Entertainment the Key to Finding a Common Agenda for Africa

Reality television shows are popular across Africa, attracting young viewers and making celebrities out of the shows’ stars. The shows promote unity and integration across Africa and allow a new focus on continent-wide issues such as HIV. Supporters say the shows bring Africans together in a way that politicians have been unable to match. Critics, though, say the contestants neither represent Africa at large nor accurately portray the experience of living on the continent. Either way, a global technology – the television – adopting ideas from European and American entertainment industry is creating a new consciousness in Africans independent of local and national governments. – Yale Global