Cultural Shareability of Edutainment Media in Global Africa: An Exploratory Study

Introduction

The concept of Pan Africanism, defined as the belief that all people of African descent have common interests and should work together in the struggle for their freedom (Williams, 1971), is not a new one. DuBois and Garvey spoke of the need for this union in the early 1900s and Nkrumah, Malcolm X and Sankara joined their ranks decades later. Today, the need for and viability of such a concept is more pertinent than ever, particularly with the changes in the worlds' economy, power structure and subsequent redirection of aid.

The African African American Summit, held in the Ivory Coast in 1991, marks a recent major Pan‑Africanist effort. The purpose of this summit was to promote Pan‑African economic activities. It involved more than 300 participants from the United States and more than 1000 participants from 18 African countries (Lee, 1991). But Pan‑Africanism involves more than the sharing of economic resources. It also involves the sharing of other resources such as human resources and information and technology to address the pressing problems effecting Global Africa (continental Africa and the African diaspora). And, although economic resources are at the core of many development needs, effective development efforts must be in place for money to produce ong‑lasting effects. Though some of these problems are unique to one country or another, many of them are common throughout Global Africa. For instance, problems like high teenage pregnancy rates and the rapid spread of AIDS are common to parts of the African‑American community, the Caribbean, and Africa.

The sharing of technology and information in the area of mass communication is the focus of this study. Mass communication can play many important roles in promoting development, like supporting development projects, promoting pro‑social ideas and teaching new skills and behavior. Wilbur Schramm (1964) called mass communication the "great multiplier" because of its ability to reach many people with the same message. And while many governments recognize the benefits of using mass communication for development purposes, a lack of infrastructure, equipment, human resources and money make this task difficult. One way to allieviate this problem could be through forming a mass communication alliance within Global Africa. Indigenous‑produced television and radio programs, and films that deal with common development problems and social issues could be shared. Additionally, programs and films could be co‑produced trans‑nationally or trans‑continentally, bringing together money, talent, equipment, and ideas.

There already exist cooperative mass commuication efforts, in the Caribbean with the Caribbean Broadcast Union and in Africa with the Radio Televion Union of Africa, but these efforts are still very limited in resources and capabilities. Can a trans‑continental network be established and can it work? Communication and development literature stresses the need for media messages to be research‑driven and culture specific (Hedebro, 1982; Singhal and Rogers, 1989a). The question is, can development pro-social media materials developed for one culture be effective in another culture? Indeed, Global Africans all share a common African heritage and a history of oppression due to colonialism or slavery, but with differences in culture, language and religion, can media products transfer from Great Britain to Botswana, from Brazil to the United States, from Haiti to Uganda and still be effective? Sidney Head (1985) holds that "all cultures share common traits that make for shareability of programs." He further argues that "total shareability does not exist, even between closely linked societies" who share a common language. This paper explores the question of the cultural shareability of development/prosocial mass media products, particularly edutainment programming, within Global Africa.

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