ABSTRACT
The ecology of the media industry in sub-Saharan Africa today has mainly been affected by political changes that have taken place in the region since the 1990s toward market fundamentalism. The focus in this chapter of select multinationals such as MTN, Naspers, and NMG coincides with this shift to neoliberalism. A political economic analysis of these multinationals should not be seen as a suggestion that they are the only important regional players. In fact, there are powerful regional forces like the Nigerian film industry that cannot be adequately discussed and analyzed through conventional political economic approaches given their decentralized, vastly non-corporate operations. The likes of MTN, Naspers, or NMG point to the eventual but indispensable institutionalization and corporatization of these other industries in the informal sector as they seek, by their very profit maximization nature, further markets.
