Communication Studies in Africa: The Case for a Paradigm Shift for the 21st Century

Abstract

The paradigm for communication education in African universities has historically revolved around a mass communication or media-centered perspective. This orientation of the discipline in the African continent resulted from structural forces that derived from historical legacies rooted in Africa’s colonial past as well as the theoretical attraction of the mass media as agents of change. Additionally, the need to train university graduates for careers in journalism,broadcasting, public relations, and advertising has helped to entrench this paradigm as the cornerstone of communication education in Africa. Elsewhere however the discipline has experienced widespread growth in humancommunication specialties in such areas as intercultural communication, speech communication, interpersonal communication and others. This paper argues for a paradigm shift asserting that the time is ripe for the discipline at African universities to expand by shifting towards greater emphasis on human communication. Such a transformation would permit better understanding of the African communication environment as well as enable scholars to better respond, from a communication perspective, to the challenges of development in such areas as conflict resolution and, interethnic disputes among others. To achieve this, it is suggested that a consortium of communication scholars and other stakeholders convene to engage in discussions on new ways of thinking about communication education. The dialogue would need to be sensitive to past forces that have catalyzed change in meaningful directions.

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