Keeping Up: The Corporatization of Nollywood's Economy and Paradigms for Studying African Screen Media

The politicized paradigm that has historically informed discourses on African cinema has been seriously challenged, and, since the recent intervention of transnational corporations into the production and distribution of Nigerian media, the model of the African popular arts is still necessary but no longer sufficient for framing the study of Nollywood. The corporate intervention is related to a shift in media platforms: the sale of discs is being overshadowed by internet distribution and television broadcasting, and smartphones and multiplex cinemas supplement home viewing. New inequalities and class divisions have opened up. A formal sector now coexists alongside Nollywood's older, informal sector. The levels, kinds, and accessibility of information about these sectors are spectacularly uneven, and the intellectual paradigms and disciplines to be brought to bear on them and the wider field of African screen media remains an unsettled issue.