Decolonising Political Communication in Africa (original) (raw)
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Ekoaɗo: An African approach to decolonising communication research and practice
Decolonising Media and Communication Studies Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2024
This chapter explores the pervasive influence of Whiteness in communication studies and advocates for the decolonization of the field through the incorporation of Africa-centered epistemologies. It introduces Ekoaɗo, an ontological and epistemological concept rooted in the Oroko culture of Cameroon, as an alternative framework for understanding communication. Ekoaɗo challenges the dominant Euro-American models that prioritize individualism and the separation of speaker and message, proposing instead that communication is an embodied process of mutual recognition and acceptance within a community. By emphasizing the collective over the individual, Ekoaɗo redefines communication as a relational act that actualizes both the self and others through communal interaction. The chapter critiques the colonial legacies embedded in communication scholarship and pedagogy, arguing that the field's current frameworks perpetuate racial hierarchies and exclude non-Western voices. It calls for reevaluating communication theories and practices to include diverse perspectives and offers Ekoaɗo as a model for creating a more inclusive and democratized discipline. Through this decolonial lens, the chapter seeks to expand the field of communication studies to better reflect and serve the diverse experiences and knowledge systems of the Global South.
Review of Communication , 2021
In this introductory essay to the first of two themed issues, "(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives," we explore the decolonial potential of African perspectives in communication studies. African knowledge systems have something to teach, regardless of whether the West is listening. And yet, in the discipline of communication studies, the vast continent and its knowledge systems barely hold a presence. African knowledge systems are easily denied because of the ways that neocolonialism, coloniality, and global anti-Blackness structure Western ontologies and epistemologies. Therefore, we ask: What kind of epistemological decolonization is required in communication studies for the discipline to take African knowledge systems seriously? This Introduction creates a groundwork for interventions by examining the array of work that has already been done in service of the decolonial African communication studies project and the future possibilities of African communication studies.
Decoloniality and the push for African media and communication studies
2021
Media and communication are integral to politics, culture, economies, societies and everyday life. The teaching and research of media and communication involves making sense of the ways in which we communicate as well as accounting for the impact of media and technology on society. It entails investigating how people, communities and institutions influence the media and how media and communication technologies themselves shape social relations. As a result, media and communication are implicated in the constitution of power relations and exercise of power. Media power and political power, for example, combine in ways that, amongst other things, shape and direct geopolitical contestations informing politics, culture and knowledge in the academy. It can thus be noted that media and communication are implicated in specific agendas that can result in the marginalisation of those without power. The media are an important means for understanding centers of power that must be questioned an...
The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South
The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South, 2020
"This very interesting and potentially controversial book begs for a robust and honest discussion in media and communication studies. It argues for the decolo-nization of the field through what Last Moyo refers to as the decolonial turn, a turn he argues, should bring about cognitive justice in the field and relocate the project of theory building from Western universalism to decolonial multicultur-alism emerging from the decolonial thinking of media scholars in both the Global North and the Global South. A very powerful and no holds barred critique."-Professor Helge Rønning, Professor Emeritus, Media and Communication Studies, University of Oslo, Norway "This book is a unique theoretical contribution to the de-Westernising and multi-culturalism debates in media and communication studies. It adds a fresh and robust African voice to the contemporary debates about the theoretical directions of our field. Last Moyo provides a new critical imagination which goes beyond Africa as he both rethinks and unthinks the field within conditions of the Global South. Moyo asks if the South can produce its own radical critical media theory informed by its colonial subalternity in the Euro-American world system? His answer, based on a deep reflection and critical engagement with current debates, is deep, conceptually nuanced, and impressively optimistic."-Dr. Winston Mano, Reader in Media and Communication Studies, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of African Media Studies; University of Westminster, United Kingdom "With this book, Last Moyo has added a powerful and unequivocal voice to the project of the decolonization of media and communication studies. With a multi-cultural and non-partisan lens, the book provides us a deep gaze into the knowledge politics of the interdiscipline. This work represents a bold statement from Moyo about the significance of decolonizing media and communication studies for a true multicultural theory. This effort deserves our resounding applause."-Professor Abiodun Salawu,
Media and Communication Theory in Africa
Palgrave Macmillan: Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2023
Critical and cultural theories are not mutually exclusive; yet, they can be distinctive depending on the focus of enquiry. For this reason, the consensus among scholars is that critical and cultural theories are not one unified theory of reality (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2011). The theories draw from several disciplines that include economics, philosophy, politics, psychology, psychoanalysis, culture and a host of others. However, there is no doubt that the basis for any critical theoretical framework is grounded in the works of Karl Heinrich Marx, the German philosopher and economist. Karl Marx’s writings concern the economic sphere where the control of factors of production (land, capital and labour) is in the hands of a few that breed class structure and inequality in societies (Boyer, 2018). Marx’s perspective stands against capitalism which he labelled as exploitative in nature and detrimental to the masses. This chapter interrogates critical cultural theories through the juxtaposition of African standpoint and the foreign dominance of African culture. To do this, data from existing literature was used with critical cultural theories serving as the framework. Based on the findings that show the prevalence of foreign dominance in virtually all aspects of African culture, the author contends that African scholars must be more critical of foreign dominance if African identity, sovereignty, and dignity are to be preserved.
Hostile Political Communication: Triadic Examples from Africa
Political Communication in Africa, 2017
The dimension taken by this chapter is unique in that it surpasses the conventional prisms of verbal communication connecting elections, campaigns, songs, films, religion, culture, diplomacy, etc. adopted by the very few scholars who have directly tackled the discourse on political communication since its appearance in the academic field of Political Science in the later part of the twentieth century by additionally hinging on nonverbal, symbolic communication connecting violence in society. By historically exploring a triad of examples addressing violence as means of communication between government and the governed through the underpinning of communication theory, the chapter argues that communication between government and the governed in Africa is characterized by hostility deeply rooted in a disconnect occasioned by factors of ethnicity and leadership legitimacy, among others. The chapter concludes by recommending more viable and peaceful means of communication between the studied groups.
Communication Technology and African Politics
Oxford Research Encyclopaedia, Politics, 2019
From global amplifications of local protests on social media to disinformation campaigns and transformative state surveillance capabilities, digital communications are changing the ways in which politics works in Africa and how and with whom power accrues. Yet while digital information technology and media are relatively new, the role of communication in state power and resistance on the continent is not. The "digital revolution" provokes us to better account for this past to understand a rapidly changing present. From language and script, to print and broadcast, to mobile applications and digital databases, how information is circulated, processed, and stored is central to political power on the African continent. The story of political change in Africa cannot be told without attention to how power manifests with and through changes in the technologies that enable these communication practices. A communication technology perspective on the study of politics in Africa provides a more sober analysis of how power relations circumscribe the possibilities of political change than more normative approaches would. Even so, a communication approach allows for social and ideational factors to mix with material ones in ex plaining the possibilities of such change. Communication technologies have been central to what political actors in Africa from the precolonial past to the early 21st century can and cannot do, and to how political change comes about. Explorations across time, political era, and technological development in Africa allow us to unpack this relationship.