Trans-border Communication and African Cultural Flow

Abstract

This research is an attempt to revisit the media effect debate and the theories formulated in that respect, assess the effectiveness of Mc Bride commission’s recommendations in relation to media cultural flow some 30 years ago as well as an effort to bring the two together within the context of the case study of Sudanese cultural flow to Northern Nigeria, through the transnational pattern of communication. In the first of the five chapters of this work, theoretical frame work has been established. The commission of Mc Bride and the media effect theories have been discussed in both historical and analytical contexts. Chapter two is a detailed account of satellite communication in the historical context. Chapter three has shifted attention to the historical context of cultural relationship of the two variables; Sudan and northern Nigeria. The history of the emergence of the modern media of mass communication in Sudan has also been touched on. In chapter four, the data collected in the cause of this research are presented and analyzed. Based on the findings in this chapter, chapter five makes an attempt to create a theoretical and logical explanation of how the cultural exchange of the two regions had taken place before the introduction of the modern media of mass communication some time in the 18th and 19th centuries when the regions related to one another through trade and subsequently resulted into some acculturation. In the final analysis the research comes up with suggestions and recommendations in the conclusion, based on its findings as presented and analyzed in chapter four.