coda 269critics in Kano and Dar es Salaam rather borrow from Indian and Nigerian
films, respectively—that is, from cultural products originating outside the
realm of the former colonizers.
APPROPRIATION AS PARTICIPATION
IN GLOBAL MEDIA FLOWSAfrican cultural producers are first among equals of African audiences
of global mass culture. Through their own cultural production based on
appropriation and mimesis, they not only cast the inspiration they receive
from foreign media into a certain form but also regain agency as consum-
ers of cultural artifacts produced by others. Here I find a certain parallel
in the cultural “prosumers” of Western “convergence culture” ( Jenkins
2006), who no longer content themselves with the passive consumption
of the latest blockbuster movie or best-selling novel. Instead, they produce
their own adaptations, which they share through social media platforms.
The African cultural producers whose work I discuss are prosumers in
their own right. Their own “convergence culture,” which until recently
was based on analogue media, precedes that of their Western counter-
parts, developed along with digital media and the web 2.0. In terms of
their attitudes toward the artifacts of the dominant cultural industries,
however, which translate into their own products, both have much in
common. Here and there, the responses of the prosumers range from
subversive counter readings of the originals to affirmative emulations
and reenactments.
Among the cultural artifacts I discuss in this book, subversive readings
are perhaps illustrated best by recalling some of the northern Nigerian
interpretations of the “global war on terror” as expressed in video films
such as Ibro Saddam, which ran counter to the dominant interpretations
perpetuated by cnn and other hegemonic Western newscasters. Equally
subversive, but in a somewhat paradoxical and more complex way, are the
readings of Western representations of Africa by Nigerian cyber scam-
mers. The paradox lies in the fact that it is precisely the perfect emula-
tion of Western representations of Africa that helps them achieve their
ultimate goal, cheating individuals from the Global North for personal