.