Africanistica: le culture orali dell’Africa (review)

encourage African media, whose resilience and creativity do boost popular empowerment, to achieve a better level of communication and contribute meaningfully to the discussion of socio-political issues through an investment in transport and ICT and an increased flow of information between Africa, its diaspora and the Western world. The media are also urged to give preference to African languages, reversing the trend of marginalization and increasing their rural impact, through government initiatives and private endeavours. One of the outstanding features of the book is its highlighting of home truths usually swept under the carpet, and its damning indictment of ‘those outside Africa who initiate and control most media . . . take the elites – and the urban elites at that – as the norm and ignore the nature of the majority . . . in both urban and rural Africa’ (p. xi). It highlights the multiple roles of the African media and reveals them as integral to African social development, democratization, the construction of social identities, and the adoption of technological innovation.