This chapter is bent at, through audience perspectives, examining the role of over-the-top media; precisely, streamed South African soap operas in the creation of hybrid cultures and the impact of these cultures on the nation building exercise in Zimbabwe. This qualitative chapter utilises the uses and gratifications theory and the reception theory as theoretical toolkits. Its empirical data is drawn from in-depth interviews with sampled Zimbabwean journalists who stream South African soap operas. The chapter fleshes out that South African soap operas have cultivated new and hybrid cultures in Zimbabwe—among them acceptance of the LGBT community, acceptance of ATR, the use of different languages during communication processes and the appreciation of traditional dressing among others. Empirical data from the participants further exhibits that these hybrid cultures have subsequently become an ideological engineering hub for nation building motives as they carry discourses that can be used for unifying the Zimbabwean people.
TopIntroduction
Imperialism and nation building are two contemporary salient dilemmas that most African countries by virtue of having colonial residue are pondering with. Colonialism weakened the socio-economic and political fabric in African states, in the process, creating fissures permitting the easy seepage of knowledge, practices and beliefs which make the inhabitants of the content susceptible to imperialism. In the same vein, colonialism engineered tribalism, ethnic and religious conflicts which led to the dissection of nations. Contemporary scholarship also points not only to the West spearheading cultural imperialism but also other African countries being imperialist to others. Against this milieu, this study moves away from European imperialism and grapples with African imperialism which has not attracted expansive scholarship. The baffling scholarly questions in need of academic interrogation being, what hybrid cultures are introduced by African countries to others and how do they aid nation building. Thus, situated within the precincts of media studies, this chapter, through views and perspectives of audiences, is poised at examining the role that streamed South African soap operas play in mutating already existing cultures and introducing new cultures, and their effect on the nation building process in Zimbabwe. The specific questions being answered, through views of journalists who are also audiences of streamed South African soap operas, in this chapter, being;
This chapter is lauded for endeavouring to offer a fresh perspective to the examination of the intersection of media, cultural imperialism and nation building in Zimbabwe through adopting an audience trajectory in examining the consumption of over the top media and its implication in the nation-state project, something prior scholars have totally ignored. Seeing the scarcity of scholarship in this regard, there is need for a serious examination of over the top media and its influence on important discourses of imperialism and nation building in a country such as Zimbabwe, whose government unequivocally states that it has started fanning the flames of nation building which were at the verge of being extinguished by colonial residue.