Year: 2018
Type: book-review
Abstract: The Nigerian International Film Summit held at the 2017 American Film Market was a first of its kind.This delegation of Nigerian exhibitors, distributors, and production companies, flanked by celebrity actors and directors, paraded the best Nollywood had to offer in hopes of attracting Hollywood partnership and investment."The gap between Hollywood and Nollywood is closing," the event organizer Ijeoma Onah announced with confident optimism. 2But why close the gap?In her book Nollywood Central, Jade Miller compellingly argues for the value "the gap" affords minor cultural industries that thrive on neglect by dominant global media flows.From this perspective, the periphery becomes the center of a tremendously creative milieu.The book calls us to approach Nollywood not as a marginal industry seeking to catch up with the normative practices of international cultural industries but as the central hub of an alternative media network whose nodes extend around the world.By examining Nollywood's economic and institutional structures, the book illustrates the power of informality that holds the industry together as much as it holds government and corporate competition at bay.Miller defines informality by several traits, chiefly the absence of documentation, legal recourse, or accreditation of agents.She adopts informal media scholar Ramon Lobato's notion that informality is only visible as measured against formality and its normative practices of regulation, documentation, and governance. 3However, Miller illuminates what this
Source: Media Industries
Author: Connor Ryan
Language: English
Topic: Cinema and Media Studies
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2807874790