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Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence Annual Conference 2022

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23 Medialities and cultural realities: Lessons from Cameroon’s anti-COVID19 campaign

Chair: Endurence Dissake

Cameroon counts more than 250 ethnic and linguistic groups. Each group obeys specific traditions and customs. In 2020 during the outbreak of COVID19, Cameroonians living in rural areas disregarded the dangerousness of the pandemic. Consequently, the government launched a special campaign for rural communities. This initiative posed two main challenges, cultural representation and communication technologies. Both challenges are general conditions for exchange to take shape; medialities, so to speak. Technological mass media like TV, radio and social media were used to dispatch the messages. Moreover, data (written and spoken messages outlining covid-19 barriers measures in Cameroon’s national languages) revealed that the campaign emulated the cultural realities constructed by the media.

Dolphijn, et al (2012) and Ritzer (2015) argued that media come with their effects and meanings, transforming and modifying what they constitute in the first place. In Cameroon, for instance, through materials like music, movies and news, media prioritise specific epistemologies and marginalise alternative perspectives.

This study aims to answer two research questions:
1. How do medialities shape reality?
2. How do those realities come to affect us? Alternatively, how does media restructure the individual’s relation to reality?

Using Latour’s (1994) mediation theory, our analysis outlines the process or activity that happens between humans and reality.

Panellists:

  • Gratien Atindogbe, University of Buea (moderator)
  • Endurence Dissake, University of Bamenda (speaker)
  • Nancy Nyimdem, University of Bamenda (discussant)
  • Abisoye Eleshin, University of Lagos (speaker)

abstracts of contributions


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