Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the impact of mass media in Africa's regional integration process.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores the dynamics of mass media in fostering economics, cultural, political and social interactions among people and nations of Africa. The paper argues that for the continent to realize its ambition of regional integration, news contents must be designed by Africans for the African environment. In other words, Africa's media practitioners, and news managers, must cause a parading shift from the current western oriented information flow, to news patterns that are indigenous in nature.

The Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) of 1980, and the Abuja Treaty of 1991 etc, are some of the Laudable initiatives by African Leaders which the paper extols as steps in the right directions towards pursuing Africa's regional integration, but insists that unless the African people understand themselves and their history and destiny, as well as share their common problems through free flow of information, regional integration process will continue to suffer serious setbacks. It is in line with these thinking that the paper raises some questions which includes; in which ways could the mass media provide effective integration pattern through intra African information flow? What are the challenges of the media in African integration process?

Finally, the paper takes a look on the way forward to arrest the challenges of the media in African integration mechanism.