Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana: #decolonization2point0 [1st ed.] 9783030380649, 9783030380656

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Introduction: Time Changes (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 1-18
Sankofa’s Song (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 19-40
From TV to AV in Jamaica: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 41-64
From TV to AV in Jamaica: Creative Work, Content and Consumption (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 65-87
From TV to AV in Ghana: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 89-106
From TV to AV in Ghana: Creative Work, Content and Consumption (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 107-131
#decolonization2point0: Follow the Star (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 133-162
South Star for Jamaica (Deborah Hickling Gordon)....Pages 163-185
Back Matter ....Pages 187-194

Citation preview

Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana

#decolonization2point0

Deborah Hickling Gordon

Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana

Deborah Hickling Gordon

Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana #decolonization2point0

Deborah Hickling Gordon The University of the West Indies Kingston, Jamaica

ISBN 978-3-030-38064-9    ISBN 978-3-030-38065-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

“Livication”

This volume is livicated to all creators of cultural symbols past and present; those in Africa and those brought to the Caribbean who shared their hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, disappointments and frustrations along this creative trajectory of transition and ancestral cultural practitioners. The foundation you laid allows those in the here-and-now the creative freedom to be. You have provided for those to come. Ase. Winsome Pamella Gordon-Hickling and Frederick Hickling. I truly came to know you both through this work. Your restless, creative souls wrestled with “matter” and “spirit” all life long. Spirit ONE. Ase. Ajani, Zahra and Zachary’s children will benefit from their grandparents wisdom and mistakes. Ase. For ever present astral friends. Ase-O.

v

Acknowledgments

This volume represents the trajectory of my own transition. I thank everyone who has journeyed with me. I am grateful to my Jamaican and Ghanaian brothers and sisters who permitted me to enter their production spaces. My husband Carl, provided quiet strength. Aunt Nan and Uncle Bri, Drs. Anne Hickling-Hudson and Brian Hudson—Nan was a consistent guide and mentor who provided valuable guiding lessons so gently but pointedly. Siblings Daniella and Akindele provided consistent, tireless support. Akindele made my entry into Ghana possible and helped me to see, trust and understand the spirit of Africa in me. Pamella Gordon-Hickling, you provided the spirit of Ujamaa. “Prof Daddy”, Professor Fred Hickling, this is a tribute to your unwavering Pan-African influence and commitment to the decolonization movement. Dr. Hilary Robertson Hickling and Chinua provided context and laughter. I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Dr. Lou Anne Barclay. Also to Heather Munro for shaping and pruning. Special thanks also to Gillian Haughton, Hopeton Gordon, Alison Brown Knight and Taitu Heron. I am grateful to you all.

vii

Contents

1 Introduction: Time Changes  1 2 Sankofa’s Song 19 3 From TV to AV in Jamaica: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits 41 4 From TV to AV in Jamaica: Creative Work, Content and Consumption 65 5 From TV to AV in Ghana: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits 89 6 From TV to AV in Ghana: Creative Work, Content and Consumption107 7 #decolonization2point0: Follow the Star133 8 South Star for Jamaica163 Index187

ix

Acronyms

AV Audiovisual BFA Bachelor of Fine Arts CARICOM Caribbean Community CARIMAC Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication CAST College of Arts, Sciences and Technology CCI Cultural and Creative Industries CD Compact Disk CPTC Creative Production and Training Centre CSP Cable Service Providers CTV Community Television CVM TV CVM Television #d2k #decolonization2point0 DCMS Department for Culture Media and Sport EAB Entertainment Advisory Board EPA European Partnership Agreement GPRS Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy JBC Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation JCDC Jamaica Cultural Development Commission JLP Jamaica Labour Party GBC Ghana Broadcasting Corporation GNCA Ghana National Communications Authority GTV Ghana Television LCCP Local Cable Content Provider MAJ Media Association of Jamaica MDG Millennium Development Goals MTI Media Technology Institute NAFTI National Film and Television Institute xi

xii 

Acronyms

NCA National Communication Authority NMC National Media Commission PAJ Press Association of Jamaica PBC Public Broadcasting Corporation PBCJ Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica PNP People’s National Party (Jamaica and Ghana) PSB Public Service Broadcasting/Broadcasters SAPs Structural Adjustment Programmes SSM South Star Model STV Subscriber Cable Television TV Television TV3 Ghana’s first private television station TVJ Television Jamaica UIS UNESCO Institute of Statistics UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization USA United States of America UTECH University of Technology, Jamaica UWI University of the West Indies WIFT-JA Women in Film and Television, Jamaica

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1

Production of the pilot of the television programme “Passion for Sport” at Jamaica’s National Stadium, 2017 71 Fig. 6.1 Multi-service creative businesses emerge in twenty-firstcentury Accra, Ghana 113 Fig. 6.2 Students of NAFTI in Ghana being exposed to international film of various periods as part of their curriculum116 Fig. 6.3 Part of NAFTI audiovisual archives 117 Fig. 6.4 A section of a building intended to house a stateof-the-art television studio at NAFTI in Accra. The project was abandoned because of lack of funding. April 2009 120 Figs. 6.5 and 6.6 The NAFTI Studio ten years later, still incomplete. June 2017 121 Fig. 7.1 The Black Star of Africa—symbology used for the proposed South Star model of cultural economy development for countries of the Global South 153 Fig. 7.2 The South Star Cultural Economy Model with ten enabling environment components 159

xiii

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 8.1

Spans of subordination The PIEGO analytical construct Spans of Subordination grid (Hickling 2011:105) Spans of subordination Spans of Subordination—TV in Jamaica and Ghana Culturally specific principles for cultural economy formulation—Jamaica and Ghana Jamaican audiovisual subsector; creative economy thematic profile, 2019

10 135 139 141 142 157 174

xv

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Time Changes

Abstract  In this chapter the author, an audiovisual producer and lecturer of cultural and media studies, shares elements of the reflexive journey from Jamaica’s Public Service Broadcasting to Commercial Broadcasting eras, and on to the emergent Cultural Economy era. She argues that in the emerging cultural economies of the Global South, the production and trade of screen-based content are central to development positioning and geostrategic planning for nations like Jamaica and Ghana. The author presents #decolonization2point0 (d2k) as a cultural economy methodology for nations of the Global South that seeks to “personify” the cultural economy process through culturization rather than “disembody” it through marketization. Audiovisual production and trade in Jamaica and Ghana are presented as “metaphors of transformation” and as case studies to test the application of the South Star Policy Model she proposes for cultural economy policy development in the Global South.  This model focuses on sustainable development objectives rather than exploitative and extractive intentions to guide planning for cultural and creative economy growth. It encourages a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of the processes to integrate cultural economy thinking into development planning, in countries of the Global South with an emphasis on growing the audiovisual sector, particularly in Jamaica.  Keywords  Development • Time • Television • Public service • Cold war • Politics • Content • Devices • WIFI signal • Audio visual sectors © The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_1

1

2 

D. HICKLING GORDON

• Audio visual zeitgeist • Colonization • Decolonization • Independence • Media liberalization • Broadcasting • Creative industries • Cultural economy policy • Economic systems • Democratic socialism • Divestment • Cultural ecosystems • Governance • Trajectories of transition • Capitalist commercialism • Ideology • Economy • Tradition • Africanness • Jamaicaness • Neoliberalism

TV Sign On! 1980: It is one minute to four on a Jamaican afternoon, the longest minute on any given weekday. Three prepubescent siblings knew that when the clock struck four, the next few hours would be spent between homework, afternoon chores and the television set. A master controller sat in Jamaica’s sole broadcaster, the public service, free-to-air television station, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) at South Odeon Avenue in its capital, Kingston. Every day at this hour he prepares to switch over from the hard page of stabilizing bars in tones of grey and to end the piercing, pure reference kilowatt tone seen all day on local TV, meant to calibrate audio and video levels on television sets. The clock strikes four. He flicks the switch. The orchestral version of the National Anthem followed—a prayer, played as audio-bed to the daily “sign on” montage featuring faded footage of the fluttering black, green and gold of the Jamaican flag. Its children and all those in earshot mouth subconsciously, “Eternal Father bless our land. Guard us with thy mighty hand”. Evening activities began in communities. The country took stock of itself—its place amid chilling winds of the Cold War, black power and civil rights, its development path and the persistent  plague  of  political division and economic strife. My two siblings and I, and every child with a television set in Jamaica, settled in for the evening. Television ran until midnight when the flag flew again and the anthem played, a cycle to be repeated the next day. At 4 p.m., across the nation the gleeful whisper would be repeated from household to household, “TV sign on”, like a national game of Chinese Telephone. You could set your clock by it. Many Jamaicans did. 2020: Forty years have passed since those three siblings waited for the clock to strike five and television to “sign on”. Things and times had changed. The television we set our clocks by changed from a clunky box with “rabbit ears” for an antenna to flat screens in mega and palm sizes. Public service content to educate, empower and entertain became commercial, monetized content carried by converged conduits serviced  by

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

3

creative workers and consumer-participants, available at will. Now, devices never turn off. They are pre-programmed and digitally regulated, rendering master controllers an endangered species. Offspring of the 1980s sibling spend all day watching endless audiovisual content. They switch from program to program, format to format, platform to platform, activity to activity and device to device—from phone to watch to tablet and big-­ screen television—watching content from countless sources available 24 hours per day. Personal amplifiers shaped around their heads or as buds in each ear satisfy the aural. Consumed content hails from every continent, places once only available through the reaches of imagination. From the safe-apathy of their middle-class vantage points they produce social media stories on the same gadgets through which they consume content. An available Wi-Fi signal is their most significant asset. Its absence is a challenge. Through this conduit the stream of content is constant. Between 1980 and 2020 things and times had changed. This is a story about a veritable zeitgeist, seen on and through the changing screens of time. Creative Zeitgeist My fascination with the notion of creative zeitgeists began with my exploration of the impact of the liberalization of broadcast media and content production on the Jamaican society, where I was born. I propose that a creative zeitgeist is the  change seen in the content, production processes  and distribution of a creative  sector at the end of a natural zeitgeist. This juncture is examined through the lens of philosophical, ideological, economic, governance and operational change within the sector and its sub sectors. I chronicled its occurrence in the audiovisual sector in Jamaica and my interest soon extended to countries of the Global South. My grounding in cultural studies and Pan-African orientation led me to a new understanding of the nuances, invisibilities and intangibles embedded in changes in the content creation process and in content products in former colonies, as compared with their Northern, predominantly colonial and imperial neighbors. The dialectics of “colonizer and colonized” met “spirit and matter” at the heart of a complex materialist debate about television’s transition from public service broadcasting to commercial industry. Inherent contradictions in the creative and cultural industries concept in the Global South (Hickling Gordon) still remain unsettled but often unchecked in former colonies of the British Empire. These are central to understanding the  changing audiovisual sectors in former colonies. Decolonization, or undoing the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism,

4 

D. HICKLING GORDON

remains at the core of the struggle by countries of the Global South to arrive at synthesis in these complex dialectics. This volume traces the trajectory of transition of the audiovisual sectors of two former British colonies with a view to understanding the convergence and change that took place in their cultural economies—ecosystems of production, distribution and consumption of cultural goods and services in relation to their social, economic and political context (De Beukelaer and Spence 2018). The comparison of the trajectories in Jamaica and Ghana reveal cultural nuances that provide context for understanding the role of culture and creativity in economic planning, preparation and decision making for the uncertainties of the future.  This volume argues that the close of the second decade of the twenty-­ first-­century marks the end of a global zeitgeist, seen, in large part, as neoliberalism morphed  into global populism. The end of the zeitgeist was  marked dramatically and definitively with global  insights brought by  the harrowing COVID-19 pandemic. Within the context of a pandemic, the growing importance of the social, economic, political, and cultural roles of the audiovisual sub-sector  of the global cultural economy became exceedingly clear. During the trajectory of transition of the audiovisual sub-sector from the twentieth century into the twenty-first, the ideological duality of public service and commercial media worldwide became more distinct. Widening global inequality, and changing patterns in public thinking and behavior reflected and represented wavering sustainable  development  imperatives and increasing  commercial ones.  To meet the development needs of  the peoples of the Global South will require transformational thinking. To that end, and given the significance of the global cultural and creative sector, this volume encourages postcolonial  developing nations to integrate  Orange and Purple Economy in their development  planning.  Arguably, a  global rebalance of power  has begun to acknowledge, if not completely accept, the emergence of developing countries and to take their cultures and creativity into account. As this shift happens by natural selection, it is being televised. Programming and data is  being produced in large volumes and transported between developed and developing countries at light speed through the Internet as conduit, curated by mainstream platforms and is  consumed in copious quantities globally. It is for developing countries of the world to plan for and  grasp the emergent  opportunities and begin to plan clear geo-­ strategies. This volume proposes that the twenty-first-century process of rethinking be considered the next phase of decolonization thinking. In this volume, decolonization 2.0 met the fourth industrial phase of global

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

5

development and became a hashtag, #d2k. To embark on the #d2k journey, requires the acknowledgment that a series of  cultural and creative zeitgeists occurred in the twentieth century into the twenty-first.  This understanding arms  decision makers in countries of the Global South with the insight required to make the best of the opportunity to “reset” the ways in which they approach development, through the design of their cultural and  creative economies.  The case studies of transition in the audiovisual sub-­sectors of the cultural economies of Jamaica and Ghana, two former colonies of Britain, reveal a century of trauma that took place within what had become  a new triangular trade route. The cargo has changed. The trade in black bodies for labour has become an exchange of products  of the imagination and culture, processed into that valuable global  commodity known as  data.  The balance of power must shift to favor the South if sustainable development is to be achieved. In this volume, the journey towards development begins with considering the impact of the changes over time and addressing the trauma of the transition starting with liberalization,  out of which the cultural and creative economy concepts emerged on the eve of a new Millennium. Reflexive Liberalization The media liberalization journey in Jamaica and my professional trajectory are reflective and representative of each other. Libertine zeitgeist occurred during the half century that is my life. Both my parents worked in the public service radio and television broadcaster, the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC). JBC was a veritable University. A training ground. An Institution grounded in the ideological push and pull between the democratic socialism through which it was formed and the capitalist conservatism that manifest as the Cold War. Before the JBC closed its doors, my parents’ lives were steeped in the global activism and advocacy of the 1970s and the 1980s. My father was fired while on air, ostensibly because of political differences with Jamaica’s Minister of Information of the day. As I researched the period I happened upon several anecdotes about my mother’s activism in the labor movement at JBC. Awe and reverence characterize my childhood memories of time spent within the corridors of Jamaica’s state-owned studios—its record library, editing stalls, floated television studio and control rooms. The Corporation’s former employees continue to gather annually for retrospective celebration of the Corporation. Jamaica’s National Dance Theatre Company, the National Pantomime Movement and  other foundational national cultural  institutions were agents of

6 

D. HICKLING GORDON

decolonization and continue to be instrumental in shaping the national consciousness of a  politically independent Jamaica. Only the memory of the JBC remains as one of the cultural and artistic institutions charged with the identity formation of an independent Jamaica. In the midst of Jamaica’s media liberalization I responded to a newspaper advertisement from the JBC for producer/reporters, was accepted and joined the JBC family as a rookie in 1994. Television quickly became my first professional love. With the writing on the wall and looming closure I left the JBC just prior to the divestment exercise in 1997. I later learned two additional things about that year. In 1997 the coinage of the foundational DCMS “Creative Industries” concept and implementation of policy models took place in Britain. Liberalization exercises were also taking place in the West African City of Accra in Ghana in that year, a fact that would soon become significant. The year 1997 was one of those particular years in which there was a historical change in global economic systems, and marks the point at which a series of developments in different places align in ways that have lasting significance (Flew 2019: 1). In postcolonial psychiatry, this phenomenon has been called “Psychic Centrality” (Hickling et al. (2010: 137). The psychic centrality of 1997 was a marker in time for a new zeitgeist with significant impact on changes in cultural and creative production and trade. But I certainly did not understand this then. Now, I recognize that every detail of the story of transition is important for contextualizing decisions to be made for the future. The transitions and changes identified within the audiovisual subsectors of the Jamaican and Ghanaian cultural economies are “metaphors of transformation” that allow for an imagining of what could occur when prevailing cultural values are challenged and transformed (Hall 1996: 287). Having left the JBC, amid challenging national economic circumstances and the very low wages on offer to television content producers, I accepted a position as a television producer of the morning magazine program and special projects at CVM television. Before long, CVM began to buckle under the strain of Jamaica’s 1990s financial crisis and became unsettled by the ensuing banking crisis (Duncan and Langrin 2004: 1). The financial downturn, changing technology, media practices and a dynamic political landscape impacted cultures of work, behaviors, ethics and standards (Hickling 2011). Unable to make ends meet I tried my hand at independent television production. I had neither the sensibility nor the inclination for entrepreneurship, having been brought up in the ideological throes of democratic socialism.

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

7

The period of transition to liberalization was an unsettling time for Jamaica. The absence of an equitable model for the commercial trade in television programming and instability of the sector was another reason I gave up the instability of a changing media for the lesser instability of contracts in the public service for over 15 years that led me to policy and academia. It never compensated for the phantom limb of the broadcast media. Why Ghana? Postgraduate studies took me to my first International conference in the UK in 2004, a conference on broadcast histories. My presentation traced the trajectory of transition of the Jamaican television industry from inception to its recent divestment and liberalization. Its ideas converged mainly with the presentations by the African scholars. I found particular resonance in the presentation of a Ghanaian doctoral candidate, Margaret Amoakohene, who demonstrated changing television production values, content and philosophies in Ghana. The aesthetic similarities to productions in Jamaica were significant. The similarities seen in the news sets of these two developing nations are indicators of similarities in resource levels and aesthetic qualities. Technical production values and the traditions of storytelling were similar. A shared sense of “spirit” and sensibility was evident in the programming Amoakohene showed. The similarities between the Jamaican and Ghanaian television aesthetic, the trajectories of transition of Jamaican and Ghanaian societies and the ancestral linkages between the two nations provided a sound cultural “fit” for comparison and was chosen as a comparator, a secondary case study. Ghana, too, had a colonial public sector and monopoly model of state television in the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). Both television stations were initiated as part of the decolonization movements leading up to independence. Both Jamaica and Ghana were the first nations in their regions to gain political independence from Britain and both founding fathers Manley and Nkrumah approached broadcasting with the idealism of socialism education and empowerment at their inception (Hickling 2011). The Ghanaian government faced similar external pressures of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) and privatized television in 1997, the same year the Jamaican government divested JBC and the Creative industries concept emerged. The Ghanaians, however, chose to maintain their public service broadcasting mandate, but added a commercial dimension to the operations of the GBC.

8 

D. HICKLING GORDON

The liberalization of colonial media and ideological tensions within the nomenclature-battles surrounding the “terminological clutter” (Galloway and Dunlop 2008: 35) of cultural and/or creative industries and/or economy were fascinating. Using a dialectical and postcolonial theoretical frame, I examined the changes in broadcasting in the former British colonies and raised questions regarding the appropriateness of using dominant Western structures, processes and policies in the television sector in Jamaica and Ghana and by extension their cultural/creative industries and economies to address their challenges. The study sought to critically appraise cultural/creative industries and economy concepts for policy development, in light of the cultural specificities of Jamaica and Ghana; and consider how the television industry in both countries illustrated the contradictions and complexities of these concepts. Amoakohene and others contextualized the changes in Ghanaian media when we met again at the University of Legon in 2009 as I sought to demonstrate the significance of examining the unique trajectories of transition of television in Jamaica and Ghana as they changed from public service institution to commercial industry. Both countries had shared colonial and progenitory customs and practices; but also very stark differences in approach to television based on their individual worldview. Several points of convergence and cleavage existed between Jamaica and Ghanaian cultures and television. Rethinking “Rethinking Development” As ideas began to solidify around unique trajectories of cultural and creative industries (CCI) in my graduate work, I increasingly rejected “cookie cutter” approaches to CCI development in developing countries as developed for advanced industrial countries (Hickling 2011) based on the uniqueness of each sector. Countries of the Global South were ten years behind advanced industrial societies in their cultural economy approaches where expanded notions of cultural economy were seen in growing ecosystems of gestation, production, trade and distribution of ideas; identity and ideology; material and spirit; products and services; past and present. Many nations of the South were still shaping policies from early DCMS creative industries principles. During this period I was called to duty as a proximate aide to Jamaica’s first female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, as her Special Assistant, and Coordinating Manager in 2006 and again in 2012 as her Director of Operations and finally Convenor of the

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

9

National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission in 2014. That provided a high-level, fly-on-the-wall vantage point on global development processes, trends and politics. My deep-seated interest in culture, the arts and media converged with an emerging interest in policy formulation for the sustainable development of countries of the Global South. From one global High Level Summit to the next, political meeting and governance interface, I witnessed the existential duality facing national leaders of the Global South as they grappled with the changing fabric of societies and cultures that had been conditioned into cynicism over 40 years. Neocolonial control, influence and pressures on former colonies were consistent geopolitical themes. Increasing inequity and contradictions of creeping positive economic indicators with alarming social, cultural and behavioral indicators loomed large in countries of the Global South. Where growth occurred, sustainable development did not always automatically follow. It was time to rethink “rethinking development” (Girvan 1991). The question of whether neoliberalism as rebranded capitalism and its attendant freedoms of liberalization had failed developing nations continued to ring through. Had the “gifts of fortune themselves become elements of misfortune” (Adorno 1991: xv)? By libertine design, societies of the South began to think diminutively about the sphere-of-influence of their governments, while , ironically, fervently relying on them for governance, guidance and growth.  This was another contradiction amplified by the dreaded COVID-19 outbreak that peaked in 2020. I began to rethink the several points of cleavage and convergence that had emerged from the original study. These ideas, outlined here, provided contextual reminders of the cultural complexity of transnational media and formed the basis of the assumptions upon which this work is premised. Spans of Subordination Understanding the story of change in twenty-first-century audiovisual sectors in countries of the Global South, like Jamaica and Ghana, requires an examination of the complex tale of a world in transition. The twentiethcentury trajectory of transition of cultural and creative industries and economy development in former colonies has a clear correlation with concepts and histories of abolition, emancipation, Pan-Africanism, political independence and the various steps toward sustainable development, including liberalization (Table 1.1).

1914–1949

Global CCI concepts

World war years Colonialism Second The culture and Industrial industry decolonization Revolution Mass communication Mass culture

First Leisure, recreation, Industrial entertainment Revolution

Western political Hickling’s Industrial economy Global South revolution zeitgeist spans of phases subordination political/ cultural economy (2011)

1700s–1900s Eras of Slavery and enlightenment colonization and industrialization

Time

Table 1.1  Spans of subordination

The 1930s negative version

Cunningham’s Prongs (2005)

Burke’s Anglophone Caribbean CC! (2007)

Subordination, balm Indigenous, balm, spiritual, release Intellectual resistance— Negritude, Pan-African, Rastafari, Commercial

Caribbean cultural output

10  D. HICKLING GORDON

1950s–1989

Cold War

Independence and development

Third Cultural ndustries The 1970s and Industrial 1980s Revolution reconceptualizing of commercial industries as cultural And Applied arts practices that followed

(continued)

1950s creole Decolonization cultural and policy— development— accelerated Responses to Civil decolonization Rights, Cold War, and 1970s Apartheid, local plural society SAP, Commercial model – widening of policy scope and reliance on human resource development education and community empowerment

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

11

Post neoliberalism

2010 +

Postglobal Post neoliberalism and Populism

Global CCI concepts

Third Media and cultural Industrial economics Revolution Cultural Industries (1) Creative industries Creative economy CCI Cultural Industries (2) Terminological clutter Fourth Terminological Industrial clutter Revolution Orange economy Cultural economy

Globalization and neoliberalism

1990s–2009

Globalization and neoliberalism

Western political Hickling’s Industrial economy Global South revolution zeitgeist spans of phases subordination political/ cultural economy (2011)

Time

Table 1.1  (continued)

The application of neoclassical economics to the arts

Cunningham’s Prongs (2005)

Caribbean cultural output

Evolving/ liminal/D2K

1990s cultural Commercial industries development model Culture viewed as a vehicle for economic development

Burke’s Anglophone Caribbean CC! (2007)

12  D. HICKLING GORDON

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

13

Neocolonial liberalization has been the latest temporal “span of subordination” for the Global South (Hickling 2011). In developing States like Jamaica and Ghana, this included variations on the theme of conquest, capture, enslavement and colonization. For nation states still working through issues of dependency, ideological grounding and development directions, the duality and dialectics of “creative economy” and “cultural economy” themselves require examination through the prism of decolonization. Across the spans of subordination variations of the creative economy concept became both a source of liberation with decolonizing intent and a contradictorily ambivalent, hegemonic form of economic repression in the stranglehold of capitalist commercialism in Jamaica and Ghana. This work spans the twentieth- into twenty-first-century libertine zeitgeist within which these cultural and creative Industries concepts evolved. It spans the first two decades of an expanded globalized vision of the new millennium. The libertine trajectory moved artistry and content production from public service and identity forming to the embrace of commercial models where culture, content and creativity are considered products and services. The  underlying political and ideological contexts  were fascinating. Politics of Polarization The importance of considering political economy in the cultural economy equation was borne out by the polarizing geopolitics of the Cold War. Conflict was central to the emergence of virulent ideological polarity that defined Jamaican and Ghanaian politics and media. In Jamaica, a full-scale ideological battle emerged along party lines (Hickling 2011: 168). Responses to the tensions in both countries were in keeping with their cultural characteristics. While the Jamaican media and the nation raised their voices in defiant protest and criticism of government policy in keeping with its culture of confrontation; in the face of intense pressure the Ghanaian media and the nation at large were rendered silent. Asante’s “language of conflict” manifests as a deep and prevailing “culture of silence” in Ghana (Hickling 2011: 197). This is a perfect example of nuanced cultural cleavage that colors cultural economy development in countries of the Global South. Africanness and Jamaicanness Ghana was found to be more grounded in the strength of influence of its history and prehistory with Africanism and “Africanness” as strong

14 

D. HICKLING GORDON

philosophical principles that undergird that society. Ghanaians have as “an adhesive quality  – ‘Africanness’  – “understood as coming from Africa” (Makumba 2007: 34), but more importantly the “Africanity” that characterizes its philosophy. In the absence of an indigenous philosophy, the “youthful”, creolized society of Jamaica has, instead, drawn its philosophies and theories of identity from the integration of cultures and philosophical constructs in order to formulate positions on contemporary national life, including decisions for cultural production (Hickling 2011: 321). These identity challenges manifest in different ways. In Jamaica, the ambivalence of “cultural cringe” (389) and low “collective esteem”(344) were identified alongside demonstrable confidence in capabilities that manifest as a positive work ethic and solid content output, creativity and talent by audiovisual workers and teams. Socio-economic challenges and an absence of a clear market for audiovisual productions also negatively affected the consistency of production. In addition to material support, industry players’ need for “smadification” (352) manifests in Jamaican television. Jamaicans have a deep-seated cultural quest to be respected, to be regarded as “smaddy”. To be “less-counted” (352) is the antithesis of “smadification” (225), the Jamaican colloquial term used to describe the process of becoming or seeming “to become somebody”, an indicator of poor collective esteem. Jamaica’s consistent reliance on overseas programming and the marginalization of independent programming and production until late in the second decade of the new millennium are indicators of growing sector-confidence. Comparatively, the bitter war to gain its independence in Ghana made the promotion of African content and aesthetics top priorities for the new independent government of freedom fighters. Nkrumah’s dynamic African policy made the objective of television to protect the African personality and Africanized television to promote a Ghanaian culture and way of life “dress, language, head sculptors, gold and silversmiths, potters and weavers of old, all of that encompasses the African personality. Television was a part of the independence movement” (1998: 193). In technical matters, however, identity was not a consideration. BBC broadcasting techniques and standards were stringently observed within both new media. Tradition and Modernity Tradition and modernity tensions also emerged in many areas of the original study, and caused heightened anxieties about the new commercial environment. Ghana engaged in an existential battle regarding concerns about commercialism, arguing that it is an affront to the emphasis on

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

15

journalistic integrity (Hickling D, 276). Conversely, in Jamaica, notions of modernity were embraced in the commercial era of television particularly by a new generation of producers as seen in later chapters of this volume. The embrace of competition; reduced reliance on the state; emphasis on individualism, individuation, rights and freedoms—be they freedom of trade, capital, expression or speech; and reliance on economic growth as the primary measure of human progress using primarily economic indicators took hold. Small and small island developing states became preoccupied with appeasing multilateral benefactors, warding off external threats and seeking to grow their economies. Many welcomed international free trade agreements and with them the concepts and language of commodified cultures with insufficient critical examination of the impact of its neoliberal form on their media and cultures. Three generations within developing nation-states sought to calibrate the experiment of liberalization. As cultures shifted, tradition and modernity fought a battle of ambivalence. Ideological tensions intensified even as political apathy and cynicism grew. The free market had liberated societies into vibrant economic centers of unstructured liminality and boundarylessness. Social decay and unwieldy governance existed alongside emergent economic growth possibilities as the formal and informal economies battled for primacy. Neither nation was fully prepared for the cultural realignment that liberalization brought.  iberalization Without Preparation L This volume uses the audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy as a metaphor for transformation for national development in Jamaica and Ghana. Liberalization and many cultural and creative economy principles defied several traditional mores in nations of the Global South. Both Jamaica and Ghana struggled with adapting and adopting the cultural and creative industries concept. Neither could reconcile the ambivalence it presented and as a result were unable to articulate clear paths of synthesis, through policy up to the end of the second decade of the new millennium. Both sought to find a position that provided equity and synthesis in the dialectal constructs of economic growth and sustainable development. As we will see, Ghana took the concepts further than Jamaica. The volume later explains possible reasons for this. Whether sufficient forecasting was done to adequately prepare for the economic, cultural and social changes that ensued from liberalization remains a foundational question asked and responded to in the original dissertation. This volume suggests, on the verge of post-COVID-19

16 

D. HICKLING GORDON

zeitgeist change, that a deliberate, planned, data-driven process of preparation is required for the next phase of development to include a twentyfirst-­ century decolonization movement that utilizes modern tools to optimize growth. A counter-geostrategy by the Global South must involve a balanced economic independence and attainment of sustainable development objectives. With a decade left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), accelerating those processes is critical. This will occur where technology meets national identity, media diversity and productivity. Yet, emphasis is being placed on economic growth and technology in many countries of the Global South, resulting in great ambivalence. “Indeed, the approach cannot focus only on technical and commercial features” (LaTorre 2014: 17). Emphasis on intangible culture is of critical importance in the new round of development. Even as culture and creativity take centerstage, neoliberal ideals have rendered considerations of identity, diversity and other intangible, thematic consideration “soft”. Yet the emphasis and reliance of the world’s citizens on content production were amplified during 2020 global COVID-19. The reliance on citizen production and distribution of content during the lockdown demonstrated the deep connection between the audiovisual and cultural product and societal change. Strengthening the audiovisual sectors of developing nations is therefore a significant element of any geostrategy for development.

New Zeitgeist, New Approaches #decolonization2point0 This volume presents the unique circumstances of change in two former colonies from television as institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy—a trajectory of transition from TV to AV. Therein are largely unfiltered ethnographic descriptions of selective change-processes in liberalized television in Jamaica and Ghana. It proposes decolonization in a contemporary form, as a twenty-first-century methodology. I propose a model of cultural economy development for nations of the Global South that is applicable for structuring cultural and creative economies, sectors, subsectors and industries as part of contemporary decolonization movements. The neoliberal world began to practice new waves of global populism in the second decade of the twenty-first century. A new zeitgeist had emerged with Brexit and Trumpism and exploded with the onset of the global pandemic of COVID-2020. This brought new implications for cultural and

1  INTRODUCTION: TIME CHANGES 

17

creative production, distribution and trade for countries of the Global South. The 2011 thesis had metamorphosed into new exploration and new questions discussed in the chapters of this volume. In response, the hashtag #decolonization2point0 or #d2k juxtaposes a groundswell of activist traditions centered around a decolonization movement grounded in twenty-first-century agency and advocacy. #decolonization2point0 means to encourage and inform thinking about emerging cultural economies in the Global South as an important element of global power dynamics. #decolonization2point0. #d2k argues that the development of cultural sectors in the Global South goes well beyond structural, material and modernist changes. Development also requires intangible changes to the “spirit” of production. Where structural change meets intangible change and material change meets transitioning spirit is where the next phase of decolonization resides. Encapsulated in “decolonization” are meanings in Bob Marley’s lines, “Every man have a right to decide him own destiny”; and “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds”; from two of his anthems of defiant choice (Marley). The transition from public service to commercial broadcasting in Jamaica and Ghana 1997 caused accelerated change. The significance of that change is seen by exploring its history, and chronicling two decades of change in two countries. It is an ambitious task for an abridged volume. In television, we call this “highlights”. The comparative circumstances of liberalization that led to variable media divestment are summarized in Chap. 2. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 cover the changes that took place in the audiovisual subsectors in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017 and up to the beginning of 2020. The construct of the 7Cs, proposed as the seven characteristics of the cultural and creative industries, are the organizing categories used to illustrate change, contradiction and choices made in those chapters. Chapters 7 and 8 explore the issues of sector “personality” in Jamaica and Ghana and apply those conclusions to a proposed plan for the development of the Jamaican audiovisual sector in Chap. 8.

References Adorno, Theodor. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London: Routledge. 1991. De Beukelaer, Christiaan and Spence Kim-Marie. “Global Cultural Economy”. Routledge. 2018. Duncan, Denvil and Bran Langrin. “Testing for Competition in the Jamaican Banking Sector: Evidence From Bank Level” Southwestern Journal of Economics, Vol. VI, No.1. March 2004.

18 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Flew, Terry. Digital communication, the crisis of trust, and the post-global, Communication Research and Practice, 5:1, 4–22, http://doi.org/ 10.1080/22041451.2019.1561394. 2019. Galloway, Susan and Stewart Dunlop. “Deconstructing the Concept of ‘Creative Industries.’” Cultural Industries: The British Experience in International Perspective. Ed. Christiane Eisenberg, Rita Gerlach and Christian Handke. Berlin: Humboldt University, 2008. Girvan, Norman. ‘Rethinking Development: Out Loud’, in Rethinking Development, ed. Judith Wedderburn, Kingston, Jamaica: Consortium Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of the West Indies, 1991. Hall, Stuart “For Allon White: metaphors of transformation”. Stuart Hall, Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. 287–309. Ed. David Morley and Kuan Hsing Chen. London: Routledge, 1996. Hickling, Deborah A. “From ‘Cultural Institution to Cultural Industry’? A Comparative Analysis of the Television Industry in Jamaica and Ghana 1997–2009.” Doctoral Dissertation. University of the West Indies, 2011. Hickling F, and Jasmant Guzder et al. “Psychic centrality: reflections on two psychohistoriographic cultural therapy workshops in Montreal”. Transcultural Psychiatry. Volume: 47 issue: 1, page(s): 2010 136–158. Hickling Gordon, Deborah A. “If Ideas Matter, How Nutting Nah Gwan fi Creatives?”: Liberalization, Expedience and the Caribbean Ethical Revolution. Faculty of Humanities and Education Distinguished Lecture Series. Forthcoming, UWI Press. Forthcoming. La Torre, Mario, Defining the Audiovisual Industry. The Economics of the Audiovisual Industry: Financing TV, Film and Web. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. http://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378477.0008. https:// link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F9781137378477_3.pdf. Makumba, Maurice Muhatia. An Introduction to African Philosophy: Past and Present. Nairobi, Kenya: Paulines Publications, 2007. Nkrumah Kwame. “Consciencism.” African Philosophy, An Anthology. Ed. Emmanuel Chukuwudi Eze. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 1998. 81–93. Print.

In-Depth Interviews Conducted

for the

Ghanaian Case Study

Amoakohene, Margaret PhD.  Lecturer in Mass Communications. University of Ghana, Legon in discussion with the author, May 2009.

Music, Films Marley, Bob. “Redemption Song.” Legend. Perf. Tuff Gong, 1980. Marley, Bob. “Zimbabwe.” Survivor. Perf. Tuff Gong, 1979.

CHAPTER 2

Sankofa’s Song

Abstract  In this chapter the years 1989 and 1997 are identified as milestone years for changing global economic systems. A series of developments in different places align in ways that have lasting significance; around which several changes in civilization as we know them seem to coalesce in time and space (Flew, Digital communication, the crisis of trust, and the post- global, Communication Research and Practice, https://doi.org/10. 1080/22041451.2019.1561394, 2019: 1). These eras of present periods of “psychic centrality” (Hickling et al. “Psychic centrality: reflections on two psychohistoriographic cultural therapy workshops in Montreal”. Transcultural Psychiatry 47(1): 136–158, 2010) mark significant global zeitgeist shifts. These periods provide clear indicators of change through which the changes in television in Jamaica and Ghana are examined. In Jamaica and Ghana, cases were being made for the divestment of public service broadcasting. In 1997 the Jamaican government divested itself of the Jamaica Broadcasting Commission as part of a complete broadcast liberalization process. Ghana’s government retained the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, but liberalized the broadcast sector in other ways as outlined in this chapter. Keywords  Dialectics • Sankofa’s Song • Decolonization • Independence • Politics • Colonies • Television • Socialism • Nationalism • Consumer technologies • Economic systems/activity • Zeitgeist shift • Trajectory of transition • Policy • Implementation • Framework • Communication systems/sectors • Neoliberalism • © The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_2

19

20 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Democratization • Ideology • Commercialization: (Commercial activity, notions of commercialization) • Media • Cable • Copyright • E-commerce • Classism • Treaties • TCE’s traditional cultural expressions • Associations/multilateral agencies? • Cold war • Imperialism • Broadcasting • Ideologies shifts • Policymaking • Neoliberalism • Liberalization • Independence • Television • Ethical revolution • Postcolonial The Ghanaian Adinkra1 symbol Sankofa is a bird with its beak turned to look backward while proceeding forward. Sankofa symbolizes the importance of taking information from the past and using it to plan for the future, literally translated as “go back and take”. In this chapter, the spirit of Sankofa provides retrospective discourse on the trajectory of transition of television in Jamaica and Ghana in the context of decolonization.

TV and the Dialectics of Decolonization Television and decolonization in former colonial outposts are inextricably linked. The “fatal sequence” of the First World War, the Great Depression and Second World War had “broke[en] the back of European imperialism and prepared the ground for decolonization followed by post-war imperialism as a rearguard action against inevitable decolonization” (Rothermund 2006: 15). The global wars had given colonized peoples further impetus to seek independence (Kennedy 2016: 5). Fervent decolonization movements and emerging independence lobbies began in the colonies of European empires. The British Broadcasting Corporation began “to build an ‘empire broadcasting network’ to take British culture produced in London to British expatriates across the world in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa” (Potter 2012). Representations of carefully choreographed independence ceremonies designed to present the transfer of power between colonizer and colonized showed “colonial officials and nationalist leaders standing on stages, giving speeches, signing documents and  Adinkra takes the form of messages encoded in symbols in which the Akan peoples of Ghana deposited aspects of the sum of their knowledge, belief systems, history, attitudes, morals, ethics, political and religious ideology, and societal structure. 1

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

21

exchanging handshakes, and observing the lowering and raising of flags as bands played and crowds cheered” (Kennedy 2016: 2). Television and radio were the conduits used to soften decolonization’s blows by presenting independence movements as consensual, a peaceful transfer of sovereignty. The filmic representations minimized the trauma, displacement and turmoil that both preceded and followed the ceremonial activities. Independence and the establishment of television followed a period of intensive decolonization in Jamaica and Ghana. By the time they began  implementing both their broadcast and new governance systems simultaneously in the 1950s and 1960s, the BBC had already been “drained of their imperial fervor” (Kennedy 2016: 2). The choreography of decolonization through television sought to mask the tumultuous and unsettling processes of achieving self-government. The Gold Coast had waged a bitter war for its independence, in 1959 experienced changing borders, and assumed a new name. Through fervent negotiations, political independence was achieved in Jamaica in 1962. Dialectically, in the two former colonies, broadcast media were, on the one hand, tools of colonial conditioning to perpetuate a mindset of empire in former colonial outposts. On the other they were instruments used to empower, bolster identity and share information of decolonization and development efforts of newly independent nations, grounded in socialist ideology (Hickling 2011: 168). In Ghana, plans for television were initiated two years into its independence (Asamoah 2006: 39). The stations sought to convey a sense of stability and calm and to build cultures of nationalism. TV brought laughter and levity, knowledge, empowerment and awareness. It was a conduit for culture, social engineering, societal shaping and control. Early Jamaican and Ghanaian television were intended to be tools of post-independence social mobilization, the realization of liberty and identity reinforcement. Over three decades, television in Jamaica and Ghana, with their colonial antecedents, transformed from state-owned, public service broadcasting institution to commercial television industry in different ways. At the heart of this transformation were changing political economy and development imperatives that  led to external proposals for structural adjustment in the 1980s  as discussed in the next chapter. In both countries, meanings, practices, structures, processes and policies that were related to broadcasting metamorphosed over time. Television in former British colonies did a decolonizing, decentralizing switch from the public service broadcast ethos during the liberalization movement of the 1980s

22 

D. HICKLING GORDON

and 1990s. Film as separate sector experienced similar transformations due to new production, distribution and consumer techniques and technologies (Hickling 2011: 180). Along the trajectory, 1989 and 1997 were two milestone years for changing global economic systems. A series of developments in different places aligned in ways that had lasting significance; around which several changes in civilization as we know them seemed to coalesce in time and space (Flew 2019: 1). In these eras of “psychic centrality” (Hickling et al. 2010) a significant global zeitgeist shift is identified in this chapter that provides a clear context of change. Television’s trajectory of transition in Jamaica and Ghana is examined through this lens. In 1997 the Jamaican government divested itself of the Jamaica Broadcasting Commission as part of a complete broadcast liberalization process. Ghana’s government retained the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, but liberalized the broadcast sector in other ways as outlined in this chapter. The differences in the circumstances and decisions made for each sector are early indicators of an emerging “personality” of broadcast media in either country.

