Description: In the Shadow of the Global North unpacks the historical, cultural, and institutional forces that organize and circulate journalistic narratives in Africa to show that something complex is unfolding in the postcolonial context of global journalistic landscapes, especially the relationships between cosmopolitan and national journalistic fields. Departing from the typical discourse about journalistic depictions of Africa, j. Siguru Wahutu turns our focus to the underexplored journalistic representations created by African journalists reporting on African countries. In assessing news narratives and the social context within which journalists construct these narratives, Wahutu captures not only the marginalization of African narratives by African journalists but opens up an important conversation about what it means to be an African journalist, an African news organization, and African in the postcolony.
Brief description: j. Siguru Wahutu is an Assistant Professor at New York University's Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center of Internet and Society at Harvard University. Wahutu is an expert in the sociology of media, with an emphasis on genocide, mass violence, and ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa. He has written about global media patterns in covering genocide in Africa, ethnicity, land, and politics in Kenya, and on the Kenyan media's experimentation with social media platforms. Wahutu's research has appeared in African Journalism Studies, African Affairs, Journalism Studies, International Journal of Press/Politics, Global Media and Communication, Media and Communication, Media, Culture, and Society, and Sociological Forum.
Review Quotes: 'Wahutu's remarkable, original contribution is long-overdue - African journalism and journalism scholarship has for too long been colonized by scholars who would impose colonialist, paternalistic pathologies rather than appreciating its contribution as 'just different.' This deftly researched and theoretically-rich scholarship simultaneously makes the case for the importance of sovereignty and recognition of the African journalistic tradition while also identifying the complicity African journalists have in silencing African voices and reifying narratives of ethnic conflict, marginalization, and helplessness.' Nikki Usher, author of News for the Rich, White, and Blue: How Place and Power Distort American Journalism