African information published anywhere in the world is poorly covered in subject‐based electronic abstracting and indexing services. This is true for media studies also. This printed bibliography on media studies could be construed as a positive step in reducing the gap. The researcher in media studies on Africa can source most valuable and useful material from this single bibliography. The first version of this work was a “Working bibliography” on “Media in Africa; Africa in the Media” (Boston University African Studies Centre, Working Paper, No. 17, 1979), which has been enlarged and updated into this present form.
This annotated bibliography is arranged under four major sections: press (579 entries); broadcasting (269 entries); film (381 entries); and general (526 entries), providing a total of 1,755 entries. The bibliography is well laid out, arranged by author and title. The bibliography limits its coverage to those works available at a US or European library. Essential criteria for the author were to prepare annotations and to provide information which is easily accessible to the Western researcher. The selection criteria also preclude most newspaper articles, short reviews and brief articles in news and other popular magazines. The annotations are short, ranging from one to five lines. The coverage, as would be expected, shows a high bias toward South Africa for geographical, political and developmental reasons. It does, however, cover all the countries in Africa. An author index and subject and geographical index are provided which would help the researcher in picking up useful citations. The bibliography also contains a list of journals consulted which includes almost all the important journals in media studies.
An article by Keyan G. Tomaselli on “African mediascapes: a continent swept by more winds than one,” included in the bibliography sets the scene. Tomaselli in his article rightly criticizes the quality of student dissertations on Africa done in the West. He provides a brief overview of the literature and its current trends. In the words of Tomaselli:
The books and journal articles listed in this bibliography ‐ written by both insiders and outsiders to Africa, and insiders and outsiders to the media, reveal totally different epistemologies, even cosmologies, in making sense of media in Africa and media reports on Africa. This results in different paradigms, different styles of writing, and different ways of accessing knowledge. The field is wide open and the examples discussed here will hopefully generate further analyses, especially from African‐based scholars whose work needs to be made more accessible to First World academia.
This bibliography is a valuable tool to any researcher or library in media studies. As the publications available in this bibliography are accessible to the Western researcher, his research would also be more productive.
