Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T11:12:14.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

24 - Popular Culture and Politics

from Part V - Reforms and Revolutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2021

Toyin Falola
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Get access

Summary

“Popular Culture and Politics” seek to understand the influential force of popular culture, which can be optimized and utilized to transform the country’s sociopolitical future. As a social institution that arose from the forces of colonization, popular culture has a specific social role to play in that process. Characterized with an elastic capacity to instigate social ideas, popular culture in Nigeria can be used to bring about transformational changes and revolutionary thinking that can shape the Nigerian environment. Although the general belief is that popular culture serves as entertainment with no significant social benefits, that is not entirely the case. This study reveals the existing interconnection between politics and popular culture, highlighting the significance and the different approaches that can actively target a better Nigerian future through popular culture. Nigerian popular culture can use its transformational capacity to inspire desirable changes in the country’s political trajectory. It can be seen beyond its traditional role of entertainment, where it currently receives minimal national recognition. When the people who create cultural materials understand the power that they wield as a social institution, and when they use that power objectively, they can enact a revolution without violence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Modern Nigeria
Ethnicity, Democracy, and Development
, pp. 578 - 600
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×