1989 Zeitgeist Signpost In 1989 the Cold War ended. The downing of the Berlin Wall represented the end of a 60-year postwar trajectory of global political rebuilding, readjustment and realignment that included the Cold War, civil rights movements, the One China Policy and the departure from the decolonization and development thinking of the decades before. The Washington Consensus was arrived at with the intention of creating macroeconomic stability in developing countries and facilitate their integration into the international economy. The 1989 sign-off on the Washington Consensus conjoined multilateral funding for developing countries to multilateral economic advice and international free trade agreements (Williamson: 2004).2 The year 1989 was a marker of the beginning of a significant global zeitgeist shift.

2  Williamson (2004: 3), author of the Washington Consensus, indicated that the ten Washington Consensus reforms that constituted his original list were: fiscal discipline, reordering expenditure, tax reform, liberalizing interest rates, a competitive exchange rate, trade

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

23

The decisions of 1989 followed the peak performances of Caribbean economies followed by “a bust and recessional slide that reverberated through the region, the hemisphere and the world … for many Caribbean, Latin American and African economies, the depression [of the 1980s] was a decade long experience of continuing hardship, global indebtedness and externally imposed restructuring imperatives” Conway (1998: 43). The embrace of emerging liberalization, technological advancement, deregulation of telecommunications and media were characteristic of this period. Accompanying Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) included the divestiture of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However even neoliberal, globalized policies were being implemented in earnest in developing countries in the decade of the 1980s. Extended periods of negotiation, policy formulation and implementation lasted through the 1980s into the 1990s, resulting terminally with divestment of SOEs. According to Avle, deregulation was du jour around the world in the 1990s. “For countries in the Global South, this was often a result of borrowing agreements with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which often came with conditions to liberalize sectors of their economies” (Moyo 2009 in Avle 2016: 3). Given the Global North’s dominance of these two institutions, these measures were in line with what was going on in Europe and elsewhere (Avle 2016: 3). “The framework included strict criteria for limiting budget deficits. Public expenditure priorities had to move away from subsidies and social amenities towards previously neglected fields with high economic returns” (Conway 1998: 43). Williamson (2004: 2) describes, with tongue solidly in cheek, the fervent neoliberalism that was solidifying globally as “an intellectual swear word”. Neoliberalism placed emphasis on commerce, entrepreneurship and the primacy of the market. In tandem with globalization it was meant to eradicate national borders and create accessible global villages across which, into and out of, the world’s people could freely move and trade. Within the framework of imposed choice through structural adjustment, economic growth became the priority of the Jamaican government. “There would be a reduced role for the state” (Patterson 2018: 177). At this significant juncture a creative zeitgeist began in many nations of the Global South. Communication sectors were central to the emerging global neoliberal project. McChesney and Schiller described a nation’s communication liberalization, liberalization of inward foreign direct investment, privatization, deregulation and property rights.

24 

D. HICKLING GORDON

system as “the cornerstone of modern societies”, and as a means used to enhance democracy or deny it (2003: iii). “Few industries … have been as changed by capitalist globalization as communications”, changing from national media systems in the 1980s to transnational corporate-­commercial communication systems with a new “structural logic”. In retrospect, the democratization of communication and accompanying destabilization of nation-states in the process of media decentralization present dialectical phenomena. Divesting communications systems formed part of the Western liberalization formula, ostensibly in a quest for elusive development. The changes that were made during this period transformed the face of media in these countries. In Ghana the Newspaper Licensing Law (PNDC Law 211) was revoked in 1989 ending the legislation of the registration of all newspapers and magazines published in the country and required that publishers re-apply to the Ministry of Information for registration. In Jamaica, in 1989, negotiations for television’s liberalization were on in earnest. The incorporation of CVM TV Limited in 1990 and the granting of the CVM-TV license for the new station by 1991 resulted from those discussions. The libertine lure had been initiated in Jamaican and Ghanaian media—a clear indicator that a new creative zeitgeist had begun, one that deviated away from the public service broadcasting. Shifting Sands The Washington Consensus conjoined multilateral funding for developing countries to multilateral economic advice and international free trade agreements. Global media flows, business operations and improvements in communication technology were meant to have a positive material impact on developing economies. Globalization and improved technologies were seen to facilitate these advancements. McChesney and Schiller (2003: iii) describe this as a misleading account, identifying the political force of shifting to neoliberal orthodoxy as the underlying catalyst of global change. This was facilitated by relaxed or eliminated barriers to commercial exploitation of media, foreign investment in communication systems and concentrated media ownership. Shifts in political ideology were accompanied by dire economic and social circumstances experienced by developing countries in the 1980s, which led to their adoption of hegemonic Structural Adjustment Programmes. Escobar (1995: 176) suggests that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced these on Third World

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

25

countries. Jamaican economist Damien King (2010: 5) observed that the fundamental liberal ideas underlying structural adjustment reform were not popular in Jamaica and were foisted on the people by an unwilling administration. Its austerity measures brought drastic reductions in social spending which led to the intensification of existing hardships including large public sector lay-offs, the removal of food subsidies and the divestment of public assets. The political economy transitions through the period of the Cold War resulted in “social problems of overcrowding and low standards of living especially among the urban poor and lower classes” (Hope 2006: 5). Johnson’s (2005: 584) more expansive examination of the social stratification of the time identifies an expanding self-employed group of “small-­ scale entrepreneurs and medium-scale vendors; petty traders; a low wage sector of mostly unskilled workers; sufferahs (sufferers) who live predominantly through illegal activities” and “tend to occupy overlapping roles according to need”. The most vulnerable in Jamaica were significantly affected by the economic and political turmoil of the 1980s, characterized by “deterioration in the provision of quality public health, education and transportation services; contraction in employment and housing provision; increased taxes; devaluation in the Jamaican dollar and the removal of food subsidies that came with structural adjustment were accompanied by social repercussions”, Hope tells us. Among these were social class structures and attendant tensions along the lines of race and social stratification; the solidification of an urban informal economy which included illegal and illicit economic activity; and a popular culture catharsis, “the opening of a safety valve to release the pent-up frustrations of many dispossessed Jamaicans…this was the evolution of dancehall music and culture” (Hope 2006: 9). The convergence of music, television and commerce further evolved. The Economy of Television The JBC had been conceived as a service to faithfully reflect the cultural and social complexity of the nation while at the same time remaining a viable economic proposition Nettleford (2003: 98). By 1989 a culture of competition was being engendered, but not yet in a traditional marketdriven form. The JBC earned some advertising income, but due to its government subvention did not rely solely on advertising. The RJR and JBC were fiercely competitive over stories and staff (Mock Yen 2002: 103). Additionally, Gordon (2008: 30) explains that classically “competition” would mean that JBC should have been responsible for generating all of

26 

D. HICKLING GORDON

its income and operational costs and not having most of its expenditure offset by government funding. This was not the case, as it received an annual government subvention, but only enough to cover operating costs. In Ghanaian radio, ZOY FM transitioned to GBC, which ran GBC Radio One and GBC Radio 2 (Asamoah 2006: 16). Amasoah (15) also relates that in February 1967, commercial activities in broadcast radio and television existed in Ghana, despite the previous objections at independence. Classic competition, as defined by Gordon, was not a notion that existed in Ghanaian broadcasting, as the GBC was its sole broadcaster. Nkrumah had rejected notions of commercialization. Alhassan (2004: 128) tells us that Nkrumah spoke of the role of television as the education, edification, enjoyment and entertainment of the Ghanaian people. According to Alhassan, Nkrumah is quoted as saying at the inauguration of the GBC that Ghana’s television “will not cater for cheap entertainment and commercialism”. Commercial elements of television also existed in production. Jamaica, more so than Ghana, had a number of private production houses that worked for corporate clients and advertising agencies creating advertising campaigns for press and broadcast. The Advertising Media Association Limited, made up of media owners and heads of media houses, began in 1964 as a trade association. The MAJ served to link media organizations and the advertising industry. In 1971 the name was changed to Media Association Jamaica Limited with an expanded mandate. The MAJ monitored the compliance and registration of advertising agencies: examined and accredited new applications for agency recognition; revised the code of advertising standards and monitored compliance; implemented sanctions on a collective basis where terms were breached; and fostered a better relationship with the Advertising Agencies Association of Jamaica (AAAJ) upon whom they were largely depended for revenue. Their online business listing, Fiwibusiness, outlined that the primary focus of the association was “to ensure that advertising agencies were credit worthy and were able to pay media for the advertising which they placed”. In 1995 in the midst of the wave of media liberalization a landmark agreement was negotiated and implemented between the MAJ and the AAAJ. This agreement continues to define the relationship between both media management and advertising through their associations which continued into the twenty-first century. In stark comparison to Jamaica’s embrace of commercialization, in Ghana both their film and video production houses remained public assets

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

27

though its liberalization processes. Commercialization in the public service era of the 1980s to 1990s included the advent of cable television and the introduction of intellectual property rights including copyright in both countries. These adjustments cause the cultures of television to begin to transform.

Changing Cultures Cable, Copyright and Commerce The changing cultures of television from cultural institutions to industries were impacted by notions of ownership and proprietorship, which are central to both the protection of intellectual property and trade in cable television. The issue of ‘ownership’ of content was scarcely a consideration in the public service era. As the commercial era unfolded and content became a commodity,  the linkage between copyright and cable became increasingly significant. Cable television as conduit accelerated the importation of modernization concepts into the developing nations, through content produced in the West. Cable television was introduced to Ghana and Jamaica in the 1970s but operated primarily as “unauthorized activity”. Cable service providers who transmitted content via satellite became most popular between 1979 and 1981 during Ghana’s Third Republic or “progressive” period (Gadzekpo 2008: 38). Through cable, live, international sporting events, world news and programming were transmitted into Ghanaian households through satellite technology. Unlike Nigeria and China, which took measures to curb the use of private satellite dishes, Gadzekpo (32) explains that Ghana appeared not to have discouraged them. Jamaicans were not slow to adopt and adapt satellite television technology either (Mordecai 1995: 207). In Jamaica, cable became available during the same period but no de jure regime existed for licensing and regulating these systems (Mordecai 1995: 206). Access to satellite television was a status symbol in both nations as American culture began to dominate other cultures through their own cultural and creative products (Smandych 2005: 3) in its wellchronicled history of cultural imperialism. A wave of Americanization caused American programming to dominate Jamaican television via cable (Brown 1995a: 40, b: 56). This facilitated the lucrative, though illegal, trade of overseas television programming. Mordecai (1995) estimated that by 1995 there were approximately 40,000 television receive only (TVRO) satellite dish installations in Jamaica. Many of these were operating as de

28 

D. HICKLING GORDON

facto subscriber systems, providing “from a few dozen to a few thousand” connections. By the beginning of the 1990s, the socio-economic contexts within which these systems operated varied from lower income urban and rural households and working-class urban communities to upper class enclaves, apartments and condominiums. Cable carried predominantly foreign programming into homes across the social spectrum in Jamaica and Ghana, and became the conduit of cultural imperialism. The synchronicity between copyright and cable was evident in both Ghana and Jamaica. Unprotected Western-owned content was distributed widely to their populations, even as domestic American rules governing cable television operations were being strengthened and the nations became signatories to global copyright treaties. In 1972 the US Federal Communications Commission announced sweeping new rules governing cable television operations that specifically dealt with copyright protection and the “freedom” of the provision of content (Crandall and Furchtgott-­ Roth 1996: 3). Prior to the 1990s, local programming existed in the public domain in both Jamaica and Ghana. By the 1990s an increased emphasis on copyright and intellectual property rights caused Jamaican producers to change their views of local programs and production. The cultural shift was underway as what were once seen as tools of empowerment, information, cultural stimulation and propaganda became commodities. Censorship, piracy and copyright in the context of a repressed media environment in Ghana and a “hustler culture” in Jamaica. In Ghana, what was seen as a contemporary form of censorship arose through discussions of a Folklore Tax, which was ratified in 1996, on the threshold of what this study identifies as the commercial period of Ghanaian television. The establishment of the Folklore Board in 1991 also fell in line with the Ghana Copyright Law enacted by the Ghanaian PNDC government in 1985. This placed all anonymous works of Ghanaian folklore under the ownership of the state “as if it were an individual”, and included a clause concerning the seeking of permission from and the paying of fees to the government, by persons commercially using local folklore. Unfortunately in the 1985 bill, the type of person (foreign or Ghanaian) is not stated. The Folklore Board obtained a majority in 1996 for such a tax, which was incorporated into copyright administration in 1997. As television production and broadcasting in Jamaica entered the commercial period, piracy became an issue as extensive technological convergence was taking place, contextualized by the phenomenon of globalization. Payola, or “a pay-for-play system”, also affected broadcast media in

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

29

Jamaica, and was perceived to be “as constant as the music industry itself” (Henry 2008). It became a silent and often denied and difficult-to-prove cultural characteristic of Jamaican radio. The convergence of music and television led to the growing popularity of the music video as tele-visual form and made payola a cause for concern in the television industry, as the attitudes and practices of television practitioners changed from public service to commercial interests. Revolutionary changes in technology occurred from the electronics of the second industrial revolution into the third, characterized by mainframe computers, personal computers, the internet and electronics. Many developing countries had already begun to surrender their creative and cultural sectors to the market. Jamaica and Ghana were among the nations that moved toward a neoliberal paradigm. Hawkes (2003: 1) suggests that the market economy became an ideology where notions of the market are interpreted and lived differently in various parts of the world. The postcolonial experience was similar/different where variant experiences caused them to make specific ideological choices, which affected, among other things, their cultural and creative industries (CCI). Imposed-Choice of Structural Adjustment Cold War ideological push/pull factors had influenced developing nations’ adherence to Structural Adjustment Programmes, resulting in movements toward liberalization that included the divestment of public assets, including the state-owned television stations. In Jamaica, the 1980s brought a significant move away from the leftist political ideology of the earlier decades toward the ideology of capitalism and neoliberalism. With this swing to the right, structural adjustment and other strictures imposed by the IMF became entrenched. Dire economic and social circumstances in developing countries (including Jamaica and Ghana in the 1980s) led to their adoption of the hegemony of Structural Adjustment Programmes fashioned by multilateral agencies. Escobar (1995: 176) suggests that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund forced these on Third World countries. The circumstances of the SAPs were in keeping with what Smandych describes as Schiller’s (9) formal and abstract definition of cultural imperialism—nations that were “pressured, forced and sometimes even bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to or even promote the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system”.

30 

D. HICKLING GORDON

The austerity measures that resulted from the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programmes caused drastic reductions in social spending. The existing hardships intensified. Public sector layoffs, the removal of food subsidies and the divestment of public assets were commonplace. In Ghana the implementation of SAPs occurred in the context of an authoritarian political climate, and the non-democratic, paternalistic political practices (including intimidation and military rule) with which the governments were associated. In both countries, discussions regarding growth and development of nation-states emphasized fiscal imperatives over social expansion. In both nations, the sole, state-owned broadcasting entities were listed as possible institutions for divestment. Negotiations regarding privatization and liberalization occurred in tandem with divestment talks. Media Divestment and Privatization Up to 1990, a private radio station, Radio Jamaica and Rediffusion (RJR), operated alongside the JBC. Commercial advertising was being placed on JBC television and radio. In Ghana, however, up to 1995, the GBC remained the sole radio and television broadcaster. In July 1995 the government licensed JOY FM to operate in Accra. This radio station was the first entity to have been granted a private broadcasting license. The reason for the divestment was articulated as financial. Avergnobo, a former broadcaster and manager at the GBC, concluded that in Ghana, the movement toward privatization was focused on media liberty in defiance of the culture of silence than a for-profit imperative. Meanwhile in Jamaica, Claude Robinson, the General Manager at the time, presiding over the divestment of the JBC, noted in an interview with the author that “the corporation was losing money and the government was not prepared to put any more money into the JBC…it was a business decision based on the fact that the Corporation had lost so much money over the years”. Ghana proceeded in the same direction along two different paths. Hybrid or Mutant? At the time of divestment, both Jamaica and Ghana had unique hybrids of public service and commercial broadcasting. Jamaica had a history of commercial broadcasting before the JBC was formed in the 1960s. Radio Jamaica Limited, as private, commercial company, broadcast via a single

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

31

radio station, RJR, formerly ZQI, until the JBC was formed in 1962. The JBC positioned itself in relation to RJR by a proud assertion of its public service broadcasting mandate. The JBC’s founding General Manager, Peter Aylen, rejected the notion of being profit-making, asserting the nobility of public service broadcasting over a “station which has to make proper profits to pay its shareholders” (Gordon 2008: 30). Gordon argues that it was this outlook that established public service and commercial broadcasting as antithetical to each other, a position not unique to Jamaica. This culture/commerce ambivalence remained at the core of tensions that carried over to the private sector television a generation later. Ghanaian television remained solely a public concern. Prior to that, social, political and economic upheaval shaped the media in general and television in particular. Despite the overwhelming support for the privatization of broadcasting in the 1990s, the Ghanaian government was reluctant to loosen its grip on the electronic media until May 1994 when the “pirate” privatization of radio took them by surprise. The study Implications of Privatisation of Radio and Television in Ghana revealed that 90% of a sample of 100 experts welcomed the notion of privatization. Despite this, “the PNDC was reluctant to loosen its grip on the electronic media until May 1994, when residents of Accra woke up to the sound of a pirate FM station called ‘Radio Eye’. After 24 hours of operating the security agencies shut down the station and arrested Dr. Charles Wereko Brobbey and his team of technicians”. It was not enough to stop eventual and gradual liberalization. Changing global ideologies that followed the end of the Cold War caused a move toward democratization and liberalization of television. This movement toward commercial television called for a new regulatory framework in both Jamaica and Ghana. The establishment of entities to regulate broadcasting in the 1980s in both countries presented clear indications that plans to privatize the sector were being considered by these governments. In Jamaica, the Broadcasting Commission was established as a statutory body under the Broadcasting and the Radio Re-Diffusion (Amendment) Act of 1986. The main function of the Commission was to monitor and regulate the electronic media; grant or cancel licenses for radio, television and subscriber television (STV) services; ensure that the operations and programs of the licensees meet the required legal standards; and provide the government with advice on regulatory issues. Policies specific to broadcasting and regulation of broadcasting, the JIS, the government’s information arm and the CPTC were administered by

32 

D. HICKLING GORDON

the Ministry of Information, a ministerial division within the Office of the Prime Minister. The first commercial television license to be awarded in Jamaica was granted to CVM TV in 1991 when a group of businessmen were awarded a license by the Jamaican government to start a new television broadcast entity. CVM TV became the nation’s second television network to serve the population of just over 2.3 million, with registered ownership of an estimated 699,000 television sets and 1.8 million radios in the 1991 population census (Brown 1995b: 61). Two years later, on March 28, 1993, CVM Television aired its first broadcast. Through its introduction, principles of commerce were brought to Jamaican television. As divestment plans were being finalized, no capital expenditure was taking place within the JBC. At the time, JBC operated as a public service broadcaster and received a subvention from the government, but still had to supplement its income with commercial activities. Claude Robinson recounted that, during this transition period, workers in the television industry at the JBC were faced with a shifting of the culture of production to a purely commercial situation where “whatever sells we will do”. According to Robinson, during that transition period producers had to change their orientation and attitudes to television production. Producers who had the original orientation of public service broadcasting in their minds had to be given space to work without people asking them to create content that was anathema to their sensibility for the sole purpose of amassing profit. We were saying that if you do good things you could make money; you can find the money to create good content.

It was another manifestation of the culture/commerce ambivalence that remained at the core of broadcast media production and distribution for the next generation. Regulation of Cable TV Among the significant early activities of both broadcasting commissions was the regulation of the growing subscriber cable operators. In Jamaica, differentiating between cable service providers and cable content providers is important to the examination of policy in this study. Cable television had begun to give free-to-air television keen competition. In 1996, in response to the competitive environment, the government of Jamaica

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

33

implemented a legislative ban on cable providers, which prevented them from placing advertising material on local cable stations. The Broadcasting Commission implemented this policy. Advertising was allowed only on free-to-air television. The advertising ban was controversial and was seen to favor larger players over smaller ones. It received praise from the free-­ to-­air stations but cable operators condemned the legislation as an unfair and protectionist restriction to trade. They argued that all media should be free to accept commercials and advertising and that an advertiser must choose which media offer the best value for money. It was an issue that set the tone for the commercial period to come. In these transition years, Jamaicans and Ghanaians were skeptical, cynical and suspicious about policymaking. These attitudes were culturally perpetuated because of the “misrepresentation” of early film policies to the absence of sustained educational broadcasting in Jamaica and the oppressive policies in Ghana. Over time, due to a significant shift in policy, the composition of the sector changed in both countries, affecting the operations of the companies and individuals in television. In Ghana, regulation of television took place through the National Media Commission (NMC), established through the National Media Commission Act on July 7, 1993. The NMC was strengthened by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation (FES). The FES, as a socialist organization, had been committed to the concepts and basic values of social justice, political participation and the labor movement since 1925, and brought that agenda to Accra in 1969 to promote the democratization process. Its composition reflected the tone of the new constitutional provisions, and included members of the Ghana Journalists Association, the Trade Union Congress and the Association of Private Broadcasters. The functions of the NMC were to promote and ensure the freedom and independence of the media; to promote and ensure high journalistic standards; to investigate, mediate and settle complaints made against or by the media; to insulate state-owned media from government control; and to make regulations for the registration of newspapers and other publications. P.J. Patterson, Prime Minister of Jamaica at the time, relates that the JBC was suffering from two major disabilities. The first was a chronic shortage of funding. The second was political manipulation of its content under different administrations. Despite our best efforts to preserve its national rather than governmental profile it became

34 

D. HICKLING GORDON

necessary on the grounds of both economic necessity and sound information policy to divest it. (2018: 249)

Both Jamaica and Ghana had bruising periods of post-independence adjustment. Both were plagued by polarization, national unrest, undergoing Structural Adjustment Programmes and adjusting to new global ideological paradigms, and were making decisions to liberalize broadcast media. Significant existential, epistemological and ideological shifts were occurring. Economic structures, governance processes and outlook and sectoral values and processes were changing. Preparations for media liberalization in Jamaica and Ghana were underway.

1997 The Libertine Lure Broadcasting was liberalized in both countries in 1997. In 1996 the Ghanaian Parliament passed the National Communications Authority Act, which went into effect in 1997. The Act created Ghana’s broadcast regulator, the Ghana National Communications Authority (GNCA), which reported to the Ministry of Transport and Communications and was financed by license fees, spectrum fees and funds from Parliament. Its responsibilities included licensing, tariff approval and establishment of licensing fees, as well as setting and monitoring technical standards, frequency allocation and service quality monitoring. On June 12, 1997, the Jamaican government divested JBC TV (Rowe and White 2018: 6). Following the divestment, television officially changed from public service to commercial and its focus from public education and artistry to entertainment and business. The year 1997 was another year of “psychic centrality”. The Ghanaian government stipulated that the GBC would remain a non-profit entity with the government as a majority shareholder and that all other stakeholders must be Ghanaian. The GBC was mandated to remain cost effective and supplement its income with revenue generated from commercial activity. It would continue to receive a subvention from the government, tax breaks and concessionary rates where necessary. The GBC, with its headquarters in Accra, had, and continues to have, a reach of over 90% to a population of 22 million people, via 13 radio stations and 10 offices, one in each region of the country; and one television station.

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

35

This made it an asset that the government thought prudent to retain, based on the need for control over the means of communication, partly based on the circumstances of the nation’s turbulent political past. A new ministry created out of Ghana’s former Ministry of Information and the Communications Division of the Ministry of Transport and Communications was responsible for the development of the telecommunications, postal, courier and meteorological services sector. It was also responsible for improving the performance of ICT institutions, with emphasis on the technical side of broadcasting, internet and encouraging high technical and professional standards and financial/investor support for the sector. For ten years JBC workers had been threatened with the anticipated divestment, but there had been little preparation or planning for the change in policy and practice. Some former JBC workers were hired by the new commercial entity “Super Supreme Television”. The case of Owen James below tells one of many stories of transition that characterized the transformations in Jamaican CCI. Whirlwind of Change After 15 years at the JBC, former news manager Owen James described the whirlwind that gripped the station. As news began to spread that the JBC was up for divestment uncertainty loomed  over the future  of the media workers, James indicated that it was difficult to motivate his team or employ new members. Following the divestment of the station in 1997, James told the Gleaner that his career in news suddenly came to a halt. He was among the workers who received letters stating, “your service along with all the other members of staff is terminated on the ground of redundancy with effect from today, June 12, 1997” (Gleaner, June 13, 1997). The lives of the media workers changed on that day. So too did the shape and form of Jamaican broadcast media. The divestment of Jamaican television, the passage of Ghana’s National Communications Authority Act and creation of Ghana’s broadcast regulator, the Ghana National Communications Authority (GNCA), formally brought into effect the liberalization of Jamaican and Ghanaian television in 1997. Both nations were experiencing the effects of the near-collapse of traditional exports, mounting foreign debt and an increase in the infusion of “free market” messages from the developed West.

36 

D. HICKLING GORDON

The year 1997 was also pivotal for global creative industries. A newly elected British Labour government headed by Prime Minister Tony Blair established a Creative Industries Task Force and begin mapping the 13 sectors identified, through the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS3). The DCMS was formed under neoliberal fiat.  This marked “the formal origins” (Flew 2012: 8) of a movement that has since come to be known as cultural and creative industries and economy. The new policy concept blossomed as a central tenet of the global neoliberal direction. It placed sustained emphasis on wealth creation, individualism, commercialism and decentralization, engendered by absorption of neoliberal tenets in policy for creative production. The DCMS included television in its first list of creative industries. Regionally, in an effort to promote the establishment of national cultural policies in Caribbean nation-states and to provide a framework for their development, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) secretariat formalized the “Regional Cultural Policy of the Caribbean Community” (RCP). The RCP engendered a forum for countries to share resources, information and strategies related to the activation of policies, and helped to ensure some uniformity in the Caribbean’s position on cultural development. During this period, with the writing on the wall, I had left the JBC just prior to the divestment exercise and eventually accepted a position as a television producer of the morning magazine program and special projects at CVM television. Given the absence of an equitable model for the commercial trade in television programming, very low wages paid to television content production and challenging national economic circumstances affecting the larger players, the television sector had changed structurally and become financially unsustainable at all levels of the new commercial sector. CVM began to buckle under the strain of the 1990s financial crisis. The dramatic expansion of the sector in the early 1990s culminated in a financial crisis in the latter part of the decade. “[S]teps were taken by the monetary authorities to stabilize the economy. Indigenous banks were particularly hard hit. At the end of the crisis, significant changes occurred 3  The DCMS is the Department of Culture Media and Sport, a Department of Government in the UK. The first major use of the term creative industries in policy appears to have been by the British Labour government elected in 1997 (Hesmondhalgh 144). It is a “signpost” for the official beginning of the creative industries and economy movement. DCMS had named TV and radio among its 13 sectors.

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

37

both in terms of the number and the ownership structure of the banking sector” (Duncan and Langrin 2004: 1). The television sector was significantly affected. In the years between political independence and its liberalization, 1957 to 1997, television in Jamaica and Ghana saw a process of change from state-owned institutions to hybrid forms of public and private television. Television in Jamaica and Ghana metamorphosed from a single institution with a mandate for social order and cooperation with social purpose to an industry, a sector of production and labor, concerned with the production of goods and services and beyond. It also experienced an ethical revolution.

The Ethical Revolution Amid the transition, developing nations came to be known as nations of the Global South. The public service broadcasting (PSB) ethos was replaced by cultural and creative industries concepts. This was grounded in neoliberalism’s turn-of-the-century globalization and marketization of the creative economy, articulated as “how people make money from ideas” (Howkins 2007). Britain’s DCMS formulated the early rules and processes of CCI convergence in policy and practice. In lockstep with neoliberalism, given the importance of communication and messaging to advance to project, as well as their global economic viability, both film and television were named among the CCIs. The cultural sectors of former colonies had previously been largely comprised of public sector institutions, civil society cultural and creative bodies and informal, community-based cultural and creative entities and private creative professionals whose work was largely linked to identity formation. By adopting neoliberal DCMS thinking and modeling for CCIs to fit in with the new globalized world order, the cultural sectors of developing former colonies had moved from one imperial predilection to another. The commercializing changes represented a series of ethical revolutions that shook the foundations of these sectors. As Kwame Nkrumah explained, “thus if a capitalist society can become a socialist society, then a capitalist society will have changed its ethics. Any change of ethics constitutes revolutionary change” (Nkrumah 1995: 56). The converse held true.  Both Jamaica and Ghana’s move from largely socialist-driven independence movements to neoliberal societies represents an ideological revolution. Straubhaar (2007: 4) argues that as nation-states were created or became independent of colonial powers they used media tried to create a sense of

38 

D. HICKLING GORDON

nationality or imagined national community. “Since 1950, television has often been the primary tool in this effort, giving it a national focus, a focus that has been strongly challenged by the processes of globalization” (Straubhaar 2007: 4). Television and film were the two sectors that were most “advanced” in Western form and industrial function. The first two decades of the new millennium were spent trying to shape postcolonial economies into neoliberal molds. In the twenty-first century, television changed from single PSB to variable commercial concerns. Within the broadcast media gestalt, the sum of the parts had not quite calibrated. In the second decade of the new millennium, further disruptions in technology, digitization, changing economies and converging disciplines further reframed the emerging industries’ value and supply chains. TV became a segment of the audiovisual subsector of a cultural economy with new systems of screen-based production, distribution and consumption of a wide variety of cultural goods and services based on broader cultural economy contexts. The next four chapters chronicle the process of change from TV to AV.

References Abraham J. E., and J. D. Hunt. “Spatial Market Representations: Concepts and Application to Integrated Planning Models.” 49th Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science, Association International. San Juan, Puerto Rico. 14–16 November 2002. Alhassan, Ami. “Development Communication Policy and Economic Fundamentalism in Ghana.” Diss. University of Tampere, Finland, 2004. https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/67409/951-44-6023-5.pdf? sequence=1&isAllowed=y Asamoah, A. 2006. Fifty Years of Broadcasting 1956–2006. Ghana: Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Avle, Seyram. “Situating Ghana’s New media Industry: Liberalization and Transnational Entrepreneurship”, Locating Emerging Media. Edited by Germaine R Halegoua and Ben Aslinger. Routledge, New York. 2016. Brown, Aggrey “Caribbean Cultures and Mass Communication Technology; Re-examining the Cultural Dependency Thesis.” Globalization, Communications and Caribbean Identity. Ed. Hopeton Dunn. New  York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995a. Brown, Hillary. “American Media Impact on Jamaican Youth, The Cultural Dependency Thesis.” Globalization, Communications and Caribbean Identity. Ed. Hopeton Dunn. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995b.

2  SANKOFA’S SONG 

39

Conway, Dennis. “Misguided Directions, Mismanaged Models or Missed Paths?”, Globalization and Neo-liberalism: The Caribbean Context. Ed. Thomas Klak. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998. Crandall, Robert W, and Harold Furchtgott-Roth. Cable TV, Regulation or Competition. Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1996. Duncan, Denvil and Bran Langrin, “Testing for Competition in the Jamaican Banking Sector: Evidence From Bank Level” Southwestern Journal of Economics, Vol. VI, No.1. March 2004. Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development, The Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995. Flew, Terry. “The Creative Industries: Culture and Policy”. Sage. London and California. 2012. Flew, Terry. “Digital communication, the crisis of trust, and the post- global, Communication Research and Practice” 2019. https://doi.org/10.108 0/22041451.2019.1561394. Gadzekpo, Audrey. “Communication Policies in Civilian and Military Regimes: The Case of Ghana.” African Media Review 11. 2 (1997). Web. n.d. 7 August 2008. Gordon, Nickesia S. Media and the Politics of Culture The Case of Television Privatization and Media Globalization in Jamaica 1990–2007. Boca Raton: Florida: Universal Publishers. 2008. Howkins, John. Creative Economy. London: Penguin Group, 2007. Hawkes, David. Ideology. New York: Routledge, 2003. Henry, Krista. “‘Dunn’ with Payola! Broadcasting Commission Aims to Stop Pervasive Pay-for-Play.” Sunday Gleaner, 2 March 2008. Web. Hickling, Deborah A. “From ‘Cultural Institution to Cultural Industry’? A Comparative Analysis of the Television Industry in Jamaica and Ghana 1997–2009.” Doctoral Dissertation. University of the West Indies, 2011. Hickling F, and Jaswant Guzder et al. “Psychic centrality: reflections on two psychohistoriographic cultural therapy workshops in Montreal”. Transcultural Psychiatry. Volume: 47 issue: 1, page(s): 2010 136–158. Hope, Donna. 2006. Inna Di Dancehall, Popular Culture and the Poetics of Identity in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Johnson, Hume. “Incivility: the politics of ‘people on the margins’ in Jamaica.” Political Studies. Vol 53, 579–597. 2005. Kennedy, Dane Keith, Decolonization: A Very Short Introduction Oxford University Press Madison Avenue. NY, USA. 2016. King, Damian. “The Evolution of Structural Adjustment and Stabilization Policy in Jamaica.” Economic Reforms Series. 65. May 2000. Web. 27 October 2010. McChesney, Robert W, and Dan Schiller. “The Political Economy of International Communications: Foundations for the emerging global debate about media ownership and regulation”. Technology, Business and Society Programme

40 

D. HICKLING GORDON

paper Number 11. United Nations. October 2003. http://www.unrisd. org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/C9DCBA6C7DB78C2AC125 6BDF0049A774/$file/mcchesne.pdf Mock Yen, Alma. Rewind: My Recollections of Radio and Broadcasting in Jamaica. Jamaica: Arawak Publications, 2002. Mordecai, Martin. “State Policy, Global trends and Regulation in Broadcasting, The case of Jamaica?” Globalization, Communications and Caribbean Identity. Ed. Hopeton Dunn. New York: St Martins Press, 1995. Print. Nkrumah, Kwame. “Consciencism (1964).” I Am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy. Ed. Fred Lee Hord and Jonathan Scott Lee. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. 1995. 55–64. Print. Nettleford, Rex. Caribbean Cultural Identity. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2003. Patterson PJ. My Political Journey, University Press. Kingston, Jamaica. 2018. Potter, Simon, Broadcasting Empire The BBC and the British World 1922–70. Oxford University Press. Oxford. UK. 2012. Rothermund, Dietmar The Routledge companion to Decolonization First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016. Rowe, Yvette, and Livingston White. Still on air: Producing Television in Small Markets. UWI Press, 2018. Smandych, Russel. “Cultural Imperialism and its Critics: Rethinking Cultural Domination and Resistance.” Cultural Imperialism: Essays on the Political Economy of Cultural Domination. Ed. Bernd Hamm, and Russell Smandych. Ontario: Broadview Press, 3–17. 2005. Straubhaar, Joseph. 2007. World Television: From Global to Local. London: Sage. Williamson, John. A Short History of the Washington Consensus. Fundación CIDOB for a conference “From the Washington Consensus towards a new Global Governance,” Barcelona, September 24–25, 2004. https://www.piie.com/ publications/papers/williamson0904-2.pdf Broadcasting and the Radio Re-Diffusion (Amendment) Act of 1986. Ghana National Communications Authority (GNCA). National Communications Authority Act. Newspaper Licensing Law (PNDC Law 211). Regional Cultural Policy of the Caribbean Community” (RCP).

In-Depth Interviews Conducted

for the

Case Studies

Avergnobo, Edwin, Former Broadcaster and Manager, Sales and Marketing, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Accra. May 2008. Robinson, Claude. Former General Manager at the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Research Fellow, University of the West Indies, Mona. November 2008.

CHAPTER 3

From TV to AV in Jamaica: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits

Abstract  Television in Jamaica metamorphosed from a single institution with a mandate for social order and cooperation with social purpose to an industry between 1997 and 2017. The move from public service to commercial broadcasting resulted in sweeping subsector changes in sensibility, behaviors and practices. Seven characteristic changes are identified across cultural and creative sectors in this volume—commerce, creative work, convergence, conduits, content, copyright and consumption. The seven characteristics (7 Cs) of cultural and creative industries (CCI) are the units of analysis used in this volume to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017. This chapter examines changes in four of those—commerce, copyright, convergence and conduits. Keywords  Jamaica • Commerce • Convergence • Conduits • Copyright • Content • Audiovisual sector • Television • Public Service Broadcasting • Paternalism • Financial anomalies • Creative class • Creative sector • Combative Competition • Partnerships and Mergers • Entrepreneurship ecosystem • Media policy • Policy fragmentation • Intellectual property • Broadcast Legislation • Policy Pendulum • Commercialization

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_3

41

42 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Television in Jamaica metamorphosed from a single institution with a mandate for social order and cooperation with social purpose to an industry between 1997 and 2017. The move from public service commercial broadcasting resulted in sweeping subsector changes in sensibility, behaviors and practices. Seven characteristic changes are identified across cultural and creative sectors in this volume—commerce, creative work, convergence, conduits, content, copyright and consumption. The seven characteristics (7 Cs) of cultural and creative industries (CCI) are the units of analysis used in this volume to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017. This chapter examines changes in four of those—commerce, copyright, convergence and conduits.

Commerce Changing Paradigms The Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation’s divestment in 1997 caused widespread structural and corporate changes in Jamaica’s television sector. Public service and commercial television overlapped between 1993 and 1997. In 1993, CVM Television became the second free-to-air television station. Complete privatization of television came with the divestment of the JBC in 1997. Claude Robinson, general manager of the JBC at the time of divestment, outlined that the station had continued to receive a modest government subvention and augmented it with commercial activity through advertising sales. Negotiations for divestment of the JBC were taking place during this period. This was the beginning of the “commercial era” of television. LOVE TV, a religious, free-to-air television station, began to broadcast in 1998. The station also broadcast on radio, and had a conservative Christian mandate aimed to bring “wholesome family-type programmes which parents could allow children to view even without their supervisory presence” (LOVE TV). David McBean, president of CVM Television (2009), concluded that the public service era had engendered a culture of paternalism in television, which had to be addressed through increasing efficiencies. McBean bemoaned, however, that in the twenty-first century, commercial television continued to be examined from the perspective of public service television: “It is often forgotten that television stations are now businesses and

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

43

that going concerns that have to satisfy shareholders and make profits”. He identified his mandate within CVM as building a media group, attracting investors, placing the company on a sound financial footing, being tough, but fair, and remaining credible and dominant despite working within the Jamaican reality of operating with limited resources. Corporate Movements The consolidation of single media entities into media groups ensued. The JBC assets had been transferred to RJR in 1997. In November 2002, Jamaica’s Finance Minister signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Radio Jamaica Limited outlining the agreement for the sale of a block of RJR shares being held by the National Investment Bank of Jamaica. In 2003 the RJR Communications Group began to restructure its operations to increase efficiency. It became known as the RJR Communications Group, a diversified media corporation with a mandate to produce programming intended for local consumption and to enter new markets overseas through the export of programming. Sweeping management changes and accusations and allegations of financial anomalies (Green 2004: 3) led to changes on CVM Television’s Board of Directors in 1999. The new chairman formalized the CVM Communications Group in 2003 and the Group diversified its operations. Transfers of ownership via public trading continued throughout the decade. Rumors of the CVM Communications group’s intention to list on the stock exchange surfaced in March 2004. The next month the Group announced its plans to become listed. The listing did not occur. Subscriber Cable Television Subscriber cable television (STV) entities grew exponentially in number and size in the commercial period. The policy emphasis in the early 1990s was the decentralization of cable to empower communities through their ability to produce and distribute content and information locally. Community cable television grew faster than the government authorities responsible for their regulation could maintain pace. In 2006 the regulatory agency of government, the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica (BCJ), had on record 50 subscriber cable operators serving 342,000 households (Gordon 2008:52). Increasing numbers of cable service

44 

D. HICKLING GORDON

providers and cable content providers entered the market. Subscriber cable operators are known in Jamaica as cable service providers (CSPs).1 Partnerships and Mergers The emergent creative class of early entrepreneurs in the cable business started operations and brands in the first decade of the 2000s. Eventually many merged with, or were taken over by, free-to-air stations and telecommunications companies. Several combinations of partnerships and mergers occurred in the middle of the 2000s. By the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, the media landscape was being described as “crowded and confusing to traverse” (Sunday Observer). It had become fragmented, unregulated, disorganized, disunited and highly competitive. Mergers and partnerships included RJR’s takeover of the most popular of the nation’s pop-culture television stations in 2006. RJR signed an agreement with the shareholders of RE-TV and JNN to acquire 65% of the issued share capital of the reggae channel and 100% of the issued share capital of JNN (Jamaica Stock Exchange). In 2008, the RJR Communications Group launched TVJ Sports Network (TVJ-SN), to add another dimension to the highly competitive media landscape. Radio Jamaica Limited, Jamaica’s oldest radio station, had expanded to an audiovisual media group with multiple radio, television and allied brands. In 2015 the Gleaner Company Limited, Jamaica’s oldest newspaper company, announced the signing of a merger with the RJR Group.2 Members of the public complained about the reluctance by the merged companies to share pertinent information with shareholders at the time. A prominent Jamaican investment banker commented, “This transaction 1  CSPs were the enterprises that own the hardware, the franchise to broadcast, invest and own cable wire, the head-end from where the signal is sent and have the responsibility for installing the set-top boxes and maintaining the connection, or conduit, to the programs. The persons who produce the local programming aired over cable, known in Jamaica as local cable content providers (LCCPs), are the “actual niche networks handling licensing or producing of original content directed at their respective audiences” (Lieberman 104). 2  The transaction was pursued through a court-approved scheme of amalgamation, was a stock deal through which 1.2 billion shares were issued and exchanged on a one-for-one basis to shareholders of the Gleaner Company Limited for 1% of a newly formed subsidiary, Gleaner Company (media) Limited, which held assets of the media entities of the Gleaner Company. The shareholders of the Gleaner Company Limited owned 50% of the Radio Jamaica Limited common stock and existing RJR shareholders owned the remaining 50% of the combined business (Gleaner Aug 5, 2015).

