(Re)visiting African communication scholarship: critical perspectives on research and theory

ABSTRACT

The study of communication in Africa, much like the continent, has been the subject of controversy and consternation, with widely changing fortunes that wax and wane at different times. Africa’s colonial experience and the imposition of Western communication constructs inform the theoretical and methodological approaches to African communication scholarship. This essay examines the accomplishments of African communication scholarship attained out of a long history of engagement with intellectual debates about de-Westernization. We discuss how African communication scholars can foreground their commitment to maintaining the integrity of African scholarship in advancing African perspectives in communication studies.

KEYWORDS:

• African communication scholarship
• communication in Africa
• African culture
• de-Westernization
• history

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Guest Editors, anonymous reviewers, and editorial team for their guidance through the writing process. We value your thoughtful suggestions.

Notes

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11 Glück, “De-Westernization and Decolonization in Media Studies,” 2.

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21 Winston Mano and Viola C. Milton, eds., Routledge Handbook of African Media and Communication Studies (London: Routledge, 2021).

22 Milton and Mano, “Afrokology as a Transdisciplinary Approach,” 258.

23 Glück, “De-Westernization and Decolonization,” 2.

24 Godfried A. Asante and Jenna N. Hanchey, eds., “(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives, Part I,” Review of Communication 21, no. 4 (2021): 271–362; Jenna N. Hanchey and Godfried A. Asante, eds., “(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives, Part II,” Review of Communication 22, no. 1 (2022): forthcoming. See also “Ferment in the Field,” special issue, Journal of Communication 33, no. 3 (1983): 4–362; Christian Fuchs and Jack Linchuan Qiu, eds., “Ferments in the Field: The Past, Present and Future of Communication Studies,” special issue, Journal of Communication 68, no. 2 (2018): 219–451.

25 Herman Wasserman “Power, Meaning and Geopolitics: Ethics as an Entry Point for Global Communication Studies,” Journal of Communication 68, no. 2 (2018): 441–51.

26 Ibid., 443.

27 Ibid.

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30 Waisbord and Mellado, “De-Westernizing Communication Studies,” 363.

31 Chakravartty, Kuo, Grubbs, and McIlwain, “#CommunicationSoWhite,” 262.

32 Herman Wasserman, “Moving from Diversity to Transformation in Communication Scholarship,” Annals of the International Communication Association 44, no. 1 (2019): 2.

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34 Herman Wasserman, “Extending the Theoretical Cloth to Make Room for African Experience: An Interview with Francis Nyamnjoh,” Journalism Studies 10, no. 2 (2009): 287.

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39 Sylvanus Ekwelie, “The Press in Gold Coast Nationalism, 1890–1957” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971); Fred I. A. Omu, Press and Politics in Nigeria, 1880–1937 (London: Longman, 1978).

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42 Nyamnjoh, Africa’s Media Democracy and the Politics of Belonging, 4.

43 Ibid., 38.

44 Ann Neville Miller, “Keeping Up with Cartography: A Call to Study African Communication,” in International and Intercultural Communication Annual, vol. 28, ed. William J. Starosta and Guo-Ming Chen (Washington, DC: National Communication Association, 2004), 214–36.

45 Ann Neville Miller et al., “Still the Dark Continent: A Content Analysis of Research about Africa and by African Scholars in 18 Major Communication-Related Journals,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 6, no. 4 (2013): 325.

46 Edeani, “Role of Africa Media Review in the Sustainable Development of African Communication Research,” 42, 43.

47 David O. Edeani, “West African Mass Communication Research at a Major Turning Point,” International Communication Gazette 41, no. 3 (1988): 151–83.

48 Ben Wasike, “Africa Rising: An Analysis of Emergent Africa-Focused Mass Communication Scholarship from 2004 to 2014,” International Journal of Communication 11 (2017): 210.

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50 Moemeka, “Communalism as a Fundamental Dimension of Culture.”

51 Faith Nguru and Agnes Lucy Lando, “Africana Symbolic Contextual Theory,” in Black/Africana Communication Theory, ed. Kehbuma Langmia (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 125–48; Bala A. Musa, “Voicing Communal Wisdom in Communication Scholarship: Theorizing African Cultural Noesis in Research and Practice,” in Interventions: Communication Research and Practice, ed. Adrienne Shaw and D. Trevor Scott (New York: Peter Lang, 2018), 95–111.

