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Until recently, the South African television industry was dominated by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), etv, and Multichoice. The SABC and etv are free to air while Multichoice provides a satellite subscription service through its DSTV bouquet. This status quo was broken with the emergence of subscription video on demand (SVOD). While Multichoice launched its SVOD service, Showmax, in 2015, greater disruption happened in January 2016 when the current most successful global company in SVOD, Netflix, simultaneously launched in 130 countries including South Africa. The coming of Netflix to South Africa was reportedly greeted by excitement as viewers embraced choice of access to premium television entertainment. Considering that prior to this development, Multichoice had had a near monopoly in provision of premium television content through its DSTV and Showmax, the reported excitement came as no surprise.

The internet has impacted on how media organisations do journalism. Many media organisations both print and broadcast now have an online presence to reach out to fragmented audiences that have migrated to online platforms. Television stations have increasingly embraced the use of digital (online) media to gain better access to their audiences in terms of content distribution and audience engagement. The rise of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram have given journalists and media organisations the ability to reach their audiences immediately, with the added benefit of audience responses which come almost immediately. The use of new digital media has created platforms for news stations to share digital clips of news items or excerpts of news programmes to keep the audiences informed or enticed by the highlights.

This chapter makes an empirical contribution to challenges the developing economies, often referred to as the global south, face when it comes to digital migration. This challenge has citizens of what were previously regarded as ‘third world countries’ having to rely on predominantly state and to a limited extent, public broadcast media for current news and information. This contribution, in making a seminal contribution on digitisation in Zimbabwe, demonstrates the challenges the country faces as to allow citizens access to more diversity and not just plurality. Conceptually, digitisation is defined as the conversion of analogue content and production processes into digital format (Manzuch 2009). Seabright and Weeds (2007, 1) observe that digitisation has to do with ‘replacing analogue signals with digital format economises on processing, storage and transmission capacity, reducing costs and expanding capabilities’. Seabright and Weeds (2007) submit that moving from analogue to a digital space brings changes in digital recording and production techniques, digital compression in transmission, proliferation in transmission platforms (terrestrial, cable, satellite and broadband); digital set-top boxes and encryption technologies; and digital personal video recorders. These interventions contribute to lowering of costs, improving of picture quality and improving speed in news gathering and dissemination (Koss et al. 2013). Other than the financial and technical imperatives that come with digitisation, the transition comes with certain cultural and political implications (Gripsrud 2009).

The year 2015 was set by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for most of its member states globally to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting. Digital television broadcasting is generally implied as transmission of broadcast content signals in the form of binary data, specifically 0 s and 1 s. Digitisation of television merges broadcasting, computing and telecommunications to transform both the way television content is made and consumers interact with content (Chalaby and Segell 1999). Referring to digital content, Flew (2004) suggested that digitisation of media and communication content grows “informatisation” of society.

There has been a hype regarding the benefits of digital migration, which refers to switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting. Commonly referred to as digital migration, the switchover emanates from a decision made at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 2006 to release a valuable spectrum, which can be used for other services. Other benefits of digital TV include good sound and picture quality and availability of more channels giving viewers more choice. It has also been said that digital broadcasting will save the broadcasting stations’ cost, as transmitting content via digital platforms is less costly than transmitting via the analogue platform (Muthomi 2012). This implies that media houses can capitalise on this migration as a competitive advantage. Countries across the world have been undergoing this necessary switchover from analogue to digital platforms, with varying degree of success. While the merits of digital television are clear, it is not clear how this digitisation will realistically help in bridging habitual inequalities in developing countries.

This chapter explores the extent to which Zimbabwe’s single public service television station (as of 2019), ZBC, employed hate language on its online news broadcasts during the 2008 presidential rerun election. Anchored on discourse theory and utilising discourse analysis, this chapter explores hate discourses on Zimbabwe’s online television news during the 2008 election. It seeks to answer the question: To what extent did the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Television (ZBC TV) online news rhetoric constitute hate discourses?

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the digitization of television has impacted the architecture of television content generation, dissemination consumption in Kenya. Its key motivation is to answer two main questions: How has the digitization shift in Kenya’s television impacted the trends in production, dissemination, reception and consumption of television content; what is the effect of digitization on viewer satisfaction; and how has this shift transformed the role of television medium in the country? The chapter, therefore, answers these questions focusing on the television channels under study, namely, Citizen TV, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) and Nation TV (NTV).

