"Moving beyond the U.S.-Eurocentric paradigm of communication theory, this handbook broadens the intellectual horizons of the discipline by highlighting underrepresented, especially non-Western, theorists and theories, and identifies key issues and challenges for future scholarship. Showcasing diver
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se perspectives, the handbook facilitates active engagement in different cultural traditions and theoretical orientations that are global in scope but local in effect. It begins by exploring past efforts to diversify the field, continuing on to examine theoretical concepts, models, and principles rooted in local cumulative wisdom. It does not limit itself to the mass-interpersonal communication divide, but rather seeks to frame theory as global and inclusive in scope. The book is intended for communication researchers and advanced students, with relevance to scholars with an interest in theory within information science, library science, social and cross-cultural psychology, multicultural education, social justice and social ethics, international relations, development studies, and political science." (Publisher description)
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"This book explores Gandhi's engagement with print news media. It examines how Gandhi, the man and his message, negotiated with the sociopolitical circumstances of his milieu and the methods of communication that he adopted towards this end. It analyses the role that he played in building up alterna
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tive modes of communication in South Africa and India. This volume elucidates his interactions with the colonial communication order and his contestations of the same through various methods that included setting up new journals and newspapers and taking on the role of writer, journalist, editor, and publisher. It unveils Gandhi's engagement with mass media and print journalism, particularly concerning issues of conflict and conflict resolution, as well as social transformation right from his days in London to the last days of his life." (Publisher description)
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"Ûiiti (‘the treatment’) is an Android phone app created by artist duo Greenman Muleh Mbillo, in Kenya, and Dani Ploeger, in the Netherlands. The work is a high-tech iteration of the 'nzevu', a ritual instrument of the Kenyan Akamba tribe. It transforms a smartphone from a networking technology
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with complex modes of interaction into a technology of transcendence with a minimal user interface. Through a constellation of symbolic imagery and the performance of repetitive sonic patterns, the work aims to evoke a heightened experience of the user’s immediate lifeworld." (Abstract)
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"The production of knowledge in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) research has been characterized by an ongoing shift from dominantly Western-based to Indigenous theory formulations. This editorial puts forward core concepts in the decolonization of ICT4D, arguing that
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these are fundamental to the creation, reading, and interpretation of ICT4D know ledge. Drawing on a decolonial read of the articles published in Vol. 28.3, we advance the argument that decolonizing ICT4D, rather than simply a means to read and analyze data, is an emancipatory practice to be adopted in an open challenge to Western-centric modes of doing ICT4D research." (Abstract)
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"In an era marked by an unprecedented refugee crisis and ongoing, seemingly unending, borderland conflicts, foreign correspondents could play a pivotal role in helping create a global public sphere that incorporates the perspectives of those who are most effected by ongoing resource-fueled wars—an
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d least powerful. However, aspects of the historical development of foreign correspondence, as well as contemporary practices, do not allow the profession to reach this potential. Borderland takes insights from postcolonial studies, international relations, development studies, and philosophy and uses the site of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping presence, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as its case study. It examines the specific narrative styles, and news-gathering habits in these complex spaces and discovers neocolonial practices stymying ethical praxis. Brought to life through the autoethnographic descriptions and analysis of ‘behind the scenes’ events, Borderland seeks to introduce new, decolonized reporting techniques. And it argues for reporting that explores how local realities are impacted by global discourses. In a digital world where people access news direct from conflict zones, the role and value of foreign correspondents must be questioned. Borderland answers that question by proposing decolonized foundations from which foreign correspondents can be the storytellers needed in today’s global polity." (Publisher description)
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"This book advances alternative approaches to understanding media, culture and technology in two vibrant regions of the Global South. Bringing together scholars from Africa and the Caribbean, it traverses the domains of communication theory, digital technology strategy, media practice reforms, and c
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orporate and cultural renewal. The first section tackles research and technology with new conceptual thinking from the South. The book then looks at emerging approaches to community digital networks, online diaspora entertainment, and video gaming strategies. The volume then explores reforms in policy and professional practice, including in broadcast television, online newspapers, media philanthropy, and business news reporting. Its final section examines the role of village-based folk media, the power of popular music in political opposition, and new approaches to overcoming neo-colonial propaganda and external corporate hegemony." (Publisher description)
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"This book examines the afterlife of decolonization in the collective memory of the Netherlands. It offers a new perspective on the cultural history of representing the decolonization of the Dutch East Indies, and maps out how a contested collective memory was shaped. Taking a transdisciplinary appr
