Decolonising Communication Studies: Advancing the Discipline Through Fermenting Participation Studies

Exploring data journalism practices in Africa: data politics, media ecosystems and newsroom infrastructures

“…The problems of using a colonial curriculum in journalism education to anchor post-colonial journalism practices are visible in the disjuncture between journalism education and contemporary journalism practices in Africa. Where efforts to factor in local contexts have been made, they have rarely gone beyond the Western cultural sphere of influence (Chasi and Rodny-Gumede, 2018: 107). By arguing for an African-focused training regime and approach to data journalism, we are not arguing for an ‘isolationist approach’ seeking to reject everything Western.…”

Comprehending the Digital Disparities in Africa

“…Decolonization in general terms, refers to the dismantlement of historical injustices associated with colonialism. Scholars who have delved into the decolonial debacle are aplenty (See for example Smith 1999, Shohat, andStam, 2000;Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013;Chasi and Rodny-Gumede 2018). It is important to examine ways through which modernisation, which may come in all shapes and sizes, enjoying the blitz of one-sided marketing escapades, actually propagates structural inequalities among Africans.…”

In the Service of Press Freedom or the Imperial Agenda? Negotiating Repression and Coloniality in Zimbabwean Journalism

“…This paper seeks to offer a critique of different ideas of media freedom and media activism in Zimbabwe. Taking up the challenge to rethink the deployment of theory and methods in African media scholarship, I start by theorising what a decolonial idea of media activism in Zimbabwe today would look like (Mutsvairo, 2018;Moyo andMutsvairo, 2018, Chasi andRodny-Gumede, 2018;Chiumbu, 2016). I then make a historical case based on the competing visions of the normative expectations of Zimbabwean media performance, to illustrate what media freedom has meant in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.…”

“…The Zimbabwean government foresaw this and wanted to pre-empt it. To appreciate how the liberal understanding of media freedom is insufficient for a postcolonial country like Zimbabwe, we need to embrace a decolonial approach (Mutsvairo, 2018;Moyo andMutsvairo, 2018, Chasi andRodny-Gumede, 2018;Chiumbu, 2016). To imagine a decolonial press freedom is to think beyond the current liberal rooted conceptions of media freedom.…”