Media Capture in Africa and Latin America Power and Resistance

How can current debates on ‘media capture’ be understood within the contexts of Africa and Latin America? This edited collection provides a nuanced exploration of media capture—a critical yet contested concept that examines and illuminates how media can become skewed in favour of power—while also highlighting spaces and strategies of resistance. By adopting a South-South perspective, it brings together scholars focused on these issues in both regions, featuring a dialogue between two leading scholars, Herman Wasserman and Silvio Waisbord in the Foreword. The book not only demonstrates how media practices in Africa and Latin America are influenced by the political economy of their media systems, but also contributes significantly to advancing empirical, theoretical, and comparative research on media in non-Western settings.

1. Media Capture, Power and Resistance in Transitional Democracies: Beyond ‘Broad Brushstrokes’.- Part I. Conceptual and Empirical Reflections.- 2. Empirical Reflections on Cognitive News Media Capture in Africa and Latin America: Towards a Sociological (Re)Imagination.- 3. Political Transition and the Evolution of Media Capture in Ethiopia: Revisiting the Viability of the Polarised Pluralist Model.- Part II. Power, Politics & Plutocracy.- 4. Media Capture as an Instrument of Power Culture in Brazil.- 5. The “New Guardians” and Nuances of Media Capture in Ghana: Persistence or Rupture of Elite Power?.- 6. The Nigerian Press and its Plutocratic Relationship.- Part III. Beyond Traditional Forms & Practices of Capture.- 7. Media Capture in Morocco: Between Politics, Economics and Platformisation.- 8. Media Capture Trends in Increasingly Digitalised Communication Ecologies: The Case of Environmental and LGBTI+ Activist Groups in Chile.- 9. Alternative Media Under Conditions of Media Capture in Mexico: Is Resistance Enough for Responsive Journalism?.- Part IV. Resistance, Policy & Regulatory Regimes.- 10. Resistance to Media Capture in Ghana: Examining the Role of Social Accountability Actors.- 11. Resisting Media Capture: Mobilising for Media freedom in Uganda.- 12. New and Old Captured Policies, Resistances and Diversity in Media and Internet in Argentina.- 13. Siege and Resistance: Media, journalism, and Democracy in Colombia.

Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, UK. He is Associate Editor of Journalism Studies and African Journalism Studies and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg.

Bethia Pearson is a Research Associate in the Adam Smith Business School at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her research includes media and human rights, which has been published in journals including Journalism Studies.