African Journalism Studies: Mapping four Decades of African Journalism and Media Research

It has been four decades since this journal—then known as Equid Novi—made its debut on what was then a nascent field of journalism and communication studies in South Africa. By all accounts, the 1980s were tumultuous moments in the country’s political economy, and naturally journalism played key roles mediating these, for the better or worse. Within the academy, the disciplines of journalism, communication science and to a lesser extent fields of study such as media studies were fairly burgeoning, and were characterised by the political and ideological chasms and contestations between the English and Afrikaans institutions in which they were located. Against this background, Equid Novi presented itself as a platform for intellectual debate and “sparring”, not just within academe, but also between the researchers and journalism practitioners. No such platform existed at the time. Over the years, and with South Africa’s reintegration into the African and global political economy post-1994, the journal grew to become one of the leading spaces for research within media studies broadly, increasingly attracting both established and emerging researchers from across the African continent (including the MENA region). In this anniversary issue, we carry an interesting mix of research articles and commentaries that range from reflections on the history of journalism and media studies/communication studies in South Africa, the current debates on decolonisation of journalism, the current scourge of disinformation, the politics of media policy and regulation, and so on. Keyan Tomaselli’s autoethnography on the South African Communication Association (Sacomm) offers a critical reflection not just on the history of what has grown to become Southern Africa’s biggest annual gathering of media and communication researchers, but also the development of natural links between an academic journal of standing and an academic disciplinary association. As one of the key figures in the history of the discipline of communication studies in South Africa, Tomaselli’s personal recollection provides an invaluable window through which present and future students and scholars of South African and African media and communication studies catch a glimpse of the historical contestations, fissures and debates that shaped the development of the discipline. At the same time—and importantly so—Tomaselli is careful to declare his subjectivities, characterising his account as being “like being a fly in the soup” rather than pretending to be the proverbial, objective “fly on the wall”.