Audiovisual news media are compelling texts to study when it comes to how mass media shapes an audience’s perspective of the world (White 1998). This is due to the pivotal role these forms of media play in creating an informed citizenry as mediums that transmit information from news creators and news sources to the public as a mass audience (McQuail 1987). Even more significant than this is the function of audiovisual news media as constructors of reality and ideology because of their pervasiveness in society (McLuhan and Fiore 1967; Hughes 1942). The advent of digital media has been touted as a means of diluting the influence of traditional mass media formats, such as television, with digital news media being forecast to take audiences away from these traditional media platforms (Lotz 2014).

Television is predisposed to the perception that it is the opposite of art and politics and that it is a time-consuming means for “dumbing down,” placating, disempowering and benumbing the citizenry. Through a discussion of the place of art and that of television, I use, as a conceptual framework, the convergence of the white cube and the black box to interrogate dynamics of postcoloniality, vision and power and how this forged divergent modernisms. Television in Africa did not, as with postwar America, create a sense of collective communities of spectatorship that would be brought closer to art appreciation through television. Rather, television, as the political, social and cultural phenomenon of modernization in various African countries, seemed to corrupt what was regarded as “pristine” cultural practices. However, since it coincided with colonial independence and the emergence of postcolonial nations, it became intertwined with various modes and mediums through which new forms of social consciousness aimed at self-definition and self-representation could be disseminated. The convergence of the white cube spaces of art and the black box of television enables an engagement with the colonial spatio-temporal distanciation of Africa from the global stage.

Violent television programs are highly preferred by children. They stimulate their emotions and increase curiosity about violence-related issues. This means that watching violent television programs has an impact upon their way of perceiving the world around them and acting in response to it. This study investigated the impacts of watching violent television programs on secondary school children in Tanzania. The specific objectives were: to examine children's accessibility to the TV, ascertain the types of violent TV programs and the time children spend watching them, determine the ways in which watching violent TV programs affects their academic performance, find out the impact of watching violent TV programs on their discipline, and examine the role of parents in addressing the impacts of watching violent TV programs upon their children. Results indicate that most secondary school children watch violent TV programs at home in the sitting rooms. They spend an average of three hours per day on weekdays, and seven-and-half hours on weekends, watching movies, music, drama, and informational programs that were identified as the most violent ones. Obviously, spending lots of time watching violent TV programs decreases children's academic performance and discipline. This book is important because it discusses the parents' role in discouraging and limiting children from watching violent TV programs, and choosing appropriate TV programs for them.

En Afrique en général et au Cameroun en particulier, posséder une console de jeux vidéo n’est pas à la portée de tout le monde. Les jeunes puisque ce sont eux qui les affectionnent particulièrement, qui en possèdent une, font donc souvent appel à leurs pairs afin qu’ensemble, ils puissent s’amuser. L’espace où les jeunes jouent aux jeux vidéo devient de ce fait un espace où ces derniers s’affirment en tant que groupe à part entière. C’est un espace qui leur permet de se démarquer des adultes qui, le plus souvent dénigrent, voire méprisent cette activité ludique. Les jeunes y créent ainsi des « ethnométhodes » et développent une solidarité mécanique. Jouer aux jeux vidéo dans ce contexte n’est plus simplement une activité de loisir. L’espace de jeu devient un espace où se créent de nouvelles relations et où se raffermissent les anciennes. Mais également, un espace où se développent l ’esprit de compétition et corrélativement même des conflits. Celui avec qui on s’amuse aux jeux vidéo devient celui à qui on se confie, avec qui on partage ses joies et ses peines. La console de jeux n’ « appartient » plus à celui qui l ’a achetée, mais à tous ceux qui la jouent. Il n’est donc pas rare qu’elle s’exporte du domicile de son propriétaire pour le domicile d ’un autre adolescent. Il faut également préciser que le jeu vidéo reste en négroculture une activité essentiellement masculine ; l ’espace de jeu est donc le fief du garçon et les filles n’ont rien à y faire. Le jeu vidéo développe ainsi un certain machisme, une fierté d ’être homme plutôt que femme. Dans ce contexte, on peut noter une sorte de détribalisation. L’obédience ethnique de tout un chacun s’estompe pour laisser place à une société des jeunes tout court. Le jeu vidéo fait donc tomber les barrières raciales, tribales, ethniques. Et même si on peut y noter des effets pervers, ce qui est normal, puisque aucun système culturel n’est parfait, les jeux vidéo en contexte camerounais développent chez les adolescents le sentiment d ’appartenance à une même classe d ’âge.

Video games have become a global industry, and their history spans dozens of national industries where foreign imports compete with domestic productions, legitimate industry contends with piracy, and national identity faces the global marketplace. This volume describes video game history and culture across every continent, with essays covering areas as disparate and far-flung as Argentina and Thailand, Hungary and Indonesia, Iran and Ireland.