Sub-Saharan Africa has in recent years experienced strong media developments along with processes of urbanization, economic growth and political transformation. In this context, how are citizens using the media and communication opportunities to negotiate identities, social relations and job opportunities in everyday life?
Through media ethnographic fieldwork with young Kenyan men, this study explores their life course developments. By exploring both diachronic and synchronic dimensions of media use, social practices and cultural imaginaries are unpacked, revealing a terrain of constraints and possibilities around which young Kenyans formulate their life aspirations, and act upon them.
About the speaker
Thomas Tufte is Professor in media and communication at University of Leicester, co-founder and co-director of the Orecomm–Centre for Communication and Glocal Change. Professor Tufte also serves as senior research associate to University of Johannesburg, South Africa (2013-). He has been a visiting scholar at University of Cadiz (Spain) 2012, Rhodes University (South Africa), 2002 and also served as UNESCO Chair of Communication at Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona in the spring semester of 2003. He currently directs the international research project Critical Perspectives on New Media and Processes of Social Change in the Global South (2013-2017) focusing on Kenya, and recently also directed People Speaking Back? Media, Empowerment and Democracy in East Africa (2009-2015) focusing on Tanzania and Kenya.