Herman Wasserman, University of Sheffield (Originally published in Journalism Studies, 10:2, 281 – 293)
Francis Beng Nyamnjoh was born in Lakabum-Bum, Cameroon, and was educated in Yaounde and Leicester, where he obtained his PhD on a thesis titled Broadcasting for Nation-building in Cameroon: Development and Constraints, supervised by the late James Halloran at the famous Centre for Mass Communication Research. Currently Head of Publications at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal, his research centres around questions of citizenship, globalization and the media and their intersections in Africa. His training in anthropology and sociology has inclined him to view media from the way it is used by people in their everyday lives, among conditions that often differ starkly from those in the Global North. Nyamnjoh’s anthropological interest in the everyday not only affords him a preference for and keen insight into popular forms of communication in Africa like cartooning, radio and gossip – or ‘radio trottoir’ – but also adds a vividness and sparkle to his writing, punctuated with perceptive observations and sparkling with humour. Alongside his academic publications, Nyamnjoh has also published several novels set in the fictional “Mimboland”, a mirror of his native Cameroon.
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