Across media: Mobility and transformation of cultural materials in the digital age

Jedlowski, Alessandro; Oloko, Patrick; Röschenthaler, Ute; Wane, Ibrahima

doi:10.1386/jams.7.1.3_2

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Looking at the "ubiquitous experience of breakdown as a condition of technological existence" in Nigeria, Larkin (2004, p. 304) puts infrastructure center-stage and encourages us to look at how specific technological regimes influence the way media circulate, the aesthetic forms of the contents they carry, as well as the way in which they are consumed and interpreted. The concept of remediation (Bolter and Grusin 2000), coined in the field of new media studies, has proved useful in exploring these dimensions, as it points at how cultural products move across media and generate new formats, genres, and styles that are in turn shaped and transformed by the technological specificities of the medium that carries them (Jedlowski et al 2015). Combining the study of the social life of things and technologies (Appadurai 1986) with the conceptual tools of an "anthropology of texts, persons and publics" (Barber 2007), researchers looked at processes of remediation, cultural appropriation, and transformation that originated from the creative reception of international, pan-African and local media contents (Burns 2002;Gondola 2016;Krings 2015;Larkin 1997;Stern 2009;van Staden 2017).…”

Section: Media and Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Jedlowski¹,

Pype²

2019

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

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Anthropologists began to study media relatively late in the history of the discipline. Research on media -in particular, mass media -tended to be associated "with the societies most anthropologists came from, and thus with the self rather than the other" (Krings 2015, p. 5), and except for a few rare exceptions, "it was not until the late 1980s that anthropologists began to turn systematic attention to media as a social practice" (Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin 2002, p. 3, also Spitulnik 1993). This was true even for older media, such as songs, dance and theater, since those topics were associated with the other late research focus of urban anthropology. A similar situation can be observed in the context of African studies, where scholars began to concentrate consistently on the analysis of media only during the 1990s, in response not only to processes of "deterritorialization of culture" (Gupta and Ferguson 1992) -the challenge to the reified boundaries that characterized functionalist approaches -and to the ongoing disciplinary shift toward an anthropology of "the present" (Fox 1991), but also as a reaction to changing conditions in the field. As Tilo Grätz underscores, during the 1990s "the proliferation of new media institutions such as independent newspapers, radio and TV stations … brought about a new media landscape in many African countries" (2011, p. 152) and researchers were compelled to account for the transformations that were taking place in front of their eyes.

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Section: Media and Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological Approaches to Media in Africa

Jedlowski¹,

Pype²

2019

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

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“…Larger questions also arise about the future of the creative industry in the relentless postmodern commoditization of culture and its products in contemporary era of human and material flows (cf. Jedlowski, 2015). The issue of return-on-talent has also been complicated by the challenge of copyright control in the digital age where "copies of copies of originals" can be replicated, multiplied without losing value and being possibly transmitted/distributed electronically; a real fear that has dissuaded writers and even some publishers from venturing into online publishing.…”

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confidence: 99%

The African Writer at Digital Cross-Roads: A Preliminary Interrogation of Literary Production in Nigeria/the Global South within 21st Century Media Convergence

Betiang¹,

Akpan²

2018

KOME

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Abstract:The 21st century convergence of media through technological, industry and market conflations has altered the traditional work environment of the creative writer in Africa and the Global South due principally to problems/issues of digital divide/negotiation or migration which have altered modes/technologies for the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of letters. The global visibility of the African writer, like many academics in African universities, is challenged by digital migration, digital illiteracy or aliteracy. This study problematizes this digital exclusion from the contemporary digital world on account of the multiple dimensions of digital divide; and social and intellectual denial of access to the global literary forum. This preliminary study re-articulates the Nigerian writer's creative environment, production process and distribution of the literary product; using interviews, ethnographic interactions, and observations, to assess the writers' (n: 62) digital literacy, competence, and issues of digital migration. Findings which were analyzed descriptively preliminarily point to the fact that media digitization actually challenges the Nigerian writer in ways that have impacted on his/her competence for literary creation/production,access and distribution within the 'global literary forum'; a situation that may probably be seen as a common 'disempowering' experience for many creative writers in developing Global South.Keywords:Media Globalization, Digital Humanities, Cultural Production, Digital/Electronic Divide, Nigeria, Global South.Whether in literature, psychoanalysis or philosophy, twentieth century thought is irrevocably hooked up to developments in technology and telecommunications. Contemporary literature faces new kinds of challenge in terms of how to represent, assimilate or think the increasing ghostliness of culture.

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