Creative Media for Development in Africa: The Synergy between Narrative Empathy and Popular Culture

'Emotions' have been investigated in 'inter-personal contexts' and appreciably investigated in 'organizational contexts'; but no systematic effort has been made to investigate it in 'mass mediated contexts' (Singhal & Roggers, 2002). This suggests the need to re-focus on the communication of affect, feelings and emotions from media characters to audience members in any further study of mass mediated narratives. Development-focused psychologists and philosophers also suggest that moral development (pro-social behaviour or altruism) is boosted by readers' or audience' experiences of narrative empathy (affect). Therefore, this book responds to the above need; building on the theories of social learning, strategic empathy and affective disposition; answers certain underlying questions; and seeks to reinforce the entertainment aspects of creative media narratives using the filmic media as a point of contact. Thus, it adopts an interdisciplinary methodology to explicate affect and its construction in the creative media, as well as the tangential role of the bourgeoning popular culture in Africa in their capacities to induce audience involvement and in turn influence behavior.