Media Globalization, African Popular Culture, and History from Below: Nigerian Video Films

This paper investigates how the spread of new media technology – such as digital audio and video recorders, computers, I-phones, and the Internet – has led to the proliferation of alternative social histories, by taking into consideration the particular case of the Nigerian video film industry (Nollywood). We show how in Nigeria and its diaspora Nollywood has become a cultural platform for constructing new narratives and identities, especially among marginal groups and individuals outside the spheres of state and corporate influence. Thanks to the low-cost and easy-to-use digital technologies, ordinary people can now shoot their stories, making their quotidian experience count for something. This seems to be particularly valuable for immigrants that can self-document their experiences, usually denied by both the host and the home country. Although directors operating in the informal sector are unlikely to emerge as credible accounts of contemporary Nigeria, those who have recently accessed cinema theaters and film festivals distribution, thanks to the much higher quality of their work, can give full visibility and authority to the Nigerian histories told by Nollywood artists.