Provincializing hegemonic histories of media and communication studies: toward a genealogy of epistemic resistance in Africa

Willems, Wendy ORCID: 0000-0002-9185-4268 (2014) Provincializing hegemonic histories of media and communication studies: toward a genealogy of epistemic resistance in Africa. Communication Theory, 24 (4). 415 - 434. ISSN 1050-3293

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Abstract

In the late 1990s and 2000s, a number of calls were made by scholars to “internationalize” or “dewesternize” the field of media and communication studies. I argue that these approaches have indirectly silenced a much longer disciplinary history outside “the West” that has not only produced empirical knowledge but has also actively challenged Western epistemologies. This article seeks to reinscribe the epistemological and historical foundations of media and communication studies in Africa. By framing the research of African media and communication scholars within the changing nature of knowledge production, shifting power relations between African nations, and the evolving role of African universities, I demonstrate how academic knowledge production is frequently driven and constrained by particular dominant social, political, and economic interests.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14682885
Additional Information:	© 2014 International Communication Association
Divisions:	Media and Communications
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Date Deposited:	07 Jul 2014 08:38
Last Modified:	21 Nov 2024 03:51
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/57528

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