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oach and applying several theoretical frames from literary studies, sociology, cultural anthropology and film theory, the author reveals how mediated memories contributed to a process of what he calls “unremembering.” He analyses in detail a broad variety of sources, including novels, films, documentaries, radio interviews, memoires and historical studies, to reveal how five decades of representing and remembering decolonization fed into an unremembering by which some key notions were silenced or ignored. The author concludes that historians, or the historical guild, bear much responsibility for the unremembering of decolonization in Dutch collective memory." (Publisher description)
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"African Communication Systems and the Digital Age contextualizes communication by bringing to the table African contributions to the field, examining the importance of African indigenous forms of communication and the intersection of African communication systems and the digital age. The book cover
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s various concepts, models, theories and classifications of African communication systems, including instrumental communication, types of African music and their communication properties, indigenous writing systems, non-verbal communication, and mythological communication. Through careful analysis of communication in Africa, this book provides insights into the various modes of communication in use prior to the advent of traditional and new media as well as their continued relevance in the digital age." (Publisher description)
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"This book brings together twelve contributions that trace the empirical-conceptual evolution of Popular Communication, associating it mainly with the context of inequalities in Latin America and with the creative and collective appropriation of communication and knowledge technologies as a strategy
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of resistance and hope for marginalized social groups. In this way, even while emphasizing the Latin American and even ancestral identity of this current of thought, this book positions it as an epistemology of the South capable of inspiring relevant reflections in an increasingly unequal and mediatized world. The volume's contributors include both early-career and established professionals and natives of seven countries in Latin America." (Publisher description)
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"The book goes beyond critiques of the marginality of African approaches in media and communication studies to offer scholars the theoretical and empirical toolkit needed to start building critical corpora of African scholarship and theory that places the everyday worlds, needs and uses of Africans
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first. Decoloniality demands new epistemological interventions in African media, culture and communication, and this book is an important interlocutor in this space. In a globally interconnected world, changing patterns of authority and power pose new challenges to the ways in which media institutions are constituted and managed, as well as how communication and media policy is negotiated and the manner in which citizens engage with increasing media opportunities. The handbook focuses on the interrelationships of the local and the global and the concomitant consequences for media practice, education and citizen engagement in today’s Africa." (Publisher description)
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"Motivated by a 2014 Constitutional Court opinion that under Zimbabwe’s new constitution of 2013, freedom of expression might have to be considered as subordinate to human dignity, the study analyses the implications of this on journalistic practice. The study argues that such a move would undermi
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ne watchdog journalism, thereby limiting people’s freedom of expression right to receive information. This is based on a textual analysis of Zimbabwe’s freedom of expression jurisprudence, which shows that currently the odds are in favour of protecting the reputation of those in power. Thus, subordinating freedom of expression to human dignity might mean worsening an already bad situation." (Abstract)
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"This study interrogates the conventional understanding of and practice within mediated climate change communication (CCC) as a forum where transformative ideas on sustainability practices are shaped. Besides the dominance of non-African contexts and epistemologies in literature analyzing the media-
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climate change and public nexus, there is little attention given to problematizing public engagement. Common assumption pitches “the public” on the one side and “the communicator” on the other side. This bifurcated model of “communicating” climate change has import for the forms of subjectivity in climate (in)action, including a weakened citizenship representation in climate discourse and the de-pluralization of ideas. This study argues that for people to be actually engaged in climate campaigns, it is important to draw attention to what understanding of “person” and “community” undergird current CCC practice. The work draws insights from African political theories and communication studies to position CCC toward inclusive public engagement." (Abstract)
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"Narratives about Africa are often shaped by deficit discourses that frame “development” as an instrument for advancing the interests of global capitalism. From within this neoliberal view, Africa has to “catch up” to and “be taught” how to emulate and achieve the standards promulgated i
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n mainstream media. Through the lens of an alternative realism, however, such narratives can be reshaped. The African philosophy of ubuntu is one example of a deeply relational ethic from within which development can be reconceptualized as “freedom” in terms of democratic ideals and which can be used as a guiding principle for media work and the refashioning of (reality television) images." (Abstract)
