Textualizing the HIV/AIDS Motif in Theater-Against-AIDS Performances in Kenya

This chapter studies the theatrical and cultural texts that are performed through a Theater for Development (TFD) rubric known as Magnet Theater, which uses theater-based outreaches to mobilize people in low–income communities into forums that discuss HIV/AIDS and how its problems manifest in their localities. Using examples from performances of four theater groups that operate in Nakuru and Mombasa towns of Kenya, the chapter examines how the performances textualize, thematize, and theatise the main issues in HIV/AIDS as seen through the perspective of the performers and how the targeted audience reacts to these “AIDS performances.” Beyond studying the theatrical outreaches, the research for this chapter surveyed communities in which these performances have taken place to further appreciate how the motifs discerned from the theatrical outreaches compare to realizations of the AIDS problem in the communities.

An Agent for Change

China became the largest Internet user in the world with 420 million of its citizens connected to the new media by June 2010. This chapter investigates the social conditions and ways in which new communication technologies are transforming the politics, culture, and the society in China through analyses of uses of the Internet, differing roles played by the traditional and the new media, Internet regulations in the country, and cases catapulted to the national media spotlight by the online community, and through contrasts with the roles new communication technologies play in Western and African societies. The chapter also attempts to explore the implications of these transformations.

The World Narrow Web

The inauguration of the Lee Myung-Bak administration in 2008 signaled a crisis for Internet-driven participatory, democratic public culture in South Korea. One of the most visible effects was immediately found in the administration’s repressive media policy. A series of anti-democratic regulations, grounded in both conservative and neo-liberal philosophies, was implemented to control and tame civic participation, public deliberation, and identity politics on the Internet. Firstly, in light of this, this chapter summarizes certain main debates regarding the role of the Internet in promoting or hindering democracy. Next, it takes up the recent spate of regulations regarding Internet content in Korea to shed critical light on how the Internet is reconfigured as a new site of cultural politics. Finally, it advocates anonymity as a constitutional free speech right and ascertains that anonymity in cyberspace contributes to, rather than impairs, the quality of public culture and democracy.

Language and Performing Arts

One of the many consequences of globalization and the new world order is the increased cross border interaction among people, leading to more transfer and exchange of knowledge, technology, values and virtues, vices and viruses, and other traits among nations. One area that has been impacted heavily by this flow, largely aided by the Internet and other emerging media, is culture. To a large extent, though, the transfer of cultural practices appears to be more from the western and more developed world to the weaker, economically and politically less powerful nations. But what is borrowed is indigenized, sometimes entirely altered, to meet the needs of local communities. These changes are reflected in Africa’s music scene, dances, and other genres of popular culture. Within that context, this chapter aims at meeting two goals. First, to analyze the extent to which musicians, especially the youth, have managed to maintain a balance between educating and entertaining society at the local level, while keeping abreast with emerging global trends and influences. Particularly, it will show how the young generation of East African musicians uses music to sensitize the public by serving as critics of the management of public affairs and how this has contributed to political change. Secondly, it will investigate the effects that these emerging practices have had on the use of African languages in the performing arts.

New Media and Health Communication

Malaria is endemic in the tropics and is responsible for a very high infant mortality, killing more than 3,000 children in Africa daily. The Nigerian government’s control measures are targeted at nursing mothers and children. However, a significant portion of the population–the youth–are also very vulnerable. The new media are gradually gaining ground as a dependable channel of meeting the communication needs of young Nigerians. This chapter discusses how the potential associated with the Internet and social networks can be incorporated in the campaign for the Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) by Nigerian youth. It also proffers solutions and recommendations based on the concept of participatory development communications.

New Media and Gender in East Africa

This study set out to ascertain the use of and dependency on new media technology for political communication by voting- age citizens of the three main East African countries, namely Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. We learn the importance of new media communication opportunities towards the struggle for liberal democracy, which is demonstrated by the unanimity of respondents’ attitudes that their governments suppress political discourse. But the degree of use and dependence on these new media instruments are not uniform across the region. Gender and level of education are two salient factors that create these differences in the use of and dependency on new media technology for political communication in East Africa. But our findings have no bearing on the authenticity of the messages sent through these new media technological devices, or the extent of divisiveness or unity that such messages might engender among citizens in the region in times of political crises. Our primary contention is that such citizens now depend on these technological devices to serve their informational needs moreso when political and other forms of national emergency situations arise. This dependency phenomenon is partly the consequence of the existence of media laws enacted by governments in the region to hamstring mainstream media houses.

The Role of New Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs) in the Relations between the Central Government and Four Major Kingdoms in Uganda

The role NICTs are playing in the relations between Uganda’s central government and four of the kingdoms in the country is analyzed and placed in the historical context within which each kingdom has pursued a strategy for preservation and development of its people’s unique culture and ethnic aspirations. A convergence of cellular phone and FM radio designed by the Buganda kingdom to confront the central government with specific demands and the government’s response are examined. The less combative use of NICTs by Bunyoro-Kitara, Busoga, and Toro kingdoms is described. An analysis of how each antagonist uses NICTs for a hegemonistic agenda is presented and cast against the application of NICTs for good governance and the prosperity of citizens.

New Media in Kenya

The way the media processes, frames, and passes on information either to the government or to the people affects the function of the political system. This chapter discusses the interaction between new media and ethnicity in Kenya, Africa. The chapter investigates ways in which the new media reinforced issues relating to ethnicity prior to Kenya’s 2007 presidential election. In demonstrating the nexus between new media and ethnicity, the chapter argues that the upsurge of ethnic animosity was chiefly instigated by new media’s influence. Prior to the election, politicians had mobilized their supporters along ethnic lines, and created a tinderbox situation. Thus, there is need for the new media in Kenya to help the citizens to redefine the status of ethnic relationships through the recognition of ethnic differences and the re-discovery of equitable ways to accommodate them; after all, there is more strength than weaknesses in these differences.

Mediating Identity and Culture

Using the media accessibility function from self-categorization theory, this study examines the role of the Nigerian video film in mediating the twin issues of culture and identity among African immigrants in the United States. Africans in diaspora constitute the majority of the transnational audience for Nigerian video films outside of Africa. Using a combined method of surveying and personal interviews, several African immigrants, their children, and friends living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, USA were interviewed for their views on the role of the nascent Nigerian video industry in the way they sustain and straddle their multiple identities and culture in their society of settlement. Results indicate that most of the immigrants view the videos as affirmation of the values they grew up with and with which they still identify. This is in direct contradiction of professed cultural denigration they feel in their everyday professional lives in the United States. Most of the younger immigrants and first generation immigrants view these videos as a convenient way of accessing their Africanness as part of their multi-stranded identity and culture. Based on the expressed motivations for use and expressed outcome of use of the video-film, results indicate that the use of the video-film may have contributed to the accessibility of the African in diaspora label as a social category for this group of immigrants.

Translanguaging and Negotiation of Ethnicity

We shall be examining how the linguistic practices interact with these new communication technologies. By emphasizing on the centrality of language in mediating social interactions, we argue that post-traditional discourse fails to extricate itself from cultural hegemony due to global trends that favor the hegemonic languages as well as the ingrained habitus1 that predisposes Kenyans to reproduce linguistics structures inspired by the discourse of power of hierarchy of languages in the linguistic marketplace. Our discussion opens with a brief overview of the place of language in a technological world.