Taboos and Rebels—Or, Transgression and Regulation in the Work and Lives of Kinshasa's Television Journalists

Abstract

This article explores political transgression in Kinshasa's media space and informal and official reactions to these. Ethnographic material will exhibit violation and regulation in the context of two highly popular media genres, call-in shows and short reportages about life in the city. In order to extend our understanding of political mediation, I argue we need to pay attention to the management of public information, to the parties involved in the negotiations about what can and should be publicly (re-)presented and what not, and to the ways in which political actors balance between containment and exposure. I present two types of media rebellion in order to illustrate in some detail the variety of ways in which political conflict and mass media interact in present-day Kinshasa, and how certain television journalist defy the borders between “the speakable” and that what should remain hidden.