Human Rights and African Airwaves: Mediating Equality on the Chichewa Radio
Bloomington: Indiana University Press (2011), x, 294 pp.
Contains illustrations, bibliogr. pp. 267-288, index
ISBN 978-0-253-35677-2 (hbk); 978-0-253-22347-0 (pbk)
Signature commbox: 135:30-Journalism 2011
"Focuses on Nkhani Zam'maboma, a popular Chichewa news bulletin broadcast on Malawi’s public radio. The program often takes authorities to task and questions much of the human rights rhetoric that comes from international organizations. Highlighting obligation and mutual dependence, the program expresses, in popular idioms and local narrative forms, grievances and injustices that are closest to Malawi’s impoverished public. Harri Englund reveals broadcasters’ everyday struggles with state-sponsored biases and a listening public with strong views and a critical ear." (Back cover)
I. HUMAN RIGHTS, AFRICAN ALTERNATIVES
1 Rights and wrongs on the radio, 23
2 Obligations to dogs: between liberal and illiberal analytics, 45
3 Against the occult: journalists and scholars in search of alternatives, 66
II. THE ETHOS OF EQUALITY
4 A nameless genre: newsreading as storytelling, 93
5 Inequality is old news: editors as authors, 125
6 Stories become persons: producing knowledge about injustice, 150
III. THE AESTHETIC OF CLAIMS
7 Cries and whispers: shaming without naming, 175
8 Christian critics: an illiberal public? 198
9 Beyond the parity principle, 219
1 Rights and wrongs on the radio, 23
2 Obligations to dogs: between liberal and illiberal analytics, 45
3 Against the occult: journalists and scholars in search of alternatives, 66
II. THE ETHOS OF EQUALITY
4 A nameless genre: newsreading as storytelling, 93
5 Inequality is old news: editors as authors, 125
6 Stories become persons: producing knowledge about injustice, 150
III. THE AESTHETIC OF CLAIMS
7 Cries and whispers: shaming without naming, 175
8 Christian critics: an illiberal public? 198
9 Beyond the parity principle, 219
