"This study documents a crucial dimension of the resistance of Nigerian civil society to a repressive and monumentally corrupt military state in the late 1980s and 1990s in Nigeria. Employing a neo-Gramscian theoretical framework, the study relates how a section of the media defied censorship laws,
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outright bans, incarceration and the assassination of opposition figures, to prosecute the struggle for democracy. It captures the tensions and contradictions between a pliant section of the media, which sought to legitimise the state and a critical section of the same media, which in alliance with radical civil society, invented rebellious outlets to carry on the struggle against dictatorship.The study seeks to make fresh departures by documenting not only the role of the national media in the throes of democratic struggle, but that of the international media whose role was influential in the years studied.Finally the report offers empirical proof of the mechanisms by which a vibrant civil society can curb the ravages of a predatory state in an African country." (Abstract)
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"A short but succinct four page overview of the book publishing industry in Nigeria, which has been in steady decline since the 1980s: "At one stage, prospects for the book industry in Nigeria appeared rosy. The Federal Government established paper and pulp making industries, and an elaborate plan w
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as drawn up for achieving self- sufficiency in the production of books for the nursery/primary, secondary, and tertiary tiers of education. Unfortunately all that, or most of it, collapsed following the nation's economic downturn of the 1980s. Book famine descended on Nigeria." The author examines various initiatives to improve the state of the book sector to make it meet the needs of the educational system, government decrees regarding indigenous publishing, national book policies (or the lack of it rather at the present time), a national book development council (which has been dormant for years), and other interventions." (Hans M. Zell, Publishing, Books & Reading in Sub-Saharan Africa, 3d ed. 2008, nr. 799)
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"Emphasizing post-independent films released since the 1950s and the burgeoning commercial film production of the last decade, Focus on African Films provides unique and pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking throughout Africa. As a whole, the collection highlights the distinct thematic, stylistic,
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and socioeconomic circumstances of African filmmaking. Individual essays show how conditions in Africa have generated a broad range of views and techniques, from the stylistically innovative documentaries of Jean-Marie Teno and Abderrahmane Sissako and the "documentary fiction" of Mahamat-Saleh Haroun to the vibrant art films of Jean-Pierre Bekolo and the new films from South Africa. Contributors also outline the direction of increasingly popular, less didactic sub-Saharan filmmaking in films such as Daniel Kamwa's Pousse-Pousse, Ngangura Mweze's La vie est belle, and Imungu Ivanga's Dôlé." (Publisher description)
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