Decoloniality and the push for African media and communication studies

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 and challenged. From an academic point of view, the area of media and communication can be an entry into contemporary debates about marginalised and silenced epistemologies and ontologies.