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53 Richard M. Perloff, The Dynamics of Political Communication: Media and Politics in a Digital Age, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2018), 84.

54 Griffin, Ledbetter, and Sparks, A First Look at Communication Theory, 5.

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56 Clifford G. Christians, John P. Ferré, and P. Mark Fackler, Good News: Social Ethics and the Press (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 20–23.

57 Geert H. Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991).

58 Kuba Krys et al., “Putting the ‘We’ into Well-Being: Using Collectivism-Themed Measures of Well-Being Attenuates Well-Being’s Association with Individualism,” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 22, no. 23 (2019): 256–67.

59 Miller, “Keeping Up with Cartography.”

60 Paolo Mefalopulos, Development Communication Sourcebook: Broadening the Boundaries of Communication (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2008), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/6439/446360Dev0Comm1ns0handbook01PUBLIC1.pdf?sequence=1.

61 Grade O. Imoh, “Application of Development Communication in Africa’s Rural Development—Need for a Paradigm Shift,” Global Journal of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences 1, no. 4 (2013): 15–33.

62 Ibid.

63 Molefi Kete Asante, “The Classical African Concept of Maat and Human Communication,” in Black/Africana Communication Theory, ed. Kehbuma Langmia (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan), 11–23.

64 Munyaradzi Mawere and Tapuwa R. Mubaya, African Philosophy and Thought Systems: A Search for a Culture and Philosophy of Belonging (Bamenda, Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 2016), 95.

65 Moemeka, “Communalism as a Fundamental Dimension of Culture.”

66 Molefi Kete Asante, “The Classical African Concept of Maat and Human Communication.”

67 Mano and Milton, “Afrokology as a Transdisciplinary Approach.”

68 See the following chapters in Langmia, Black/Africana Communication Theory: Uchenna Onuzulike, “The Igbo Communication Style: Conceptualizing Ethnic Communication Theory,” 41–59; Abdul Karim Bangura, “Kuelekea Nadharia Ujamaa Mawasiliano: Toward a Familyhood Communication Theory,” 61–83; Kehbuma Langmia, “Afro-Cultural Mulatto Communication Theory,” 85–104; Bala A. Musa, “Venerative Speech Theory and African Communalism: A Geo-Cultural Perspective,” 105–23.

69 Molefi Kete Asante, “The Classical African Concept of Maat and Human Communication.”

70 Elza Venter, “The Notion of Ubuntu and Communalism in African Educational Discourse,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 23, nos. 2–3 (2004): 155.

71 Donal Carbaugh, “Cultural Discourse Analysis: Communication Practices and Intercultural Encounters,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 36, no. 3 (2007): 168.

72 The World Bank, “Rural Population (% of Total Population),” 2018 Revision, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS.

73 Eddah M. Mutua, Alberto González, and Anke Wolbert, eds., The Rhetorical Legacy of Wangari Maathai: Planting the Future (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018).

74 Africa Renewal, “Three Women Laureates: Wangari Maathai, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee,” Africa Renewal: Special Edition on Women 2012, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/special-edition-women-2012/three-women-laureates.

75 Leah Jerop Komen, “M-PESA: A Socio-Economic Assemblage in Rural Kenya,” Networking Knowledge 9, no. 5 (2016): 1–12, doi https://doi.org/10.31165/nk.2016.95.458.

76 See Cleophas T. Muneri, “Zimbabwe’s Transition Struggle: The Role of Media and Political Violence in Fueling Intractable Conflict,” in Radical Conflict: Essays on Violence, Intractability, and Communication, ed. Andrew R. Smith (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2016), 109–28; Brian Mutsvairo and Cleophas T. Muneri, Journalism, Democracy, and Human Rights in Zimbabwe (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2019).

77 Laura Dean, “Street Talk: How the Urban Slang of Nairobi Slums Is Becoming the Language of the People,” Slate, November 1, 2013, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/11/sheng-is-becoming-a-kenyan-language-how-the-urban-slang-of-nairobi-slums-is-spreading.html.

78 Kwasi Wiredu, “Our Problem of Knowledge: Brief Reflections on Knowledge and Development in Africa,” in African Philosophy as Cultural Inquiry, ed. Ivan Kerp and D. A. Masolo (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 186.

79 Moemeka, “Communalism as a Fundamental Dimension of Culture.”

80 Wiredu, “Our Problem of Knowledge,” 186.

81 Carbaugh, “Cultural Discourse Analysis,” 168.

82 Ibid.