Abstract:
Media sell both products and worldviews and in contemporary times, films have become a
standard target to vend such products and worldviews. Some scholars have argued that
media texts have ideological contents embedded in them for the reason that these media
texts articulate either overtly or covertly the maker's attitudes, beliefs, political and socio cultural stances. This study through the lens of postcolonial theory, stereotype theory and
theory of hegemony, and a qualitative content analysis design critically examined how the
Black Panther (2018) film depicted Africa. It also probed into how the film was used to
address stereotypes in Western media representations of Africa and outlined the dominant
ideologies embedded in the film. The study revealed that the Black Panther (2018) film
used the following themes to depict Africa: advanced society, primordial society, cultural
hybridity and cultural appropriation. The study also showed that while the film addressed
some common stereotypes on Africa in Western media through science and technology,
economic independence and gender equity, it also reinforced the cultural homogenisation
stereotype. As a result, the study emphasised that although the film projected ideologies
such as Afrofuturism, Pan-Africanism, there were some neo-liberal ideals such as open
borders and free trade embedded in the film. The study therefore, concluded that while the
Black Panther (2018) film depicted Africa in the manner that subverted some colonial
legacies, it also reinforced other colonial legacies.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Communication and Media Studies, Faculty of
Foreign Languages Education and Communication, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Business Communication)
in the University of Education, Winneba
AUGUST, 2019