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

45

doesn’t seem to be a good one and there needs to be more forthcoming disclosure” (Victoria Mutual Pensions). He identified that Gleaner’s financial results showed that its media businesses had posted losses while RJR’s had recorded good profits, yet the merger saw a 50/50 stock swap. The merger team countered saying that legally certain details could not be revealed at that time and remained proprietary. In their 2016/17 report Jamaica’s Broadcasting Commission reported 27 broadcast radio licensees, 18 providing island-wide service and 9 providing limited area broadcast services; 3 island-wide broadcast television stations, each utilizing an average of 8 transmitter sites to achieve coverage. Fifty operators provided cable TV services across the island. Up to March 31, 2017, 30 STV operators were utilizing fully digital STV systems. Six operators were utilizing a mix of analog and digital, while transitioning to a fully digital system. Fourteen operators were providing only analog service, one of which was addressable (25, 26). Of that number, serving a local population of 2.7 million people, the RJR Group controlled four television brands, five radio brands, two major newspaper brands and two multimedia and digital media brands. Combative Competition Commercial competition and rivalry did not exist in the television sector as prior to the advent of CVM TV in 1993 there was, ostensibly, only one station. The emergence of a for-profit culture of the new industry resulted in extremely keen competition between the large media groups. CVM’s McBean had been an executive in the competitive telecoms industry where similarly bruising competition was associated with the liberalization. He explained that this competition was characteristic of the processes of corporate change. This was confirmed by Marcia Forbes who headed the rival Super Supreme TV, which was soon renamed Television Jamaica. Forbes admitted that her tenure was marked by vigorous combative competition from and with CVM-TV. In a newspaper interview she spoke of “famous head-to-heads” with Leon Mitchell, CVM’s then managing director: “We had some memorable fights. He got a little bit of a shock”, she said of Mitchell (Allen 2004). Competition intensified as more trained persons entered the market, affecting many intra-industry relationships. Competition once motivated by ideological and creative debate and social passions transformed into combative trade and production rivalry. The progressively intensifying

46 

D. HICKLING GORDON

combative nature of competition existed at several levels. Competition in broadcast television existed in newsrooms, production units and marketing departments. Sales representatives, talent, producers and technical staff from the same organization all competed against each other. Talent competed for shifts, sales persons for contracts. Independent producers competed with free-to-air stations. Rather than compete, the larger stations took over most of the micro- and small enterprises. Profit-Driven Television The audiovisual subsector grew into a profitable one. The RJRGLEANER Communications Group (RJR), as a publicly listed entity, was obliged to report revenues for the nine months ended December 31, 2018, increased by 9% to $4.21 billion compared to $3.87 billion for the comparable period the prior year. For the quarter, revenues increased 8% to close at $1.50 billion (2017: $1.39 billion). The company noted, “The Group recorded a $143 million increase in third quarter revenues largely due to Broadcasting Revenue relating to major advertising campaigns during the Christmas season”. Profit before tax amounted to $45.68 million relative to $65.19 million reported in 2017. After taxation of $11.45 million (2017: $21.41 million), the company reported a net profit of $34.23 million (2017: $43.78 million) for the period. For the quarter, net profit amounted to $167.54 million relative to $78.94 million reported in 2017. RJR’s stock price closed trading on February 11, 2019, at a price of $0.82. As at December 31, 2018, the Company reported total assets of $3.85 billion, a decline of $167.21 million when compared to $4.02 billion in the prior year (Mayberry Investments). Markets or Audiences? During the public service television era, the emphasis of television programming was on the production and broadcast of educational and entertaining programming to audiences. Advertising rates were based on the audience reach, based on the time and day it was aired, which was in turn dependent on the success and popularity of the program. Advertising decisions had therefore been made in accordance with programming imperatives as in a PSB environment the client/viewer, advertiser/audience dichotomy was less defined. Over time, while the advertising and media buying formula and principles remained the sensibility shifted.

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

47

Primacy accorded to viewers or audiences shifted to clients, the advertisers and program sponsors. The industry transitioned from being programming- and content-driven to being marketing-driven. Viewers, once considered to be “audiences” by television professionals, came to be seen as “markets”. Sales and marketing teams in television sought to identify clients within advertisers target markets and create or deliver programming directly to them. This nuance was contrary to the previous emphasis on addressing the programming needs and seeing advertising to support programming  demand.  Long-standing editorial relationships with traditional Public Relations as discipline also changed. Interview slots on programs that were formally included in programming because of news and information value and interest were given price tags where the content was of promotional level, and sold to clients as marketing tools. Content inclusion decisions were often made by sales executives as opposed to content producers. Program producers were at liberty to schedule interviews sold through marketing departments. Business management became an important focus in nascent organizations. The value of the producer as an integral part of content creation diminished.  Respondents perceived the role of business to be privileged over content creation. The classic material/spirit, creative/industry dichotomy was in play as television’s focus as disseminator of content changed from a content-centric focus to profit making. This shift in organizational perspective brought cultural shifts and changing paradigms to the sector. The difference, while nuanced, represented a change in thinking, motivation and “behavior” of the broadcast sector. The decided emphasis on PSB culturization of television changed to commercial marketization, with the program and its content shifting from communication tools to tradable commodities. The tide began to change again in the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century  when emergent cyberculture and technoculture absorbed the youthful segment of the small market. Competition with digital platforms caused traditional audiovisual producers and distributors to begin to change their approaches. The dominating presence of social media and varied web-based audiovisual production and distribution platforms caused the sector to focus on unique selling points and comparative and competitive advantage. As seen in the next chapter, as 2020 approached increasing emphasis on local programming became a strategic imperative that began a new shift in decision making for content creation towards a more balanced emphasis on audiovisual content and attracting advertising.

48 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Liberalization Without Preparation Liberalization movements in commercial television had largely been left to market forces in keeping with the ethos of neoliberalism. Ten years after the divestment of the JBC, former minister of the Information, Education and Culture portfolios, Maxine Henry-Wilson, admitted that the government had been caught in the middle of snowballing commercialization and technology. “The government”, she admitted, for example, “did not have a sense, in the early years, of convergence—that the spectrum was a national asset for which they needed to plan”: We got caught up in the maelstrom which said ‘let’s sell off what we can, let’s sell as many airwaves as we can, let’s get as many stations as we can, competition will take care of it’. When the thing started to generate to the lowest common denominator, we didn’t know how to hold it back. (Personal Interview, Henry-Wilson)

In 2008 Cabinet gave approval for a Bill to amend the Broadcasting and Radio Re-diffusion Act to expand the categories of broadcast licenses which can be granted to eight.3 The amendments brought changes to the categories of cable licenses which would be granted in the categories of subscriber television services; wired and wireless and independent program providers and independent program providers (subscription). The recognition of independent program providers as licensees facilitated the introduction of local advertising on certain cable channels originating in Jamaica, once the regulatory amendments are in place. Objections which had been previously raised by the media about this amendment had largely been overtaken by changes in the media landscape which had seen more broadcasters expanding their business operations to also become independent program providers. Several contradictions began to emerge. Among them was the absence of clarity in the policy direction being pursued for holistic media sector change.

 The new licenses included island-wide and limited area commercial sound broadcasting licenses as well as island-wide and limited area commercial television broadcasting licenses. Other categories included public service, non-commercial island-wide and limited area licenses and public service commercial island-wide and limited area licenses. 3

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

49

Media, Policy and Change A public information standoff about issues to do with media regulation, ownership, structure and projection emerged. Dunn (2010:51), a former Chairman of the BCJ, called for tracking the media policy process and outlined the need for national communications plans and policies for African and Caribbean nations.4 Media rights and freedoms continued to be a significant policy issue. The PAJ at a public forum on media regulation in 2017, entitled “Who’s Watching the Watchdog”, articulated its position of being “decidedly against government regulation, believing that it might be used to muzzle the media rather than allow it to perform its function as one of the guardians of free speech and democracy”, opting for self-regulation by media entities (Paul 2017). In 2019, both the BCJ and the PAJ remained challenged by media standards and controls, new approaches to content regulation; media literacy; media competition, ownership and control and regulation of digital economy information products and services and to ultimately “develop a modern regulatory framework to deal with the new era of content proliferation and monopolistic concentration” (Clayton and Green 2019). The regulatory/market balance, to include holistic sector planning, quotas and new media regulation, remained undefined at the end of the second decade of the new millennium. Animation Added In 2010 the Jamaican government and the World Bank focused on creating a hotspot for animation. Industry stakeholders lamented the structural hurdles that were hobbling the emergent sector. A thrust began for a World Bank–financed project to support the development of the animation subsector. The development objective of the Sustainable Youth

 to include national development programs for the systematic and effective use and coordination of communications and information strategies; frameworks for the investment and integration toward achieving national development objectives; plans for enabling effective access among all citizens in rural and urban areas; preservation of cultural identity as well as providing avenues for greater cultural expression and the development of artistic capabilities; strategies for the building of human competences in policy and engineering or general human resources development; articulation of explicit roles for indigenous knowledge systems and information channels; and the provision of frameworks for greater involvement of citizens in national decision-making processes and form national communications policies through any era. 4

50 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Employment in Digital and Animation Industries Project for Jamaica was to support youth employment in the digital and animation industries. Outsourcing animation services was prioritized despite advice received that greater value resided in the facilitation of the creation, licensing and trade of original, local animated content. Several fast-tracked programs sought to improve skills and capacity and enhance employability and entrepreneurship for Jamaican youth. The objective was to improve employability in the growing animation industry and in the global online labor market, and provide critical skills to young tech entrepreneurs to bring ideas to market. A physical hub to strengthen a viable tech entrepreneurship ecosystem was established. Early stage investment for tech startups were projected to double the annual amount of private sector investment in early stage growth companies through the establishment and support of vibrant angel investor networks; a diaspora investor program to establish a royalty-based equity loan fund; investigating pre-­ purchase and equity crowdfunding platform and a public awareness campaign. While the animation sector grew in 2019 several challenges still existed. The project manager for the Youth Employment in the Digital and Animation Industries Project, Margery Newland indicated that there were no immediate plans to put incentives in place for animators. “The issue of incentives and waivers is a very touchy subject … these are financial policy decisions that the Government has taken based on various bilateral agreements”, she said. Newland said that the matter of subsidies was a major concern for not only animators, but others in the creative industries. “We are going up against people who have these subsidies”, she said, before adding: “It makes our costing structure not competitive when we look at other people” (Willson Harris 2019). Award-winning animator and head of ListenMi Caribbean, Kenia Mattis, says that the regulatory restrictions made it difficult for animation studios to stay afloat. We are competing on a global scale now with other companies, where their tax rebate structure and their local support structure for animation are geared towards making sure that their employees can stay employed even when you have a lull or dip in animation projects. It is a critical thing for us to not just remain a small operation, but to grow, so having that government support is very important. If not, then it makes the production even more expensive, and they go to another country to do their co-production. (Willson Harris 2019)

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

51

The animation program also sought to support to science, technology, and innovation and researchers with entrepreneurial aspirations who have developed research, development and innovation (R and D+i) applications that have commercial potential. Program management was supported through financial management and procurement requirements and the monitoring and evaluation of project activities as well as providing equipment and training for the project implementation.  The move towards growing the animation sector was hindered by the absence of a holistic vision that included developing all of the synergistic elements of the audiovisual sector. Additionally, preference for developing an outsourcing market and the slow movement towards facilitation of domestic production and a local screen-based ecosystem were seen as significant challenges that affected the animation sub-sector. Business Forward Amid high public debt and limited fiscal space in government, the neoliberal emphasis on entrepreneurship became normalized in Jamaica by the second decade of the twenty-first century. Independent entrepreneurial filmmakers complained of the barriers to access finance and direct financial support for filmmaking using any of the three traditional global finance models—subsidy finance, the pre-sale of audiovisual products and the pure equity model. Many indigenous filmmakers finance their projects from their own savings, small foreign grants and public assistance where available (Stanley Niaah and Hendrickson 2018). The work on the animation subsector, the National Export Strategy of 2013 and the 2015 Business Plan for CCIs took business-forward approaches to the development of the sector. New typologies of doing business emerged. The change from analog to digital allowed for micropayments, crowdfunding, streaming and pay per view, P2P, gamification and self-publishing. Changing consumer behavior resulted and consumers also became producers and content generators. Creative hubs, coworking spaces and innovation labs were formed across Kingston (Jacobs Bonnick 2019). Across the sector, large and small players improved cooperative structures of work and intellectual property (IP) knowledge and access. However, gaps in financing became more glaring. The need for increased innovative ideas and cost reduction strategies as part of a holistic effort to improve product and service quality, optimally change working patterns, methods and structures and grow the sector, was clear and present.

52 

D. HICKLING GORDON

For the 20-year period under review, commercial banks were generally reluctant to provide financing for filmmaking and other creative sector activities. Creative enterprises were often deemed not bankable because of the perception of high risk to return. The banking system loaned funds to businesses with physical plants and remained averse to more risky service activities. At the beginning of July 2019, in a bid to encourage the formalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as part of the economic growth strategy, Keith Duncan, Chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, and David Noel, President of the Jamaica Bankers Association, joined forces through the PSOJ to launch a Financial Inclusion program for small- and medium-sized businesses. The Association challenged local financial institutions embrace the entrepreneurial ecosystem; refocus and redouble their efforts, provide thought leadership, allocate greater resources to entrepreneurship education and training, make it easier for entrepreneurs to gain licensed access to intellectual property derived from their research; and foster closer collaboration with private sector actors in designing and implementing acceleration and incubation programs which can provide mentorship and support required for aspiring entrepreneurs to thrive. The shift represented a move away from previous stringent financial arrangements, toward a conciliatory environment of financial inclusion for creatives. Measuring the Sector The move toward financial inclusion and financial literacy was hampered by the absence of sector data, a methodology for uniform data and a satellite accounting system for discrete measurement of its cultural economy sectors and subsectors. The complete and accurate measurement of CCI economic activity in Jamaica was impossible, and existing data questionable. From available data, UNCTAD (2018:254) reported that exports in Jamaican audiovisual products and services were among the three highest of its creative sector, the other two being design and publishing. The Jamaican creative sector was said to have exported $US5.9 million while total imports of creative products stood at $US153 million; “generating a creative goods deficit of $US147 million” (2018:254). UNCTAD described the film sector as “promising” but recommended better financial incentives as a possible means of addressing barriers to growth. In lieu of a reference to comprehensive Jamaican  cultural economy policy UNCTAD outlined that JAMPRO, an agency of the government of

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

53

Jamaica’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, sought to develop support mechanisms for the film industry, including a the re-announcement of a film fund to finance the development of local screen-based product. The report indicated that a primary challenge for Jamaica was advancing tax incentives based on the country’s agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which restricted tax reform in the interests of fiscal responsibility. The prevailing IMF agreement came to an end in 2019 providing an opportunity to design a fiscally responsible plan that also sought to jumpstart the emerging cultural economy and its subsectors with necessary incentives. The absence of a policy framework and sector plan with the requisite definitions, mapping and defined sector structure to guide the development of these emerging subsectors and industries was glaring. Without a formal system of recording and analyzing economic data completing appropriate sector projections remained a persistent challenge. Policy fragmentation was another important consideration.

Copyright: Intellectual Property Revolution IP was a relatively new matter in Jamaica at the time of divestment. The Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO) had been established in January 2001 as a statutory body and central focal point for the administration of intellectual property with the mandate of administering intellectual property systems in Jamaica. As awareness of the importance of IP management increased, several concerns surfaced in the changing sector about the ownership of creative works.  Independents were ill-prepared for the complex negotiations involving the  baskets of rights that were required to establish ownership of IP. The absence of resources and general suspicion and mistrust made the focus on intellectual property ownership issues and programming contentious in the first decade (Howard 2009; Daley 2013). James (2007) provided economic measurement of the contribution of the copyright-based industries to GDP, employment and trade in Jamaica. Broadcast and production houses spent a decade working through a formula of ownership for programming content. Cultures of ownership, traditions, perspectives and attitudes shaped IP ownership. The governments of both Jamaica and Ghana became signatories to the Berne, Rome and Geneva Conventions that bound them to provide legislative protection for rights holders in musical, literary, dramatic and artistic

54 

D. HICKLING GORDON

works5 and ensure compensation due to performers from original and neighboring rights.6 Yet, concepts of private ownership of the intangibles of information and cultural products were culturally resisted in practice in the early years. Over 20 years the understanding of copyright became more entrenched as JIPO offered services and activities carried or geared toward enhancing the capacity of individual creators and innovators; micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs); corporations and institutions, to create wealth through the acquisition and maintenance of intellectual property rights (IPRs). At the beginning of 2020, Jamaica had not adopted the Madrid Protocol to facilitate international registration of trademarks and remained on the 301 IP Watchlist due to outdated patent and designs regime.

Convergence and Conduits Amid the changes that impacted audiovisual output, convergence in media was taking place a process described by Jenkins (2004:35), as a reconfiguration of media power and a reshaping of media aesthetics and economics. In television’s change to audiovisual subsector, three levels of convergence occurred—that blurred  technological, disciplinary and political economy  lines. Conduits, convergence and media and cultural change are interlinked. As processes and behaviors changed in the commercial era of television, so did broadcast and production technology. Conduits are the means by which content is distributed and consumed. In television, distributive conduits are the means by which programs are distributed. During the commercial era, television content distribution platforms were diversified from terrestrial to satellite, telephone, internet and cable. Changes in policy, structure and processes in the Jamaican television industry included increased distribution options for independent producers. Competition and undercapitalization remained barriers to access. Media convergence also occurred as a result of the technological shifts. Fusion of disciplines in the information technology, telecommunications, broadcasting communications and computing sectors and the fusion of political economy relationships were the result. 5  Coverage extended to works of literature, art, and music; to sound recordings, broadcasts, films, choreographic works, derivative works and programs carrying signals. 6  Legal recognition and protection to authors and creators of original works were provided through the Provisional National Defence Council (P.N.D.C.) Law No. 110, of March 1985 (WIPO Guide 225).

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

55

Technological Convergence The divestment of television in Jamaica coincided with the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, under the National Policy Framework of 1996 that emphasized telecom’s potential as primary candidates for export growth and employment creation. Between 1997 and approximately 2005, several television formats were being used in the market and simultaneously created compatibility issues. Television systems were often incompatible and  could  scarcely “read” each other.7 Footage transfers, archiving and sharing were affected, until non-linear editing replaced analog editing and technological convergence began to take root. Made-for-TV programs became interactive and required voting on mobile telephone platforms and the internet. Television technologies and telecommunications began to merge. Content became available on the internet on a variety of platforms. Internet TV benefited both the consumer and the producer, as it provided an outlet for many of the frustrated independent producers who were unable to identify viable outlets to access viewership  and to  monetize their content. Broadcast houses suffered extreme competition and began to diversify their services and processes. This allowed for the diversification and ready availability of more local and overseas content. The quest for improved technical programming quality and access to overseas markets for locally produced programming caused practitioners to seek cutting-edge technology. This also forced the free-to-air stations to upgrade their facilities and develop their infrastructure to facilitate production. Technological convergence made production easier, allowing more entrants to the market. Converging Business and Production The convergence of disciplines—music, theatre, special events, advertising, art, graphics and others—is a feature of television. Other areas of the cultural and creative industries, including music, design and advertising, converged to create television content. The battles for market recognition 7  Non-linear editing or digital editing is a modern editing method that can be viewed as the audio/video equivalent of word processing, which is why it is called desktop editing in the consumer space. Analog video, on the other hand, is a video signal transferred by analog signal. Analog video is stored on tapes of different formats, where digital video is stored digitally. The crossover of analog and digital video occurred in the commercial era, which made compatibility of television formats a challenge.

56 

D. HICKLING GORDON

and space intensified. The free-to-air stations chose to place emphasis on the development of competing marketing campaigns rather than on competitive product development. Special events, particularly “stage shows”, became popular forms of marketing and content, along with title sponsorship of television programs and music festivals. Tru Juice Rebel Salute, Heineken Startime and Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest were among the branded shows and music festivals that were used for television content. In these early years, television stations also began to align their brands with events as the became media sponsors. Programming was dependent on sponsorship, which became the primary means of funding content production. Yet, the sponsorship models were largely inconsistent, driven by marketing imperatives over production value and dependent on a “contact’s economy”. Accessing sponsorship was not always based on the merit of the project but was often highly dependent on the social capital of the producer. The power of decision-­ making shifted from programming to marketing departments in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The free-to-air groups, CVM and TVJ, strengthened the capacities of their respective marketing and sales departments and elevated those departments in stature within the organizations. The marketing departments in the television stations were strengthened beyond the capacities of the television production and programming departments. Marketers became the predominant decision-makers in company operations, with the power to choose and veto projects. After the divestment of JBC, rather than invest in local television production, the two large television broadcast houses chose to purchase lower cost overseas programming, while insisting that independent producers purchase airtime to air their products. Lennie Little-White explained that the predominant  practice for broadcast houses became channeling sales resources into the promotion and sales of special overseas programming and sporting events rather than the purchase, license or production of local programming. The business models for content production and distribution increasingly accommodating to independent producers in the middle of the second decade of the millennium. In response to a request for a description of the market leader, TVJ’s business models for partnerships with independent content producers, and questions of whether the approach to partnership on content production  had changed, General Manager Claire Grant assured that “Partnership arrangements must be viewed as mutually beneficial. We avoid any partnership where either party feels exploited.

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

57

This has always been the approach” (2020). It is a notion that contradicts independent producers’ early accounts of business inquiries, negotiations and arrangements  as they  sought  to  forge equitable  partnerships with the free-to-air station; even as they indicate that the relationships improved over time. As content increased in value as a commodity, increasing the competitive and comparative advantage of trading in and producing more local content and programming became a central strategy of the main media group which now had multiple content outlets. “Going global is a company imperative. Content is central to that imperative. Local content is what makes the imperative possible” (2019). The liberalization of the wider Jamaican cultural economy and ecosystem resulted in a natural convergence of disciplines—music, theatre, special events, advertising, art, graphics and others—also featured in television’s development. Hope (16) explains that the convergence of dancehall music, culture and television was cemented in 2003 with the introduction of RETV and Hype TV on the local cable network. Other areas of the cultural and creative industries, including music, design and advertising, converged to create television content. Fragmented Convergence: Policy and Legislation Ten years after liberalization, on July 25, 2008, a Bill to amend the Broadcasting and Radio Re-Diffusion Act was passed in the Senate. The Bill sought to expand the categories of broadcasting licenses available and to recognize independent program providers as licensees within the cable framework. The archaic and redundant provisions of the Bill were outlined. Of note, the Bill proposed nine categories of broadcasting licenses, where the legislation had only allowed for a commercial broadcasting license in either television or radio to be granted. The amended legislation sought to facilitate the creation of content-specific programs to geographical communities and cultural communities. It also sought to provide opportunities in radio and television for public service broadcasting at both the regional and island-wide levels, providing for commercial and non-commercial operations. Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica’s (PBCJ) regulations were also amended in 2010 to change the composition of the Board of Directors. Audiovisual policy silos remained in place even as convergence and integration continued “on the ground” by natural selection. Policy gaps in the relationships between broadcasting, cultural, technological and industry portfolios significantly affected

58 

D. HICKLING GORDON

the pace and quality of change made in the broadcasting subsector. Policy administration for the audiovisual sector, which included film and television broadcasting and production, later expanded to include animation, remained fragmented. At the turn of the twentieth century into the twenty-first, the Ministry of Information, a division within the Office of the Prime Minister, administered broadcasting policy. Jamaica’s Film Commission, which was responsible for facilitating the business of predominantly overseas film and video production, was located within the Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s trade promotion agency, Jamaica Trade and Invest. The Film Commissioner’s desk, intellectual property and ICT remained at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries. Even as talk of ‘creative industries’ had been introduced globally in the 1990s with convergence a principal policy theme, this was slow to  translate  into Jamaican policy. Up to twenty years later, very little adjustment had taken place in cultural and creative policy governance structures. Successive government administrations depended on the principle of ‘joined up government’. The primary policy adjustment strategy was shuffling culture and creative  sectors between Ministerial portfolios with the sense that inter-­ ministerial cooperation would suffice over re-engineering the cultural and creative sector. The Jamaican Cabinet was reshuffled in 2002 and the Tourism Ministry expanded to accommodate Sport, Women’s Affairs and Entertainment. It became Jamaica’s first-ever Ministry of Government to include “Entertainment” as a defined portfolio, albeit not formally included in its name. The Prime Minister’s express inclusion of the entertainment portfolio within a Ministry signaled the policy distinction between the production and trade of creative goods and services as an economic activity from the traditional cultural policy of identity, heritage and socio-cultural development. This was in keeping with the trending movement of global governments in keeping with the British DCMS model for creative industries that included television among 13 sectors for converged development focus. Commercialization of cultural production was further solidified in Jamaica through the draft of the 2003 National Cultural Policy through the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture. The policy document admitted that the term “cultural/creative industries” had been introduced into Jamaican thinking in 2003, as part of a regional trade effort prompted by the World Trade Organization, which pointed to a “growing cultural

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

59

services industry as the future for global economic prosperity” (Superstate 2003:7). It spoke about tensions between cultural practices and their translation into tools, goods, services and products; and to the need for entrepreneurship and economic factors of development to be solved by commercialization. There was a marked absence of policy clarity or relationship with a guiding philosophy or political ideology beyond the objective of the formation of a “Cultural Superstate”. Additionally, up to 2009, this objective was never translated into concrete programmatic deliverables. The cultural policy did not cover broadcasting. Within four years, the Minister who had been named to head the Ministry of Tourism and Sport in 2002, Portia Simpson Miller, became Jamaica’s first female Prime Minister in 2006. Based on the lobby of three Caribbean CCI professionals—Lloyd Stanbury, Josanne Leonard and Clyde McKenzie—she committed to forming a wide-reaching Cultural Industries Council to coordinate sector policy measures across government. This would replace the Entertainment Advisory Board (“Creative Economy Report” 54). It was a promise she could not keep as she lost at the polls in September 2007. Under a new JLP government, in 2007, JAMPRO published the Creative Industries Development Plan for Jamaica, which made available a compilation of industry data and the Vanus James Study on “The Contribution of Copyright and Related Rights Industries to the National Economy” was published. In 2008, the functions of the film commissioner were absorbed into a “creative industries” unit. Policy issues to do with content and broadcast regulation continued to be administered by the Ministry of Information. Policy issues on culture and heritage resided in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, which had the mandate for national cultural development. It also presided over the national cultural policy. Government policy and practice had not rationalized its emphasis on cultural or creative industries, reflecting an absence of clarity regarding the concepts and its implications for policy. The 2009 National Export Strategy identified four areas for improved competitiveness and performance which collectively would lead to the development of entertainment, namely, music, dance, drama and film. A Study on the “Jamaican Electronic Media Regulatory and Policy Framework” was published in 2010. In the interim, local and regional producers of audiovisual products had become frustrated with the challenges associated with getting their products to air on local stations and had begun to look to external markets (Little-White, personal interview). With all this policy movement, it had

60 

D. HICKLING GORDON

not significantly translated to sectoral streamlining of the audiovisual subsector. Following the change of government in 2012, UNESCO funded the revision of the 2003 Cultural policy to be completed by the Ministry of Youth and Culture. The interministerial National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission (NCCIC) was formed  by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in 2014. It was comprised of representatives of creative professional organizations and the ministers from the six primary ministries related to cultural and creative industries—Youth and Culture, Tourism and Entertainment, Science and Technology, Education, Education and the Office of the Prime Minister with the Information portfolio. To strengthen its effect and influence, the NCCIC was chaired by the Prime Minister, who was also Minister of Development. The audiovisual subsector was one of several cultural and creative sub-sectors represented on this body. The objective of the NCCIC  was to bring about cultural economy policy convergence, increase cooperation  and reduce the impact of  inter-ministerial competition on the fragile, nascent and slowly formalizing set of sub-sectors. Greater public-private cooperation and joined-up delivery of public services, policy and legislative formulation were other important objectives.  I chaired the  supporting Interministerial Technical Working Group on CCIs (TWG) that brought together technocrats from Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government with cultural and creative industries mandates  and acted as Convenor of the NCCIC for its duration. The NCCIC published a Policy Framework “Towards an Enabling Environment for the Cultural and Creative Industries” in 2015. Other public sector CCI publications of the period included  “The Government of Jamaica Communication Policy” which outlined the government’s communication responsibilities through its agencies, and a Business Plan for the creative industries, commissioned and completed in 2015. This was a period of increased CCI policy activity that would last until the end of the decade. In January 2016 the Jamaican government changed again. The new administration discontinued the  work of the  NCCIC and TWG.  In 2017  an announcement was made to rename and reinstate the Commission as a Council. Through the first two decades of a global, converged creative economy paradigm, Jamaica had not published an updated cultural policy or adequately updated its information policy to address the fast-paced convergence in and diversification of  those sectors. Despite valiant efforts, although technology, operations and disciplines were converging,

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

61

governance by silo remained. Even as the sectors converged, their public policy  had not. The 2018 “PSG Manual: ICT Policies, Standards and Guidelines” encapsulated ICT policies, standards and guidelines that direct the work of the Chief Information Officer. There were still six ministries of government overseeing policy, legislation and service delivery for cultural and creative industries even up to general elections in 2020 and policy convergence remained an elusive ideal. Numerous policies, plans, program, and proposals were written for various sectors and subsectors of the emerging cultural economy. The framework for holistic development remained absent. Work continued on revisions to the Culture and Creative Economy Policy well into 2020 and a new term for the JLP. In the 20-plus years of CCI liberalization, even as the sectors converged naturally in practice, government policy remained divergent. It seemed that  the political expedience of having multiple portfolios to ascribe to ministries and ministers was a greater priority than the practicality of convergence and streamlining. Fragmented AV Focus Global audiovisual convergence was occurring “on the ground” but not being reflected in policy. Optimistic pronouncements spoke about segments of the audiovisual subsector but little sense of a holistic vision existed. The Film Commissioner at JAMPRO in 2018 indicated that the local film industry contributed $1.2 billion in film production expenditure to the local economy for the 2017/18 financial year, representing a 65 percent increase. This was the first time the figure had exceeded $1 billion, with significant multiplier effect. A total of 124 international film productions took place in Jamaica during the period and generated 2781 jobs: “Documentary productions led the genres with 35 documentaries filmed in Jamaica over the period, up from 17 in the previous year, and TV productions followed with 24, up from 15 in 2016/17”. Three feature films were shot on the island: Yardie, directed by Idris Elba; Like Father and The Intent 2 (Jamaica Observer 2018). The James Bond organization returned to Jamaica in 2019 to shoot, having shot the Dr No (1962) and Live and Let Die (1973) on the island. Hailing the economic impact of the film, Robinson revealed that nearly a thousand Jamaicans would be employed as a result. Many of these would be persons directly involved in the film industry in areas such as production management and coordination, camera operators and sound

62 

D. HICKLING GORDON

personnel, extras, along with others who would be providing backup services such as transportation and accommodation (Gilchrist 2019) The fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond was created in 1953 by Ian Fleming while he was living at GoldenEye in Oracabessa, St. Mary, Jamaica. While these statistics reported on the film sub-segment there remained no methodology to value or measure local production and trade across audiovisual platforms, disciplines or sectors. Veteran broadcaster Lennie Little White suggested that “we pat ourselves on the back when foreigners use our locations for big-budget movies. We get an instant injection of foreign exchange spent on hotels, local crews, food, location and equipment rentals, and ground transportation in the main”. However, he suggests that there is a need to encourage the production of local programming, pointing to Canada, that had introduced a quota system for indigenous film and television programming (Personal Interview). Instead of a move toward policy and research convergence, the siloed policy focus crept into the third decade of the millennium. Undoubtedly the TV sector had changed and grown in the commercial era led by the market into an emerging converged audiovisual sector. Yet the realities of the people who worked within the sector tells another story. In the next chapter the structural change is contextualized by summarized accounts of changes in the ways creatives worked, the consumption patterns of the market and the content produced.

References Allen, Desmond. “Marcia Forbes, the Iron Lady of Jamaican Media.” The Sunday Observer. 6 June 2004, 12 April 2009. Clayton, Anthony and Cordel Green. Jamaica in a Digital World March 1, 2019 https://www.broadcastingcommission.org/phocadownload/publications/ FINAL_Discussion_paper_-_Digital_Switchover.pdf. https://www.broadcastingcommission.org/resources/publications Daley, Dianne, “Shades of grey: uncovering the century old imperial imprint on Jamaica’s modern Copyright Act”. A Shifting Empire: 100 Years of the Copyright Act 1911. Edward Elgar Publishing, USA, UK. 2013. Dunn, Hopeton. “Regulating the Changing face of Electronic Media in Jamaica.” Annual Retreat of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica, December 5–6, 2008, Chairman’s Address. 2010. Gordon, Nickesia S. 2008. Media and the Politics of Culture The Case of Television Privatization and Media Globalization in Jamaica 1990–2007. Boca Raton: Florida: Universal Publishers.

3  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

63

Gilchrist, Carl. Bond returns Home, Daily Gleaner April 26, 2019 12:26 http:// jamaica-gleaner.com/article/entertainment/20190426/bond-returns-home Green, Andrew. “CVM in transition.” Financial Gleaner. 30 April 2004. https:// www.broadcastingcommission.org/resources/publications Hickling, Deborah A. “From ‘Cultural Institution to Cultural Industry’? A Comparative Analysis of the Television Industry in Jamaica and Ghana 1997 – 2009.” Doctoral Dissertation. University of the West Indies, 2011. Hope, Donna. 2006. Inna Di Dancehall, Popular Culture and the Poetics of Identity in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Howard, Dennis. Copyright and the Music Industry in Jamaica, Protection for Whom? Revisita Brasileira do Caribe, Vol 1X, Num. 18, 2009. 503–527. Jacobs Bonnick, Olayinka. 2019. International business models in CCI: Balancing Content Production and Commercial Activity in Different Global creative sectors. For Introduction to Cultural and Creative Industries. UWI Mona, Feb 12, 2019. James. Vanus. 2007 WIPO Commissioned Study on the Contribution of Copyright and Related Rights Industries to the National Economy. https://www.jipo. gov.jm/node/116 Jenkins, Henry. 2004. “The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7 (1): 33–43. “Mayberry boss questions RJR/Gleaner merger deal”. Victoria Mutual Pensions Management https://vmpensions.vmbs.com/mayberry-boss-questions-rjrgleaner-merger-deal/. 15 Sept. 2015. Paul, Annie, 2017. “Who’s paying the watchdog?” Gleaner, December 20, 2017. Stanley Niaah, Sonjah and Michael Hendrickson. “A study on the creative industry as a pillar of sustained growth and diversification: the film and music sectors in Jamaica: lessons from case studies of successful firms and ventures” ECLAC. March 2018. https://www.cepal.org/en/publications/43410-studycreative-industry-pillar-sustained-growth-and-diversification-film-and “Towards Jamaica the Cultural Superstate.” The National Cultural Policy of Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: Culture Division, Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture. 2003. Print. Wilson Harris, Nadine, Tax Model Hobbles Animation Industry – Sector Players. Daily Gleaner March 24, 2019. “LOVE TV…A Beacon for Hope!”. Jamaica Celebrates 40 years of Television. Daily Gleaner Supplement. 14 September 2003. UNCTAD, Creative Economy Outlook: Trends in international trade in creative industries. 2018 https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ ditcted2018d3_en.pdf

64 

D. HICKLING GORDON

In-Depth Interviews and Correspondence Conducted Studies

for the

Case

Grant, Clair. “Re:Local Television Production”. Email. January 2, 2020. Henry Wilson, Maxine. Former Minister of Information, Youth and Culture. November 2008. McBean, David PhD. President. CVM Communications Group. June 2009. Little-White Lennie. Founding Director of CVM TV Executive Chairman. Mediamix Ltd. 18 November 2003 and October 2008. Robinson, Claude. Former General Manager at the former Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation. Research Fellow, University of the West Indies, Mona. November 2008.

CHAPTER 4

From TV to AV in Jamaica: Creative Work, Content and Consumption

Abstract  With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. Neoliberalism had changed the nature of employment relationships. This chapter traces the trajectory of transition of creative work in the Jamaican audiovisual sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work. The greatest challenge to creative work as decent work is getting stakeholders external to the creative sector to understand, accept and fully appreciate many creative activities as work, worthy of a decent work agenda. Understanding the changes in the nature of creative work in the AV subsector provides insight into its unique characteristics and provides thematic clues to address endemic challenges. Seven characteristic changes have been identified across cultural and creative sectors as units of analysis to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017. This chapter examines changes in three of those—creative work, content and consumption. Keywords  Jamaica • Content • Consumption • Creative work • Bandooloo  • Hustler culture • Culture shock • Paradigm shift • Skill sets • Stratification • Millennial • Gen Z • Gen X • Baby boomers • © The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_4

65

66 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Class • Race • Politics • Education • Cultural Economics • Corporations • Service Providers • Film • Television • Broadcasting • Tradition • Modernity • Market Driven Models • Content • The News product • Content Regulation • Policy

With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. Neoliberalism had changed the nature of employment relationships. This chapter traces the trajectory of transition of creative work in the Jamaican audiovisual (AV) sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work. The greatest challenge to creative work as decent work is getting stakeholders external to the creative sector to understand, accept and fully appreciate many creative activities as work, worthy of a decent work agenda. Understanding the changes in the nature of creative work in the AV subsector provides insight into its unique characteristics and provides thematic clues to address endemic challenges. Seven characteristic changes have been identified across cultural and creative sectors as units of analysis to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017. This chapter examines changes in three of those—creative work, content and consumption.

Creative Work Creative Contract Work As the sector metamorphosed from television as an institution to audiovisual production and service provision as individual industries and a subsector of the emerging cultural economy, employment patterns changed. Upon divestment of the JBC, staff was made redundant. The new RJR Group entity Super Supreme Television (SST)1 hired select separated JBC 1  Super Supreme Television was the name given to the new television station prior to it being renamed Television Jamaica (TVJ) amid public outcry.

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

67

practitioners. Some of the workers that had been re-employed into the commercial system were “properly” employed and enjoyed long-term tenure at those institutions. Others were re-hired into the free-to-air stations on a contract basis. The small market for staff positions in broadcast houses, particularly for the specialist technical areas, engineering or technical production areas—videography, audio, lighting and some producing functions—became saturated. The television stations set low rates for labor and “standard” terms with little room for negotiation. “We had to take what we got” (Respondent 10). Maxine Henry-Wilson, Minister of Information at the time of JBC’s divestment, acknowledged that many issues clouded the re-engagement of the former JBC workers. There was a question of their appropriateness, and you could not pay the old faces the kind of money that they wanted, because they didn’t have the kind of qualifications that the new ones had. (personal interview)

Fixed term contracts and contract labor began to replace open-ended contractual arrangements with the prospect of wage stagnation. Unaccustomed and ill-prepared workers entered into “standard” contractual arrangements dictated by the television stations without seeking advice or representation. Uncertainty caused many to accept the terms to secure employment despite the terms. Contracted media workers had the responsibilities of an employee without the attendant benefits. Taylor (2001:1) describes this category of worker as a “disguised” employee in his national study on employment relations. A disguised employee labors under an often exploitative contract of service and does not have access to the range of protections and benefits provided under the various Jamaican statutes. These contracts existed in defiance of the very roles of trade unions, collective bargaining, representation, improving remuneration and conditions of work. According to Patterson, “these workers are by and large independent contractors or own-account workers, or hustlers and therefore do not fall within the legal scope for trade union representation” (Patterson 2018:21). Working “on-contract” often restricted creative workers from working with other media companies. It made “exclusivity” without the requisite compensation for opportunity costs an ethical issue rather than a financial one, and operated contrary to fair trading principles.

