Tilo Grätz

Gold-Mining and Risk Management: A Case Study From Northern Benin

Gold miners in Northern Benin are exposed to physical risks as well as economic risks of uncertain yields. The interrelatedness of different types of risk, both in their perception and in the coping strategies, will be addressed in this paper. It also challenges theoretical perspectives on risk that assume coherent world-views and highlights processes of communication and group behaviour.

New media entrepreneurs and changing styles of public communication in Africa : introduction

This introductory article sketches the background of contemporary changes in African mediascapes against which we develop our central concepts of new (individual or collective) media entrepreneurs as well as new media experiences, both brought about by new modes of appropriating media technologies. The individual authors, through case studies, investigate various new pathways of individual and collective media engagement, and explore particular media genres that predominantly shape contemporary media landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa.

Radio advertising and entrepreneurial conjunctions in Benin : producers, styles & technologies

This article explores the increasing importance of advertising in African electronic media, exemplified by radio commercials in the Republic of Benin. It will analyse the various types and formats, contents, and main actors involved in the making of these promotional audio productions (in a wide sense), as well as their relevance to the daily programme schedules and budgets of the respective radio stations. Furthermore, it will address the modes of production of these announcements, which involve a growing diversity of sources, formats, and performative styles (including oratory genres such as praising and self-praising), and finally refer to conflicts between the state and advertisers over publicity and authority, exemplified by a recent case of advertising for healers. The contribution2 analyses audio-related media and thus adds important empirical insights to the large literature on visual means of advertisement in Africa. I argue that these genres should be seen both as local transcriptions of globally circulating ideas, and as local imageries of a better life, as well as competing media goods in changing economies of attention.

Christian religious radio production in Benin : the case of Radio Maranatha

The author focuses on a Christian broadcaster in Parakou, northern Benin, and analyses its main production structures, its programming, and the actors and their motives involved. It demonstrates how religious media, themselves an assemblage of institutions, actors, significations and infrastructures, participate in consituting the religious domain. Religious culture in Parakou and, more generally, in Benin is not dictated by religious authorities alone: it is made by pastors, lay presenters and their listeners – especially when they participate in interactive radio shows, or join a listeners’ club. Both producers and listeners find new avenues to live their faith. Radio producers and their listeners occupy new spaces to live their faith and gain new media experiences to valorise their skills and knowledge, as well as to experience themselves as part of a larger religious community.

Radio call-in shows on intimate issues in Benin: 'crossroads of sentiments'

Abstract: The article focuses on the growing prevalence of radio call-in shows in the Republic of Benin that discuss topics such as sexuality and intimacy that are taboo in other settings. The popularity of this emerging format exemplifies current processes of appropriation of electronic media in West Africa, including its impact on contemporary public communication. The article argues that the current public prominence of these programs corresponds to considerable shifts in the media landscape that are enabled by a variety of factors, including an increasing expertise among presenters and technicians and the influence of mobile phones. Résumé: L’article porte sur la prévalence croissante des émissions radio participatives dans la République du Bénin traitant de sujets tels que la sexualité et l’intimité qui sont tabous dans d’autres contextes. La popularité de ce format émergent illustre les processus actuels d’appropriation des médias électroniques en Afrique de l’Ouest, y compris leur impact sur la communication publique contemporaine. L’article affirme que la position publique actuelle de ces programmes correspond à une évolution considérable dans le paysage des médias qui sont activés par une variété de facteurs, y compris l’expertise croissante des animateurs et techniciens radio et l’influence des téléphones mobiles.

Vigilantism in Africa: Benin and Beyond

In sub-Saharan Africa, lynching tends to constitute more than a violent act that is committed by furious mobs, even though such forms of lynching occur in many African countries. Frequently, mob violence can also become a deliberate strategy utilized by organized vigilante groups to assume local policing responsibilities. Vigilantes1 have emerged at various times in African history, but only recently have they been given renewed attention in the field of African studies2 as well as in other disciplines.3 Many scholars tend to attribute their emergence to a general failure of African governments to guarantee order and security, which they believe weakens the legitimacy of the state.4 Others have provided a very different explanation, regarding vigilante violence as a consequence of multicentered power figurations, legal pluralism, and multiple modes of political action from below in present-day African societies.5 A number of studies have demonstrated that diffuse conditions of statehood frequently enable local political actors to pursue their own agendas, with different degrees of integration into the colonial and postcolonial state.6 There are many intermediary forms of local political control that are neither sanctioned nor influenced by the state.7 Vigilante groups are among those local political actors that contribute to “multi-choice policing.”8