LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Can a glitzy soap opera change how one nation perceives another? It's true that much of the world once had an image of Texas -- indeed the entire U.S. -- that it gleaned through the miscreant antics of J.R. Ewing in " Dallas ."

Now a group of international television professionals is hoping that their upcoming Africa Channel's soaps and other TV shows in the U.S. will dramatically change our thinking about that troubled continent, not with a "Dallas"-like portrayal but rather with a real vision Africa of today, the network's founders say.

"We are looking to provide a showcase for Africa that people are not used to getting in the U.S. ," says James Makawa, CEO and co-founder of the Africa Channel. A native of Zimbabwe , Makawa worries that Africa is too often presented to the rest of the world as a blighted land of starvation, war and disease.

But he stresses that the channel will not be full of dull educational fare. Rather, it will carry the best of African television, from movies to soaps, travel shows, dramas, talk shows and news. "But all the programing will be coming to you through an African perspective, and the question is, how does it translate to American audiences? Well the fact is that the majority of the people who are producing these shows in Africa now are television professionals who trained in Western Europe or in the United States . This is top-class programing."

Makawa and his partners Jacob Arback and Richard Hammer hope that by bringing over the best of contemporary African programing -- most of it produced in South Africa -- they will change viewers' perception of Africa as a whole.

They don't deny that there are some horrendous problems there; they just want to get the point across that it's not all misery and devastation, as most newscasts and programing would suggest. The Africa Channel will address issues across the whole continent and present the beauty and rich culture of Africa , without ignoring the uglier realities there, they say.

For instance, says Hammer, a television marketing veteran, "We have the soap opera 'Generations' that is set in a predominantly black, upper-middle-class group of people who work in the advertising industry. This is a society that is representative of post-apartheid life in South Africa ."

But that's just a fraction of the more than 1,200 hours of programing that the partners have acquired over the past three years of preparation for the channel's launch this summer. Makawa, a former NBC News correspondent based in the U.S. , returned to South Africa a number of years ago to co-found the African Barter Co. in partnership with Grey Advertising Worldwide. He launched hundreds of hours of programing across Africa through the company and went on to co-found the African Broadcast Network. Arback is a former vp at DirecTV International, and Hammer is a former executive with Sony International Television.

Their combined contacts smoothed the way for them to pick up the upcoming channel's programing library from such entities as the South African Broadcasting Corp. and international reality producer Endemol. One of the programs that will air in the U.S. is Endemol's "Big Brother Africa." It features contestants from 12 African countries.

Does he believe that American viewers will relate to programing like that? "American audiences see only the African tragedy, but they have never been exposed to the positive aspects of Africa , its music, its culture. We are saying, how about flipping the switch and showing Africa alive and well?"

The partners say they are close to signing agreements with carriers to make space for their programs and are aiming for a debut in July.

Andrew Young, former ambassador to the United Nations and former mayor of Atlanta , is chairman of the channel's board.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter