1st Edition

Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South Context, Theory and Method

Edited By Tarik Sabry, Winston Mano, Andrea Medrado Copyright 2026
350 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

350 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

350 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This edited collection offers an unprecedented focus on decolonising audience and user studies in the global South, challenging essentialist discourses of media imperialism and technological determinism. Including original essays and contemporary case studies spanning Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, this book provides a nuanced double critique of both local and West‑centric... Read more

Contents

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Decolonising Approaches to Users and Audiences in the Global South: An Introduction
Tarik Sabry, Winston Mano and Andrea Medrado

2. Post-Colonial Media Studies in a Fractured World: A Dialogue with David Morley
Tarik Sabry and David Morley

Part I: Decolonising Audiences in Africa

3. Redefining Digital Audience Research: Perspectives and Practices from the Global South
Tanja Bosch

4. Decolonizing Digital Hegemonies: Reframing, Disrupting, and Occupying Online Spaces
L. Lusike Mukhongo

5. A Decolonial Approach to a Nollywood Audience: Engaging with Cultural Self-Awareness       
Ikechukwu Obiaya

Part II: Decolonising Audiences in Asia

6. Localising Online TV: Japanese Broadcast Video-on-Demand Services and the Shaping of Online Viewing Practices
Yu-Kei Tse

7. Decolonising Audience Research: Gender and Caste Politics in Indian Literature
Nupur Jaisinghani

8. An Oasis Medium in the 1980s: The Popularisation of Television in China and its Social Implications
Xiaoxiao Zhang

9. The Ambivalent Art of Living with Chinese Social Media: Digital Vulnerability and Practices of Self-Care
Guobin Yang, Shengchun Huang, Hui Fang, Dan Ji, Jingjing Chen and Wei Wang

Part III: Decolonising Audiences in Latin America

10. Indigenous Communication in Mexico: Decolonizing through Self-Representation
Claudia Magallanes-Blanco

11. Ombudsman’s Office for Audiences in Latin America: An Analysis From a Decolonial Approach
María Soledad Segura, Alejandro Linares and Rose Dayanne Santana Nogueira

Part IV: Decolonising Audiences in the Middle East

12. Towards a Decolonization of Arab Audiences
Joe F. Khalil

13. Im(Possibilities) of Palestinian ‘Media Audiences’ in Times of Permanent War and Excessive Mediation
Dina Matar

14. Aesthetic Experience and Performing Arts in the Arab Region: Towards a Decolonial Audience-Centred Perspective     
Tarik Sabry

15. Searching for the "Good Old Days" in "New Türkiye": Nostalgia of the TRT Era

Erdem Güven

 Index

Biography

Tarik Sabry is Full Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Westminster where he is a member of the Communication and Media Research Institute. He is co-founder and co-editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. He is an author of Cultural Encounters in the Arab World: On Media, the Modern and the Everyday (2010) and a co-author of Children and Screen Media in Changing Arab Contexts: An Ethnographic Perspective (2019). Sabry has also edited three books in the area of Arab Cultural Studies.

Winston Mano is Full Professor and a member of the University of Westminster’s top-rated Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI). He is Course Director for the MA in Media and Development and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Media Studies. He is Director of the Africa Media Centre and was Co-Director of the Chevening Africa Media Freedom Fellowship programme (2020–2023).

Andrea Medrado is a Senior Lecturer in Global Communications and Co-Director of Research for the Department of Communications, Drama and Film of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. Her book Media Activism, Artivism and the Fight Against Marginalisation in the Global South, co-authored with Isabella Rega, was published by Routledge in 2023. She has also published widely in academic journals, such as Big Data & Society, Information Communication & Society, and Tapuya: Latin American Science Technology & Society.