68 

D. HICKLING GORDON

The most tenuous circumstances remained with freelancers who, 10 and 20 years after the divestment, request anonymity because of the nature of their freelance agreements but registered significant uneasiness with their contractual terms.2 The surge in independent work engendered new concerns about the International Labour Organization’s Decent Work standards and rights at work, right to representation and collective bargaining, employment creation and enterprise development, social protection and social dialogue. Security of tenure, social protection for families, prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom to express concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives, pensions, financial inclusion, health insurance, estate planning, equality of opportunity and treatment were all threatened. The absence of these standards prevails for many creative workers in Jamaica across disciplines. Fundamentally, there existed a perception of creative work as illegitimate, not “real work”, despite the ILO’s International Standard Classification of Occupations (statinja.gov, 2014), which was listing a variety of creative occupations as “Professional, Technical and Related Workers”. New Game. New Rules. New Issues The new, converging audiovisual subsector had its own rules, structures, pricing imperatives, processes and products. Independent television producers were constrained by difficulty accessing capital. Some were legitimate, registered businesses; others were informal. A third, but under-reported, category was the independents who created formal business entities but could not afford to maintain formal status including taxes and other annual returns. Cultural and creative businesses were classified as high risk by the dominant holders of capital. Cultural creative practitioners complained of the challenges in accessing financing and managing finances. Additionally rates for audiovisual goods and services were not standardized. Prices were determined informally. Competition often led to undercutting. There was no complete database of practitioners, but not for the want of trying to complete one. Several entities including the GOJ sought to map the sector. Many creative workers preferred to operate under the radar. Gigs and sponsorship were allocated based on social capital and 2

 Respondent 6.

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

69

reputation. Growing a network of “contacts” became a necessary part of doing business. “Contacts” is the local term, often used with some cynicism, to describe a network of persons known to each other who provide economic or social benefits based on their relationships rather than meritocratic or equitable bases. The notion of a “contacts economy” is associated with leveraging social capital and economic stratification, connotations of exclusivity, elitism, inequity of access and even corruption. Independents and Own-Account Workers The significant structural change in the Jamaican television market and exponential increase in the number of independent television workers or freelance production practitioners led to an increase in small- and micro-­ independent producers, or freelancers producing independent programs. Independent television talent, videographers, producers, editors and technicians made themselves available to be contracted on a work-for-hire basis. Several boutique operations grew out of home studios and editing suites. While most independents remained informal operators, some grew into active, formalized production houses with consistent projects and clients. Micro-enterprise production by cable content platforms early in the first decade competed directly with the large free-to-air broadcasters. RE TV, Hype TV and Music Plus were among the emergent stations providing fresh, youthful content that competed directly with the free-to-air giants. The 2003 estimate was that at least 20 companies/studios were actively involved in film and video production (Stanbury 2003:8). That number grew exponentially and diversified in the next decade. Negotiating contracts that they considered reasonable with the free-to-air stations— either for hire or for the provision of programming—was a consistent challenge. As the freelance and independent segment of the audiovisual subsector grew, new players entered the market. New tensions between broadcast houses and independent producers emerged regarding the business models for production and trade of local content. A prohibitive business model was proffered by the media houses that called for content producers to purchase air time. Veteran audiovisual producer Lennie Little White (personal interview 2008) indicated that “they perceive that individual producers are going to make too much money and so they don’t encourage people [sponsors or advertisers] to support independent production”. The stations countered, pointing to

70 

D. HICKLING GORDON

the relative expense of backing or purchasing local programming as compared to the much lower prices of licensing overseas programming. The cost of local production was deemed too high to be borne by the broadcast houses. Overseas content dominated the airwaves for the first decade of the millennium. The veritable standoff continued until the second decade when tensions began to wane. The power relationships began to shift in the second decade as independents found their footing and learned to navigate the commercial landscape. Independents established new relationships on a project-by-­ project basis and became partners, purveyors, clients and service providers to the media groups. The “value” of local programming began to gradually return to the market. Bandooloo and the Hustler Culture Media practitioners were not blameless during this period of change. New work trends emerged. Television practitioners on the staff of the free-to-­ air stations—in particular technical workers including videographers and editors—flouted station rules and accepted freelance projects called “roasts” to augment their modest salaries. Often this banned “outside” work was completed using company equipment. This merger of “legitimate” and “illegitimate” work is a part of the Jamaican “bandooloo” culture. Informal, independent micro-enterprises grew out of this practice causing some salaried creative workers to leave their jobs as employees negotiate more lucrative contracts providing services for the same companies and hire colleague independents. “It was more financially viable to work as an independent than it was to hold a staff position in television”. Respondent 2, a cameraman, explained that this arrangement allowed him greater flexibility and the ability to earn in excess of 100% of the salary of a staff videographer with the television stations as their clients. Covering corporate production, live sport and entertainment events was the main source of revenue (Fig. 4.1). Many independent television practitioners continued to operate within the informal economy or tenuously conduct informal business through formal, but non-compliant, entities. Tax evasion was commonplace. Often subsistence and compliance competed for resources. The informal, technical operations of the nascent television industry burgeoned and the

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

71

Fig. 4.1  Production of the pilot of the television programme “Passion for Sport” at Jamaica’s National Stadium, 2017

number of independents grew exponentially adding to informal sector growth to about half the size of the total Jamaican economy (Patterson 2018). A culture of hustling evolved into a “hustle economy” (Witter and Kirton 1990). This evolved into a cultural phenomenon, in which formal and informal “economies” coexisted.

72 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Culture Shock and Paradigm Shifts Respondents who had first worked in the public broadcasting era reported going through a period of “culture shock” and anxiety. The uncertainty establishing entrepreneurial concerns and negotiating new rules of engagement was daunting. Respondents (1, 4 and 6) re-learned how to operate in the new environment. Updated interviews in 2017 revealed heightened anxiety of those approaching retirement age without pensions, having worked independently amid the uncertainty since liberalization. The “spirit” of the production process altered. Feelings of marginalization and disempowerment were reported. Cognitive dissonance accompanied the changed philosophies of television. The inclination of public service broadcasting, their training and experience in content production was to uplift and inform television audiences. Identity formation while entertaining and informing was central trope. In the commercial era, that orientation changed. Respondent 1 describes adding commercial negotiations to the creative process as “distasteful” and “selling my soul”. The traditional communication virtues associated with telling a story had become compromised, as producers had to please the sponsors rather than satisfy their creative and cultural instincts (Respondents 1, 2, 4 and 6). “The product could be compromised, but the sponsor could not”, Respondent 1 reported. As a result, more practitioners opted for their independence as entrepreneurs to be able to make their own commercial deals, rather than depend on the television stations. The intellectual property paradigm was also difficult to grasp early in the transition. Creative workers were introduced to new concepts of ownership of the products of their imagination. The number of training opportunities in intellectual property management increased through JIPO but were often undersubscribed. Changing Skill Sets and Attitudes By the second decade of the millennium the power balance had fully shifted from content to commerce. The market had diversified. A new generation of trained professionals entered the audiovisual workforce. Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who made up the television workforce prior to 1997 were joined and replaced by Millennial and Gen Z creative workers. Analog populations changed to life in an era of digital platforms embracing artificial intelligence. Many were independent, freelancers or contract workers with very different expectations than first- and

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

73

second-­generation content producers. Young, technology-savvy audiovisual professionals accepted contract work, operating without pensions or health insurance. Change was both material and attitudinal. The ready acceptance of the language, attitudes and principles of neoliberal ideas including an embrace of entrepreneurship, political apathy, the centrality of the market and the primacy of the profit motive became apparent. Traditional creative producers largely learned how to operate within commercial environment. For some it was a difficult process. Respondents agreed that self-motivation was required to survive in this new environment, as there was little external support or guidance by persons who legitimized the perspective of the creative. The prevailing zeitgeist privileged entrepreneurship and business. The creative perspective was oft dismissed as entitled, impractical romanticism. Neoliberal sentiment was privileged in that dialectical tension. Stratification The Motion Picture Industry Encouragement Act of the 1940s had created long-standing, unspoken tensions based on race, class and economics that colored and shaped relationships in the sector for decades. Within that half century of operation, four distinct groups emerged in the neoliberal period into which audiovisual professionals could be classified. These groups were largely based on prevailing social structures and were grounded in Jamaica’s legacy of polarization related to social class, race, politics and education. Thame (2011:78) explains that in the politics of citizenship in the postcolonial Caribbean, racial and, by extension, social class boundaries delineated the inequitable distribution of liberties, protection, justice and access to opportunity. Unspoken perceptions of inequity in the audiovisual sector resulted in the emergence of behaviors characterized as culturally endemic forms of mistrust and acrimony. Audiovisual professionals can still be identified in the following groupings, although the lines have become increasingly blurred as time passes.  he Film Group T The film group was an elite cadre of practitioners who were often chosen for or won productions with overseas film companies shooting in Jamaica. Film professionals were highly skilled, trained and experienced. Several of the original film companies were started by expatriates or had originally been formally trained overseas at a time where formal training in film and television was limited. For a long time in the Jamaican film and television

74 

D. HICKLING GORDON

sector overseas training was considered more proficient than local training or apprenticeship, which was scarcely available. Similarly, overseas content was deemed superior to local content. The film group predated liberalization and was made up of teams that owned, partnered or worked within formally registered production houses up to the early 2000s. These companies formed the membership of the Jamaica Film Producers Association, an organization established for production companies. In addition to overseas films, this cadre of professionals largely serviced local advertising agencies and corporate clients and produced some programming content for local broadcast up to and beyond the turn of the century.  he Television Group T The television group was arguably the largest in number, consisting of television professionals with jobs in traditional television companies and production houses. The television and film groups remained largely discreet in the first decade until convergence of technology, discipline and process became commonplace and skills and services were exchanged among groups. New Independents Following liberalization several newly emerging independent or freelancers registered micro-enterprises. Some of these were displaced JBC employees. Others were new to audiovisual production. This group had entry and egress to and from the film group, production houses and the broadcasting stations. A new collective bargaining organization, the Jamaica Association of Film and Television Producers, was formed in 2014 to represent this emergent group of audiovisual professionals. Service Providers The fifth group was made up of informal practitioners who covered events and produced wedding videos and entertainment events for cable and retail. A substantial, increasingly formalized niche emerged from shooting corporate events and distributing them for television coverage. The classifications were more stark earlier in the millennium. Unspoken perceptions of inequity caused mistrust and resentment accompanied by culturally endemic forms of mistrust and acrimony. The second post-­ divestment decade saw the relaxation of many of these stratifications. The groups began to overlap and the configurations began to merge. Ambivalence regarding commercialization also began to diminish as the

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

75

independent corps grew. Yet the inequities in  local content production had not been addressed and remained a murmured undercurrent. Cultural Economics and Cooperation A growing spirit of cooperation began to emerge in the second decade. This was marked by the production and release of the Jamaican feature film Betta Mus Come in 2010. It had been a decade since the comparable Jamaican film Third World Cop had been produced. Betta Mus Come revived a spirit of community production that had led to the making of The Harder They Come and other Jamaican television classics in the 1970s and 1980s. Saulter and St. Lucian filmmaker Michelle Serieux co-founded the New Caribbean Cinema collective in 2013, with the tagline: “A new approach to Caribbean filmmaking, by any means necessary”. According to Serieux: It is in essence, communal filmmaking. A group of filmmakers get together and work on each other’s films, like a ‘round robin’; a communal form of recreation in Jamaica used predominantly in sport.3 It ultimately kind of transformed into a movement that led to the creation of the Jamaica Film and Television Association in 2015, where filmmakers, actors, film and TV industry people come together and share ideas.

Other cultural parallels had begun to re-emerge in the film sector including the process of “running a boat”. Each individual in a community or a group of persons brings items to be used in the preparation of a meal shared within that community or group; or the adaptation of “Farm Day” a tradition where group of farmers each give one day of the week towards the work of several farms on rotation until it is time to reap. Serieux says, “In the end we will have at least seven films by different directors, which we will put together to form one feature film at a fraction of the cost of a traditional feature film”. Practitioners pooled their human and technical resources and either contributed their time and energy or charged minimal costs. Saulter explained, “We will also have at least seven 3  Community teams enter a “round robin” competition, which travels from community to community allowing for each community to earn the associated revenue. Promotion and other overhead costs are either shared or borne each week by the proprietor in the group who yields the benefit. Production practitioners pooled their human and technical resources and either contributed their time and energy or charged minimal costs.

76 

D. HICKLING GORDON

individual shorts that can travel on their own. I don’t think we are reinventing the wheel, but we are getting very high quality films made for very low budgets” (“YardEdge Talks”). Another cultural phenomenon known as “throwing a pardner” emerged. The “pardner” is an informal micro-savings scheme in Jamaica where a group of persons come together periodically, to “deposit” sums of money to a “banker” within the community. Each person receives a periodical lump sum withdrawal “draw” from the revolving scheme. This means of savings allows persons to save outside of the formal banking systems. It a cultural, as well as a financial, activity and is associated with persons within the traditionally marginalized demographic in Jamaica. Serieux indicated that the film community had grown “tired of waiting on funding that never comes”, and that the formation of New Caribbean Cinema formed to challenge old models “and to prove that in our region, innovation and ingenuity are key to our artistic expression”. The need to consider greater levels of joint-venture production arrangements domestically and with international filmmakers who can provide finance and technical expertise that could be combined with Jamaican indigenous capital and talent is an important consideration for the way forward for the emerging subsector. Professional Organizations With the advent of commercial television, journalists and media owners were already able to join the press and media associations. The Jamaica Chapter of the prestigious Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) was formed in 2000. Maxine Walters and Natalie Thompson, co-founders of WIFT-Jamaica, spoke on the importance of advancing the professional development and achievement of women working in all areas of film, video and other screen-based media. They identified the value in the formation of the chapter to use the opportunities of networking offered by Women in Film and Television-Jamaica (WIFT-JA) to develop their individual skills. WIFT-JA had seats on the International Board, representing the Caribbean, Central and South America. The organization disbanded after about five years of activity, including the successful staging of the World Summit of Women in Film and Television in Montego Bay in October 2002. The association went dormant and reconvened in 2019. Amid the national formalization thrust, in January 2010, the Jamaica Film Producers Association (JFPA) was established for business owners in

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

77

film (St. Juste). The JFPA was created to provide a collective bargaining unit to assist in the formalize the film (and television) industry in Jamaica. The organization’s mandate was “to develop and maintain an enabling environment for professional film and video production in Jamaica by supporting training and marketing initiatives, encouraging ethical and successful business practices and being an effective lobby and advocacy workgroup on behalf of the industry” (St Juste 2009). Members were required to be owner-operators of a registered entity primarily involved with film and/or video production. This was distinctively, however, an association for production companies, as opposed to independent audiovisual workers. Five years later, as the silos in film slowly converged and the number of independents grew, a gap still existed. While an association of business owners existed, no representative body for individual, independent audiovisual workers existed. A National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission had formed and required the representation of a professional association for audiovisual stakeholders (Hickling 2015). An emergency audiovisual sector meeting was held at the Ministry of Tourism and Entertainment in May 2015. A large cross-section of the audiovisual subsector stakeholders attended, who agreed to register a new association, with a wider representative base. The Jamaica Film and Television Association (JAFTA) became the non-profit association and collective bargaining group available to audiovisual workers and represented the interests of the film and television industry in Jamaica (Rowe and White 2018:11). Among the achievements of this group is a health insurance scheme for members. JAFTA began a series of collective initiatives including the Propeller Project in association with JAMPRO, “which addressed a key challenge: financing. The annual program gives five film­mak­ers from the region the equivalent of about $4,500 to complete their short films” (Indie Wire). A supportive environment began to emerge for filmmakers. This new thrust toward local filmmaking began with the support of the production and marketing of short films. It was a significant addition to an emergent subsector that in name and nature was converging.

Content and Consumption Rowe and White’s (2018) extensive examination of changing television concludes that a compromise between the business imperative and the public good is important for competitive media in Jamaica. It is, generally,

78 

D. HICKLING GORDON

a position that has metamorphosed over a quarter century. The programs categorized as “successful” are those that are “Fit for purpose with that purpose being to keep viewers and attract advertisers”. Several changes took place during the two decades under review which revealed the ambivalence that existed within this notion of success. Modernity Versus Tradition In the early 2000s, television workers with little or no experience in “traditional” television production were the creators of much of the television products for the new cable stations. Deliberate efforts were made by cable bosses to select persons untainted by the traditionalism of television. This new group of avant-garde, technologically savvy video professionals comprised young, mostly self-trained, practitioners or frustrated former employees of the television stations, who had aligned themselves with the music industry. This entertainment revolution in television forced the freeto-air stations to include popular culture in their programming as the growing consumption demographic was increasingly interested in entertainment-­based programming. This was seen as part of the process of democratization of Jamaican television. Hope (16) explains that the convergence of dancehall music, culture and television was cemented in 2003 with the introduction of RETV and Hype TV on these local cable networks. In traditional television production circles, some industry players saw the emphasis on entertainment programming as the “dumbing-down” of television production. However, Carol “Quizz” Sigurdson, a television presenter from RETV, explained that “the globalized generation” sought new content that represented the way they saw themselves. The new generation of producers made a clear distinction between themselves and the “traditionalists”. “I don’t see TVJ and CVM going anywhere. The traditionalists are going to find more traditionalists to carry on the traditionalism while we do what we do”, she said. Several of the cable stations became unsustainable amid the uncertainty of the market and their inability to advertise legally, and either closed or were absorbed by the conglomerates. Hype TV remained a private station that continued to operate for a 21-year duration. Market-Driven Models “The existence of three television stations did not lead to substantive growth in  local content” (Rowe and White 2018:8). Several programs seen on local television mimicked the American reality/entertainment/

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

79

competition format made famous with American Idol. Programs mimicking this format included Digicel Rising Stars, The Tastee Talent Trail Show and the Magnum Kings and Queens Show and several others including gospel song competitions. Another trend that emerged was independent producers creating programming concepts to be fully or partially underwritten by sponsors. Production of programs including Our Voices, On a Personal Note, Impact, Royal Palm Estate, The Susan Show, and others was facilitated by external, corporate sponsorship. Sponsorship became the leading form of financing for the creative sector. The questions of intellectual property ownership shares in programs became points of negotiation as content became a commercial commodity owned by individual creators and vested stakeholders, and was no longer owned by the state and people of Jamaica. Local content creators who were unable to find equitable local markets for their products moved their emphasis toward corporate production. Corporations had become largely dependent on audiovisual production and television advertising, video-based corporate profiles, televisual public education campaigns, documentaries and video presentations for meetings. They contracted producers to conceptualize, produce and deliver content as elements of corporate marketing campaigns. Brand-driven programming or branded content included The KFC Quiz Show, Guardian Life Insurance Company’s A Graders, Scotiabank’s The Teller and Grace Kennedy Limited’s Grace Kitchens. Although social media advertising began to erode traditional television’s advertising revenue in the second decade of the millennium, audiovisual production was still required. Production became central to data and content commoditization and a production boom ensued. Broadcast houses began negotiating with producers for local content and facilitating production through shared production costs, commissioning of talent, assisting producers with costs and sharing financial risk. TVJ established a “HomeGrown Unit” conceptualized in 2015 and operationalized in 2017. The unit focused on the creation and production of local content to fill genre and format gaps that existed on the platform. Clair Grant, General Manager at TVJ, outlined that consensus with production partners was an important part of the equation, “that is from 100% TVJ ownerships to various levels of TVJ involvement that might not always be majority ownership or ownership at all”. It was an approach that had been requested for mainstream consideration for over 15 years.

80 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Overseas Content Television content produced overseas remained the largest percentage of the programming schedule in the first post-liberalization decade. CVM TV’s mandate at the time of privatization was to provide independent local producers of content with the opportunity to showcase local filmmaking talent. Despite this, in 2007, 34% of programming was devoted to programs of national origin across the three free-to-air television stations (Gordon 2008:80). Of the 66% of foreign-based programming, the television stations chose to present low-end programs considered “daytime” programming in the USA in prime time slots in Jamaica as manifestation of continued cultural imperialism identified in the 1980s (A Brown, H Brown). Gordon (2008:81) designated the bulk of national production outside of news to the category of “other programming”, which accounted for 12% of total national hours. She argued that there was “a certain degree of superficiality that characterizes local production”. Of the three free-to-air stations, described by Gordon (2008:82) as “national commercial stations”, TVJ had the highest percentage of nationally derived programming, totaling 39%. Twenty-six percent of this was devoted to the lottery, death announcements and the home television shopping network, “essentially programme fillers that give the impression of substantive local production” (2008:81). Between 2015 and 2019 TVJ reported airing between 60 and 70% local programming and 30–40% overseas programming, with fluctuations based on seasonal programming and special events (Grant 2020). A proliferation of overseas programming on cable from several hundred international channels remained available through subscriber packages. Public Service Broadcasting Revisited As a provision of the divestment of the JBC, the government had committed to the introduction of a new public service broadcasting body as outlined in the Public Service Broadcasting Corporation Jamaica Act of 1997. The PBCJ was formed by statute to provide public broadcasting services designed to promote the encouragement and propagation of positive values and attitudes within society; the development of education and training; the dissemination of news, information and ideas on matters of general public interest; the vitality of democratic institutions; the protection of the

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

81

environment; the development of literary and artistic expression; the development of culture, human resources and sports; respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and the responsibilities of the individual to society; and integrity in public and private life (Public Broadcasting Corporation Act 1997:2). Until this was implemented, the CPTC filled the void left by the JBC, by providing public service broadcasting content through a cable television station, CTV. Through this expanded mandate, the CPTC broadcast public service content including documentaries, discussion programs, current affairs and programs featuring Jamaican traditional culture programs through that station. On March 16, 2005, the newly convened board of the PBCJ met for the first time at Jamaica House. The board of directors was composed of representatives chosen by civic organizations, by order of statute. I was named amongst its members, who were charged with the responsibility of getting the PBCJ to air in the shortest possible time, the board began to work toward an August deadline to staff the corporation, decide on a plan of action, put programming in place, re-­brand the station and bring it to air. The station was first launched in March 2006 for testing and came to air via cable in 2007. Ironically, Jamaicans could access public service broadcasting only via cable. Its content was not available via the three terrestrial television stations. Viewers of PBCJ’s content paid for public service television through a fee-for-service arrangement with profit-making cable entities—contradicting the spirit of public service television. Among its signature programs was the live broadcast of the sittings of the Houses of Parliament. This was part of the diversification of television content offerings during the commercial period that caused consumption patterns to change. The News Product News programming during the commercial era remained the highest yielding commercial television product with the largest audiences. This remained consistent for the two decades post liberalization. Gordon (2008:81) names news as the most significant genre of locally derived programming. It was also the most watched. David McBean, former president of CVM television, confirmed that the nightly news product was its most profitable, and required the group’s most significant investment. In both free-to-air stations the newsroom remained an autonomous unit, said to be insulated from marketing emphasis. Journalists remained jealous

82 

D. HICKLING GORDON

of their high status—eighth on the World Press Freedom Index in 2019, down one point over 2018. Legislation decriminalizing defamation was passed by the House of Representatives in 2013. A Data Protection Act in draft at 2019 was seen to challenge the status of the free press and information. In both decades of the new millennium, great emphasis was placed on sustaining and improving the news product including the “look and feel” of television news with a series of changes to sets, formats and delivery of news content. At the RJR Group, a centralized news center was established to serve the group of companies broadcast news content following a series of mergers and addition of broadcast brands. Eventually news products became readily available on all stations following liberalization. LOVE FM began to present a newscast. The Jamaican audience’s affinity for the news product prompted the addition of Jamaica News Network (JNN) in 2004, an all-news station. The inclusion of holograms, advanced graphics and an attractive set signalled the stationed emphasis on production values. TV, Transparency and Freedom Perceptions of a deepening national political cynicism emerged in the 20-year period between 1997 and 2017, an intense period of political activity. Transparency International’s Corruption Ranking showed that between 1998 until 2018, of 175 countries, Jamaica maintained an average corruption rank of 72.32; with a record low rank of 45 in 2002 from 49 in 1998; reaching an all-time high of 99 in 2009. In 2002, the leadership of the JLP was challenged. Bruce Golding replaced Edward Seaga as the Leader of the Opposition and the Party. In 2004, Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson announced his plan to retire as Prime Minister and leader of the PNP.  Television news content predominantly featured the contestations within the political landscape. Nine consecutive election campaigns held the attention of media houses between 2002 and 2008. There were general elections in 2002 and 2007 each followed by a local government election; a PNP presidential election in 2006 and 2008 and three by-elections. National media campaigns were staged. Television and radio were central to those campaigns. Television advertising was a predominant and popular form of election campaigning. Advertising sales increased exponentially during election campaigns. Rumors of journalists’ alignment with political parties and

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

83

payola associated with reportage emerged but have not been a subject for public debate. Political payola was never publicly proven. Respondents were reluctant to discuss the matter of payola in editorial circles. This was a matter that the Jamaican media seldom talk about publicly. Political biases were, however, occasionally identifiable. As post-global ideologies began to take shape worldwide and the principles, practices and techniques associated with post-global populism began to be absorbed into Jamaica’s body politic, the publication of half-­ truths and “fake news”, which are widely discussed in global media and communications literature, became manifest in Jamaica. The diminution of authoritative and independent sources of news (Clayton and Green 2019) in the digital era meant that more Jamaicans obtained their information from closed loops of like-minded individuals in the same social media groups, which encourages political tribalism and more extreme views, increases vulnerability to fake news and manipulation via social media, and thereby starts to undermine the basis of tolerance that is the foundation of democracy and participation in society.

Content Regulation and Standards The Ministry of Information, through the Broadcasting Commission, enforced the Children’s Code for Programming. Under the code, broadcasters were called upon to rate all programs on the basis of violence, sexual content and language. Television broadcasters were also mandated to schedule materials considered “potentially harmful” at a time when children cannot be reasonably expected to be in the audience. This was directly linked to the increase in dancehall music described as “laden with erotic themes” (“Broadcasting Commission Moves”) played across the airwaves. In addition, the stations were instructed to issue advisories of program ratings prior to airing. The policy decision was based on local and overseas studies that showed the detrimental effects of television on children and adolescents who are excessively exposed to television and content of the kind being regulated. The main free-to-air stations CVM and TVJ, while endorsing the principle of protecting children, argued that the code was onerous. By February 6, 2009, given concerns about declining societal values and attitudes, the Broadcasting Commission issued a new set of protective directives to broadcasters that restricted radio, television or cable services from airing

84 

D. HICKLING GORDON

any recording, live song or music video which promotes the act of “daggering” or which makes reference to, or is otherwise suggestive of, “daggering”. The regulation restricted radio, television or cable services from airing any audio recording, song or music video altered by editing techniques of “bleeping” or “beeping” of its original lyrical content. It further required program managers and station owners or operators to take immediate steps to prevent music promoting content considered antisocial behavior from being played on television. The changes in the tone of programming and its effects on society prompted and caused the return to public service programming in the middle of the 2000s to be fast-tracked and stringently enforced. Journalistic standards remained an important element of the evaluation of the Jamaican news product during the period. The Jamaica Observer reported in 2015 that the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) was “still struggling to find sufficient journalists who regard their jobs as a career. And so every meeting of the PAJ the veterans of the profession segue into griping and complaints about falling standards”. In 2019, the PAJ staged a popular forum in response to what its President, George Davis, described as “complaints from our audience” (Jamaica Observer 2019), to “engage them on this issue, and to hear their suggestions” on whether or not the local news product was too “negative”. While the media self-evaluated its standards over time this was balanced with a determined defense of media freedom and rights to free speech in order to remain a functioning democracy. A clear action plan in response to findings of the forum had not been publicly articulated. Clayton and Green outlined the desperate need for standards and controls as the population’s focus shifted to online sources for content. Traditional media had begun to lose profits due to the migration of viewership and advertising. As the digital era became entrenched, globally, many newspapers have closed while other media houses have been pushed into mergers or are desperately trying to find new sources of revenue in order to survive. “As their profitability erodes, all but have lost primary news-gathering and fact-checking capacity”. The practice of “pulling their news off the web in a process that has become self-referential”. The BCJ executives bemoaned the loss of the fact-checking gatekeepers and the increasing reliance on trending topics on social media makes it increasingly difficult for people to distinguish between fake news, internet gossip and reliable sources of information (Clayton and Green 2019).

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

85

Neoliberalism had changed the nature of employment relationships. The trajectory of transition of the Jamaican audiovisual sector outlines changes in processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work. An examination of the changes in Ghana during the same period, in the next two chapters, allows for the formulation of a comparative perspective on the impact of liberalization on media sectors in two nations of the Global South.

References Brown, Aggrey “Caribbean Cultures and Mass Communication Technology; Re-examining the Cultural Dependency Thesis.” Globalization, Communications and Caribbean Identity. Ed. Hopeton Dunn. New  York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995a. Brown, Hillary. “American Media Impact on Jamaican Youth, The Cultural Dependency Thesis.” Globalization, Communications and Caribbean Identity. Ed. Hopeton Dunn. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995b. Clayton, Anthony and Cordel Green. Jamaica in a Digital World March 1, 2019 https://www.broadcastingcommission.org/phocadownload/news-releases/ Jamaica%20in%20a%20Digital%20World.pdf Gordon, Nickesia S. 2008. Media and the Politics of Culture The Case of Television Privatization and Media Globalization in Jamaica 1990–2007. Boca Raton: Florida: Universal Publishers. Hickling, Deborah. “Creative Jamaica: Creative Economy Policy Framework: Towards an Enabling Environment for the Sustainable Development of Thriving Cultural and Creative Industries”. Inter-Ministerial Technical Working Group for the Cultural and Creative Industries. Office of the Prime Minister. August 2015. Hope, Donna. 2006. Inna Di Dancehall, Popular Culture and the Poetics of Identity in Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. Stanbury, Lloyd. Entertainment and Music Sector Study. Jamaica: HEART Trust NTA, 2003. Taylor, Orville. 2001. The Employment Relationship (Scope). National Study 2001. Kingston, Jamaica: [name of publisher]. Accessed October 15, 2009. http:// ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/%2D%2D-ed_dialogue/%2D%2D-dialogue/ documents/genericdocument/wcms_205368.pdf Patterson, PJ, My Political Journey, University Press. Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago. 2018

86 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Patterson, P. J. “History and Development of the Modern Trade Union Movement: lessons from the past, Prospects for the Future”. Hugh Lawson Searer Trade Union Education Institute. Inaugural Distinguished Lecture. UWI Mona, May 22, 2018. Rowe, Yvette, and Livingston White Still on air: Producing Television in Small Markets. UWI Press. 2018. Thame, Maziki. “Reading Violence and Postcolonial Decolonization through Fanon”. The Journal of Pan African Studies. Vol 4, no 7, 75-93, November 2011 Witter, Michael and Claremont Kirton. “The Informal Economy of Jamaica: Some Empirical Exercises.” Mona. Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies: Mona 1990.

Policy Documents, Legislation, Reports, Newspaper Articles Websites

and

World Press Freedom Index. Public Broadcasting Corporation Act, 1997 (2). “Journalists set to pray, party and reflect: 2019 National Journalism Week Begins Today”. Jamaica Observer. November 17, 2019. “Broadcasting Commission Moves Against ‘Daggering’ Music on Radio and TV.” Jamaica Information Service. 10 February 2009. Web. 10 March 2009.

Music, Films, Audio Visual Interviews, Audio Visual Programmes and Internet Based (Statistical Institute of Jamaica) April, 2019 http://statinja.gov.jm/Demo_ SocialStats/Newpopulation.aspx “YardEdge Talks to Storm Saulter About Better Mus’ Come.” YardEdge. 28 September 2010. Web. 16 December 2010.

In-Depth Interviews and Correspondence Conducted Jamaican Case Study

for the

Grant, Clair. “Re:Local Television Production”. Email. January 2, 2020. Henry Wilson, Maxine. Former Minister of Information, Youth and Culture. November 2008. McBean, David PhD. President. CVM Communications Group. June 2009. Little-White Lennie. Founding Director of CVM TV Executive Chairman. Mediamix Ltd. 18 November 2003 and October 2008. Sigurdson, Carrie ‘Quiz’. Producer/Presenter. Reggae Entertainment Television. 2006.

4  FROM TV TO AV IN JAMAICA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

87

St. Juste, Brian. “Re: Film Industry General Meeting.” Jamaica Audio-visual Association. Message to the author. 25 November 2009. E-mail. Thompson, Natalie. Film Producer. Cinecom Productions. 16 February 2009. Respondent 1. Producer born late 1960s. Trained at CPTC. Worked at free to air station. Left to become independent producer. Diploma trained. Respondent 2. Cameraman. Born 1980s. No formal training worked at Free to air station. Left and became an independent videographer and director of music videos. Subsequently migrated and trained overseas. Did not return to work in Jamaica. Respondent 4. Producer. Left JBC when it was divested and went directly to work with the government information arm. Trained with bachelor’s degree. Respondent 6. Audio technician/cameraman/technical director in his fifties. Worked at JBC and went to Free to air station after divestment. Not formally trained. Respondent 10.

CHAPTER 5

From TV to AV in Ghana: Commerce, Copyright, Convergence and Conduits

Abstract  Jamaica and Ghana approached audiovisual liberalization in different ways. This chapter examines the commercialization of television in Ghana as it moved from public service broadcasting to commercial broadcasting in Jamaica to television-as-enterprise. The seven characteristic CCI changes were identified across cultural and creative sectors due to commercialization—commerce, creative work, convergence, conduits, content, copyright and consumption. These are the units of analysis used to explore the specific transformational factors from television as institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Ghana between 1997 and 2017 and up to the end of the decade of the millennium. This chapter examines changes in four of those—commerce, copyright, convergence and conduits. Keywords  Ghana • Commerce • Copyright • Broadcast hybrid • Commercialization • Audiovisual • Television • Public service broadcasting • Social and economic development • Neoliberalism • Media • Business culture • Liberalization • Development frameworks • Economic Mismanagement • External shocks • Aesthetic • Competition • Marketing mix • Commerce • Intellectual Property • Copyright  • Royalties • Ideology • Film • Multilateralism • Neoliberal Zeitgeist • Cultural vernacular • Convergence • Conduit • Policy deficiencies • Broadcast Policy • Telecommunications • Internet • Social Networking

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_5

89

90 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Applications • Mobile telephony • Digital switchover • Regulatory Deficiencies • Clusters • Cultural Symbology • Branding • Marketing • Convergence • Post Liberalization Jamaica and Ghana approached audiovisual liberalization in different ways. This chapter examines the commercialization of television in Ghana as it moved from public service broadcasting to commercial broadcasting in Jamaica to television-as-enterprise. The seven characteristic CCI changes were identified across cultural and creative sectors due to commercialization—commerce, creative work, convergence, conduits, content, copyright and consumption. These are the units of analysis used to explore the specific transformational factors from television as institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Ghana between 1997 and 2017 and up to the end of the decade of the millennium.

Commerce and Copyright Broadcast Hybrid The Ghanaian government mandated that the GBC become a non-profit entity in 1997. It remained the majority shareholder and mandated that all other stakeholders be Ghanaian. After its incorporation, the GBC began a commercial television service, GTV. The policy mandate included an economic model that allowed for revenue collection through television license fees levied on all owners of television sets. The GBC also continued to receive a subsidy from the government to finance its operations (Osei-­Hwere 92), in particular the salaries of the over 1800 employees. The government encouraged the corporation to maximize advertising revenue. The new GBC maintained a fused public service and commercial television mandate with the sensibilities of public service broadcasting, and predominantly commercial operations. In an interview in 2009 the Head of News at GBC, Edwin Drah, explained that the Corporation had become a “state broadcaster”, one which belonged to the state, the people of Ghana, rather than a “government broadcaster”.

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

91

It is not what NPR or PBS in the ‘States’ does, because we are not funded like those entities. Now we are quite mixed, our role is not quite defined because we do some commercials to keep our head above water. Government pays salaries, other things like day-to-day things. The corporation has to raise funds. With liberalization, the government expects the GBC to raise some funds and attract some revenue to support itself. (Drah)

Despite moves toward privatization, television broadcasting in Ghana continued to be viewed as part of the “nation-building project” (Alhassan 128) beyond 1997, when the licenses for new, private television stations were issued. Rather than focus on the commercial imperative, Ghana’s focus was expressly on “building an information society and making ICTs a tool for development”. It was this intention that motivated the government to maintain a neoliberal attitude toward the ICT sector and to continue to create policies aimed at developing the business sector and economy at large, using media and ICT as leverage for social and economic development (Avle 2016:6). Social entrepreneurship and philanthropy were encouraged in the third of three phases of entrepreneurship outlined by Amankwah Amoah and Lu (2018), who present the trajectory of Ghanaian entrepreneurship reform. They argue that the post-colonial nationalization phase involved the establishment of state-owned enterprises and hampered the development of private enterprises between 1957 and 1966. The turbulent totalitarian phase followed, featuring confiscation of assets where private investment and ownership were discouraged amid harsh economic and institutional environments. The next phase, between 1980 and 2010, saw Nkrumah’s ethical revolution in play as the embrace of entrepreneurship emerged in an increasingly libertine Ghana impacted by the zeitgeist of neoliberalism. The entrepreneurial push bridged the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and “different entrepreneurial models flourished” (1). The focus of Jamaican and Ghanaian cultural industries’ commercialization was therefore inverted. The latter focused on culturization while the former placed emphasis on culturization which remained relatively consistent across the media liberalization transformation. New Institutional Players The introduction of capital through Malaysian media giant Media Prima led Ghana to launch its second terrestrial, or free-to air, television channel,

92 

D. HICKLING GORDON

TV3. The TV3 Network Limited was incorporated in 1997 as Ghana’s first privately owned television station and began broadcasting in the Greater Accra Region in October 1997. The new station, TV3, was a sister company of another Ghana-Malaysia joint venture with the Ghana Film Company, a production house that supported the television station in providing local films and drama. Ghana and Malaysia actively sought to translate the rhetoric of south-­ south cooperation into tangible action; this public-private partnership (PPP) was touted as representative of the sound political and economic relations among countries in the southern hemisphere. Sampson Quainoo and Edmond Schandorf, two of the original employees of the new TV3, explained that within this public-private joint venture, the foreign investors in TV3 provided the capital and ran the business of television, while the Ghanaian government provided technical services and personnel. In 1997 a television license was granted to Metropolitan Entertainment Television (Metro TV). The GBC and a private businessman jointly owned the station. GBC’s interest in the station was restricted to the sharing of its transmitters. The agreement did not, however, include Metro TV on the budget from its subvention. Metro TV was established completely as a commercial station, relying solely on advertising for its revenue. Metro broadcast material mainly from other countries, including other African countries and Asia, for 19 hours daily. A third free-to-air television station, TV Africa, was granted a license and brought to air in 2004. TV Africa was the brainchild of acclaimed Ghanaian filmmaker Kwah Ansah, whose aim was to begin a process of “cultural revitalization”. TV Africa transmitted to 60% of the Ghanaian population. The company was a family business, managed by his daughter Gwasiwa. The notion of television as family business is a significant comparator with Jamaica. Puplampu’s categorization of businesses in Ghana identifies the paternalistic, family-styled business in Ghana as an important part of business culture in that country (Belling 4). Ansah noted that although TV Africa’s debt levels were extremely high, causing the firm to have to examine the option of downsizing; they still maintained the structure of a family business. By 2002, 17 broadcast licenses had been issued (Alhassan 2004:137), and in 2006, there were 32 licensed television stations, cable and satellite subscription service providers in Ghana. Stations in Accra included Ghana Television (GTV), TV3, Metro TV and TV Africa, all free-to-air stations (Osei-Hwere, 93). Cable television also expanded during this period and

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

93

in the mid-1990s satellite subscribers in Accra accessed programming from the BBC World Service and M-NET from South Africa. Early cable operators included Cable Gold and TV Agoro, and Multi Choice, all of which operated as terrestrial MMDS/cable pay TV broadcasting services. Three other pay-per-view stations were established outside Ghana’s capital. They were Crystal TV, Fontomfrom TV and Skyy TV. Crystal TV and Fontomfrom TV operated in Kumasi in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Skyy TV operated in Sekondi and Takoradi as pay-per-view television stations (Osei-Hwere 93). In an interview with Kwesi Gyan Apenteng, Chairman of the National Media Organization in 2017, he indicated that Ghana had over 500 local radio stations and 70 television stations that served its population of almost 29 million people, ten times the size of the Jamaican population. Unlike Jamaica, however, there was no evidence of fervent corporate activity through partnerships, takeovers or mergers in Ghanaian television. Despite difficult financial circumstances the free-to-air television stations maintained their original structures. Partnerships and Mergers In the early years following liberalization, working capital for industry development was difficult to raise given the economic situation in Ghana. Aryeetey argues that capital inflows through aid from a reform program that began in 1993 “kick-started” the Ghanaian economy and caused it to begin to grow steadily between 1998 and 2003. However, the injection of capital had come after long periods of high capital depreciation and was not complemented with improvements in total factor productivity. Additionally, internal economic mismanagement, external shocks and the absence of a “comprehensive and credible medium-long term development framework(s)” (3) caused the economic situation in Ghana to remain marginal. A new cadre of independent television workers solved this problem by creating informal production cooperatives. The pooled resources, skills and equipment allowed them to accept large production jobs. Independent producer Sunshine Schandorf explained that many independents worked for goodwill and bartered goods and services in keeping with the African principle of “familyhood”, which guides cultures of cooperative economics (Nyrere 1962). The cooperative approach served Sunshine and several relatives who graduated from Ghana’s National Film and Television

94 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Institute (NAFTI) and worked in the television industry. The family business was based on the principle that those who sow reap a fair share of what they sow (Nyrere 1962:67). Competition The new stations in the Ghanaian television market in the commercial era began to try to outdo each other with aesthetic, production and journalistic values. The spirit of collaboration that had existed between free-to-air stations early in the commercial era soon became competitive. Commercial competition was not the intention of Ghanaian television; symbiosis had been planned into the liberalization process. There had been a production agreement between the two television main stations when liberalization was first in effect but which did not last. “GBC and Metro TV had a collaboration for a while, but that has lapsed now, now they are all in stiff competition”, Amakohene explained. This collaboration cushioned the new market against extreme competitiveness. It also put Metro TV on a stable footing, supported by the government, if even not by financial subvention. Organizational behavior specialist, Bill Buenar Puplampu, contextualized liberalized competition as a “professionalized culture” that was “heavy on performance … individualistic, results-driven and output-­ driven, cut throat, dog-eat-dog in many instances” in an interview in 2009. “Performance-driven culture is very western in its orientation, very competitive, but we now have it here”, he said. Puplampu further described the sense of emergent competition as seen in an increasingly “image conscious industry culture” (Puplampu 2004:5) that formed part of the Ghanaian commercial landscape in the 1990s. Evidence of Ghana’s very visual culture was seen in the signs, billboards and superboards used as primary communication tools for commercial and also public service messaging. Organizations classified as image conscious showed signs of being very aware of both their outward and inward image including “buildings, colour schemes and what people say about them in the media” (Puplampu 2009). The emergence of audiovisual businesses was marked by the added presence of street signs. In the Ghanaian television industry promotion was strengthened as a critical element of the commercial marketing mix. TV3 established a branding culture, prominently displaying its logo on the side of its TV3 building in Accra. According to Quainoo (2008), GTV did not have a

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

95

logo or a slogan when TV3 entered the market. “After TV3 came with their branding, GBC followed what TV3 did”. TV3 also established a slogan, “First in Entertainment”. The aesthetic of African television became increasingly modernized. Graphics, animation, set design and cinematographic representations of African locations contributed to the richness of the look-and-feel of several Ghanaian productions. Competition in television in the first decade of liberalization centered on the technical quality of local programs over commercial advantage. Both Jamaica and Ghanaian audiovisual going concerns tried to increase market share. Jamaican competition was centered on commerce. Ghanaian competition began with a rivalry of production values and creativity. As such commercialization and its ensuing competitiveness fed in to a new, brewing challenge, the issue of intellectual property management and the “ownership” of ideas.

