Television . . .

Besides their own national television outlet, Cameroonians primarily get South African, French, and South American sports and entertainment.

They seem to get their news primarily from Cameroonian national TV and from CNN.
I haven't seen BBC coverage, but I heard someone mention it, so perhaps I just haven't seen it on the TV where I am.
The only American influence I see is CNN and a few shows imported from America like Heroes and other dramas. I've also seen a few BET videos and some pop music videos.

Of course being Cameroon, there is plenty of soccer coverage! Cameroon IS SOCCER!! It seems as if the main soccer coverage outlet comes from South Africa (as well as
local Cameroonian coverage). The South Africans cover soccer in a similar style to ESPN. In fact, I think the outlet I was watching had an ESPN affiliation. Unfortunately, I don't like soccer. They seem so disappointed when I'm not familiar with past or present Cameroonian soccer players, but I'm going to try to make better efforts to at least know the players and more about the game.
They are as passionate about soccer here as I am about American football players and the game.

As you would expect, the majority of images on the screen are black, which thrilled me. All my life, I've been a "minority". In the US it's always a major social and political struggle to see yourself portrayed positively, and as a child growing up it was just a struggle to be on the screen at all! It's really draining to be embroiled in an never ending controversy for your humanity. So to see these images almost made me cry. It's frustrating to exclusively have your standard of beauty defined by a European standard that you can't meet or shouldn't have to meet. ALL people are beautiful and ALL images should be portrayed in the media. Those in the house who lived in Canada have a clue of what I'm talking about, but even they still don't quite get how I feel because African TV is their life and this is all they know.

Despite seeing black images on African TV, you see also frequently see all types of images--Latin, Asian, African, European--a truer representation of humanity.

The main source of television entertainment comes from Nigerian TV. Every night we watch dramas from Nigeria. The production values are not the greatest,
but the stories are very interesting and they give you a true glimpse of African life and culture. Usually the shows are two-parters and you don't have
to wait until the next night to see the second part. The shows are mostly morality plays. There is always a central character who struggles with
a moral dilemma. You see this character make mistakes, suffer tragic consequences, and overcome to become a better person. Watching these shows have given
me an insight on how Africans conduct business, arrange marriages, take care of orphans/indigents, and balance tribal tradition with modern lifestyle.


One nice thing about TV here is that there are hardly any commercials!!!!!!!!!!!