Abstract:
There has been more attention paid to the nexus between gender and media in Af-
rica since re-democratization spurred the growth of pluralistic media on the Continent.
Increasingly also gender and media research in Africa is being enriched by synergies
between those in academia and civil society, resulting in better knowledge on media
representation, participation, audience reception as well as uncovering hidden his-
tories of women’s contributions to the media, and on occasion, the political economy
of media industries. This review article provides a discussion on some of the recent
trends in scholarship in the field of gender and media in Africa, and argues that despite
the growing body of research on the subject there remain gaps in scholarship that
need to be addressed. The article advocates a research agenda that is creative,
dynamic and responsive to the developmental needs of Africa, and especially atten-
tive to the links between media and gendered social justice. It also demands more
research which is demographically differentiated to enable better insights on, for
example, the influence of media on rural versus urban, or young versus old gendered
audiences. The review article argues that since gender studies go beyond just women
studies, gender and media researchers must expand their research focus to embrace
masculinities and develop empirical and theoretical understandings of the gendering
of men in African media also.