Copyright and Creative Industry The notion of intellectual property in Ghana represented a change in paradigm for the nascent audiovisual sector and was not automatically accepted or operationalized by the new television community. Television producers, for the most part, did not register their works as the notion of ownership of television programs. Copyright was a contentious issue for Ghanaian audiovisual producers in the middle of the 2000s. Loh explains that concerns relating to the ownership of intellectual property had not been a factor in television prior to 1997, because television content was predominantly produced, broadcast and owned by the state. Ghanaian concepts of “property” ownership largely challenged Western notions of copyright, which complicated the IP development process. The concept of private “ownership” of intangible information and cultural products, as promoted by the global copyright movement, did not easily permeate the West African nation. Cultural paradoxes amid Ghanaian and prevailing intellectual property concepts have been the subject of extensive study (Collins 2006; Boateng 2011; De Beukelaer and Fredriksson 2018, et al.). These cultural incongruities presented as cultural resistance to television programming as chattel. Intellectual property was high on the Ghanaian libertine legislative agenda. By 2005 the Ghanaian Parliament passed the Copyright Act. PNDC Law 110 was expanded to cover literary, artistic, musical works and other copyrightable works. The legislation spoke about, among other

96 

D. HICKLING GORDON

important legislative adjustments, the establishment of the Copyright Office of Ghana to oversee the Copyright Industry. A Legislative Instrument established COSGA (Copyright Owners Society of Ghana), which had monopoly to oversee collection of royalties and cater for all rights holders (Asamoah-Hassan, and Bannerman). Conflict over the interpretation, administration and recognition of copyright law affected its implementation. The new bill obliged Ghanaian cultural practitioners who wished to commercially utilize their indigenous folklore to pay advance fees or taxes to the government. This went to the core of emerging conflict over the Copyright Act. Audiovisual productions including television programming had been named as copyrightable products that required registration. Artistes interpreted the imposition of fees to register copyrightable material with the Ghana Copyright Administration and National Folklore Board as having to seek permission from the government agencies before proceeding with their creative enterprise (“Freedom of Musical Expression”). Deep-seated memories of censorship, media control, suppression, restriction and information manipulation and repression were at the heart of concerns about the copyright legislation, and of even greater concern than declarations of ownership well into liberalization. By the end of the first decade of liberalization, the copyright emblem became more visible in Ghana, indicating growing acceptance in television production and broadcasting and that the “business” of cultural production was being given increased pre-eminence by cultural agents. The relaxation of cultural concerns about intellectual property was an indicator of the permeation of creative industries ideology, a concept that was not widely known, understood or regarded in the first decade of the millennium. Gollywood Meets Nollywood Within 20 years, Ghana’s audiovisual sector had become extremely competitive. However, in the first decade of liberalization the notion of audiovisual products and services as tradable commodities was relatively new in the Ghanaian television marketplace. Trading screen-based products and services across West African borders provided new markets. Many of its television products, like those from neighboring Nigeria’s Nollywood, had been informally transported across its shared border with Ghana as DVDs or digital downloads. Nigeria’s nascent film industry (Nollywood) had grown exponentially during the period to become the second largest

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

97

film industry in the world in terms of the number of films produced per year. Nollywood continues to produce more films than the USA’s Hollywood, but less than India’s Bollywood (Videoage). The Nigerian production boom provided opportunities for the diversification of the Ghanaian market. With the proliferation of Nigerian films, Ghanaian producers also began to trade Nigerian videos rather than make their own. “Distributors, who once bought the duplication rights from Nigerian producers and copied the videos in Ghana, now travel to Nigeria to buy large quantities of video cassettes and carry them into the country to avoid duplication costs. Of course, a weak system for policing piracy laws means that many Ghanaian distributors do not have any incentive to actually buy the rights to the videos” (Meliero 2009:5). Digital video films were sold for home viewing on web sites, providing diversified market access. Digital video films were also broadcast and sold via satellite and in small media outlets which serve the diasporic communities in metropolitan cities, such as New York and London. “Freed from the requirements for cultural and economic capital imposed by the film medium and encouraged by new media technologies, international and independent video industries based in Ghana and Nigeria have flourished” (Meliero 2009:4). Nollywood and Ghanaian “Ghallywood” or “Gollywood” also shared services and joint ventures began across the shared border. To access the vast, largely informal African market, creativity extended beyond the production of cultural products to finding novel, creative means to distribute and regulate them. CCI and Multilateralism The cultural and creative industries concept was slowly permeating Ghanaian society as part of the neoliberal zeitgeist. CCI had not, however, been formally introduced to Ghanaian cultural policy or practice. Director of the School of Communication at the University of Ghana, Legon Kwasi Ansu Kyeremeh, confirmed that up to 2009 the cultural and creative industries concept had not yet been widely introduced in the communications lexicon of Ghanaian scholarship, governance or general operations. Ansu-Kyeremeh distinguished between filmmakers’ interest and knowledge of intellectual property matters and the cultural and creative industries concept over that of journalists, as “the traditional nobility of journalism did not interface with notions of value and the commercial

98 

D. HICKLING GORDON

sensibility that the cultural and creative industries concept embraced”. He made an immediate linkage between the cultural and creative industries concept and multilateral development agencies funding programs in Africa. The terms “cultural” and “creative industries” were introduced to the African region’s cultural vernacular because of the prominence that this emerging new discipline was being given in international trade agreements, in particular the looming European Partnership Agreement (EPA). The genesis of the concept of an economic creative sector and the introduction of intellectual property concerns became synonymous with what Olokoshi in Mkandawire and Soludo (2003:242) calls the “authoritarianism” of structural adjustment and grant funding programs from external development agencies, in particular regional trade negotiations through the African Union (AU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) member states. The EPA contained a cultural and audiovisual dimension for signatories. The relevant EPA protocols were meant for the development of ACP member states’ cultural and creative industries and sought to promote exchanges in cultural and audiovisual services as a necessary component of the European Union’s (EU) cultural diversity and sustainable development objectives. Historically, Europe had not allowed market access commitments into their audiovisual sector (television, film, etc.) in any trade agreement. The EPA presented new options including co-production treaties between European countries and signatories to the agreement. However, the terms were prohibitive and presented a new form of economic dependency on European funding for the former colonies. The Agreement denied full market access to audiovisual products through its audiovisual protocol and did not provide any incentives for the African or Caribbean nations. The European protectionist ambivalence presented a full-blown postcolonial contradiction of the tenets of globalization. To become globally competitive, television producers in developing countries needed access to European markets, which they were denied, in direct contravention of notions of free and fair trade. In keeping with its strong acknowledgment of intergenerational memories of exploitation, the EPA and its intellectual property implications were seen as a new form of colonial intervention in its cultural production and trade processes. The enforcement of intellectual property rights was suspected to be a tactic to protect the interests of the developed world. Efforts were made to change that impression within Ghanaian cultural/creative industries so that practitioners would see the intellectual property and global trade agenda as a “powerful tool to

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

99

galvanize our domestic industry while retaining national culture, national inventiveness, and national creativity” (Yawson 2010). The African Union as a regional trading body recognized the economic potential of the cultural economy and that it had valuable intellectual property to protect. Rather than zealously seeking to find means to exploit cultural resources, the AU quickly turned its attention to the cultural preservation and protection of its cultural goods and services and sought to mitigate against any possible misappropriation and economic exploitation. Unlike the Caribbean through CARICOM, the AU as a collective body did not ratify the EPA in the first decade of the 2000s. Individual African member states were called upon to sign interim EPAs (IEPAs). Ghana’s signature of its IEPA was postponed due to its change of government in 2007 (Julian 2009:13) even though it had signed an agreement with the EU for development cooperation for 367 million euro from December 2008 to 2013. This ambivalence is important to the understanding of the Ghanaian early suspicion of the cultural and creative industries concept. For both Jamaica and Ghana, the separation of Britain from the European Union in 2020, or Brexit, was also cause for concern as the status of coproduction agreements lay in the balance.

Convergence and Conduits Broadcast Policy The increased number of conduits for the distribution of television content in Ghana between 1997 and 2009 required the development of new forms of regulation. While policy change was attempted, it could not keep pace with industry changes. Media scholar Ansu-Kyeremeh identified an absence of suitable regulation of the rollout of media following its privatization beginning in 1997. Despite the constitutional changes and the development of new legislation, Ansu-Kyeremeh related that he was not aware of a single publication that says “this is the communication policy of Ghana”. Amakohene also pointed to the deficiencies in policy development. “We allowed pluralism without looking at roots to determine that you have to abide by A, B, C or D. We did not do that. We put the cart before the horse”, she said in an interview in Accra in 2009. “But even if it existed, Ansu-Kyeremeh added, “it may just be on paper. There is no implementation process. People do whatever they want to. Let us not

100 

D. HICKLING GORDON

confuse what exists on paper and what exists in practice. You will have all sorts of regulations that exist on paper, but they don’t exist in practice”. Where media policies did exist, the language was so vague that it had little influence on the conduct of industry players (Osei-Hwere 2009:171). The National Media Commission Policy Advisory Committee also commented in its 2000 report, soon after the privatization policy was implemented, warning that “The absence of effective regulation raises the danger that erstwhile statist monopoly may be replaced with a market oligopoly that serves vested interests” (8). Amaokahene explained that the policy deficiencies were not as a result of lack of preparation or submission to government. We had a policy in 1975  – it was a UNESCO project that looked at the whole gamut of communication policy – National Cultural Policy. All they should have done is to pick that up and update it. Work was also done at the turn of the century, which resulted in the 2000 policy proposal. (Amaokahene, personal interview)

Ansu-Kyeremeh had been involved in a series of meetings to develop national communication policy: “A conference was held, and a document produced. Government kept dragging its feet. The document got to Cabinet,1 but was not passed”. Following the election of a new government in 2008, policy direction turned further away from the regulation of broadcasting toward setting a framework for the highly lucrative and rapidly growing ICT sector. Regulatory incongruities emerged, contextualized by the variety of challenges associated with change and transition. Rapid Expansion of ICT In the 1990s, the Ghanaian telecommunications industry grew exponentially. “Internet-wise, Ghana is one of the first African countries to get connected” (Aryeetey and Kanbur 2017:231). By 2009, the National Communication Authority reported that there were five mobile phone providers, which had a total distribution of 12 million phones in Ghana. Internet services were slow and inefficient, therefore not allowing for the 1  The Cabinet is the executive body of government which is the principal instrument of government policy.

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

101

efficient transfer of video. Historically, the internet was available and affordable only to the elite. “The rest of society had to rely on public access points, whether private Internet cafés or schools and libraries”. The corresponding decline in residential fixed line phones and changes in media consumption via technology were evidence of technological convergence at work. While radio was confirmed as the medium most widely used at household level and present in more than 60% of households in in several African nations, indicating a substitution of radio by TV (Stork et al. 2013:7). The first wave of internet access for the few Africans with access to the internet took place through personal computers and laptops with fixed line connections (dial-up modems). For others it was predominantly at aggregated access points such as internet cafés. “This remained the access route for early adopters, and the high costs of such services and devices saw the high-end customer segment of the Internet market rapidly become saturated” (20). A policy shift away from providing limited internet access at public access points that were serviced primarily by fixed access lines towards providing mobile internet access were early reform strategies of increasing competition in the mobile market. These strategies served to increase access to voice services more successfully than traditional fixed line universal service strategies. With every generational shift, increased amounts of screen-based content was distributed through social media, international streaming platforms and the emergence of several Ghanaian streaming services, distributing local audiovisual products. Internet use in Ghana increased between 2008 and 2013, up from 5.6% to 12.7%. This was, however, thwarted by the gap between those with access to electricity and those without. According to Stork et al. who mapped the digital divide in Africa the mobile phone became the favorite ICT device to access and browse the internet (2013:15). Telecommunications services improved rapidly in the second decade of the 2000s. Vodaphone, formerly Ghana Telecom, and the government of Ghana constructed a national fiber cable network which would facilitate internet television and television on mobile units in Ghana. Stork, Calando and Gillwad’s 2013 mapping of the ICT sector in 11 African countries revealed that increased mobile internet across Africa began boosting connectivity, driven by the use of social networking applications. Increased mobile phone penetration, increased frequency in the use of the internet and the magnitude of the new wave of internet users, which grew from 19% in the first year of use to 45% in the fifth year of use, changed the face

102 

D. HICKLING GORDON

of the now rapidly converging audiovisual subsector of an emerging cultural economy. Mobile telephony continued to increasingly address the internet gap. This had a significant impact on the ways in which audiovisual content was produced and consumed across Africa. Another important milestone was Ghana’s deployment of Digital Terrestrial Television, having completed the “digital switchover”, or switch from analog to digital television for global standardization in 2010 (ITU). Heightened technological activity in the audiovisual sectors stimulated linkages in the music, design, logistics and commercial sectors from which soundtracks, sets, branding and support services were required. Disciplinary convergence began to burgeon. Regulatory Deficiencies Despite growth and related convergence taking place in the market, broadcast, ICT, culture, and industry policy development and administration remained siloed during the first decade of the 2000s. The converging arms of the audiovisual subsector in Ghana were administered and implemented through separate ministries. The diffusion of policy affected the efficient regulation of the emerging audiovisual subsector. Amakohene and Ansu-Kyeremeh cited the example of the divergent roles of the National Communication Authority (NCA), which provides licenses for both broadcasting and internet-based concerns, and the National Media Commission, which monitors content. According to the scholars, in practice, the two do not interface. The NCA and the Media Commission do not have trained staff. The NCA’s staff is not capable of monitoring content, and the Media Commission’s staff is not equipped to issue licenses. The Media Commission proposed to the government that they would work with the NCA to identify broadcasting breaches. There has been little response to that proposal. (Amakohene, personal interview)

Ansu-Kyeremeh placed blame for the government’s non-response principally on the commercial imperative of the NCA. The NCA is more interested in a business plan, financial sustainability, and profitability rather than broadcasting content, practice and process when

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

103

they are granting a licence. The NCA gives out licences and does not care what the licences are for. Their interest is in the military installations and protects those seriously. Broadcast media is not really their domain.

New Clusters. New Markets. New Systems As the demand for local production increased significantly, new production clusters emerged across Ghana. By 2017 Kumasi had become a vibrant center for audiovisual production (Dadzie Personal interview). She explained that the Kumasi cluster works assiduously to meet the demand and seeks to “produce as many [films] as the society absorbs”. They do have this auditioning core [to keep finding new talent] then they’ll do some kind of a talent show, you see the advert calling young people to come and audition for a kind of live reality show. They do it as a live reality shows where they try to see how best you can act, and at the end of the race all those they call as winners they produce shows.

The audition itself became a commercial venture: You (prospective talent) buy a form, you enter into this audition and they select the people into the reality T.V. [show] which is also a making money venture. They train these people for about 2 months. At the end of the day they write you a script then they employ these people to act for them. So they have several series on the T.V.

In response to this new phenomenon, NAFTI developed new courses in acting for the screen. Brand Awareness Meets Cultural Symbology Commercialization and convergence caused marketing and branding to become an important part of the aesthetic of television in Ghana. This was a practice that did not exist prior to liberalization. Instead, culturally specific symbology had often been given pride of a place in Ghanaian televisual culture. TV Africa used modern technology and techniques available to present the concepts of “Africanness”, and Ghanaian iconography which was designed and built into its television sets. Adinkra symbology was evident as a central motif in the design, aesthetics and “personality” of the television plant at TV Africa. Over time, Adinkra symbology, widely

104 

D. HICKLING GORDON

used in the commercial era, gave up its pride of place to Western branding. On the one hand this provided the balance to the dialectics of “meaning” of content and “marketing” of products. On the other, ironies the original “meaning” of branding as ‘physical markings forcibly made into the bodies of convicts and slaves’ became clear. The commercial imperative represented a new form of control over hearts and minds. Marketing in Ghanaian television during this first decade of the commercial era was described as a necessary process in the funding of production. Emphasis, however, was always placed on the production: We teach the students to converge the two tastefully, and that the emphasis is on the programme content rather than the sponsor. Much of the marketing is associated with sports, predominantly football. (Loh, personal interview)

Ghana’s growing business sector saw the entry of various regional, national, and multinational companies with marketing and advertising budgets used to establish their brand to increase market share (Osei-­ Hwere 112). The aesthetics, practice and sensibility of commercial television had changed by the end of the second decade of the new millennium. Post liberalization changes in commerce, copyright, convergence and conduits occurred alongside changing creative work, content and consumption, seen in the next chapter.

References Aryeetey, Ernest. “Globalization, Employment and Poverty in Ghana.” Institute of Statistical Social and Economic research University of Ghana, 2010. Aryeetey, Ernest and Ravi Kanbur. “The Economy of Ghana Sixty Years after Independence”. Oxford University Press. 2017 Asamoah-Hassan, H. R., and Valentina Bannerman. Copyright in Ghana. Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. 16 March 2010 and 12 April 2010. Alhassan, Ami. “Development Communication Policy and Economic Fundamentalism in Ghana.” Diss. University of Tampere, Finland, 2004. Avle, Seyram. “Situating Ghana’s New media Industry: Liberalization and Transnational Entrepreneurship”, Locating Emerging Media. Edited by Germaine R Halegoua and Ben Aslinger. Routledge, New York. 2016. Amankwah and Lu. “Evolution or entrepreneurial development in the Global South: The Case of Ghana. 1957–2010”. Science and Public Policy. Pages

5  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: COMMERCE, COPYRIGHT, CONVERGENCE… 

105

162–172 (2018) https://academic.oup.com/spp/article-abstract/46/2/1 61/5055851?redirectedFrom=fulltext Boateng, Boatema. “The copyright thing doesn’t work here: Adinkra and Kente Cloth and Intellectual Property in Ghana”. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, London. 2011. Collins, Edmund John. “Copyright, Folklore and Music Piracy in Ghana”. Critical Arts 20(1) p 158–170. 2006 De Beukelaer and Martin Fredriksson. “The political economy of intellectual property rights: the paradox of article 27 exemplified in Ghana”. Review of African Political Economy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 328349164_The_political_economy_of_intellectual_property_rights_the_paradox_of_Article_27_exemplified_in_Ghana. 2018 Meliero, Alessandra. “Creative Capacities of Developing Countries”. Vertigo. Issue 24, 2009. https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/issue24-march-2009/creative-capacities-of-developing-countries/ Mkandawire, Thandika and Charles C Soludo. “Towards the Broadening of Development Policy Dialogue for Africa”. In African Voices on Structural Adjustment. Ed. Thandika Mkandawire and Charles C Soludo. Africa World Press, Trenton NJ. 2003 Nyrere, Julius K. “Ujamaa, the Basis of African Socialism (1962).” I Am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy. Ed. Fred Lee Hord and Jonathan Scott Lee. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. 1995. 65–72. Osei-Hwere, Enyonam. Children’s Television in Ghana: History, Policy, Diversity, and Prospects in a Changing Media Environment. Diss. Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University. 2008. Dissertation Abstracts International. 2009. Puplampu, B. “Belling the Cat – Towards a Taxonomy of Organizational Culture in Ghana: A research note.” Ife Psychologia 12.1 (2004). 1–6. PDF File. Stork, Christoph, Enrico Calandro and Alison Gilwad. “Internet going mobile: internet access and use in 11 African countries: Emerald Publishers. ISSN: 1463–6697. Publication date: 2 August 2013 https://www.emerald.com/ insight/content/doi/10.1108/info-05-2013-0026/full/html Yawson, Robert Mayfield. “Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization: Ghana’s Experience.” 2010. https://www.researchgate. net/publication/200005085_Intellectual_Property_and_Technology_ Commercialization_-_Ghana’s_Experience Julian, Melissa. “EPA negotiations Update.” Trade Negotiations Insights 8.1 February 2009. 16 March 2009 http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/tradenegotiations-insights/issue-archive/epa-negotiations-update Videoage. https://www.videoageinternational.net/2018/01/09/cover-stories/ a-new-nollywood-a-close-second-to-bollywood-larger-than-hollywood/

106 

D. HICKLING GORDON

In-Depth Interviews Conducted

for the

Ghanaian Case Study

Amoakohene, Margaret PhD.  Lecturer in Mass Communications. University of Ghana, Legon. May 2009. Ansah, Kwah. Executive Producer. TV Africa. Accra. May 2009. Ansu-Kyeremeh Kwasi, Professor of Communications, University of Ghana, Legon. May 2009. Gyan Apenteng, Kwesi Chairman of National Media Commission. May 2017. Drah, Edwin Kumah. Head of News. Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Accra. May 2008 and 2009. Loh, Martin. Head. National Film and Television Institute. Accra. May 2009. Puplampu, Bill PhD. Head, Department of Business Administration. Specialist in Industry Culture, Human Resource Development in Ghana. University of Ghana, Legon. May 2009. Quainoo, Sampson. Film Sound Recordist. TV3. Accra. May 2008. Schandorf, “Sunshine”. Independent Producer. Sunshine Productions. Accra. May 2008.

CHAPTER 6

From TV to AV in Ghana: Creative Work, Content and Consumption

Abstract  With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. While the Jamaican government divested itself of its public service broadcaster, the JBC, Ghana kept the GBC intact but marketized many functions. That cushioned the jolt to the new market change could have brought. Additionally, amid the commercial changes, over time Ghana’s centuries-old cultures of cooperation and propensity for family-­ in-­business caused the African nation to begin to approach the competitiveness of liberalization differently. This chapter continues to trace the trajectory of transition of the Ghanaian audiovisual sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work—the creation of content for consumption. Like for Jamaica, understanding these changes in the AV subsector provided insight into the unique characteristics of the subsector itself; thematic clues that assist in addressing endemic challenges. Three of the seven characteristic changes used to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017 are examined in this chapter—creative work, content and consumption. Keywords  Ghana • Creative work • Informal economy • Commercialization/commercial sector • Marketization • © The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_6

107

108 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Entrepreneurship • Civilization • Commerce • Christianity • Dialectics • Journalistic integrity • Passive resistance? • Paternalism • Informal clusters • Creative entrepreneurship • Production • Communications • Privatization • Culturization • Industry building • Africanness • Animation • Cinematography • Drama • Broadcast journalism • Infrastructural development • Prosumers • Producers • Individuation • Distribution • Bandoloo • Kalabule • Cultural phenomenon • Tyranny • Pornography • Constitutions • Institutionalization

With the change from public service to commercial television, Jamaican television practitioners were faced with a new concept—television as business. While the Jamaican government divested itself of its public service broadcaster, the JBC, Ghana kept the GBC intact but marketized many functions. That cushioned the jolt to the new market change could have brought. Additionally, amid the commercial changes over time Ghana’s centuries-old cultures of cooperation and propensity for family-in-­business caused Ghana to approach the competitiveness of liberalization differently. This chapter continues to trace the trajectory of transition of the Ghanaian audiovisual sector. It examines the processes used, structures established, methods engaged, philosophies that inspired, structures adopted and activities undertaken by audiovisual professionals to complete their jobs of work—the creation of content for consumption. Like for Jamaica, understanding these changes in the AV subsector provided insight into the unique characteristics of the subsector itself; thematic clues that assist in addressing endemic challenges. Three of the seven characteristic changes used to describe the specific transformational factors from television institution to audiovisual subsector of the cultural economy in Jamaica and Ghana between 1997 and 2017 are examined in this chapter—creative work, content and consumption.

Creative Work Independents and the Informal Economy The move toward independent work in Ghanaian television occurred gradually in Ghana in comparison to Jamaica in the first decade following

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

109

television’s liberalization. Maintaining the national broadcaster kept the society at large and television’s existing workforce relatively stable while building out a new commercial sector. This was important in Ghana’s transition to a capitalist democracy as it attempted to reverse two decades of military rule in keeping with its 1992 Constitution (Avle 2015: 6). A market for independent film and television production emerged following the liberalization of GBC and the Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC). A slow-growing number of independent producers started up informal enterprises. This gradual diversification of the market called for new production structures to meet the demand for programming. Regional cable stations began to compete with terrestrial television stations. The vast size of the country and its population dissipated competition. In comparison to the much smaller Jamaican market, competition was not combative, fervent or intense. Liberalization gave individuals across the country an opportunity to produce programming independently of the GBC. Most Ghanaian television professionals were largely proficient graduates of Ghana’s National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI) and were “ready for market”. However, contextualizing entrepreneurship and “independent work” in Ghana in keeping with the spans of subordination identified in Jamaica and Ghana in Chap. 1, is important. The entrepreneurship thrust brought on by liberalization was certainly not a new phenomenon in the West African nation which has a long history grounded in trade among its communities and ethnic groups. Amankwah-Amoah and Lu tell us that entrepreneurship and philanthropy have been the cornerstone of Ghanaian society “since time immemorial … well before the Portuguese explorers set foot on its shores in 1471”(2018: 8). The Asante empire of the eighteenth century thrived on trade in ivory, gold and slaves until the nation was overtaken and displaced by the inherent philosophy of invasive colonialism, the 3 Cs: “commerce, Christianity and civilization”. The “scramble” for African resources led to the introduction of Western-­ type education (Ross 1957) and business formation (Boahen 1975), where the “main motive of colonial rule was commerce” (Carmody 2011). Ghanaians’ attitudes to entrepreneurship through a preference for social enterprise and the changing nature of work have been influenced by this knowledge. Indeed, notions of “formal” and “informal” business in Africa have been shown to have been decidedly colonial concepts, as seen in Chap. 5. The Ghanaian approach to entrepreneurship and creative work in media was nuanced by a reaction formation related to tensions about

110 

D. HICKLING GORDON

“freedoms” of speech and expression and the dialectics of modernity and tradition. Changing Work Paradigms Tensions between tradition and modernity caused heightened anxieties about the new commercial environment which was considered an affront to the emphasis on journalistic integrity. A generation before, during the culture of silence, many journalists had preferred to stay mute rather than betray free press and journalistic standards. Persons involved in production who took their responsibilities seriously had to change their outlook with these new business-driven circumstances. The appointment of a businessman with no broadcasting experience as general manager of GBC in the 2000s was a sure sign of change. The role of the new manager was to administer, market and manage the broadcast house in accordance with contradictory commercial and public service broadcasting mandates. In this time of competition, market research was recognized as an important tool for the former public service broadcaster. Technical and programming issues were left to his “lieutenants” (Mubarak 2009). This means of operation was highly unusual in Ghanaian television. Mubarak, who became a member of Parliament, described the “lieutenants” as the deputy director general, regional directors and heads of departments who had to give him technical advice and suggestions. Military terminology is used frequently in Ghana as an indicator of strength, structure and organization. The ambivalence intensified, given the comparative nature of salaries between private and public broadcasting employees. While there was general acceptance of the importance of employment stability available from the GBC, as employees of the state, low salaries were a major concern. The poor salary levels affected the quality of output of television workers and, in keeping with the Ghanaian culture of passive resistance, they protested by withdrawal of effort: What is happening is perhaps a very subtle way of protest by middle level managers of the corporation who would not put in extra effort to make things right because they are underpaid … People stopped giving it their best when they had really nothing to show for their service to their nation. (Mubarak, personal interview 2009)

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

111

The commercialization of the GBC’s television station, GTV; competition in the television market; the entrance of independents on the market and business-driven television affected more than the industrial relations climate of the new industry. They also disturbed the sensibilities of media workers, unaccustomed to the commercial activities in media. Kwah Ansah, founder of TV Africa, explained that the increasingly commercial broadcasting environment in which television had begun to operate made it difficult for him to hold true to the ideals as a filmmaker first, and businessman second; and expressed his discomfort with the differences in sensibility of the two functions. By appointing his daughter as business manager of TV Africa while he retained creative control, Ansah sought to ensure that both the creative control and business integrity of the station were maintained. This move was also in keeping with both the paternalism and the professional culture that exist on the two opposite ends of Puplampu’s scale of organizational cultures in Ghana (2004: 4). Puplampu described both a professional culture and family-owned business culture that existed in Ghana on two separate ends of a scale of six dominant organizational cultures. The former had characteristics of professional bureaucracy, was highly formal in its operation and observed strict adherence to codes. The latter was characterized by paternalism, was laissez-faire and was casual in nature including morning prayer with family, devotions and common eating places for all. Puplampu noted that it was not uncommon for more than one type of code to reside in a single organization. Ghanaian audiovisual production cooperatives made up of independent producers and technicians formed informal clusters, located predominantly in Accra and Kumasi, two centers of production. Creative Entrepreneurship Up to the end of the first decade of the new millennium, a single private company, Creative Storm, had been the predominant independent production house for video products in Ghana. Martin Loh, head of NAFTI, had explained in our interview in 2009 that although most Ghanaian independent practitioners had been formally trained television producers and technicians who graduated from NAFTI, they preferred working in the formal television companies as “they were not familiar with issues to do with business and entrepreneurship in a formal environment”.

112 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Only a few of them that are graduates have gone on their own. They are doing some good work. When I see any decent production on TV, I wait for the credits. I know that a NAFTI graduate who has ventured out on his or her own did this. (Loh, personal interview)

Creative Storm was therefore an anomaly—a medium-sized production house that provided integrated marketing communications services. This firm awarded the majority of the corporate contracts for public-education video making, corporate filmmaking, advertising, websites, television content and promotional videos (creativestormghana.com) and produced commercials, films, events and music. This approach was uncommon in Ghana up to the middle of that first decade. Hickling, A, my brother who was a cultural/creative practitioner and former member of the diplomatic community living in Ghana, explained that Creative Storm’s clientele came predominantly from the large international development community including the United Nations and other multilateral organizations operating in Accra. Soon the ready availability of camera equipment during the period of technological change and insistent globalization facilitated the process of starting micro-enterprises to also provide video services for weddings and other cultural events. Amakohene explained that independent producers became more prevalent at the end of the first decade: They now have their own media production organizations, they produce the content, they are not just showing it on one television station, but across television stations. For example, AAA Productions is run by a former GBC employee who now has programmes on both GTV and TV AFRICA. This is new. It did not exist before 1997. (Personal interview, 2009)

The new audiovisual subsector had its own rules, structures, pricing imperatives, processes and products, based on the conventions of Ghana’s cash-society. Prices for services were fluid and varied indiscriminately. Some independents, including television talent, videographers, producers, editors and technicians, made themselves available to be contracted on a work-for-hire basis. Others set up small non-linear editing bays, and purchased cameras and began to work within their communities. By 2017, the growth of multi-service micro-businesses had become an important part of the Ghanaian television landscape (Fig. 6.1).

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

113

Fig. 6.1  Multi-service creative businesses emerge in twenty-first-century Accra, Ghana

114 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Creativity and Traditional Employment The trend in Ghanaian television was for television workers to maintain an employment relationship with existing television institutions. The absence of resources for independent filmmaking was the main factor for this decision. Working in the television stations did not fulfill the graduates creatively and in many cases they were given little opportunity to explore their creativity in institutional arrangements: They are assigned to a production and that is it. When the students are here (at NAFTI) we see the potential and creativity in their work, we could have some hope for the industry. When they leave there is no funding for them to explore their possibilities independently. (Loh: personal interview 2009)

After privatization, most GBC workers stayed with the corporation. GFIC workers were redeployed to TV3. Sampson Quainoo, a film sound recordist by training; and Edmond Schandorf, a NAFTI-trained cinematographer, supervisor and manager of technical productions at TV3, were two of the GFIC staff-members redeployed to TV3. These first-­generation NAFTI graduates explained that 250 Ghanaians were redeployed under this program. Quainoo indicated that by 2008, the staff complement at TV3 had grown to 320. Quainoo and Schandorf explained that after the privatization of television, media workers generally preferred to stay employed to the stations, but would engage in external contracts wherever it was possible. There was a sense of family within the corporation. It was comfortable, with a lot of new work taking place. TV3 changed the way in which television workers worked in Ghana – we felt as if we were part of a major change that was taking place in our country. (Quainoo, personal interview)

Dedication to institution building and contributing to a collective was a consistent theme. Two reasons were given. The first was the desire to work within a tried-and-true team with established relationships. The second was the unwillingness to enter into a new paradigm of entrepreneurship as Ghanaian television changed from institution to industry.

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

115

Training Culture Since its establishment in 1978, NAFTI had provided Ghana and many other countries in Africa with film and television professionals. The institute made a deliberate effort to inculcate the values of nationhood and “Africanness” in the television practitioners it trained. Sarah Kuntoh, an editing tutor at NAFTI, explained that: As a film school in Sub-Saharan Africa, we have come to understand that we do not have the simple luxury of just entertaining our people but also letting them have a sense of pride in being African. This “sensibility” is unobtrusively driven into the mindset of students from the day they enter the Institute and is an integral part of their output works.

The Institute responded to liberalization’s changes while maintaining core values. This is an important indicator of the forward planning of Ghanaian television industry-educators. In a joint program with the University of Ghana, students were given lectures in African and Cultural Studies, augmenting their technical skills with contextual knowledge and critical skills and exposed to international filmmaking skills, techniques and content (Fig. 6.2). In the last ten years or so we are seeing generally that though the American culture is quite strong in Ghana a lot of young people are also gradually enjoying being African with everything that goes with it as well. (Loh: personal interview)

When providing for teaching examples or film criticism, NAFTI tutors used predominantly chosen African films and those from the Global South over Western films. The faculty found that students tended to make culturally relevant films of their own volition, which were shared with the wider community and were “applauded when they are shown outside of the school” (Loh 2009). Archiving became an important part of the training process with significant investment in laboratories, networks and film archives, similar to that which existed at Jamaica’s CPTC (Fig. 6.3). The result of these deliberate training efforts was a sense of national responsibility in programming that has evolved over time to become a natural part of the thinking of NAFTI graduates. Quainoo and Schandorf, who head the Technical Production Department at TV3, were among the

116 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Fig. 6.2  Students of NAFTI in Ghana being exposed to international film of various periods as part of their curriculum

first-generation graduates of NAFTI , and they attest to the quality of the training received there: “Being a NAFTI graduate, then and now, you have a sense of direction, understanding and meaning about what good filmmaking takes” (Quainoo, personal interview). The zeal and enthusiasm of NAFTI students across generations are reflective of the school’s mission statement—“NAFTI exists to produce high calibre personnel to make films that will enhance the socio-economic development of society” (Schandorf 2008). Industry Building Through Training NAFTI’s constant updating of its graduates’ skill sets constituted part of its planning for industry development: We are constantly watching the market and adapting our programmes to fit market needs. We constantly meet with the alumni – filmmakers, and host symposia and seminars for them to find out what the industry expectation of the industry is, so that we can develop products for the market. (Loh, personal interview)

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

117

Fig. 6.3  Part of NAFTI audiovisual archives

In response to increased commercialization of the market, NAFTI introduced specialist courses in entrepreneurship for filmmakers. The film school also balanced the incoming marketization with culturization: We also have introduced courses on advertising, so that, with more and more commercialization being introduced, they need to know what to do, what not to do and what is being done, so that they can make innovations in the industry. (Loh, personal interview)

In another response to changing trends within the industry, NAFTI moved to address the training needs and to raise standards in the area of entertainment-based production. The emphasis on Africanness in training converged with the global trend of increases in entertainment programming. This was a mitigation strategy: We realized that in terms of music, there are a lot of musical videos on all the stations and they aren’t what we think should be. So, we introduced to the curriculum what we call “music playback”. The students learn the rudiments

118 

D. HICKLING GORDON

of music video making. So that they can go and change the face of what is happening. (Loh, personal interview)

The institution recognized that it had to adapt to the changing face of television globally; it chose to do so by maintaining a culturally specific focus on quality technical and creative education, grounded in “Africanness”. Training the Continent NAFTI spoke proudly of its membership in the International Association of Film and Television Academies and Universities (CILECT). It provided a four-year Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in association with the University of Ghana. NAFTI also provided two-year professional diplomas for industry practitioners seeking to update their knowledge and skills. Training was available to students across Africa. Loh boasted: We changed the face of TV across Africa. When we travel to those countries, they hail us. In Harare, Swaziland, many of their professionals learned filmmaking right here at NAFTI. (Loh, personal interview)

The Institute also provided on-site training services for local and other African television stations. The director explained that NAFTI takes training to countries in Africa that request it: We helped Gambia TV to get on its feet. Apart from having students here, we did on-site training. They sent some of their staff here to come and study lighting. We have requests from Sierra Leone, I was in Namibia last year August and much of Southern Africa wants NAFTI to be a part of their process. (Loh)

A major difficulty facing NAFTI was the absence of funding to carry out the plans to improve the school’s offerings. The incomplete dormitories and television studios on the college’s campus stood testament to plans unfulfilled. Like policy in Ghana, there was good planning and intention, but implementation and follow-through fell short. A second visit to NAFTI in 2017 revealed a vibrant expanded campus, with a second location for training and expanded syllabi. Ramatu Mustapha Dadzie, Acting Dean of Studies of NAFTI, herself an animator, outlined

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

119

that the institution began granting specialist degrees to meet the demand for expertise due to the increasing number of television and digital outlets emerging in the Ghanaian market. We have a BFA in editing, a BFA in film directing, we have a BFA in television production, BFA in production design, BFA in animation and BFA in sound production … and BFA in cinematography and sound yes … well now we’ve also added broadcast journalism in multimedia so now we have them in their second year. (Dadzie 2017)

Additionally, the Institute collaborates with many of the stations for the production of content. They also continue to train working professionals, and offer diploma and certificate programs that allow students to matriculate to the degree. The Institute admits an average of 80 students annually and could admit larger numbers if they had sufficient equipment and facilities to support a larger intake. The proficiency and sensibility of the Ghanaian workforce were directly related to its audiovisual output—the messaging, production values and cultural integrity of the programs produced. However, a major difficulty facing NAFTI was the absence of funding to carry out the plans to improve the school’s offerings. The incomplete dormitories and television studios on the college’s campus stood as testament to plans unfulfilled. Planning and intention existed, but implementation and follow-through fell short. Amid the remarkable infrastructural development taking place in Ghana on my return visit in 2017, the NAFTI Studio remained forgotten (Figs. 6.4, 6.5 and 6.6).

Content Prosumers and Produsers As technologies and attitudes to business changed, so too did the nature of content in Ghana. Producing consumers or “prosumers” and producing users of content or produsers (Marenghi et  al. 2016) that is participant viewership or interactive television became increasingly popular in Ghanaian television production, in the same way that it did in Jamaica. Broadcast styles changed. A specific characteristic in Ghana that occurred more in Jamaican radio than in television was the individuation of audience members. The traditional broadcast rule of thumb was to create the illusion of

120 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Fig. 6.4  A section of a building intended to house a state-of-the-art television studio at NAFTI in Accra. The project was abandoned because of lack of funding. April 2009

a relationship between the broadcaster and every member of its audience “as if they are the only person watching”. Ghanaian officials explained that the inclusion the convention of sending greetings for individuals in the broadcast audience or “shout-outs” became more popular part of the programming process following liberalization. Neoliberal individuation also came in the form of a trend where individuals in Ghanaian society could purchase advertising crawls to deliver personal messages via television. The messages would run throughout popular programming. The crawls read, for example, “Jeremy wishes to remind Mary that he loves her with all his heart”, or “Abena in Osu, your family congratulates you upon your graduation”. This use of television was also identified as contrary to early broadcast principles, which sought to take a central message and transmit it broadly to a wider audience or target market, as opposed to an individual person. On the other hand, sending greetings is meant to address audience

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

121

Figs. 6.5 and 6.6  The NAFTI Studio ten years later, still incomplete. June 2017

122 

D. HICKLING GORDON

members personally, engender a spirit of community, localize and strengthen audience-bases amid global homogenization of television. Local Content. Local Languages Several culturally specific phenomena emerged in the production of Ghanaian content that impacted language use, moral standards, freedoms of speech and expression and the Ghanaian television aesthetic. In Jamaica, while considerations of sanitizing Jamaican patois for global audiences, Dadzie explained that most Ghanaian independent films continued to be produced in local languages: We have what we call the Komabu generally, where the Kumasi-based people completed local language production mostly. Each region produces in their individual local language. So if you go to the Volta region they have the film produced in their language, if you go to the northern region, the predominant language is the Dagomba or the Dagbani language. If you go to Kumasi, that is where most of the Twi language films are produced. In Accra most of the films are in English because they want to attract the foreign market.

