Across Linguistic and Cultural Markets: A Comparative Study of Audiovisual Localization and Audience Reception in Nigerian and Francophone African Media

Nigerian screen media and Francophone West and Central African screen media reach transnational audiences through localization pathways that differ structurally rather than incidentally: Nigerian export practice has relied overwhelmingly on subtitling into English and, increasingly, on subtitling between Nigerian and other African languages, while Francophone African distribution has relied on a dubbing-into-standard-French default inherited from a broadcasting infrastructure historically centered outside the continent. Comparative audiovisual translation research rarely places these two traditions side by side, and the reception literature that exists for each is built from incompatible designs, measures, and populations, which makes any claim about which pathway serves audiences better premature. This paper develops a comparative research protocol, not an empirical verdict. It synthesizes audiovisual translation theory, cultural proximity and reception theory, and platform-circulation research to build a three-part comparative typology of linguistic infrastructure, modal default, and reception mechanism; it specifies a matched-title, mixed-methods comparative design grounded in most-similar and most-different systems logic; and it states five falsifiable propositions about where subtitling and dubbing should diverge in effect on comprehension, perceived authenticity, and diasporic engagement. The paper's contribution is the comparative apparatus itself: a culture-specific-item transfer table spanning both markets, a validity framework for cross-market comparison, and an explicit refusal to report effect sizes before data exist. The central claim is that the Nigerian-Francophone asymmetry in localization mode is not a technical accident but a residue of colonial-language infrastructure that comparative reception research has not yet tested directly.