Image of America in Northern Nigeria Radio-Based Broadcast

Abstract

This chapter explores popular representations of America in Northern Nigeria radio broadcast using Greetings From America (a call-in program aimed at encouraging Nigerian citizens to seek admission and further their education in American universities) as case study. The chapter is based on a qualitative content analysis of over 15 editions of the program as well as on semi-structured interviews with the News and Current Affairs Manager of Freedom Radio Kano and other relevant informants. The chapter hinges on the propaganda and representation theories. It illustrates how Greeting From America represents a suitable window into America and a platform where Northern Nigerians living and studying in the United States mostly express positive stereotypes of America. The chapter further argues that the program's contents and reception by Northern Nigerians show all the complexity and ambivalence of U.S.'s image in Northern Nigeria. In effect, the impressions of people interviewed in this study coupled with insights drawn from relevant literary sources are sometimes conflicting with the dominantly negative image of the U.S. in Northern Nigeria's popular imagination.