Drama The increased proliferation of dramatic cinema beyond liberalization in Ghana has been linked to its popular theater “Concert Party” tradition that provided artistic and aesthetic parameters for the new representative forms. Ghana has a long tradition of using theater, folklore and drama as a “mirror of Ghanaian identity and culture [that] goes back many years, and ‘remains the most enduring art form in Ghana’”. Through its National Theatre Movement, a “project aimed at indigenizing Ghanaian theatre by giving it a distinctive national character”(Adjei 2014: 65), theatrical productions were brought “close to the people wherever they are; a theatre dramatizing the Ghanaian story using indigenous Ghanaian dramatic forms, motifs and infrastructure (63). The groundwork for such a project had long been laid by the Concert Party tradition”. Dramatic television was a Ghanaian staple form as early as the 1970s. Television then functioned as the bridge between popular theater and cinema. All three art forms “succeeded in holding the mirror to national consciousness in terms of contemporary discourses [sic]” (2014: 64). Additionally, liberalization’s

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

123

impact on propelling creative over commercial competitiveness provided impetus for the production of new and better dramatic films. As Adjei tells it, the advent of video caused indigenous drama troupes to transition to the big-screen, rendering television irrelevant. Homegrown celebrities began to replace Western appeal (65) supported by marketing and sponsorship activities.  roduction and Distribution Cultures P In the first decade with the increase in content production in Ghana new facilities were needed to augment the multiple studios at TV3, GBC, Metro and TV Africa in Accra. TV Africa broadcast from a facility with five production studios. The station produces 65% of its programming in-­ house, thus requiring a large production staff. The production of Ghanaian dramas to compete with Nigeria’s Nollywood films also served to increase the number of informal production clusters in Accra. Access to improved multimedia production technology and access to digital platforms corresponded with improved production value and distribution of Ghanaian drama. New local distribution cultures emerged outside of the formal film and television sector. NAFTI’s Dadzie explained that local content distribution, particularly of the dramatic form, is facilitated through the sale of DVDs. “Producers advertise the availability of the film on TV, indicating that this production is available in this store or this shop” (Dadzie 2017). Yet another emerging distribution trend was the commercialization of the production process. “Producers show films in the cinema houses where they may get money before they start selling it on DVDs”. At those showings they advertised for prospective actors and actresses to attend auditions that prospective talent had to pay to enter. The audition “took the form of a talent show … a live reality show”. The auditions are produced as a program, providing a third stream of income. Actors are provided with parts in dramatic films, “so at the end of the day see producers winning all the time” because of the multiple streams of income from a single project. You buy a form, you enter into this audition and they select the people into the reality T.V. which is also a making money venture, they train these people through a process since its about 2 months at the end of the day they write you a script then they employ these people to act for them so that is how normally it goes.

124 

D. HICKLING GORDON

As a result of that trend NAFTI developed new courses in acting for the screen which Dadzie indicated was widely popular. Serialization was another distribution trend that became popular in Ghana. Dadzie explained that to maximize commercial viability producers output the films in parts: so you seldom get a full length feature film [on DVD]. No! You have part one, part two, part three, part four so once the new story, that can be told in 30 minutes they- they extend it to about eh … About 45 minute so at least each story is on about five DVDs. You have to buy all the DVDs. The buyer might ask, “well why can’t I buy just one DVD?”

When we didn’t have this proliferation of TV and all that, it was easier for the producers to monitor the distribution, how much money they get, they know the audience and all that. Kalabule Intellectual property challenges arose out of the high levels of piracy. Another problem faced by local language producers was the nefarious truncation of the supply and value chains. “[T]he film is made available on the market … [by the] post-production person, [who] produces a version … by the time the official film comes out, the film itself is already out on the market. Someone within the chain might have had access to it and then sold it. Filmmakers have become very … ehm … aggressive” (Dadzie 2017). Jamaican bandooloo and its hustle culture are important reference points to the distribution cultures we learned of in Ghana. Jamaica’s “bandooloo” practice is also seen in Ghana as what would be interpreted in Western cultures as a hustle culture that manifests as the often stereotypical but also real African business practices of corruption, cheating, and profiteering and income redistribution, known, in Ghana as Kalabuleism. The practice of corruption, cheating, and profiteering and income redistribution is known as kalabule. Kwame explains that kalabuleism, like capitalism, has at the basis of its business ethics the belief that it is not wrong to maximize profits. He argues that any system of distribution or marketing that permits businessmen and women to maximize profits in the sale or distribution of basic goods that are in short supply aggravates the situation for an already starving people such as are to be found in Africa.

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

125

Kwame (1983) asserts that the African kalabule culture is based on the adoption of wholesale capitalism in conditions of acute shortage of basic (as well as non-basic) goods. The cultural phenomenon in which formal and informal “economies” coexisted with “informal” economies outstripping the “formal” ones was not new to the cultures of Jamaica and Ghana, but they were reasonably new to commercial television. Liberated Television Liberalization of television in Ghana had other unintended outcomes. Media scholar Margaret Amakohene described the post-liberalization erosion of standards of media practitioners as the “price we had to pay, and it continues to be a very high price”. Because of the stifled environment, we realized ‘finally we can say what we want’ and we went overboard. We didn’t think about rules, we think about just the freedom, and some abandoned the responsibility. We did not have any godfather to say, ‘Hey, these are the rules’. Everybody was afraid to put in checks against people’s ability to talk, because we were just coming from an environment where talking was risky.

The culture of media in Africa, and in Ghana in particular, continued to be mindful of its past, despite the liberalized political environment that now exists there. On the one hand, Ghanaian media history has brought the insistence that freedom and independence of the media be guaranteed. The presence of armed guards manning the GBC premises remains a reminder that the significance of the national broadcasting corporation by the government and concerns about the national broadcast systems and content go beyond national sentiment and nation building. The television station was traditionally the first point of call for coup makers. Visits to GBC in 2008 and 2009 revealed existing sandbag barriers and bullet holes in the fort-like facility. Security is vigilant, photography is prevented and guards are unrelenting. Visitors to the facility are processed outside of the main gates and escorted inside. The infrastructure of the GBC still reflects a defensive air based on the knowledge that the first point of penetration in the staging of a coup has been, and continues to be, the broadcast house. Liberalization of the media changed the way in which a probable coup maker would have to approach the communication element of a coup attempt.

126 

D. HICKLING GORDON

If you capture the radio station you can get your message across to the people. This is a factor now with a number of stations. No coup maker will succeed if he captures only one of these stations except the GBC, because of the fragmentation of the market, so that is an advantage. Things are quite liberal now. There was a time when you could not even move around the plant alone. Now, things are different. (Drah, personal interview)

Culture of Excessive Noise Ghanaian media response to its decades of silence and information repression, known as the “culture of silence”, was the reaction formation of the “culture of excessive noise”. Ansu-Kyeremeh explained. “We had one extreme—the culture of silence—and then it swung right to the other extreme.” Before the change we had a public broadcasting organization, just public service programming with little commercialization. With the liberalization we had new commercial stations. They offered competition to the national station GBC. Their programming became more of entertainment than hardcore public service type of broadcasting … Now we have a culture of excessive noise, a cacophony of voices on radio and television, and often people do not even know what they are talking about. (Ansu-Kyeremeh)

NAFTI’s Loh agreed, indicating that with commercial television programming and content development trends changed. GBC was losing audience share. “People wanted fast programming, young people wanted a change from what they had … not news, documentaries and other current affairs programming”. The scholars outlined that the exchange of power seemed to pass for “tyranny” from the establishment to the media. “Tyranny by the Media” “Tyranny by the media” became a central point of examination in Ghanaian contemporary media studies related to an identified diminution of journalistic standards and ethics. Members of the media fraternity were seen to intentionally malign individuals in society. Amakohene explained in 2009 that “people are now talking about the tyranny of the media … a new trend where the media is being tyrannical towards everybody and anybody in our society”. She further argued that this paradigm arose because no

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

127

rules were set before “opening the door” to liberalization, “so anybody enters and they do what they want to do. Standards have been eroded and gossip has become an accepted source of news in practice”. Professor Ansu-Kyeremeh used the Ghanaian adage “one falsehood spoils a thousand truths” to explain the manifestation of media tyranny in Ghana. Something appears in a newspaper and the next morning it is on every TV station, every radio station—tyrannize you. By the time you look around, what they have done is destroy your reputation, talking about what you have and have not done without checking—because that is not important.

Other challenges emerged. Pornography The fear of flagrant pornography was another concern to which content challenges seem to have escalated. Liberalization brought experimentation with eroticism and nudity in contemporary Ghanaian productions, that “stoked much fury” and received the condemnation of the Ghanaian viewing public which “sees it as nothing more than profane soft pornography. It is seen as culturally and artistically inappropriate and alien since in the Ghanaian performance tradition, as in oral narratives, sex is artistically masked or couched in euphemistic and symbolist language”. Ghanaian drama producers came “dangerously close to offending conservative Ghanaian cultural sensibilities in films such as Sinking Sands, Love and Sex, Love and Politics, Heart of Men, 4Play etc”. Actors and actresses claimed that they were merely acting out roles in which they have been cast; the producers strongly debunk assertions that these scenes are alien to Ghanaian performing arts. The commercial viability of films with “steamy erotic and sexual scenes” results in box-office successes (Adjei 2014: 65). The Media Commission Chairman Kwesi Gyan-Apenteng further explained the challenge: For example, somebody was running say a pornographic site in broad day-­ light and you fine the person or the company. The fine is less than the money that they are making, then they just pay the fine. They’ll even pay the

128 

D. HICKLING GORDON

fine in advance and so they go do it again. So only the threat of custodial sentences will probably deter them. (2017)

In response the National Media Commission devised a regulatory response through legislative means. The National Media Commission (Content Standards) Regulations, 2015 (LI 2224) came into force on December 9, 2015, requiring electronic communication networks and broadcast media institutions to obtain prior authorization before they can carry any content on their networks. Under the Law it becomes an offence to carry any content on a network without authorization and upon summary conviction one may be fined or imprisoned for not less than two years or more than five years or both fine and imprisonment. President of Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) Akwasi Agyemang described it as an attempt to re-introduce the criminal libel law through the back-door. Objections were made on the basis that the Constitution and any other law not inconsistent with this Constitution decreed that there shall be no censorship in Ghana and that there shall be no impediments to the establishment of private press or media; and in particular, there shall be no law requiring any person to obtain a license as a prerequisite to the establishment or operation of a newspaper, journal or other media for mass communication or information. It further insisted that editors and publishers of newspapers and other institutions of the mass media shall not be subject to control or interference by government nor shall they be penalized or harassed for their editorial opinions and views, or the content of their publications (Joy News). Gyan-Appenteng defended the need for legislation, on the grounds similar to that described by Amakohene and Ansu-Kyeremeh in the decade prior, that tyranny of the media, a “culture of excessive noise” had overtaken the broadcast landscape which had become unwieldy; pornography had become prevalent unregulated forms of content; the law did not speak to journalistic content and that regulation was meant to remedy Ghana’s absence of preparation for media liberalization: All over the world broadcasting is regulated but there was no preparation for this rapid development of the media especially broadcasting. Everything happened literally, as we say in Ghana is ‘by heart’ it just, it just happened. I was recently in Morocco. They have 10 stations or something like that. They ensure that the stations can remain viable and to live up to the standards.

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

129

Here we’ve got 500-something radio stations and there was no preparation and planning for what has happened … these are driven by religion, you know, religious broadcasters, politicians and the commercial interest all with the aim of making money. (Gyan-Appenteng 2017, Personal Interview)

In a lawsuit filed on January 8, 2016, GIBA sought, among other reliefs, declarations to the effect that the requirement for prior authorization of content amounts to censorship, control and direction of media institutions. The LI 2224 called for criminal sanctions that GIBA argued impaired free expression guaranteed to the media under the Constitution. The NMC Chairman argued that the owners and operators of broadcast houses needed to be made to assume responsibility for the license that they’ve been granted. “[E]very such license comes in two forms. You’ve got the technical license for the hardware and the definition of spaces that determines what you can do and (regulates) the equipment. Then there’s the content standard which of course is what NMC is responsible for”. Gyan-Appenteng further defended the legislation on the grounds that the remedies that existed prior to its existence were insufficient and had been unable to deter companies in breach of existing regulations that protected against defamation, invasion of privacy and indecent, inappropriate content that had become prevalent on the broadcasting landscape. But let me say this, the LI doesn’t even mention the word journalist, it’s not for journalists. We demanded that every broadcast station should provide us with a programme guide. [They say] the same guide also constitutes censorship. I beg to disagree and will disagree til’ the cows come home. I don’t see how the demand for a programme guide constitutes censorship.

Ghana’s Supreme Court granted an order of interlocutory injunction restraining respondents from enforcing the impugned provisions of LI 2224. The more things changed, the more the struggles remained the same. Yet, the more they changed, the more standardized global fixes were applied in an attempt to address them. While Ghana reinterpreted standardized legal provisions for intellectual property, Boateng (2011: 11) tells us that it did so in ways that followed the trend of strengthening the rights of institutional owners of cultural products over the rights of individual creators of those products. In addressing cultures of community it dialectically “wrote individuals and communities that produce folklore out of the law”. Liberalization had advanced development in the converging

130 

D. HICKLING GORDON

audiovisual subsectors of the cultural economy but exacerbated others. The application of generic, standardized solutions to culturally specific problems created square pegs for round holes, further exacerbating existing challenges. Cookie-cutter solutions negated the unique nature of the challenges, trauma and anguish within that country and sidestep culture as a significant element of the fix. The Jamaican and Ghanaian cases have both provided examples of the impact of the absence of unplanned change within thier broadcast media sectors. Both cases provide clear arguments for the need for a development model for the cultural economy that rigorously reexamines the notion of media as a ‘market’. It requires a model that takes into account the importance of monetary and fiscal growth imperatives but is also sensitive to the intangible but real spirit of change taking place in nations of the Global South, and their attendant traumas, cultural nuances and specificities. A model for cultural economy development is outlined in the next chapter to respond to this need.

References Adjei, Mawuli. “The Video-Movie Flourish in Ghana: Evolution and the Search for Identity”. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences. ISSN (paper) 2224-5766 ISSN (online) 2225-0484. Vol 4, #17, 2014. Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph and Yindfa Lu. “Historical Evolution of Entrepreneurial Development in the Global South: The Case of Ghana, 1957–2010”. EconPapers. 2018. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/88179/1/MPRA_ paper_88179.pdf Avle, Seyram, “Situating Ghana’s new media industry: liberalization and transnational entrepreneurship”. Locating Emerging Media. Editors: Germaine Halegoua, Ben Aslinger. December 2015. Routledge https://s3.amazonaws. com/academia.edu.documents/34664803/14859-17503-1-PB. pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_VideoMovie_Flourish_in_Ghana_Evolut.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMACSHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200121% 2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200121T102150Z&XAmz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=45848f 948dab050648c79572bde5841cd20a0c1e3473548783c95fd75e1aec7d Boahen, A. A. Ghana: Evolution and change in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. London: Longman. 1975. Carmody, P. ‘The New Scramble for Africa’. Cambridge: Polity. 2011. Ross, E. ‘Christianity and Ghana’, Africa Today, 4(2): 28–30. 1957.

6  FROM TV TO AV IN GHANA: CREATIVE WORK, CONTENT… 

131

Kwame, Safro. “Doin’ Business in an African Country: Business Ethics and Capitalism in a Poor Country.” Journal of Business Ethics 2.4 1983. 263–268. Print. Marenghi, Patricia Marina Hernández Prieto & Ángel Badillo (2016). “Diversity of the Audio-visual Industry in the Digital Age: The Challenges Entailed in its Measurement” Text 7 Diversity of Cultural Expressions in the Digital Era. Lilian Richieri Hanania Anne-Thida Norodum Eds. https://www.teseopress. com/diversityofculturalexpressionsinthedigitalera/chapter/diversity-of-theaudio-visual-industry-in-the-digital-age-the-challenges-entailed-in-its-measurementfootnote-this-article-is-part-of-the-research-project-cultural-andaudio-visual-diversit-2/ Puplampu, B. “Belling the Cat—Towards a Taxonomy of Organizational Culture in Ghana: A research note.’ Ife Psychologia 12.1 2004. 1–6.

In-Depth Interviews Conducted for

the

Ghanaian Case Study

Amoakohene, Margaret PhD.  Lecturer in Mass Communications. University of Ghana, Legon. May 2009. Ansah, Kwah. Executive Producer. TV Africa. Accra. May 2009. Ansu-Kyeremeh Kwasi, Professor of Communications, University of Ghana, Legon. May 2009. Gyan-Apenteng, Kwesi. Chairman of National Media Commission. May 2017. Dadzie, Ramatu Mustapha. Acting Dean of Studies, National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI). Accra. May 2017. Drah, Edwin Kumah. Head of News. Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Accra. May 2008 and 2009. Kuntoh, Sarah. Non-Linear Editing Tutor. National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI). Accra. May 2009. Loh, Martin. Head. National Film and Television Institute. Accra. May 2009. Quainoo, Sampson. Film Sound Recordist. TV3. Accra. May 2008. Hickling, Akindele. Independent Producer and Graphic Designer. Pilachi Ghana. Accra. May 2008 and May 2009. Mubarak, Mohammed. “Re: Ghana Broadcasting Corporation” Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. Message to the author. 17 January 2009. E-mail. Schandorf, “Sunshine”. Independent Producer. Sunshine Productions. Accra. May 2008.

CHAPTER 7

#decolonization2point0: Follow the Star

Abstract  This chapter comparatively evaluates the cultural outcomes of the liberalization of television in Jamaica and Ghana using the PIEGO analytical framework. A case is made for a behavioral approach to the examination of the formation of cultures and their economic contexts. Through the “personification” of the CCI sector, “personality” trends and traits in the national media and audiovisual subsector are presented as a central tenet of the South Star model of cultural economy development, proposed for nations of the Global South. Keywords  Populism • Geostrategy • South South • Decolonization • Media • Transformation • Neoliberal policy • AV sector • Framework • Globalization • Governance • Audiovisual • Philosophy • Cultural economy • Ideology • Ideological Transformations • Economy • Principles • Consciencism • Africanness • Caribbeanness • Social Policy • Eras of Enlightenment • Industrialization • Independence and Development Era • Cold War • Spans of Subordination • Culturization • Digitization • Ethical Revolution  • Neoliberalism’s liminality • Monetization • Standardization • Content format • Consumption • Convergence • Elitism • Global populism • Hegemony • Programmes • Commodification • Populism • Individualization • Policy Implementation • Media Mitigation • South Star Cultural Economy Model • Democracy • Culture Specificity • Colonial Incursion

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_7

133

134 

D. HICKLING GORDON

A Lesson from Ghana “We love ourselves in Ghana, no one will trouble you”. It was the simplest and most gently powerful loving-backhand-slap I had ever received. Taxi driver John whizzed me around Accra from the fabric market to Accra Mall and then for lunch of Groundnut Soup and Fufu at a community eatery. Signs of fast-paced development on the left and right in the form of new financial institutions stretched upward amid shiny new buildings and huge construction sites. Enormous cranes and other heavy equipment sat on every corner of the city center. It was an absolutely different place to the Accra I remembered from my visit a decade before in 2008. “Development” had been rapid and stark. An ever-present culture of street-sellers peddled bottled water to Agouti meat. The throngs of brown children at every intersection were new, a fraction of the ever-increasing number of refugees from Cote D’Ivoire and Togo on the streets—begging, selling, sitting, playing, approaching the taxi with tiny caramel-colored hands outstretched. John engaged them in conversation, often sending them away, firmly but gently, “Don’t bother the Obruni Lady”, he told them in his tongue, protecting his “foreign” passenger. Upon approaching a new round of refugees, I quickly put down the locks on the car doors on both sides and began to wind up the window with urgency. These were necessary actions at Jamaican intersections. Window wipers have been known to open doors, grab purses and act aggressively to commuters who stop between the red of the light and the green. John saw my anxiety as we approached the children. He smiled and said quietly, ever so gently, “No need to be afraid. We love ourselves in Ghana … no one will trouble you”. “Therein lies the conclusion”, I thought, The ideas I had entertained came together in the conclusive space of John’s two sentences. “No need to be afraid. We love ourselves in Ghana … no one will trouble you”. The profundity of the difference between the Jamaican and Ghanaian personality, identity, character, psyche and their impact on their decisions and choices for liberalization became clearer in that moment. Marcia Weekes, director and producer of the first mid-budget transatlantic film Joseph, tells a story that bears out John’s position. Having shot her film in both Jamaica and Ghana, her experiences speak about a difference in self-love that is seen in a kind, respectful facilitating efficiency in Ghanaian production where, in her experience, the opposite largely held true in Jamaica. It is complex. It further pointed to the defining character and personality of the two media sectors, which is the focus of this chapter.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

135

Media: Metaphor of Transformation Television’s liberalization in Jamaica and Ghana became representative of enveloping neoliberalism in both former colonies. The simultaneous 1997 neoliberal policy implementation of the DCMS in Britain and the liberalization of Jamaican and Ghanaian television contextualized the transition from TV to AV, and from cultural institution to subsector of cultural economy. In the first 20 years of the millennium, the audiovisual (AV) sectors and their stakeholders had to relearn, recreate and reformulate themselves, in keeping with the globalized, liberalized zeitgeist that was occurring. During this period of adjustment for nations of the South, Nkrumah’s ethical revolution occurred. The change in global ideology towards neoliberalism had caused, for better or worse, the underlying ethical consruct of the jamaican and Ghanaian societies. The changes in thier audiovisual sectors and sub-sectors were indicative and representative. Coming out of the decolonization movements of the 1950s to 1980s, globalization’s adjustments the changes seen were of a  philosophical, ideological, economic, governance and operational nature in many developing societies. This philosophy, ideology, economy, governance and operations (PIEGO) construct has been  used  in this chapter to comparatively analyze change in the emerging cultural economies and their sectors and subsectors. The PIEGO construct is used to reveal distinctive elements of the national audiovisual footprints in Jamaica and Ghana (Table 7.1). This evaluation is meant to assist decision makers to assess the nature of cultural change in their societies and economies, and to use this information to facilitate decision making.

Table 7.1  The PIEGO analytical construct Antinomies of Culture

South Star Principles of Cultural Economy

Philosophy

Vision: Epistemology, identity formation, historiography, phenomenology Interdependence: Balancing economic and development imperatives through ideological synthesis Decisiveness: Establishment of a clear, consistent economic model that reflects ideological synthesis and national vision Participatory government: Transparency, representation, participation, diversity, equity Independence: Rights and freedoms. Will. Decent Work

Ideology Economy Governance Operations

136 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Philosophical Underpinnings The global liberalization movement responded to and disrupted mid-­ twentieth-­century decolonization movements in the Global South. Both Jamaica and Ghana had accepted external mandates for structural adjustment to remedy economic challenges. The marked differences in the responses of the two countries to liberalization were based on their unique epistemological and ontological make-up. The level of intensity of consciencism’s grounding in either country characterized its processes of decision-­making and revealed elements of their distinctive national “personalities”. Consciencism provided a barometer of intangible characteristics. Its egalitarian African societal traditions and aspirations of a new African philosophy nourished a sense of nationhood and regionalism seen in notions of nationality, “Africanness” and “Caribbeanness”. The nations’ defining factors emerged out of differences in their historical, philosophical and cultural grounding seen along their trajectories of transition and present as “soft” characteristics of their nationhood. The social policy decisions of the Ghanaian society and its media sectors during the transitional period were directed by the strong influence of Ghana’s history and pre-history and interwoven principles of Africanism and “Africanness”. Social and economic philosophies of consciencism from the founding father of the Sub-Saharan nation, Kwame Nkrumah, permeated the psyche and processes of decision-making. He defined the “African personality” as the “cluster of humanist principles which underlie traditional African society” (Oruka 1990:246). The West African society’s ingrained awareness of its “Africanness” and its staunch, passive-aggressive resistance to Europe’s fifteenth-century colonization and re-culturization efforts through colonial incursion and occupation remained consistent through to the twentieth-century resistant groundswell of decolonization and insistence on political independence in spite of British denial and defiance. These were the precursors to twenty-first-century resistance to liberalization in Ghana that once again sought to re-culturize the economies and societies of the Global South in accordance with neoliberal ideals. The decentralized audiovisual sector was an important tool and strategy to this end. Neoliberalism’s principles were largely opposite to the notions of consciencism engrained in the institutional values that had shaped the national psyches during the decolonization movement that led up to and beyond the struggles for political independence. These were altered, reversed or eliminated during the libertine lure. The changed philosophical grounding altered ideological, economic, governance and operations

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

137

in ways described in previous chapters. The conspiracy-laden question of whether neoliberal insistence on media divestment as a part of conservative structural adjustment programs was a strategic interventionist measure of disruption, destabilization and control remains unanswered. Ostensibly, the impact of Jamaica’s enthusiastic broadcast divestment and Ghana’s liberalization shocked their systems. The liberalization of television in Jamaica and Ghana changed the audiovisual media sector materially and spiritually, disrupting the Jamaican and Ghanaian media sector’s ways of being, knowing and of understanding their roles and relevance along their development trajectories of nationhood. The changes were traumatic for many stakeholders  and their audiences. Like in the post-emancipation period of apprenticeship in the Caribbean where extensive migration from rural to urban centers changed the national and social landscape, the Jamaican media divestment process forced the migration of television workers into new vocational areas and ways of operating; and viewers into new consumption and production  patterns of  identity-­ forming content. Like emancipation, separation occurred without preparation. Displaced PSB workers were forced to rethink their roles in the commercial sphere. Others embraced the opportunities the changes provided. Audiences, the societies at large, for the most part experienced metaphorical  change blindness even as values metamorphosed.  While competition buoyed sector growth, it also shape-shifted into a destructive, combative sensibility. Sectors remained stratified as described in previous chapters. The revolution had been televised. It took 20 years for me to realize the true impact that the changing, liberalized media processes had on many trying to make sense of the broadcast sector and on my professional trajectory and choices. Displacement, disappointment and dislocation of many separated from the JBC went far beyond losing a job. For some it was like losing a limb, or a loved one, or a home. In the two decades of interviews, observation, conversations and analysis, interfacing with creatives through policy development came the realization that the trauma was significant and widespread. The Ghanaian response was different. The audiovisual sector created a parallel hybrid structure and system of distribution, training, intellectual property and content development to existing Western ones—as passive resistance grounded in Africanness manifest. The Ghanaian progenitors welcomed the spirit of liberalization but not all its terms, actively working  towards the  realization of the policy ideals of equality, people empowerment, social justice and cultural authenticity. Jamaica welcomed the Western liberalization movement  with the  ambivalence of a

138 

D. HICKLING GORDON

vulnerable Small Island Developing State (SIDS). The differences in the reactions of the two nations to liberalization are represented by  their choices in redefining  their  audiovisual sectors. Often, a cultural audit is overlooked in development planning.  A clear comparison is seen in the evaluation  of nation language use  in the process of media  change.  The African nation’s distinct and consistent emphasis was on presenting culturally relevant programming in traditional languages. Ghana’s “Africanness” was also represented in policy through the educational and epistemological policies for its media sector through content development choices, ways it commercialized, its demonstrable understanding of convergence and the rationalization of its conduits seen in previous chapters. In Jamaica, however, the extended emphasis on overseas produced programming into the second decade of the millennium was a clear example of Jamaican cultural ambivalence. Another existed in debates on language use in media and society. The ambivalence about selfhood was seen in how its language presented in Jamaican and Ghanaian broadcast media.  While Jamaican Patois became more widely spoken in media spaces by natural selection, serious attempts to make Jamaican language official in 2019 were met with staunch national resistance. This compares with national and official encouragement of diverse language use in Ghanaian media. Persistent ontological questions prevail. What, however, is clear of the libertine period are the two distinct changes in ideological zeitgeist which had a direct bearing on changes in media and society. Ideological Transformation Liberalization in the Global South is a hegemonic neocolonial manifestation, a contemporary civilizing mission meant to advance developing countries along the stages of industrialization. Globalization’s village promised liberalization of trade policy and throwing open of markets. Yet, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, borders were relaxed, but never flung open for Southern access. The declaration of a global village gave a cadre of “others” some access to the West. The Washington Consensus was thereby designed for developing countries of the Global South. The falling of the Berlin Wall, the Washington Consensus and Globalization were the core of the five-decade-long neoliberal zeitgeist grounded in capitalism. Colonizing nations presented these interventions as methodologies to civilize, free, protect provide independence for, aid-in the development and grow the economies of the countries of the Global South.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

139

The movements leading to the 1807 abolition of the trade in enslaved Africans, the cultural and political renaissance of the 1930s, the twentieth-­ century movements toward political independence and the decolonizing development agendas associated with the falling of the Berlin Wall, to the Washington Consensus and globalization were all seen to be prescriptions that were in the best interest of developing countries. Emerging technologies allowed “these others” unsettled in advanced industrial nations and those in developing countries alike, an opportunity to begin to tell their stories and share them globally. Globalization promised a global village, but did not a community make. Borders of subordination were never downed. I argued in the first decade of the new millennium that a sense of ideological “liminality” prevailed at that time in many of the nations of the South that had suffered centuries of colonial invasion, occupation, enslavement and subordination through to the twenty first century (Hickling 2011:105) (Table 7.2). Advanced industrial nations largely continued to have favorable GDP, per capita income, levels of industrialization, infrastructure and comparatively higher levels of standard of living than the range of nations of the Global South. From least developed to middle income, many nations of the South remained vulnerable, highly indebted and susceptible to external shocks; with low levels of per capita GDP as a result of less productive sectors in comparison to advanced industrial nations. While nations of the South are far from monolithic they maintained some common characteristics—comparatively lower quality infrastructure and social services and undertake less formally recognized and resourced research and Table 7.2  Spans of Subordination grid (Hickling 2011:105) Time span

Temporal eras

1700s–1900s

Eras of Enlightenment and Slavery and colonization industrialization World War years Colonialism and decolonization Cold War, Civil Rights Movements Independence and development era Globalization Globalization You are here Globalization, Neoliberalism Liminality of the present

1914–1940s 1950s–1989 1980s–2000s 2006 and beyond

Spans of colonialism and postcolonial tensions (Jamaica and Ghana)

140 

D. HICKLING GORDON

innovation. On “the books”, they were said to offer fewer, less diverse opportunities and, in some instances, freedoms to their citizens and continued to develop in an unplanned manner with arbitrary, fragmented structures and regulatory mechanisms. The status quo remained intact. In this libertine period, the legacy of colonialism’s spans of subordination dug deep, extending well beyond its four centuries of displacement, conquest, enslavement, imperialism and development to structural adjustment, liberalization, and globalization. As established, the zeitgeist of liberalization changed Jamaican and Ghanaian media sectors materially. The egalitarian posture of television during the public service years had metamorphosed into market-facing industries following liberalization. Tradition and modernity, individuation and community, marketization and culturization were the dialectical tensions at the center of sector growth. Nkrumah’s “ethical revolution” had occurred. As public service television metamorphosed into commercial television, new values and processes influenced by globalization resulted in increasing privatization, digitization, monetization and standardization. Prevailing neoliberalism engendered wealth creation imperatives that begat individualism, commercialism and entrepreneurship. New content formats and methods, consumption patterns, commercial activity, increasing technical and disciplinary convergence emerged. Convergence took place in practice but not in policy; and the emphasis on intellectual property rights were modernized. Independent creative work burgeoned encouraged by an emphasis on entrepreneurship; but without decent work imperatives. Even as a prevailing apathy emerged, culturization pushed back in the early 2000s. The nation became shrouded in centrism reflected and represented through media coverage. These changing environments were characterized by privatization, digitization, monetization and standardization. In Jamaica and Ghana the stringency of structural adjustment with its attendant mindset-adjustment and ethical revolution created perennial states of cognitive dissonance in both nation-states. The challenge was grappling with interdependence, maintaining ideological balance and balancing economic and development imperatives. As the millennium entered its third decade, marked by the 2016 and 2017 general elections in the USA and the UK, creeping post global populism broke into a full trot. From Britain to Brazil, globalization’s nebulousness began to be replaced by the post  global wave of populism, rendering the “liminality” thesis (Hickling 2011) of “liberalization

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

141

without preparation” moot. Twenty-first-century populist tenets took root, reversing the inclusionary principles of globalization. A new, unforeseen set of global challenges emerged characterized by increasing levels of elitism; income inequality; racial and ethnic tensions and “otherization”; self-­interest; normalization of corruption; homogeneity and elitism of the media. Other populist characteristics included hyperinflation from characteristic increases in public spending; oversimplification of political challenges, opportunism; heightened expedience and the de-democratization that come with the increased homogeneity of the media; and “multiple equivalencies and lines of flight in the structuring of social relations” (Laclau 2015:14). A new span of subordination emerged (Table 7.3). The fresh zeitgeist shift saw claims of and the actual circulation of fake news, questions raised regarding the existence of online filter bubbles; nuanced messaging: political undercurrents; media competing with their governments and the populace they serve for screen and air time, production and audiences. An already steady global decline in institutional trust worsened. The resulting erosion of trust was an understandable response to instances of abuse of trust by powerful people and institutions. It certainly generated the risk that the generalized crisis of trust in institutions, and in expertise more broadly, would become a self-fulfilling prophecy (Flew 2019:14). Ambivalent to remnant principles of democratic socialism, and still responding to the impacts of neoliberalism, the Caribbean and Africa are yet to establish a clear and considered response to global populism as they grapple with the social and economic challenges that they present for the developing world. The changes in audiovisual media are representative of the transformation process during the libertine years (Table 7.4). Table 7.3  Spans of subordination Time span

Temporal eras

Spans of colonialism and postcolonial tensions (Jamaica and Ghana)

1700s–1900s

Enlightenment and industrialization World war years Cold War Globalization Readjustment

Slavery and colonization

1914–1940s 1950s–1989 1980s–2015 2015 and beyond

Colonialism and decolonization Independence and development era Neoliberalism’s liminality Global Populism

142 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Table 7.4  Spans of Subordination—TV in Jamaica and Ghana Time span

Temporal eras

Spans of AV trajectory of transition in colonialism and Jamaica and Ghana postcolonial tensions (Jamaica and Ghana)

1700s–1900s 1914–1940s

Enlightenment and industrialization World war years

1950s–1989

Cold War

Slavery and Colonization Colonialism and decolonization Independence and development era

1980s–2015

Globalization

Neoliberalism

2015 and beyond

Readjustment including COVID-­19 Shutdown

Global Populism

Introduction of AV technology, electricity Colonial radio and film (Democratic) Socialism directs TV for identity formation amid virulent socio-political circumstances Liberalization, digitization, globalization and commercialization Proposed Decolonization 2.0

Economic Transformation Ghana’s era of coups and violently divisive political unrest in Jamaica in the 1960s to 1980s were followed by periods of readjustment and “growing pains” under liberalization. The economic and social recalibration in response to both periods of social unrest sought to realign their economies. The developing ecosystems required capitalization, financing structures as well as coordinated and targeted funding mechanisms to address the needs of their sectors and position them for growth in the short and medium term. Jamaica and Ghana approached liberalization and growth in different ways. Ghana’s inherent, centuries-old fist-clench of “Africanness” shaped a general cynicism for multilateralism. This was seen in language that raised “serious reservations about the relevance and/or adequacy of the kind of adjustment being foisted upon them by the BWIs”1 and bilateral agencies, described as “mostly formal colonial masters” (Mkandiawire and Soludo 2003:3). Despite some objection Jamaica more warmly returned its embrace amid “remarkably rapid global 1

 Bretton Woods institutions.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

143

unification of policy around a neoliberal development model” (Klak and Myers 1998:108). As technology advanced, the delivery of symbolic audiovisual products and services grew and improved exponentially. Sector structures changed. Cultural and creative classes also grew and diversified. The nature of work changed.  It  privileged independent, entrepreneurial activity and microand small-business development. The structures and processes through which content was produced metamorphosed. New firms entered the market. Professional organizations were largely disbanded and then reformed. Educational opportunities in the field expanded and with them new specializations and more and better training for the jobs market. As the libertine project manifest, in both instances the size, scope, number of activities and participants in the production and delivery of cultural products and services grew. Eventually perceptions of dynamism and opportunity in entrepreneurship came to exist alongside the primacy of a vibrant market. What were once public service institutions of film and television became irregularly structured, hybrid audiovisual subsectors of the emerging cultural economies of Jamaica and Ghana. Jamaican and Ghanaian audiovisual firms grew under neoliberalism’s grand design. Independents emerged. Audiovisual marketplaces solidified. While formalization was being encouraged and enforced, culture “fought back”. Economic counter-­ cultures of “juggling”, “hustling” and “higglering” (Durant-­ Gonzalez 1983:7) in Jamaica and Ghana’s Kalabule sustained the informal economy alongside increasing formalization. Cultural activities in Jamaica and Ghana continued to be traditionally practiced within the informal economy, which has continued to be viewed and described diminutively as “clandestine”, “irregular” and “underground”. Specific efforts were made to enforce formalization including the insistence of tax records for financial transactions. Ghana moved more quickly than Jamaica in developing indigenous economic structures for the trade of its audiovisual products. Economic transformation in both countries presented the contradictions of growth without development and genius without “value”—highly acclaimed cultural output without the processes, definition and declaration of clear “value structures”, tangible and intangible, monetary and intrinsic. This imbalance requires a contemporary approach that “balances the books while balancing people’s lives” (Simpson Miller), later refreshed by Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness—“balancing lives and livelihood”. A reexamination of systems of governance is critical to this end.

