Human Rights and African Airwaves focuses on Nkhani Zam'maboma, a popular Chichewa news bulletin broadcast on Malawi's public radio. The program often takes authorities to task and questions much of the human rights rhetoric that comes from international organizations. Highlighting obligation and mutual dependence, the program expresses, in popular idioms and local narrative forms, grievances and injustices that are closest to Malawi's impoverished public. Harri Englund reveals broadcasters' everyday struggles with state-sponsored biases and a listening public with strong views and a critical ear. This fresh look at African-language media shows how Africans effectively confront inequality, exploitation, and poverty.
"Harri Englund reveals broadcasters' everyday struggles with state-sponsored biases and a listening public with strong views and a critical ear. This fresh look at African-language media shows how Africans effectively confront inequality, exploitation, and poverty."
Allegra
"All will find in this book much that is familiar but set in new contexts, some to dispute or qualify, but considerable to generate conversation and enhance understanding. It is a thoughtful and fascinating work that urges us to be aware of different media, their reception and uses, and the myriad ways in which they speak to and about our worlds."
Intl. Journal African Historical Studies
"Englund offers a richly textured, descriptive account of knowledge production on air. ...a fresh approach to media and communication in Africa, an approach that will hopefully provoke similarly oriented studies in the near future."
