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Visual media and political communication: reporting about suffering in Kinshasa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Katrien Pype
Katrien Pype*
Affiliation:
Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa, Parkstraat 35 Box 3615, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
*
Email: Katrien.Pype@soc.kuleuven.be
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Abstract

Many sub-Saharan African societies have undergone significant political shifts in the last two decades. Changes in political representation and leadership have generated new forms of political mediation and communication. This article interrogates one of the most visible transformations in Kinshasa's political society: television news reports about urban misery, often resulting from a malfunctioning state, in which Kinshasa's inhabitants testify about their difficulties and press fellow citizens, as well as local and national leaders, to bring about change. Exposing suffering is a shame mobilisation strategy, and so becomes a political act. Through the discursive and visual aesthetics of the proximity account, citizens and political leaders are inserted into one political community. The main argument of this article is that the proximity account illustrates a new kind of political communication. In this article I analyse the socio-political contexts in which the proximity report emerged and became popular. I trace the materialisation of this new kind of interaction between political leaders and citizens to the transformation of the late Zaïrian ‘state’, to vernacular understandings of ‘democracy’, and to the influence of NGO activities and Pentecostal Christianity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 625 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

The research for this article was conducted in the frame of a project funded by the Newton International Fellowship (British Academy), entitled Presidential Propaganda on Kinshasa's Television Screens: an exploration into politics and media in DRCongo (2009–2010). I would like to thank the various television journalists with whom I have worked and also their audiences. Earlier versions of this text were presented, in different forms, at the ‘intensive media workshop’ organised by the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham (May 2010) and the ASAUK conference in Oxford (September 2010). I appreciated the comments offered by the participants in both events. Drafts of the text have also been read by Filip De Boeck, Jennifer Hasty and Joshua Walker, all of whom I acknowledge for their valuable suggestions and remarks. I thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments. I am grateful to Isabelle De Rezende for her editorial assistance.

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Interviews

Bababaswe, Zacharie, JTLF founder, 24.6.2009.

JTLF journalist, Kinshasa, 12.7.2009.

Interviews with journalists and their audiences have been rendered anonymous for security reasons.