144 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Governance for Growth? The question of the degree of policy and programmatic preparedness for and responsiveness to liberalization has been asked and answered in this volume through the evaluation of Jamaica and Ghana’s audiovisual sectors. The responses of the two former colonies to shape-shifting hegemony saw different outcomes. The media of both Jamaica and Ghana had evolved into unwieldy media structures with insufficient central support for growth via policy, financing or planning. Adjustments to competition, new rounds of structural adjustment, new ways of working, ongoing political gymnastics, mergers and takeovers and technical change were both cause and effect of the media changes that took place in either country. Behavior change became clear in both nations, punctuated by increased individuation, apathy and expedience. It also resulted in legislative maneuverings, heightened political tensions, fragmented policy responses and shifting economic models. Hegemonic principles at the core of the multilateral proposals for economic and fiscal policy reform called for the deliberateness of decentralization. Having been disrupted by divestment, no clear policy mandate was provided to the broadcasters in the commercial era in either country. In Jamaica there did not seem to be a holistic sense of “creative direction” or policy or business planning. Jamaica continued to punch above its weight across disciplines and activities, in particular cultural and creative output and in sport. Yet, Jamaica has barely included the cultural economy in its economic or social mensuration. The emerging audiovisual subsector is the most organized and easily measured of its emerging cultural and creative subsectors; but is still disjointed and siloed. Up to 2019 there were no satellite accounts or standard indicators by which to measure the emerging cultural sector. Similar contradictions exist in Ghana. Macro indicators reveal economies bearing the fruit of structural adjustment and liberalization. Major systemic challenges continue to thwart social and cultural development in both countries. Movement of resources across and through the economy to their most marginalized remains at a trickle. Alternative economic means, systems and models are required to address at-risk youth, violent crime, corruption and the range of anti-social behaviors that continue to plague the countries, in particular the hungry, underemployed, sick, marginalized and hopeless. New social and economic directions were necessary for both countries.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

145

The pace and alacrity with which a developing nation makes and implement plans to develop a holistic cultural economy and its sectors are statements, not only of a lack of resources but the absence of intrinsic confidence and political will. The accelleration of Ghana’s policy interest in culture as an economic driver became evident with its ‘Year of Return’ soft diplomacy and tourism programme. Yet, in Jamaica, cultures of expedience emerged. Liberalized Caribbean voices structurally adjusted into submission during the libertine period, retaining the inequities of  traditional tourism as its mainstay. Jamaica, a once vibrant, vocal and vociferous part of the global decolonization and non-aligned movements and foundation members of the Pan-African movement, became over-run by cultures of expedience, doing “just enough” in order to demonstrate national, local or organizational progress or success, but insufficient effort and thought to develop and implement sustainable means of providing an enabling environment for their people. In Jamaica, the ambivalence of perfection-as-the-enemy-of-the-good became endemic. Cost containment, profit maximization and monetization became prevailing buzzwords. Expedience included “just looking the other way” and “going slowly” as natural fallback operational positions, as described in case data for both countries. Political pronunciation from lecterns that were not followed by action demonstrated the desire for change without the accompanying will. The absence of demonstrable political will and increasingly present populism fueled the global crisis of trust. The quest for illusive participatory government, transparency, representation, participation and diversity continued even as democracy prevailed, a sure demonstration of cultures of ambivalence that restricted the delivery of both governance and growth. These cultures of ambivalence took different forms. In Ghana, analysts revealed that the widespread ‘culture of silence’ that impacted communication production, processes and content creation following the traumas of the twentieth century became ‘cultures of excessive noise’.  It was a reaction formation to many years of repressive silence  with underlying retentions that I beleive  impacted the ‘personality’  of the sector and the nation and its trajectory towards sector development.  In Jamaica ‘cultures of expedience’ were heightened.  These are cultural consequences of liberalization in Jamaica that result in the culture of ‘picking the lowest hanging fruit’ over long term, sustainable development options.  It is a culture that satisfies immediate gratification needs and causes the phenomenon of the political willingness to  do ‘just enough’ but ‘not sufficient’ to achive holistic growth

146 

D. HICKLING GORDON

and development. Within this frame exists the ambivalence that wrestles with the ironies of perfection-as-enemy-of-the-good in areas such as seeking cost containment, efficiency and ultimately  profit, productivity and growth. Expedience includes ‘looking the other way’ and a ‘pop-off’ culture as natural behaviors in the politics of governance. ‘Pop off cultures’ involve cronism and nepotism in decision making and resource allocation, where connected parties get a ‘pop off’ from scarce state benefits and resources.  Both the Ghananian and Jamaican cultures that presented in the twenty-first-century seem to be manifestation of the ethical revolution that began in the previous century. Operational Changes Public service television in Jamaica and Ghana were originally intended as tools of post-independence social mobilization, the realization of liberty and identity reinforcement. The early broadcasting corporations sought to convey a sense of stability and calm and to build cultures of nationalism. Independence and the establishment of television followed a period of intensive decolonization in both nations. However, colonial retentions remained prevalent in both societies. Liberalization movements in the 1980s and 1990s led to further changes in sector philosophy, ideology, economic models and governance. This in turn caused transitioning structures, processes, output and operations. New content, formats methods, consumption patterns, commercial activity, increasing convergence; new conduits for production and distribution, emphasis on intellectual property rights and creative work emerged as a result of emergent operational processes and systems. The fabric of Jamaica’s and Ghana’s media adjustments were representative of national change. McLuhan (1964:7) said it best, “the medium is the message”. As seen in their broadcast media sector, Ghana gave up repressive cultures of silence for excessive noise and Jamaica gave up consciencism for commercial expedience. Their media reflected the changes in the transitioning, ambivalent societies. Trauma seemed to have become a silent operational matter for consideration by the media sector. The absence of clear policy, sector plans, concepts, and the presence of  inequitable business models led to insecurity, displacement, disorientation, liminality, and ambivalence within the sector. Even as production increased and diversified on the books in Jamaica, the rapid-fire changes in the media sector resulted in an underlying torrent of expedience, inequity, mistrust, exploitation and dependency.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

147

Distribution of and trade in content were beset by  two distinct -butsilent  sectoral challenges. Poor salaries  and  the barriers  associated with startup entrepreneurship  caused  economic uneasiness and  defined global  Decent Work principles.  Internationally, studies showed that in  broadcasting, behavioral indicators were being used to evaluate the media. Studies found that “bullying, poor mental health and a desire to leave the industry were contributing factors, while in distribution, anxiety... and feeling undervalued were common complaints. Within cinema and exhibition, respondents admitted to self-harm, suicidal thoughts and attempts”(Ravindran 2020). Surveys reveal a mental health crisis in the progenitor UK film and TV industry, with close to 90% of off-screen professionals experiencing mental health issues on the job, “significantly worse than the general population, in which 65% struggle with mental health at work”. Considering the unique forms of intergenerational trauma that existed in Jamaica and Ghana, and having to operate  within the uncertainties of COVID-19 pandemic, a clear case can be made for behavioral and cultural perspectives to become associated with the formulation of inquiry, study and  development plans for high-intensity cultural and creative sectors like the audiovisual subsector, particularly in postcolonial developing nations. Amid perennial cries of “nutten nah gwan” phenomenal resilience and pockets of excellence shone through. The “nutting nah gwaan” syndrome in Jamaica is a popular lament that translates literally to “nothing is happening to advance the sector, or for me personally”. It was widely heard and felt within the cultural and creative sector. In Ghana, Chair of the board of NAFTI, Juliet Asante, in true Ghanaian euphemistic fashion, indicated in a television interview that the film sector is “in a hole” and “wants some sunshine”. Meanwhile, several audiovisual workers began on the road to building businesses and creating successful content. Systemic inequity, the absence of policy and scarce resources challenged equitable sector development even as financial sectors flourished. The inherent contradictions were stark. Given the global zeitgeist shift in the second decade, there is need to establish a clear and considered response to global populism and to grapple with the social and economic challenges that they present. Consideration must also be given to answering persistent epistemological and ontological questions required for nation building and identity cementation. Addressing the challenges in Jamaica, Ghana and countries of the Global South requires holistic, systematic approaches. Developing

148 

D. HICKLING GORDON

the cultural economies of these nations is central to this process as they address both sides of the spirit/matter dialectic. Cultural Economy approaches  include intangible culture  matters-of-spirit that form the character or “personalities” of communities, subsectors, sectors, economies and nations. They do not see as far-fetched the inclusion of matters such as the impact of intergenerational and existing trauma on low productivity levels, or the significance of postcolonial irony, hegemony and history in a nation, like Jamaica which had the pre COVID-19 distinction of having the best performing stock exchange in the world while struggling with negligible productivity. Addressing the issues of development also requires asking the conspiracy-­ laden question of whether neoliberal insistence on media divestment as a part of conservative structural adjustment programs of the South was a strategic interventionist measure of disruption, destabilization and control. Is there a grand design in the “great unknown” in keeping with Laenui’s five steps of colonization—cultural denial and withdrawal; destruction and eradication of cultures; denigration, belittlement and insult; surface accommodation and tokenism; and transformation and exploitation (1999:2)? These may once have been deemed far-fetched questions. Countries of the Global South need to, at the very least, consider these and other questions to, at best, develop mitigating programs. I suggest a cultural economy development  approach that seeks to “personify” societies of the South through culturization rather than disembody them through marketization. It privileges the notion of social enterprises and cooperative models of economy over neoliberal individualism. It also seeks to prepare societies of the South to respond to proactively prepare for the onslaught of global populism. Its objective, like Sankofa, is to look back to retrieve core values and original principles and using these  rooted principles and core values in contemporary application and development planning. It is societal reengineering through the focusing of the cultural economy movement. Its singular message is clear. #decolonization2point0.

#decolonization2point0 Decolonization responds to the sometimes veiled, other times overt, subordination of developing countries under globalized capitalism. Decolonization requires the engagement of truths, reconciliation and conscience. Many nations of the South still are not fully aware of the contemporary value and power of cultural economy or have not demonstrated

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

149

knowledge of the value of their cultures in their development planning. Many are only just becoming increasingly aware that we live in an era in which the business of audiovisual art and content-making and the value and power of big data have superseded that of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, emerging generations of globalization’s migrant “others” and First Nations in the far reaches of the advanced industrial world are using creative tools, the cultures of their generation and bullet-speed information communication technology to revive subdued decolonization movements through the very insistence on diversity and representation. Globalization had encouraged the commodification, commercialization, privatization and marketization of converged sonic, audiovisual, design and performative goods and services. Now, post global populism and a Pandemic have given rise to tensions grounded in race and inequity that continue to be televised, live, globally. A twenty-first-century wave of culturalization endorsed by the United Nations through its Convention on Cultural Diversity and the 2006 re-­ badging of the cultural industries were early indicators of an emerging decolonization movement to counter the colonial circumstances that Laenui describes. At a more extreme level, “The Arab Spring”, “Occupy Wall Street” and other activist causes promulgated through social media were early representations of the defiance of decolonization on Middle Eastern and Western mainlands. Small pockets of marginalized peoples, particularly those in nations of the North, bolstered by global cultural/ creative economy policy facilitation began using artistry and academia to react to the most recent manifestation of bruising intergenerational distress and trauma seen in the emergence of global populism. Culture, creativity, content making and digital arts, science and distribution became central to these contemporary decolonization movements. The perpetuation of the global emphasis on diversity in cultural policy continues to respond to emerging populism. Audiovisual media, content production and distribution techniques, artistry and digitization are the tools engaged. Activist classes in many developing nations were slower to respond with postcolonial fervor. Although globalization and neoliberalism were, ironically, accompanied by political and economic marginalization (Klak 1998:13), despite cultural histories of resistance, the “others” of the Global South—who live in the South—were much less involved in the contemporary decolonization movement. They were less organized or motivated. The literature of contemporary decolonization methodology reveals a huge gap in discourse on the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent,

150 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Africa. The Caribbean was the most marginal of marginal peoples, even in the decolonization movement. Many developing nations had been liberalized and structurally adjusted into submission, silence and cultures of expedience. Some of these nations and their artists scrambled for an invitation to the Western table from places of supplication; a far cry from the vociferous voices that once demanded that the world adhere to the non-­ aligned principles they espoused just decades before. Expediently, through the expansion of media the language moved instead to the narrative of the nation as brand. Progenitors of enslaved peoples retain the intergenerational memory of a brand as a mark burned into the flesh of livestock, criminals and slaves that identify them as assets on a plantation. The individual and the nation as brand presented the subconcious with a neocolonial, neoliberal notion of “ownership” of nations  and people trading of and in cultures. The conceptual antecedence existed in conquest and delusion grounded in colonial thought and practice. The application of the practice of personal and nation branding in postcolonial nations “works to reinscribe the colonial legacy and reaffirm colonial power relations” (Mehta-Karia 2012:1). Branding was but one of the tools of individualization that advanced the neoliberal agenda as media, communication, art and artistry became increasingly liberalized and commercialized into a decentralized vacuum of trauma, tension and desperation. In these contexts, the rhetoric of cultural and creative industries development policy and implementation, grounded in neoliberalism, remained ten years behind that of advanced industrial nations. Opportunity cost and looming developmental priorities remained real considerations in developing economies. There seemed to be a desire to respond to the myriad issues that affected their societies but not the will—political or private sector. A subtle, global version of the postwar Red Scare marked by anxiety, fear and rejection of progressive ideas and politics was perpetuated by commercial media and government policy. The libertine way was projected as the only route to development. The regions remained at cultural crossroads for two decades with a seeming unwillingness to confront their own liminality. Paradoxically, it was also a period of promise. The adjustment of economic structures brought some positive fiscal movement to compliant nations of the Global South but often at the risk of social instability, rising inequity and reactive, antisocial behaviors. As creeping populism manifest in the second millennial decade, Western intensification of the deportation movement, immigration’s scrutiny, incarceration of children at Western

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

151

borders, and stated intentions to re-erect walls that were intended broken down during globalization began to directly affect the people of countries of the South. Varying levels of political interference by the Global North into the domestic matters of nations of the Global South were unmasked as plays in geopolitical chess games that brought populism to the Southern doorstep. In this context, for the Caribbean the history of slavery remains “a legacy shouldered daily by millions of blacks who toil for little in the blazing heat of an impoverished paradise” (Beckles 2007:1). African nations suffered “dependent development” that left many nations “structurally disarticulated because they had been developed as aggregations of enclaves, each linked to the metropolitan economy but not necessarily to one another” (Ake 1996:19). These historical legacies of dependency on external authorities, suppliers, markets and geopolitical agendas (Klak 1998:6)—that continue to afflict Caribbean and African regions and contributed to variable levels of social and political unrest, economic strife and compromised social structures—have now been compounded by the contemporary global zeitgeist shift and emergent wave of creeping global populism and hypercommercialism. Brexit, geopolitical conflict in NAFTA, multilateral aid fatigue, Chinese intervention in developing nations, and the long reach of Russia as provocateur, a crushing global pandemic and escalating racial tensions globally, demand counter-sensibilities of cultural primacy, diversity, sovereignty, rights and freedoms, and a clear geostrategy from the South if they are to counter these populist effects. Media Mitigation The cultural economy with media at its core has long been established as a critical modality for societal change and development. The changing zeitgeist from globalization to populism occurred at a time when developing countries had begun to advance their cultural and creative sector planning and policy processes. Strengthening media industries is central to the contemporary decolonization movement. #decolonization2point0 (#d2k) as methodology  presents  a geostrategic logic for nations of the Global South. Through principles of behavioral and reparatory economics it seeks to equip them with cultural sector strategies to provide sustained, equitable development. #d2k calls for the balance of “culturization of economic life” (Cunningham 2005; du Gay and Pryke 2002; Hickling 2011; Lash and Urry 1994; Flew 2005, Tepper 2002), with the polar and

152 

D. HICKLING GORDON

contradictory neoliberal phenomenon of “marketization of cultural life” (Hesmondhalgh 2007). Culturization’s response to the prevailing libertine end-game of marketization, national positioning and monetization integrated opportunities to advance the development agenda. Cultural economy development and in particular an emphasis on audiovisual sector growth are identified as a central tools for the #decolonization2point0 movement and for advancing beyond  the challenges of neoliberalism while countering the effects of global populism on countries of the Global South. Many nations still continue to use models developed and implemented in nations of the North. #d2k proposes a culturally specific, holistic  approach to cultural economy planning. Economic, social and cultural engineering and re-engineering with cultural economy principles at their core are proposed to address the culturally specific impact of zeitgeist changes on individual nation-states  in the Global South. The #d2k conceptual framework begat a ‘South Star model’ (SSM) of cultural economy development for nations of the Global South. This responds to the question of the impact that polarizing ideologies have had on already traumatized and subordinated regions of the South. As convergence principles began to reshape the very conceptualization of the global cultural economy, cultural and creative industries concepts have burgeoned beyond the marketized, individualist focus of cultural and creative industries policy that are still the focus in some countries of the South Broader, culturized, holistic considerations of cultural and creative economy are proposed through #d2k and its South Star model. SSM acknowledges that the  COVID-19 pandemic saw an explosion of spontaneous audiovisual content, revealing the importance of information technologies in the next global zeitgeist. How then can regions of the South shift focus from the individualism of creative entrepreneurship and decentralization of sectors and their clusters to new and necessary, dynamic, converged, cooperative models of content production to simultaneously shape nationhood and build economy? South Star Cultural Economy Model The South Star model is grounded in a holistic development approach to cultural economy development in the Global South (Fig. 7.1). The iconography of the Black Star of Africa, also known as the lodestar of African Freedom, symbolizes Africa and her diaspora in Pan-African discourse and makes postcolonial reference to the continent as the cradle

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

153

Fig. 7.1  The Black Star of Africa—symbology used for the proposed South Star model of cultural economy development for countries of the Global South

of civilization and cultural origins. The progenitory relationship of the African Star with nations of the Global South grounds the geostrategic relationships among Africa and its global diaspora. Each point on the star represents one of five units of analysis used in the model—philosophy, ideology, economy, governance and operations (PIEGO). The points of the star relate to philosophy as insight, epistemology, mores and historiography, where cultural specificity is determined by tracing the trajectory of transition of each cultural economy. Ideology refers to the political economy concepts of interdependence; shared space and equity. Reference to economy examines a nation’s outlook on economic models and independence  in keeping with its ideological positioning in space and time; while governance relates to its national commitment to participatory governance and democracy. For operations, notions of independence, rights and freedoms in operational implementation are considered. Each one is a principle used to frame practical exercises in planning, policy and program development using the South Star, cultural

154 

D. HICKLING GORDON

economy model. Each point of the star matches, in praxis, practical activities with the nuanced, qualitative national “spirit” of the cultural policy and cultural and creative economy  formulation for nations of the Global South. The star represents a guiding principle to ground elements of the policy formulation of the cultural economy of South South states. Postcolonial reference to the African continent as the cradle of civilization and cultural origins grounds the relationship with its diaspora. This approach is applicable for structuring cultural and creative economies, sectors, subsectors and industries as part of contemporary decolonization movements. The South Star model of cultural economy development is a means of focusing the cultural economy movement on culturally specific development processes. Finding synthesis in the dialectical yet complementary UNESCO mantra “Protecting Our Heritage and Fostering Creativity” by balancing the emphasis on both through economic and intangible means, privileging both spirit and matter to “lay the foundations for vibrant, innovative and prosperous knowledge societies” (UNESCO Website). SSM further references the United Nations Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and the Strategic Development Goals. This reflects the need for balance in economic growth and sustainable development imperatives in the crafting of cultural economy policy and processes. At the core of the SSM are the unique histories, characteristic developmental stages and idiosyncratic diversity of nations of the South. With their unique personalities, challenges and opportunities, the phenomenon standing between many nations of the Global South and sustainable formulation and implementation of a holistic, culturally—specific cultural economy policy  are the balance of  hindsight and foresight. In addition to the mandates, commitment and action of which Tull speaks, (2017:296) the primary missing piece has been the  “insight”  that can be  provided through the development of culturally specific, cultural economy  policy models (Hickling 2015), in accordance with four primary objectives: 1. Articulation of a cooperative geostrategy for the Global South, in particular Africa and the Caribbean, that focuses on cultural economy as an ecosystem. 2. Emphasis on developing a mix of content-based goods and services and content-making skills.

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

155

3. Engineer a paradigm shift of considering cultural and creative professions including the  audiovisual media as leisure and recreation. Reframing the cultural economy as a central tool of development, emphasizing  the role of content creation in Big Data growth and development. 4. Optimize converged audiovisual processes, systems and platforms; develop plans and policies; and move briskly toward creating quality jobs, informing, educating and training their nations and achieving sustainable development goals through cultural and creative sectors. Cultural Specificity The extent of specific similarities and differences in the emerging AV sectors of Jamaica and Ghana, while significant, is of less importance than the recognition that both marketplaces and practices have culturally specific, characteristic “concepts, constructs and models that are specific to certain cultural groups in terms of its role in explaining and predicting behaviour” (Walsh and Osipow 1995:144). Cultural specificity plays a role in explaining and predicting industry and national behaviors that must be addressed in order to optimize efficiencies and output. Developing nations can assert or retrieve power lost under hegemonic circumstances by privileging their own cultural specificity through their cultural economies. This increases their comparative and competitive advantage; their collective esteem and cultural confidence. The realization of policy ideals including equality, people empowerment, social justice and cultural authenticity requires self-­ confidence and creative courage (Nettleford 2003:112). The absence of a clear, up-to-date policy roadmap for media and culture in Jamaica and Ghana is a case in point. The choices they made along their trajectory of transition are indicators of their cultural confidence. The ideological positioning of each nation of the South is a telling representation of differences in its levels of the collective esteem, that is, the collective manifestation of the perception of a nation-state’s sense of worth, regard and integrity. It is also an indicator of its cultural confidence and maturity—its susceptibility to hegemonic influence due to its relative age, immaturity, displacement, partially formed philosophical base and creolized influences. This difference/similarity dialectic is at the core of cultural specificity discourse. In the case data, comparative confidence levels are seen in differences between an existing Gold Coast/West African society with millennia of history, that was “re-culturized” by colonial

156 

D. HICKLING GORDON

incursion; and a “new” Jamaican/Caribbean society, “re-created” following colonial capture. Considering cultural specificity in policy planning is important because cultural/creative industries are products of their cultures. The consideration of concepts, constructs and models that are specific to particular cultures explains and predicts behaviors and should form a basis for policymaking. Chevannes suggests that the consideration of social issues that are “culturally normative” is a “fruitful” approach to optimizing growth and development (2003:114). Developing nation-states are urged to consider the specificities of their cultures as they make political, economic and policy decisions for the development of their cultural/creative economies. Prevailing social, economic and political models have not brought required levels of growth or development and inequality still prevails. By their very nature, many economies in the South have not achieved the levels of industrialization and development as their Northern counterparts. Many continue to adopt and adapt the cookie-cutter cultural economy models and methodologies of the North instead of developing models that acknowledge their fundamental differences in approach, cultural specificity and specificity of circumstance. Cultural incongruities in belief systems have been identified as the pivotal elements around which development or underdevelopment continues to occur in the South. It stands to reason that if prevailing challenges are cultural, specific and culturally specific, then the responses must be culturally specific. This is the basis of the decolonization movement and #decolonization2point0. The South Star model of cultural economy identifies culturally specific and characteristic concepts and principal constructs and models in each nation of the South to explain and predict behavior and plan for the future. For Ghana, principles of Adinkra symbology is applied and, in Jamaica, five prevailing thematic tropes seen in the music developed by the Jamaican society are used to conceptualize approaches to the formulation of cultural economy policy (Table 7.5). The details of this application will be articulated in other work. Thematic Approach Versus Picking Winners The SSM has been formulated in clear contradistinction to the Western, advanced-industrial policy modeling tradition of picking culture-sector winners for development. The British DCMS and concentric circles models differentiate between sectors through the prioritization of specific

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

157

Table 7.5  Culturally specific principles for cultural economy formulation— Jamaica and Ghana Antinomies of culture

South Star principles

South Star principles Ghana

Philosophy

Culturally specific identity formation grounded in historiography

Sankofa The philosophy of the importance of learning from the past.

Ideology

Interdependence

Economy

Shared Space (Global and local)

Governance

Participatory government

South Star principles Jamaica

Redemption Emancipation from “mental slavery”; freedom of thought; inevitability per Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” Ese Ne Tekrema Resistance Teeth and tongue play Ideological positions interdependent roles in the based on good neighbor mouth. They may come positions and principles. into conflict but they need Grounded in proclivity to work together. to resistance of injustice—global and domestic. Proactive, independent formulation of ideological positions “Get Up Stand Up” of Marley Funtunfunefu Reparation(s) and Denkyemfunefu Repatriation The Siamese crocodiles Notion of repairing share one stomach yet they broken economies and fight over food; a reminder prevailing arguments for that infighting and reparatory justice to tribalism are harmful to all build out cultural who engage in it. economies. Identifying new markets of the South “Leaving to Zion” Black Uhuru Wo Nsa Da Mu A Representation and If your hands are in the Reliability (trust) dish, people do not eat Repairing fissures everything and leave you between governance and nothing. citizenry. Engendering trust. Third World’s “Human Marketplace” (continued)

158 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Table 7.5  (continued) Antinomies of culture

South Star principles

South Star principles Ghana

South Star principles Jamaica

Operations

Independence

Fawohodie Ene Obre Na enam Independence comes with responsibilities.

Resilience (Religiosity, Rastafari, Reggae as representative) Production of goods, services and symbolic expression grounded in the resilience of its people. Quest for equity, rights and freedoms. Bob Marley’s “Zimbabwe”

sectors and subsectors for investment. SSM is grounded in African notions of cultural expression—dance, music, media and art—as natural elements of traditional African life, which are not considered “separate” activities in a work/leisure paradigm. It argues that philosophical essence of the society is transmitted through folk tales, often historical tales, which reveal profound philosophies that underlie the activities and regulations of African society and express beliefs, values and feelings. They are naturally converged. Due to the inevitability of creolization, and the pervasiveness of neoliberal values in economies of the global South, the South Star methodology is realistic and pragmatic. The development of cultural sectors in the South acknowledges the Western influence while embracing the organic nature of Africanness. Instead of focusing on separating sectors for development, the South Star model has identified ten functional areas of focus for programmatic implementation across cultural and creative sectors, subsectors and industries in order to provide an equitable platform and enabling environment across sectors. The South Star model also addresses the implementation and operational deficits in a cultural economy formulation in the Global South. It proposes a holistic examination of the creative ecosystem and environment in each country. SSM uses an all-of-government approach rather than focus on specific sectors. The alternative, holistic development approach seeks to provide a centralized structural support across the breadth of creative sectors in ten foundational areas. Ten growth propellants have been

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

159

identified for even application across cultural and creative sectors of the cultural economy—research and development; education and training; institutional strengthening and marketing (Fig. 7.2). It also focuses on regional and international trade; incentives and taxation; governance structures; business development and finance; intellectual property rationalization; facilities; infrastructure and processes across cultural sectors, creating an equitable foundation for all.

Fig. 7.2  The South Star Cultural Economy Model with ten enabling environment components

160 

D. HICKLING GORDON

SSM requires the centralized rationalization of their cultural and creative ecosystems. Developing countries are urged to design holistic strategies. South Star’s focus on these ten growth propellants balances business-forward approaches with equitable development in order to provide an enabling environment across the cultural economy of the nation of the South, its sectors and subsectors. Policy: Interference or Intervention? There is an argument that policy and planning are not required for the development of cultural and creative economy development and that ‘the market’ should define the direction. The simple response to that comes in four parts. The first is Keith Nurse’s notion is that many cultural and creative enterprises are operating at capacity and require interventions to move them to the next phase of development. The second is, for the private sector to lead on cultural economy development, the public sector would need to put in place the structures, capacity and agility to respond to the market’s movements. This brings us to the third and fourth notions. There are some elements of cultural economy development that only governments can lead on; among them are bilateral and multilateral arrangements, incentives and economy formalization (satellite accounts and financial structures). Daniel Thwaites put it best: “all the right fiscal numbers won’t produce the numbers we want if the governance remains crap-­ poor” (2019). The audiovisual media subsectors of Jamaica and Ghana were used as proof of concept for the application of the d2k methodology and South Star model. Using this methodology and model, recommendations for the Jamaican audiovisual sector are proposed in the next chapter to help determine whether we “love ourselves” enough to invest in our development by making the necessary national choices.

References Ake, Claude. Democracy and Development in Africa. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996. Beckles, Hilary. “‘Slavery was a long, long time ago’: remembrance, reconciliation and the reparations discourse in the Caribbean”. ARIEL (Vol. 38, Issue 1). 2007. Johns Hopkins University. https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GA LE%7CA173715477&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&iss n=00041327&p=AONE&sw=w

7  #DECOLONIZATION2POINT0: FOLLOW THE STAR 

161

Chevannes, Barry. “Stresses and Strains of the Caribbean Family.” Faculty of Social Science Course Reader, Caribbean Culture SY36C. Ed. Barry Chevannes, Lenford Salmon, and Arthur Newland. UWI, Mona: Faculty of Social Sciences. 2003. Cunningham, Stuart. From Cultural to Creative Industries, Theory, Industry and Policy Implications. Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre. QUT. 2005. 16 May 2009. du Gay, Paul, and Michael Pryke. 2002. Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life. London: Sage. Durant-Gonzalez, Victoria. “The Occupation of Higglering.” Jamaica Journal. Institute of Jamaica Publications 6.3. 1983: 2–12. Flew, Terry. “Communication and the Challenge of Trust (October 17, 2019)”. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3471104 or https://doi. org/10.2139/ssrn.3471104 Flew, Terry. “Creative Economy.” Creative Industries. Ed. John Hartley. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 344-360. Print. Hesmondhalgh, David. Cultural Industries. London: Sage, 2007. Print. Hickling, Deborah A. “From ‘Cultural Institution to Cultural Industry’? A Comparative Analysis of the Television Industry in Jamaica and Ghana 1997–2009.” Doctoral Dissertation. University of the West Indies, 2011. Hickling, Deborah A., Developing Cultural and Creative Industries Policy: The Socio-Politics of Cultural and Creative Industries in the 21st Century – focus on Jamaica. Jonkonnu Arts Journal, Vol 2, Issue 1:2015. Klak, Thomas. “Thirteen Theses on Globalization and Neo-liberalism.” Globalization and Neo-liberalism: the Caribbean Context. MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998. Print. Klak, Thomas and Garth Myers. How states sell their countries and their people, 87–111, edited by Thomas Klak, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. 1998. Laclau, E. (2015). Populism: What’s in a name? In D. Howarth & E. Laclau (Eds.), Ernesto Laclau: Post-Marxism, populism and critique (pp. 152–164). London, UK: Routledge. Laenui, Poka. (1999) “Colonization and Decolonization” Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision. Marie Baptiste editor, Vancouver BC Laenui, Poka. 2006. Processes of Decolonization. http://www.sjsu.edu/people/ marcos.pizarro/maestros/Laenui.pdf Lash, S, and J Urry. Economics of Signs and Space. London: Sage, 1994. Mehta-Karia, Sheetal. “Imagining India: The nation as a brand”. Studies in South Asian Film & Media, Volume 4, Number 1, April 2012, pp. 7–21(15) Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/safm.4.1.7_1 McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New  York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

162 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Mkandiawire, Thandika and Charles C.  Soludo. African Voices on Structural Adjustment Africa World Press Trenton NJ. 2003 Nettleford, Rex. Caribbean Cultural Identity. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2003. Oruka, Odera H. “Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy” 1990. E.J. Brill. Leiden, New York, Kopenhaven and Koln. Simpson Miller, Portia. “Contribution to IMF Debate in Parliament.” 8 February 2010. Web. 9 Nov 2010. Ravindran, Manori. U.K. Film & TV Industry Faces Mental Health Crisis: “Seismic Shifts Need to Happen”. February 12 2020. https://variety.com/2020/film/ directors/uk-film-tv-mental-health-crisis-film-and-tv-charity-1203502271/ Walsh, Bruce, and Samuel Osipow. “Theoretical issues in cross-cultural career development: cultural validity and cultural specificity.” Handbook of Vocational Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995. Print. Tepper, Steven Jay. “Creative Assets and the Changing Economy.” The Journal of Arts, Management, Law and Society. 32.2 (2002). 159–168. Thwaites, Daniel. “Promote Dirks and Dash Weh De Loafers”. The Gleaner. May 12, 2019. Tull, Jo Anne. 2017. Caribbean Festival Arts, Caribbean Quarterly, 63:2-3, 291–303, https://doi.org/10.1080/00086495.2017.1352278 UNESCO. “Protecting our Heritage, Fostering Creativity”. https://en.unesco. org/themes/protecting-our-heritage-and-fostering-creativity

Personal Interview Emmanuel, John. Ghana, July, 2017.

CHAPTER 8

South Star for Jamaica

Abstract  A contemporary profile of the emerging Jamaican audiovisual subsector is presented in this chapter. Themes and traits that help to establish the cultural specificity of the Jamaican subsector and establish a profile based on its “personality”, are presented. Grounded in principles of behavioral economics, these themes and traits are used to guide the development of a framework for a culturally specific action plan and the application of the South Star cultural economy model. This is with a view to crafting suggestions for the application of #decolonization2point0 principles to the planning for the growth and development of Jamaica’s emerging audiovisual sector. Keywords  Jamaica • Neoliberalism • Cultural engineering • Decolonization • Fragmented policy • Structural Adjustment • Social stratification • South Star • Television • Class • Smadification • Entrepreneurship • Commercialism • Individualism • Policy Development • Media • Complex Trauma • Intergenerational Trauma • Social Justice • Audiovisual • Ideological Positioning • Economic Approach The onset of the global pandemic COVID-19 and its intersection with the phenomenon of post global populism has begun and is predicted to further throw global social and economic fissures wide open. The pandemic laid bare contemporary neoliberalism. It confirmed that the rise of © The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6_8

163

164 

D. HICKLING GORDON

political populism in Jamaica and Ghana cannot be separated from centuries of suffering from spans of colonial subordination, hegemony and the paradoxes of economic history. As such this chapter proposes an application of the South Star model for cultural economy for nations of the Global South to the Jamaican audiovisual subsector. It explains, comparatively, the possible applications of the model using the Ghanaian case data and cultural references. The case data confirms that the Jamaican media transitioned through a period of liberalization without preparation. I argue that this affected the directions that its electronic, and now digital, media took; a re-­formulation of its “personality” and in particular the setting of distinctive content, tone and spirit of the output it feeds to the publics it serves. I suggest that patterns of trauma in the Jamaican media did not end with JBC’s divestment, and changed form during its period of liberalization. Are, therefore, many of the challenges faced by sectors of the Jamaican cultural economy driven by a “collective personality”? Is this true elsewhere, and could it be a feature of former colonies and nations of the Global South? Could the reading of “personality”-specific challenges lead to the “diagnosis” and design of appropriate interventions for CCE development? Is this a basis upon which culturally specific cultural economy policy can be devised in the future? 

Personality and Identity Each nation has a distinctive national footprint; with an identity, cultures and specific characteristics. Its sectors and citizens have specific, unique behaviors. For the purpose of this exploration the metaphoric “personality” of that nation or sector is defined as consistent, collective response-­ patterns to historical, social and economic circumstances and influences. These present distinctive elements of character, reactions to stimuli and ways of expression to others. Sengor spoke of the “African personality” and the need to give expression to the “Black personality” (1995:78). Azibo (1996) describes his African Personality metatheory as an explanation of the spiritual essence underlying human personality; how this spiritual essence impacts on the psychological functioning of African people; the interplay between the spiritual, mental, and physical dimensions of the human being; and how this interplay impacts African psychological functioning. Hall (1996:502) describes cultural identity as hybrid “coming out of very specific historical formations, out of cultural repertoires of

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

165

enunciation … it is not just anything… and we have to live this ensemble of identity-positions in all its specificities”. Jamaican political sociologist, Carl Stone (1992) spoke to a changing “national character” that is linked to specific historical periods and to the social and economic structures predominant in those periods. Stone indicated that predictions for a nation-state require the understanding of dynamic linkages between values, norms and behavioral traits; and that “drives, motivations and dominant behavioural traits tend to change from period to period and epoch to epoch in response to changes in norms and values”. It is these changing expressions that, I argue, metaphorically constitute a national or sectoral “personality”. Optimizing media production output goes to the heart of #d2k. If a country’s media sector and its subsectors and industries each has a unique footprint or “personality”, that is a specific combination of elements, agendas, patterns and qualities that form distinctive character, ways of expression and responses to stimuli; it must follow, as Stone tells us, that contextualizing these norms and values in a country, its sectors and subsectors assists in predicting the directions in which future changes are likely to occur in a nation (1992). This is the objective of this exploration. Cultural and creative economy policy development has been particularly challenging in nations of the Global South due to opportunity cost considerations of more pressing development priorities. Girvan in “Rethinking Development”, who  urged postcolonial nations to rethink state-sponsored developmentalism and social engineering that twinned decolonization and Keynesianism at a time when “social engineering was thought to be feasible and respectable” (Girvan 1991:172). Instead I propose a contemporary, holistic, cultural engineering methodology that balances public and private sector planning to develop unique fixes to counter the effects of colonialism on societies of the Global South. This requires the development of robust, intentional cultural economies through which to advance the sustainable development agenda and reclaim national space and place in global markets. Moseley-Wood (2019:9) reminds us that the sense of place “or to be more precise the sense of the identity of place as unfixed, multiple and unstable both resonates with the postcolonial project of reclaiming space as well as complicates it”.  It is a principle that guides the spirit of D2K.

166 

D. HICKLING GORDON

Jamaican Media and Complex Trauma Jamaica is a land of glorious absurdities. At the best of times life has been hard for many of the black Jamaicans who make up its majority. Jamaicans live with worry and anxiety as a natural feature with the weight of intergenerational trauma. Declaring Jamaica a nation in distress would not be far-fetched. Poverty, unemployment, crime, inequity and dire social conditions make up the cocktail of lamentations that have followed the majority of Jamaicans from before the Emancipation of enslaved persons in 1838 through to twenty-first-century neoliberalization. Stone suggested that tensions experienced by the Jamaican people in dealing with issues of authority and power “have been jumbled since the era of colonial British colonization and these tensions are compounded by ongoing political struggles in which power struggles of competing ideologies, values, and norms have resulted in a disequilibrium of power that has weakened authority in all domains of social space”. Stone asserted that British colonization and the plantation economy created “a warped authority system that engendered a long-standing struggle for power and authority within the Jamaican culture” (Stone 1992 in Hickling and Walcott 2019:10). Indeed, colonial memory and retention have long been identified as central causative agents of complex trauma, resulting in the psychosocial legacies of slavery, attachment disorders, fragmented families, unemployment and unequal distribution of wealth. Combined with high levels of verbal and physical aggression, power management problems, psychosexual disorders and dependency, a diagnosis of elements of personality disorders is possible. It is a nation in distress. Local media and artistry remain the means by which the population makes  sense of its circumstances—rising murders, antisocial behaviors, the tightening of belts under structural adjustment, fragmented policy, a frenetic and combative politics, corruption, growing inequality. “Finga Rotten, Caan Cut it Off” is a Jamaican proverb that indicates that a decaying appendage requires healing rather than be discarded. The South Star model starts from this premise. Jamaican media and culture have historically served as a national conscience. I further argue through the presentation of comparative case data of the previous chapters, that a traumatized, ambivalent nation was reflecting to itself through a traumatized, ambivalent media. From its colonial antecedents, through the changes of Independence, the trauma of the Cold War and local political unrest into globalization,

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

167

the media landscape changed particularly dramatically following its liberalization and movement from public service to commercial broadcasting. The technologies of media changed. The philosophy and ideology of broadcasting changed from public service to commerce. The economics of media changed and media operations changed. Its governance did not change fast enough to keep up. Additionally, the structures of media changed. Combative competition formed its core. Displacement and Conflict Neoliberal audiovisual production, distribution and trade in Jamaica was grounded in conflict and combative competition. During this period of sector growth, emphasis was placed on capitalization and keeping media houses open during the difficult economic period. The people of the media nurturing the human resource were not prioritized. For the larger players in the industry, talent became a tradable commodity—expedient, expendable, exploitable and exclusive. Many CCI practitioners including audiovisual practitioners have articulated feelings of hopelessness, anger, unworthiness, and insecurity associated with their profession early in the new century. Content producers were being discounted and disregarded by mainstream media based on the terms of trade on offer. The case studies revealed discounted value of and disregard for production values, processes and products. I argue that this challenge became largely endemic in television, weakening the self-worth of the sector. A global interface caused filmmaking standards to remain high. This resulted in an ambivalent positioning. A strong, confident and proficient internationally-facing film sector alongside a limping-yet-vibrant domestic audiovisual production sector.  At the end of the second decade, when greater value was placed on production and content the television industry began to self-­ correct through amelioration, partnerships and improved relationships. Three clear temporal categories of audiovisual professionals had emerged. Those raised within the public service idiom. These nostalgic production elders continue to gather each year to celebrate the university of the JBC and bemoan the divestment decision and slipping standards. The “sandwich” generation of creative professionals straddle libertine choices, for which they had not been adequately prepared and continue to be challenged by. The significant changes the Jamaican  media philosophy—the ways it thinks and knows; changing belief systems and ideological frameworks; the ways it produces and the motivations for production,

168 

D. HICKLING GORDON

the ways it plans and the ways in which it works, its technology and its processes were formulated within the ‘sandwich generation’ of the audiovisual sector. Changes in philosophy, ideology, economy, governance and operations (PIEGO) had been as palpable as the increasing ambivalence of the “sandwiched” media group. The third group, the new-media generation, born in the 1990s and beyond, are largely oblivious, beyond research, to the circumstances in which media generations before them operated. For the new media proponents, PSB was largely academic rather than a lived construct. Liberalization’s transformation significantly affected the three generations that have had to adjust in different ways. The conflict of tradition and modernity continued to dog the media, which had to respond to criticisms by its audience that it was too negative in tone and content. Baby boomers and Gen Xers who had been employed to the public broadcasters found themselves having to assume sensibilities of entrepreneurship in addition to their creative outlook for their craft. The case study data revealed that many of the displaced PSB workers found employment in the commercial broadcast sector and accepted the hegemony of contractual attachment without the benefits of employees, engendering insecurity for futures of work, personal growth and retirement. Others took on full-time employment and yet others joined the cadre of independent workers who worked mainly in the film sector, accepting the risk and uncertainty of independent work. This displacement did not affect the generation of Jamaican media workers that followed. They came into privatized media sans the memories, values and ethics of public service media and were born into the ethos of liberalization with the “natural” coexistence of culture and commerce. They met the challenges and opportunities with impatience and discounted the “pain points” of their antecedents without the context of history. Greater numbers of 2k media workers had access to content and the means of creating content. A cadre of “prosumers” or “produsers” (Marenghi et al) entered the market, turning the concept of “mass communication” on its head. The COVID-19 pandemic and period of lockdown resulted in a plethora of audiovisual production. The overlap of Jamaican baby boomers and Generations X, Y and Z in the media space further engendered conflict. Boomers and Gen X complained of slipping standards and entitlement. Gen Y and Gen Z and their seniors presented as defensive, accusing progenitors of being stuck in a “golden age”. In Ghana, intergenerational tensions had manifest differently.

