The African Channel-Critique

http://www3.amherst.edu/~jflores10/native.html

Wonderful work pals, your channel is great. I love the home page. It constitutes various images and captions about different issues; links to detailed information just like any other internet-based channels.  Holistically, the project is good and the links between the sections is reasonable, although the technical difficulties do place a hurdle when viewing the channel.

The Going native section brings some pretty good information to light. Whys is there such vast differences in the selling methods of the US. Assuming that sales is based on popular tastes, and consumer behavior, it can be concluded that the US is more prone to racial differences than the British. I would really like to know why. Or maybe one can say that the show does not sell in the US and so National Geographic does not spend much money in marketing it, which shows as lack of the kind of information found on the British. Still this is due to consumer tastes and signifies an apalling reluctance to  learn about African by Americans, despite its use in various commercials, movies etc.

The section “Live from Africa” is a very nice tinge to the channel. While Somalia and piracy is very important it is not the only issue in Africa and placing two videos on Somalia does not give a general picture of Africa. Given the space, a video from a different part of Africa should have been placed with one Somalia video. Also other highlights could be written on the sides although the videos are not available.

I loved the parody video in the “Dramatizing Africa” section. It is true that it is always about the super power’s interests in Africa. These fictional countries, no doubt, undermine the significance of these countrues and care used as outlets political views. The producers will argue that they use fictional countries just to avoid conflcts with particular countries. This, as The African Channel rightly tells us, does not justify the devaluation of other countries using fiction as a veil through which direct argument cannot be placed.

Overall, this is a good project and i applaud the members.