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

169

The psychosocial impact of the generation of transition led to variable levels of displacement intergenerational conflict, sector insecurities, the impact of social unease, chronic competitiveness and social stratification. This existed alongside demonstrable resilience and high levels of performance in the Jamaican audiovisual sector. The need for healing, repair and bolstering of the Jamaican audiovisual sector, and by extension its cultural economy, is seen as the thematic approach to undergird planning for its development, grounded in the theme of redeeming its standards, revisiting its national objectives, operational practices and relationships with audiences, linkages, clients and a wider public. The Jamaican audiovisual subsector media also went through the period of liberalization-with-little-preparation that ignored the institutional structures of stratification of class and color, a phenomenon revisited by Moseley-Wood in the context of Jamaican screencraft (2019:9). This compounded the complexity of change. From the inception of film and television, class and race stratified the Jamaican sectors. A blurring of lines of demarcation began to occur as the natural convergence of sectors accelerated in the first and second decades of the new millennium. Globally, liberalization further saw to the softening of Jamaica’s global tradition of stout Non-Aligned resistance. Persons with deeply imbedded progressive ideological positions were caused to question their consciences and shamed into silence. A persistent red-scare-veil remained present. Questioning prevailing systems was discouraged within the libertine zeitgeist. The notion that no alternative existed to the neoliberal model became accepted. Within this framework, the movement from public service television to commercial hybrid audiovisual sector in Jamaica and Ghana was both real and representative. A growing ideological “beigeness” overtook the land of bright-and-­ vibrant color. Ironically, this co-existed with strong assertions of media rights and freedoms of speech and expression. The medium became the message—fragmented, traumatized, distressed, without a clear purpose. It stands to reason that a traumatized, ambivalent nation would reflect back to itself through a traumatized ambivalent media. But paradoxically, it presented as a nation with great promise and power—traumatized but not powerless; a nation in transition, accompanied by growing pains. “Cultural cringe” and low “collective esteem” were identified despite demonstrable capabilities of audiovisual workers and teams. Socio-­ economic challenges and an absence of a clear market for audiovisual productions also negatively affected the consistency of production. In addition

170 

D. HICKLING GORDON

to material support, industry players need for “smadification” manifests in Jamaican television. Jamaicans have a deep-seated cultural quest to be respected, to be regarded as “smaddy”. To be “less-counted” is the antithesis of “smadification”, the Jamaican colloquial term used to describe the process of becoming or seeming “to become somebody”, an indicator of poor collective esteem. The change from Jamaica’s consistent reliance on overseas programming and the marginalization of independent programming and production late in the second decade are indicators of growing sector-confidence. The balance of PSB and commercial media was tested at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequity  of access to information and other commodities became an increasingly pressing challenge in Jamaica and across the globe. The pandemic exposed in real time the global impact of systemic emphasis on wealth creation, entrepreneurship, engendered individualism and commercialism. It emphasised  the social  chasm seen in UN’s 2019 Human Development Index. Audiovisual producers and distributors across varied platforms became the primary sources of entertainment and information and were forced to grapple with  their impact on both their content and sector structure. A global psychic centrality seemed to have manifest in an emergent twenty-first century Zeitgeist, characterized by ideological and social change.  The Pandemic provided what seemed to be a clear marker of that change. Increased content production, the primacy of the value of data and global dependence on the consumption of screen driven content put the audiovisual sector at the centre of seeming zeitgeist change.  Post-Libertine Trauma The true impact that the changing, liberalized media processes had on many trying to make sense of the broadcast sector on my professional trajectory and choices was not evident for 20 years. Displacement, disappointment and dislocation of many separated from the JBC went far beyond losing a job. For some it was like losing a limb, or a loved one, or a home. In the two decades of interviews, observation, conversations and analysis; interfacing with creatives through policy development came the realization that the trauma was significant and widespread. For the nations of the Global South asked to “adjust their belts” for successive decades while they formalized and structured their economies to make them more efficient, liberalization had been as traumatic as it has been constructive.

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

171

Liberalization presented in the Caribbean as the latest span of subordination in a region, whose very evolution is characterized by the disjuncture, displacement, trauma and turmoil that shape its culture and cultural output (Burke 2007). Traumatic events exact an enormous psychological and physical toll on survivors, and often have ramifications that must be endured for decades. Media have the responsibility of representing the nation to itself. By its very nature national media have processed and packaged national trauma, triumph and ambivalence and fed it back to itself. It molded thought processes, influenced ideology, analyzed economy, questioned governance and observed operational adjustment. Beyond its representative role, in the libertine era media philosophies changed, as did the ideological premise upon which it operated, its economic structures and processes, systems of governance and operational framework. Audiovisual media not only had to reproduce information change on behalf of nations in transformation but do so while they navigated their own transformation in relation to changing world media. At a granular level, the individuals responsible for managing this dual-level change also had to navigate their personal transitions. Bombay (2009:6–7) provides considerable evidence that the effects of traumatic experiences such as these are often transmitted across generations, affecting the children and grandchildren of those that were initially victimized. They also note that collective trauma may have profound intergenerational effects that infiltrate beyond easily observed or measured factors—emanating from the survivors’ telling and retelling of trauma, or, in contrast, by the deep silence that is common among some survivors, like that seen in Ghana that changed dramatically in the libertine years. Hickling F tells us that complex trauma, itself a psychiatric diagnosis, arises from traumatic, stressful interpersonal violations and often results in long-­ standing intrapsychic emotional pain. The weight of the responsibility of the media, includes public  jousts with national leaders of government, industry and  other sectors. Processing the weight of national trauma is also the media’s responsibility.  In the Jamaican context with the steady  increase in murderous and violent crimes, this includes the macabre, as well as incredible and unspeakable violence. The impact of the media-worker’s daily interface with  ­common factors of complex trauma—violence, war, terrorism and forced migration; sexual abuse; physical abuse; rape and assault; emotional abuse; and physical, medical, educational and emotional neglect, anxiety,

172 

D. HICKLING GORDON

pain—is not to be underestimated. The pressures of accuracy and precision; low wage-levels; looming liable and defamation suits; fourth estate responsibilities for the protection and defense of national rights-to-know are also  among the high expectations of the media that make its work traumatic. The absence of clear policy, structures and direction to guide sector-change in the midst of sustained national turmoil, presents the picture of a sector holding itself together and still growing and developing amidst extreme distress. It is for this reason that a development model for the cultural economy—including its audiovisual sub sector—that takes into account monetary and fiscal growth imperatives but is also sensitive to the intangible but real spirit of change taking place; cultural specificity and behavioral economics, is proposed. Personality Disordered? Colonial memory and retention have been identified as central causative agents of complex trauma and disordered Jamaican personalities. The traumatic stimulants are the psychosocial legacy of slavery, attachment disorders, fragmented families, unemployment and unequal distribution of wealth. Hickling, F and Walcott (2019:9), indicate that “41.4% of the Jamaican population was eligible for a diagnosis of personality disorder, the severity of which exists on a continuum from mild to severe. This finding establishes the prevalence rates in the Jamaican population, which exceed rates found internationally (Huang et  al. 2009)”. Hickling and Walcott (2019) suggest “every aspect of Jamaican society with such behaviour reflecting a significant prevalence of personality disorders in contemporary Jamaica”. They suggest that there is a need to create novel therapies that can engineer and catalyze social transformation and change of this mental pathology. These are important considerations in the examination of a Jamaican “media personality” and the application of a decolonization methodology for development, like D2K. The psychiatrists point to the work of Jamaican political sociologist Carl Stone, who suggested that tensions experienced by the Jamaican people in dealing with issues of authority and power “have been jumbled since the era of colonial British colonization and these tensions are compounded by ongoing political struggles in which power struggles of competing ideologies, values, and norms have resulted in a disequilibrium of power that has weakened authority in all domains of social space”. Stone asserted that British colonization and the plantation economy created “a warped

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

173

authority system that engendered long-standing struggle for power and authority within the Jamaican culture, combined with high levels of verbal and physical aggression have been associated with serious personality disorder seen in present day Jamaica” (Stone 1992 in Hickling and Walcott 2019:10). Power management problems, psychosexual disorders and dependency are the results. Comparative observations of change, contradiction and choices made in Jamaica and Ghana from institution to industry and TV to AV make a compelling case that the collective national media personality reflects and represents the national circumstance. Addressing these problems by fixing the “pain points” and emphasizing the “strength points” is central to the concept of contemporary decolonization, #decolonization2point0 (Table 8.1). For Jamaica, the PIEGO analytical structure is used to develop a thematic profile of the audiovisual sector. This is used to guide cultural economy policy development  redemption;  perpetuating natural Jamaican characteristics of resistance; defence of and insistence on reparatory justice, and reliable representation through efficient and effective systems of governance; and bolstering of a naturally resilient Jamaican spirit. 

South Star Framework for the Jamaican Audiovisual Sector Philosophical Mooring The South Star framework for cultural economy development in the Global South  integrates  culturally—specific values, reason, mindedness, identity and language in its design to address behaviors, practices and traditions in the Jamaican CCI. Using the PIEGO construct outlined in the previous chapter, The South Star Framework proposes that Jamaican cultural economy and, by extension, audiovisual subsector plans and policies be developed in accordance with philosophical  principles of REDEMPTION (the act of saving, being saved or redeeming), retrieval, recovery and reclamation of the cultural economy. Putting the sector and its subsectors  on a deliberate path of development. For the audiovisual sector this requires that the public and private sector work together to: • Develop a sector-communication intervention program of healing, restoration, confidence building of the converged audiovisual

Transitioning between liberalization and populism. Informal Trickle down Combative Profit driven and under resourced with no production or distribution model Nutting Nah Gwan Competitive Informal

Ideology

Economics

Ambivalence Contradictions

Philosophy

Commerce

Ownership Value

Expedient Ambivalent Contradictory

Ambivalence Contradictions Resistance Ignorance

Copyright

Expedient High domestic and foreign demand

External Undefined Ambivalent Contradictory

Extractive expedient

Consumption

Exploitation Stratification Informal Less counted Bandooloo Hustle Post COVID realities 

Displacement Recovery Hustle Tradition vs. modernity Inequity Undefined Ambivalent Contradictory Informal

Creative work

Table 8.1  Jamaican audiovisual subsector; creative economy thematic profile, 2019

Undefined Ambivalent Contradictory Fragmented Less counted

Undefined Ambivalent Contradictory

Undefined Nebulous Expedient

Content

Extractive Expedient

Extractive Expedient

Conduits

Undefined Extractive Ambivalent Expedient Contradictory Fragmented

Irregular Natural selection Tradition vs. modernity Ambivalent Undefined

Convergence

Reactive Contentious Misunderstood

Operations

Undefined Unfair trade Nepotistic Bad minded Bandooloo Siloed Combative

Expedient Fragmented Underresourced

Copyright

Governance Ambivalence Dependence Nutting Nah Gwan Siloed

Commerce

Expedient

Expedient Siloed Fragmented

Consumption Irregular Unfocused Fragmented Expedient Dependent Tardy Proficient skills Trauma Irregular Under protected Deregulated Low confidence Conflict Bandooloo Under planned Smaddification

Creative work Unfocused Fragmented Siloed

Convergence

Proficient Efficient output Standards & models in question Questions of corruption Inequity Under resourced Expedient Less counted Cultural cringe Smaddification

Unfocused Fragmented Siloed

Content

Extractive Expedient Increasingly unreliable

Ir-regulated Fragmented Disjointed

Conduits

176 

D. HICKLING GORDON

s­ector.  This  includes an integrated communication programme to promote the work and worth of the sector  • Recognize national intergenerational cultures of trauma, and segmentation of the sector due to a history and cultures of stratification within the sector; and seek to remedy same through the development of programs that emphasize fairness, equality, equity and social justice.  • Declare and define “audiovisual” as a converged subsector of the holistic cultural economy framework with priority emphasis for development. • Declare a single audiovisual subsector with specific industries of film, animation television, radio, digital and other related areas that exist to serve the people of Jamaica, its diaspora and external markets. • Resource/facilitate the recording and archiving of Jamaican audiovisual heritage for posterity. • Declare the development of a dual-market focus with an emphasis on domestic production and intellectual property development a priority, while building out the framework for continued hosting international film production projects. • Engender media literacy and media pluralism through the production facilitation, distribution and trade of diverse programming in its nation language and other languages. • Provide demonstrable opportunities for equitable participation, and growth that engenders trust, empowerment, engagement, cooperation and confidence among stakeholder. • Articulate and engender an  enabling environment for the growth and development of its stakeholders. Ideological Positioning The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 laid bare global ideological fissures and the importance of the audiovisual sector in global communication. A cultural economy approach with a political lens and an emphasis on the balance of economic growth imperatives with sustainable development imperatives must now reverse the trend of privileging economic growth paths over social development choices. For Jamaica characteristic principles of RESISTANCE to inequities and inequality are thematic guides. • Balance industrial imperatives with cultural imperatives.

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

177

• Respect and recognize the dialectical balance in Freedoms and Rights outlined in the constitution, in particular freedom of, and the right to, speech, expression and privacy. • Optimize public service television through a rationalization of public broadcasting assets. • Promote public-private partnerships in production, distribution and training of audiovisual goods, services and production workers. • Recognize the dialectic of balancing the protection of cultural heritage and the commercial production of cultural and creative goods and services; balancing the books while balancing people’s lives; economic growth and sustainable development. Economic Approach As new ideological principles are brought to economic decision-making, principles of  REPARATORY JUSTICE, REPATRIATION and South-­ South Cooperation and trade should  undergird new economic models. The objective is to repair broken economies through increased production and trade in cultural and content products and services in new markets of the Global South. Nollywood, Bollywood and Gollywood should be given priority focus for economic trade negotiation and agreement. Given the unbalanced nature of trade relationships, in particular the European Partnership Agreement (EPA), the approach employs prevailing arguments for reparatory justice to resource the building out of cultural economies and the identification of new markets in the South. The objective is to have a new, digital triangular trade model that benefits those nations that were compromised in its earlier iteration. • Implement a culturally specific socio-cultural economy model to facilitate growth and development in the cultural sector that recognizes the nascent phase of development of the subsector and formulate a development plan for the sector. • Design a post structural-adjustment,  post COVID 19 agenda to include consideration of incentives for locals and external producers to promote growth and development and facilitate fair and equitable trade locally and internationally. • Establish means to balance between entrepreneurial and artistic pursuits through specially designed financial inclusion strategies.

178 

D. HICKLING GORDON

• Seek new markets for distribution and production partnership in the Global South. • Optimize inclusion with economic growth and sustainable development imperatives through the establishment of, and emphasis on, production cooperatives and social enterprise. • Improve access to finance for the sector while recognizing the nuances of financing cultural businesses. Actively work with investors to develop a culturally specific model to finance production and distribution of screen content, that considers government underwriting in the early development phase. • Promote public-private partnerships and stakeholder convergence while fostering greater understanding between business language speakers and creative language speakers. • Complete a baseline study and mapping of converged audiovisual sector to include database of available skills, resources and facilities. Governance Coherence By streamlining existing governance structures, infrastructure, institutions and decision-making processes and formulating new, efficient ones, the model seeks to bring consistency, and organization to policy approaches. REPRESENTATION and RELIABILITY undergird the need for engendering trust as a central trope of governance required to repair fissures between governance and citizenry. • Under a holistic creative economy policy plan, rationalize and converge the ministries, departments and agencies of government related to the audiovisual sector under a single entity. A Ministry of Culture, Digital, Media and Sport is proposed to manage the converged needs of sectors of the cultural economy. This is keeping with the thematic areas of focus for engendering an enabling environment.  • Facilitate the completion of an audiovisual sector development plan among civil society organizations, professional organization and other audiovisual stakeholders. • Facilitate an enabling environment for the converged subsectors through programs designed for engendering research and development; education and training; institutional strengthening, marketing and distribution; incentives and taxation; governance structures;

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

179

business development and finance; intellectual property rationalization; facilities, infrastructure and processes. • Rationalize cultural economy training and encourage training across disciplines, like the writing of musical scores, costume design and set designs. • Rationalize existing bilateral and multilateral agreements with a view to maximizing co-production and production opportunities. • Institute a decent work framework for the cultural economy with specific clauses for the audiovisual subsector to form part of its subsector plan. A labor market survey is also required. • Create a single regulatory authority to serve the converged audiovisual sector. • Facilitate the growth of film festivals island-wide and local participation in international film festivals. Optimizing Operations The establishment of processes, operational activities and decent creative work imperatives, rights and freedoms is at the core of this objective. Operationalization depends on principles of RESILIENCE grounded in morals and ethics drawn from Jamaica’s cultures of religiosity seen in traditional religions but colored by the creeds of Revivalism, Rastafari and Reggae as representative proponents of productivity. Optimizing the operational capacity of the Jamaican audiovisual sector requires the spirit of resilience to meet the principles of Business Process Change Management that insists on a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes and models to achieve dramatic improvements in performance, cost, quality, service and speed. These principles will guide the productivity and ethical production and distribution of cultural and creative goods, services and symbolic expression grounded in the resilience of its people and the quest for equity, rights and freedoms. • Formulate and strengthen trade unions, guilds, and professional organizations to strengthen collective bargaining and representation. • Re-examine creative work practices and business models and develop culturally specific plans to increase productivity. • Rationalize existing infrastructure for production studios and create new studios and other production facilities including a sound stage

180 

D. HICKLING GORDON

to provide the tools of operationalization, through public-private partnerships. • Optimize intellectual property education and management.  This should include financial literacy for creatives and creative literacy for financiers—with a view to formulating a negotiated financial model to promote investment in the production and distribution of domestically made screen content.  • Facilitate private sector establishment of a distribution company to include optimization of distribution of audiovisual materials on internet platforms, free-to-air and cable. • Complete the film database and registration of audiovisual creative workers. • Develop new markets in the Global South for the trade of audiovisual products and services. • Deliver specialist audiovisual training programs and capacity building. • Create markets for converged cultural and creative industries, using the festival methodology. • Complete distribution analysis, marketing plan and distribution program for the sector. • Complete a local location guide. The cultural and creative sector is at the beginning of a new era of change. A ‘cultural turn’ towards the thinking of the purple and orange economies requires organization, agency, advocacy and the creation of a cultural and creative economy  movement  to influence governance. It requires purposefully designed socio-cultural economy approach to development, collaborative and cooperative mechanisms and thematic approaches to policy that seeks to solve practical as well as “intangible” challenges of corruption, exploitation, inequity; build trust, engender dignity and transparency.  ext Phase Research N As a cultural studies practitioner ultimately working toward #decolonization2point0 and the determination of a personality profile for entire cultural sectors and their subsectors in the Global South, I constantly asked these questions. On life’s continuum, how can we identify precisely when, where and why zeitgeists change? How do those changes impact societal change in praxis? How does one empirically determine whether observed behavioral, social and economic trends have become endemic and can be

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

181

deemed “cultural” change? How do we use this insight to make meaningful transnational, regional, national and sectoral change? Another important consideration for me has been integrating Cultural Studies motivations with  behavioral science practices meant for individuals to pronounce a “diagnosis” on a collective. The application of behavioral economics principles to cultural economy inquiry completes my exploratory circle. Charles (Personal interview 2019) proposes that where behavioral trends are found to be over 70% radicalized, they can be classified as cultural. The answers therefore lie in using the observable, changing trends identified in this volume to determine the consistency, penetrance and normalization of that “behavior” using behavioral science methodologies. Further “legitimization through quantification of this deductive process” is the next phase of research  that Charles suggests. This first phase of descriptive and inductive exploration in which observable trends are identified begs for the next phase to be undertaken, the use of cognitive sciences and the theorizing of embodied cognition in the realm of behavioral science. This process has however thrown open the doors for new ways of thinking, in particular about a socio cultural development paradigm and a cultural economy development process grounded in the contemporary decolonization methodology, D2K. 

Dip Dem Bedward This volume is not an argument for the retention of old-school media models or a return to colonial-style public service television. On the contrary, it is an argument for utilizing the resource of unique and specific cultural responses, products and services of the liberalized culture and media sectors to optimize culturally specific, contemporary growth and development in the countries of the Global South. In Jamaica, a nation of metaphor, stories and a deep reliance on folklore the tale of Bedward is well known. Alexander Bedward was a Jamaican Baptist preacher or “shepherd” who led a large Revival Church in the mid-1800s in a suburb called August Town. This was close to the current site of the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, once a sugar plantation. Bedward presided over the Native Baptist Movement, during the periods of spiritual and political awakening of enslaved Africans and their progeny known as the Great Revival of 1860–61 and the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 (Lewis, 36). Three decades before, on August 1, 1834, the Emancipation Act of

182 

D. HICKLING GORDON

1833, the final law in the campaign to end slavery in British Territories, took effect. Enslaved persons under the age of six years were immediately freed but remained in the care of their parents and guardians who were to be “apprenticed” for up to eight years. During this period the colonial masters taught the formerly enslaved how to be free. Their “learning” would come through continuing to work for their former owners for three-quarters of their time. They could work for others for the rest of the week and receive a small wage. This eight-year period was intended to bridge the experience of ex-slaves and to “prepare” them for their freedom at the end of the apprenticeship. The charismatic Shepherd Bedward was an inspiring preacher who ministered to the poor and forlorn, promising escape, not back to Africa but to Heaven. He baptized thousands of formerly enslaved Africans who came to him for healing and is memorialized in the Mento song “Dip Dem Bedward” (Lewin 324), which records the hope of the formerly enslaved and apprenticed who, despite legislative ending of slavery, saw little change in their quality of life. They sought him out to be “dipped sweet” in a healing stream to cure the near-indescribable, “vague feeling of ill-health or malaise” that Jamaicans call “bad feelin”. Garvey Scholar and Pan-Africanist Rupert Lewis notes that “Throbbing at the heart of Bedwardism was the restless frustration of the down-trodden and displaced peasant masses”, and that, “the source of disaffection which fed Bedwardism was the bitter struggle waged by the plantocracy to continue the enslavement of the peasants to the estates” (38). Bedward died on November 8, 1930, at the Bellevue Mental Hospital in Kingston, having been targeted by colonial authorities, charged for sedition and judged insane. There are many parallels in the story of Bedward and dreams of revival of the Jamaican audiovisual sector. Pushback is expected regarding the prospects of #decolonization2point0; its exploration of culturally specific, national “personalities” in search of hope for a wholly functional cultural sector and audiovisual subsector; and the “personification” of its cultural sectors and subsectors. Neither this volume nor its author presume the folk stature of Bedward. However  it finds parallels in the  need and often unspoken quest for ‘healing’ by the population that is required for the repair, restoration and ultimate growing of the society and its sectors. The recognition of perennial “bad feelin”, ill health and societal malaise is enough of a call to action, to demand a fundamental rethinking and a radical redesign of social, economic and political approaches to our

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

183

development project. To this end, Bedward’s very existence, while deemed lunacy, required greater national  introspection and self-examination. A deliberately designed intervention for national healing is required to stimulate productivity and growth.  The “less-counted” cultural economy, which is the representative  conscience and barometer of Jamaican society  is an important entry point to this end.  The cultural  significance of screen-based interfaces across generations as well as the reach of audiovisual sub-sectors and their content, make it the most suitable media through which national education, identity, empowerment and development programmes can meaningfully be provided. South Africa, Cuba, Columbia, Japan and Australia have all developed national public broadcasting strategies to meet national goals. I argue that these decisions have served to form their media ‘personalities’, a phenomenon that is worthy of examination for sector development in Jamaica. Determining the efficacy of a media “personality” hypothesis requires scrutiny by the institution of media itself. This is an institution that is accustomed to interrogating rather than being interrogated. The acceptance of the “media personality” supposition in the Global South requires openness and willingness to consider alternative ideological paradigms, economic systems, governance structures and operational processes within the media sector and the nation it serves. #decolonization2point0 will be a particularly hard sell in the transitioning  libertine era of ideological cynicism.  The ‘sale’ will be and harder still should the implications of post Global Populism for countries of the South become entrenched. Talks of colonialism and slavery, neoliberalism, reparations, egalitarianism and repatriation are seen to be ideas of a distant past, replaced by prosperity, progress, entrepreneurship, individuation, monetization, privatization and commercialization. Fewer born into the libertine era acknowledge the subtle forms of control  administered through cocktails of colonialism that present in three steps described by Virgillo Enriques—denial and withdrawal; destruction/eradication; denigration/bellitlement/insult and transformation/exploitation.  Fewer still accept that the antidote is found in variations of Laenui’s five steps of decolonization (1999:2)—rediscovery and recovery; mourning; dreaming; commitment and action. For Jamaica, ‘healing’ is a central component, as is “owning our madness” (Hickling, 2016).  Until this insight gains traction, the main challenge that #d2k as methodology faces is convincing those it is meant to serve, of its utility. We shall see whether the revolution will be televised. It certainly can be.

184 

D. HICKLING GORDON

References Ya Azibo, Daudi Ajani. “African Psychology in Historical Perspective and Related Commentary”. African Psychology in Historical Perspective and Related Commentary. Ed. Daudi Ajani Ya Azibo. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. 1996. Bombay, Amy. “Intergenerational Trauma: Convergence of Multiple Processes among First Nations Peoples in Canada”. Journal of Aboriginal Health, November 2009. 6–47. Burke, Suzanne. “Disjuncture and Displacement, The evolution of cultural policy in the Anglophone Caribbean,” International Journal of Cultural Policy 13, No 2. 2007 169–184. Chen, Kuan-Hsing. “The Formation of a Diasporic Intellectual: an Interview with Stuart Hall”. Stuart Hall, Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. 484–504. Ed. David Morley and Kuan Hsing Chen. London: Routledge, 1996. Girvan, Norman. ‘Rethinking Development: Out Loud’, in Rethinking Development, ed. Judith Wedderburn, Kingston, Jamaica: Consortium Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of the West Indies, 1991. Hickling Frederick W. (2016). Owning our Madness: facing Reality in post-colonial Jamaica. CARIMENSA, University of the West Indies. Hickling Frederick W. and Geoffrey O. Walcott. The Jamaican LMIC Challenge to the Biopsychosocial Global Mental Health Model of Western Psychiatry Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. S. Okpaku (ed.), Innovations in Global Mental Health https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70134-9_63-1 Huang Y et al. “DSM-IV personality disorders in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys”. Pub Med: Br J Psychiatry. 2009 Jul;195(1): 46–53. https://doi. org/10.1192/bjp.bp.108.058552. Laenui, Poka. 1999. “Colonization and Decolonization”, Reclaiming Indigenous voice and vision. Marie Baptiste ed., Vancouver BC. Lewin, Olive. “Jamaica in Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Encyclopedic History”. Volume 2 Performing the Caribbean Experience Edited by Malena Kuss 2007 The Universe of Music USA. Lewis, Rupert. “Garvey’s forerunners: Love and Bedward”. Race and Class R Lewis – Race & class, 1987 Sage Publications pages 29–40 col 28 1987 issue 3. Marenghi, Patricia Marina Hernández Prieto & Ángel Badillo: “Diversity of the Audio-visual Industry in the Digital Age: The Challenges Entailed in its Measurement” Text 7 Diversity of Cultural Expressions in the digital era. Lilian Richieri Hanania Anne-Thida Norodum Eds Diversity of the Audio-visual Industry in the Digital Age: The Challenges Entailed in its Measurement | Diversity of Cultural Expressions in The Digital Era. Mossley-Wood, Rachel. “Show us as we are: Place, nation and identity in Jamaican Film”. University of the West Indies Press. 2019 Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago.

8  SOUTH STAR FOR JAMAICA 

185

Sengor, Leopold Sedar. “Negritude: a Humanism of the Twentieth Century (1966)”. I Am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy. Ed. Fred Lee Hord and Jonathan Scott Lee. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press. 1995. 45–54. Stone, C. Values, norms and personality development in Jamaica. Paper presented at the National Consultation on Values and Attitudes, The University of the West Indies, Kingston [Internet]. 1992 [cited 2011 Aug 31]. http://gtuwi. tripod.com/stonearticle.htm

Personal Interview Christopher Charles and Geoffrey Walscott, 1, May 2019, Connolley House.

Index

A AAA Productions, 112 Adinkra, 20 Adjei, Mawuli, 122, 123, 127 Adorno, Theodor, 9 Advertising Agencies Association of Jamaica, 26 Advertising Media Association Limited, 26 Aesthetic, 7 Africanity, 14 Africanness, 13–14 African personality, 164 African Union (AU), 98 Ake, Claude, 151 Alhassan, Ami, 26, 91, 92 Allen, Desmond, 45 Amakohene, Margaret, 94, 99, 112, 125, 126, 128 Amankwah-Amoah, Joseph, 91, 109 Amaokahene, 100 Ambivalence, 32 Americanization, 27 Amoakohene, Margaret, 7, 8 Animation, 51

Ansah, Kwah, 92 Ansu-Kyeremeh Kwasi, 97, 99, 126–128 Anxiety, 72 Aryeetey, Ernest, 93, 100 Asamoah, A., 21, 26 Asamoah-Hassan, H. R., 96 Association of Private Broadcasters, 33 Attachment disorders, 166 Audiovisual subsectors, 6 Austerity, 30 Avergnobo, Edwin, 30 Avle, Seyram, 91 Aylen, Peter, 31 Azibo, Daudi Ajani, 164 B Baby boomers, 168 Bandooloo, 70, 124 Banking crisis, 6 Bannerman, Valentina, 96 BBC World Service, 93 Beckles, Hilary, 151 Betta Mus Come, 75

© The Author(s) 2020 D. Hickling Gordon, Cultural Economy and Television in Jamaica and Ghana, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38065-6

187

188 

INDEX

Boahen, A. A., 109 Boateng, Boatema, 95 Bombay, Amy, 171 Broadcast histories, 7 Broadcast licences, 92 Broadcasting and Radio Re-Diffusion Act, 48, 57 Broadcasting and the Radio Re-Diffusion (Amendment) Act of 1986, 31 Broadcasting Commission, 31, 33, 83 Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica (BCJ), 43, 84 Broadcasting communications, 54 Brown, Aggrey, 27, 80 Brown, Hillary, 32, 80 Burke, Suzanne, 171 C Cable content providers, 44 Cable Gold, 93 Cable service providers, 27, 32, 43–44 Cable television, 27 Carmody, P., 109 Censorship, piracy, 28 Charles, C., 181 Cheating, 124 Chevannes, Barry, 156 China, 27 Clayton, Anthony, 49, 83, 84 Cold War, 13, 22, 25, 29, 31 Collective esteem, 14, 169 Collins, Edmund John, 95 Colonization, 183 “Colonizer and colonized”, 3 Commercialization, 27 Commercial television, 21, 90 Community Television (CTV), 81 Competition, 45, 144 Computing sectors, 54 Concert Party, 122

Conduits, 27, 54 Conquest, 140 Contacts, 69 Content, 3 Convergence, 54 Conway, Dennis, 23 Copyright, 27 Copyright and intellectual property, 28 Copyright Law enacted by the Ghanaian PNDC government in 1985, 28 Corruption, 124 Coups, 142 Crandall, Robert W., 28 Creative industries, 58 Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC), 31, 81 Creative Storm, 111 Creolized, 14 Crystal TV, 93 Cultural cringe, 14, 169 Cultural economy, 4, 38 Cultural Superstate, 59 Culture of silence, 126 Culture shock, 72 Cunningham, Stuart, 151 CVM, 56, 78 CVM Communications Group, 43 CVM Television (CVM TV), 6, 24, 32, 81 Cyberculture, 47 D Dadzie, Ramatu Mustapha, 118, 119, 122–124 Daley, Dianne, 53 Davis, George, 84 De Beukelaer, Christiaan, 4, 95 Democratization, 31 Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), 58, 135

 INDEX 

Development, 140 Digicel Rising Stars, The Tastee Talent Trail Show and the Magnum Kings and Queens Show, 79 Digital and Animation Industries Project, 50 Displacement, 140 Divestment, 25, 30 Dramatic television, 122 du Gay, Paul, 151 Duncan, Denvil, 37 Dunlop, Stewart, 6, 8 Dunn, Hopeton, 49 Durant-Gonzalez, Victoria, 143 E Emmanuel, John, 134 Enslavement, 140 Entertainment Advisory Board, 59 Escobar, Arturo, 24, 29 European Partnership Agreement (EPA), 98 F Film fund, 53 Financial inclusion, 52 Financial inclusion for creatives, 52 Financial literacy, 52 Fiscal responsibility, 53 Flew, Terry, 6, 22, 36, 141 Folklore Board, 28 Folklore Tax, 28 Fontomfrom TV, 93 Footprint, 164 Forbes, Marcia, 45 Fragmented families, 166 Freelance, 70 Free to air stations, 81 Free-to-air television, 2, 42

189

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation (FES), 33 Furchgott-Roth, Harold, 28 G Gadzekpo, Audrey, 27 Galloway, Susan, 8 Gen X, 168 Gen Y, 168 Gen Z, 168 Geostrategy, 154 Ghana, 7–8 Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), 7, 26, 30, 94, 109, 123 Ghana Film Industry Corporation (GFIC), 109 Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) Akwasi Agyemang, 128 Ghana Journalists Association, 33 Ghana National Communications Authority (GNCA), 34 Ghana’s first private television station (TV3), 92, 123 Ghana Telecom, 101 Ghana Television (GTV), 92 Gilchrist, Carl, 62 Girvan, 9, 165 Gleaner Company Limited, Jamaica’s oldest newspaper company, announced the signing of a merger with the RJR Group, 44 Globalization, 140 Global South, 9 Gordon, Nickesia S., 25, 31, 43, 80, 81 Grace Kennedy Limited, 79 Grace Kitchens, 79 A Graders, 79 Grant, Clair, 80 Green, Cordel, 49, 83, 84

190 

INDEX

Guardian Life Insurance Company, 79 Guzder, Jaswant, 22 Gyan Apenteng, Kwesi, 93, 128, 129 H Hall, Stuart, 6, 164 Harris, Willson, 50 Hawkes, David, 29 Hendrickson, Michael, 51 Henry Wilson, Maxine, 48, 67 Hesmondhalgh, David, 152 Hickling, Akindele, 112, 171 Hickling, Deborah A., 6–8, 13–15, 139, 151 Hickling, Frederick, 6, 21, 22, 166, 172 Hickling, Gordon, 3 Higglering, 143 HomeGrown Unit, 79 Hope, Donna, 25, 57, 78 Howard, Dennis, 29 Howkins, John, 37 Human Development Index, 170 Hustler culture, 28 Hustling, 143 Hybrids, 30 Hype TV, 57, 78 I Illegitimate’ work, 70 Imperialism, 140 Income redistribution, 124 India’s Bollywood (Videoage), 97 Individualism, individuation, rights and freedoms, 15 Informal economy, 143 Information Communications Technology (ICT), 100 Information technology, 54 Intellectual property, 27

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR’s), 27, 54 Interim EPAs, 99 The interministerial National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission (NCCIC), 60 Interministerial Technical Working Group on CCIs, 60 International Labour Organization’s Decent Work, 68 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 24, 29 J Jacobs Bonnick, Olayinka, 51 Jamaica Bankers Association, 52 Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), 2, 30 Jamaica Film and Television Association (JAFTA), 75, 77 Jamaica Film Producers Association (JFPA), 76 Jamaica House, 81 Jamaica News Network (JNN), 82 Jamaicanness, 13–14 Jamaica Observer, 84 James Bond, 61 James, Vanus, 59 JAMPRO, 52, 59, 77 Jenkins, 54 Johnson, Hume, 25 JOY FM, 30 Juggling, 143 Julian, Melissa, 99 K Kalabule, 124 Kalabuleism, 124 Kanbur, Ravi, 100 Kenia Mattis, 50

 INDEX 

Kennedy, Dane Keith, 20, 21, 52 The KFC Quiz Show, 79 King, Damien, 25 Kingston, 2 Kirton, Claremont, 71 Klak, Thomas, 143, 151 Kumasi, 93 Kuntoh, Sarah, 115 Kwame, Safro, 124, 125 L Laenui, Poka, 148, 183 Langrin, Bran, 6, 37 Lash, S., 151 Legitimate, 70 Lennie Little White, 62 Leonard, Josanne, 59 “Less-counted” (352), 14, 170 Lewin, Olive, 182 Lewis, Rupert, 182 Liberalization, 30, 31, 140 ListenMi Caribbean, 50 Little-White, 59 LI 2224, 129 Loh, Martin, 95, 104, 111, 115, 117, 118, 126 LOVE FM, 82 LOVE TV, 42 Lu, Yindfa, 91, 109 M Makumba, Maurice Muhatia, 14 Marenghi, Patricia Marina Hernández, 119, 168 Marley, Bob, 17 Martin Fredriksson, 95 Master controllers, 3 Mayberry investments, 46 McBean, David, 42, 81 McChesney, Robert W., 23, 24

191

McKenzie, Clyde, 59 McLuhan, Marshall, 146 Media Association Jamaica Limited, 26 Media ownership, 24 Meliero, Alessandra, 97 Metro and TV Africa in Accra, 123 Metropolitan Entertainment Television (Metro TV), 92, 94 Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME’s), 54 Millennium, 38 Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, 59 Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture, 58 Ministry of Information, 59 Ministry of Tourism and Sport, 59 Mitchell, Leon, 45 Mkandiawire, Thandika, 142 M-NET, 93 Mock Yen, Alma, 25 Mordecai, Martin, 27 Moseley-Wood, 165, 169 Motion Picture Industry Encouragement Act, 73 Moyo, 23 Mubarak, Mohammed, 110 Multi Choice, 93 Myers, Garth, 143 N National Communication Authority (NCA), 34, 102 National Cultural and Creative Industries Commission, 9, 77 National Dance Theatre Company, 5 National Export Strategy, 59 National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), 93–94, 109, 116 National Investment Bank of Jamaica, 43

192 

INDEX

The National Media Commission (Content Standards) Regulations, 2015 (LI 2224), 128 National Media Commission (NMC), 33 The National Media Commission Policy Advisory Committee, 100 National Pantomime Movement, 5 National Policy Framework of 1996, 55 National Theatre Movement, 122 Neoliberalism, 23 Nettleford, Rex, 25, 155 New Caribbean Cinema, 76 Newspaper Licensing Law (PNDC Law 211), 24 Newsroom, 81 Nigeria, 27 Nigeria’s Nollywood, 96 1989, 24 Nkrumah, Kwame, 14, 26, 37, 136 Noel, David, 52 Nyrere, Julius K., 93, 94

Pornography, 127 Potter, Simon, 20 Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), 84 Privatization, 30 Produsers, 168 Profiteering, 124 Propaganda, 28 Prosumers, 119, 168 Pryke, Michael, 151 Public Broadcasting Corporation Act, 1997 (2), 81 Public Broadcasting Corporation of Jamaica (PBCJ), 81 Public Private partnership (PPP), 92 Public service broadcasting, 21, 90 Public service commercial broadcasting, 42 Puplampu, Bill, 92, 94, 111

O Olokoshi, 98 Oruka, Odera H., 136 Osei-Hwere, Enyonam, 92, 93, 104 Osipow, Samuel, 155 Our Voices, On a Personal Note, Impact, Royal Palm Estate, The Susan Show, 79

R Radio Eye, 31 Radio Jamaica and Rediffusion (RJR), 30 Radio Jamaica Limited, 30, 43 Ravindran, Manori, 147 Resistance, 138 RETV, 57, 78 RJR Communications Group, 43 RJR Group, 82 Roasts, 70 Robinson, Claude, 30, 32, 42 Ross, E., 109 Rothermund, Dietmar, 20 Round robin, 75 Rowe, Yvette, 77 Running a boat, 75

P Patterson, P. J., 23, 33, 67, 71 Paul, Annie, 49 Pay-per-view, 93 PNDC, 31 PNDC Law 110, 95 Political economy, 25

Q Quainoo, Sampson, 92, 94, 114, 116

 INDEX 

S St. Juste, Brian, 77 Sankofa, 20 Schandorf, Edmond, 92 Schandorf, Sunshine, 93, 116 Schiller, Dan, 23, 24, 29 Scotiabank, 79 Sekondi, 93 Sengor, Leopold Seda, 164 Serialization, 124 Serieux, Michelle, 75 Simpson Miller, Portia (Prime Minister), 8, 59, 143 Skyy TV, 93 “Smaddy”, 14 Smadification, 14, 170 Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs), 52 Small and Small Island Developing States, 15 Smandych, Russel, 27, 29 Soludo, Charles C., 142 South Odeon Avenue, 2 Spans of subordination, 140 Spence, Kim-Marie, 4 Spirit and matter, 3 Stabilizing bars, 2 Stanbury, Lloyd, 59, 69 Stanley Niaah, Sonjah, 51 Stone, Carl, 165, 166, 172, 173 Stork, Christoph, 101 Straubhaar, 38 Structural adjustment, 140 Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), 7, 24, 29 Subscriber cable operators, 43, 44 Subscriber cable television (STV), 31, 43 Super Supreme Television (SST), 66 Super Supreme TV, 45

193

T Takoradi, 93 Taylor, Orville, 67 Technoculture, 47 Technological convergence, 55 Telecommunications, 54 Television, 2, 21 Television Jamaica (TVJ), 45, 56, 78 Television receive only (TVRO) satellite dish, 27 The Teller, 79 Tepper, Steven Jay, 151 Thame, Maziki, 73 Third Republic, 27 Thompson, Natalie, 76 Throwing a pardner, 76 Thwaites, Daniel, 160 Trade association, 26 Trade Union Congress, 33 Traditional languages, 138 Tradition and modernity, 110 Trajectories of transition, 7 Trauma, 171 Tru Juice Rebel Salute, Heineken Startime, and Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest, 56 TV Africa, 92 TV Agoro, 93 Tyranny by the media, 126 U Unemployment and unequal distribution of wealth, 166 Unemployment distribution of wealth, 166 Unequal distribution of wealth, 166 United Kingdom in 2004, 7 United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 52

194 

INDEX

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO), 60, 100 United States Federal Communications Commission, 28 University of Ghana, 97 University of Legon, 8 Urry, J., 151 USA’s Hollywood, 97 V Vodaphone, 101 W Walcott, Geoffrey O., 166, 172 Walsh, Bruce, 155 Walters, Maxine, 76 Washington Consensus, 22, 24 Weekes, Marcia, 134

White, Livingston, 77 WIFI signal, 3 Williamson, John, 22, 23 Witter, Michael, 71 Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI), 76 Women in Film and Television, Jamaica (WIFT-JA), 76 World Bank, 29, 49 World Press Freedom Index, 82 Y Yawson, Robert Mayfield, 99 Z Zeitgeist, 151 ZOY FM, 26 ZQI, 31