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"Today’s discourses on Africa are manifold – as manifold as the images we have of everyday life there. Both are fed by a Western narrative that saddles the “Black Continent” with all kinds of clichés – whether the stuff of dreams or of nightmares. In images that are at times documentary,
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at times artistic, these nine photographers from Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Africa provide a picture of the self-assurance and the vitality of the people in their respective home country. In particular, they tell stories that stem from their immediate surroundings: they tell of everyday life in Africa’s cities and industry, they trace remnants of the past, and they portray strands of popular culture. Their topics include the mining industry’s mixed legacy in South Africa, the impact of environmental pollution, life in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the atmosphere inside Algeria’s football stadiums. The desire to rethink Africa and, above all, to retell its stories is a leitmotif for all of the participating photographers. With its powerful pictorial narratives, this exhibition generates a fascinating dialogue between different cultures." (https://voelklinger-huette.org)
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"Noch immer wird Afrika mit Stereotypen behaftet, die Unterentwicklung und Armut hervorheben. Und noch immer werden die Perspektiven des Kontinents an westlichen Fortschrittsmaßstäben gemessen, selbst wenn sich diese längst als unbrauchbar, wenn nicht gar zerstörerisch erwiesen haben. Felwine Sa
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rr fordert eine Entkolonialisierung Afrikas, die auch auf die Kolonialzeit zurückgehende Institutionen und Handelsbeziehungen überwindet. Dabei verkennt er nicht die hausgemachten Probleme wie Misswirtschaft und Korruption. Doch könnten diese Probleme nur durch ein umfassenderes Verständnis ihrer Ursachen und nur durch die Afrikanerinnen und Afrikaner selbst gelöst werden. Er entwickelt in seinem Manifest eine Vision, wie eine eigene Form afrikanischen Fortschritts gelingen könnte - durch Entscheidungsautonomie und ein selbst gewähltes Entwicklungstempo. Langfristig könne eine afrikanische Kulturrevolution auch neue Ansätze für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung an anderen Orten der Welt liefern." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"This book develops a nuanced decolonial critique that calls for the decolonization of media and communication studies in Africa and the Global South. Last Moyo argues that the academic project in African Media Studies and other non-Western regions continues to be shaped by Western modernity's histo
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ries of imperialism, colonialism, and the ideologies of Eurocentrism and neoliberalism. While Africa and the Global South dismantled the physical empire of colonialism after independence, the metaphysical empire of epistemic and academic colonialism is still intact and entrenched in the postcolonial university's academic programmes like media and communication studies. To address these problems, Moyo argues for the development of a Southern theory that is not only premised on the decolonization imperative, but also informed by the cultures, geographies, and histories of the Global South. The author recasts media studies within a radical cultural and epistemic turn that locates future projects of theory building within a decolonial multiculturalism that is informed by trans-cultural and trans-epistemic dialogue between Southern and Northern epistemologies." (Publisher description)
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"Defends the position that, despite the supposed "lessons" that have been learned about the spread of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) after the 2013-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, there remains a need to "decolonize" the rhetorics of Ebola prevention and containment. The author asserts that the failure
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of governments, aid organizations, and global media to confront the structural and material legacies of colonialism in West Africa will prevent global communities from adequately dealing with sporadic Ebola outbreaks. Central to the book's argument is that far too many communities in the "global North" are unwilling to spend the hundreds of billions of dollars that are needed for the prevention of endemic and epidemic diseases in the "global South." Instead of coping with the impoverished legacies of colonialism, organizations like the World Health Organization support the use of small groups of "Ebola hunters" who swoop down during crises and put out EVD outbreaks using emergency health techniques. The author demonstrates how Western-oriented ways of dealing with EVD have made it difficult to convince West African populations-wary of emergency interventions after a long history of colonial medical experimentation in Africa--that those in the West truly care about the prevention of the next Ebola outbreak. Decolonizing Ebola Rhetorics ultimately argues that as long as global journalists and elite public health officials continue to blame bats, bushmeat, or indigenous burial practices for the spread of Ebola, the necessary decolonization of Ebola rhetorics will be forestalled. The author concludes the book by offering critiques of the real lessons that are learned by those who try to securitize or military Ebola containment efforts." (Back cover)
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"This edited volume gives voice to pluralised avenues from visual communication and cultural studies regarding the Global South and beyond, including examples from China, India, Cambodia, Brazil, Mexico and numerous other countries. Defining visual communication and culture as an umbrella term that
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encompasses imagery studies, the moving image and non-verbal visual communication, the first three chapters of the book describe de-Westernisation discourse as a way to strengthen emic research and the Global South as both a geographical concept and, even more so, a category of diversity and pluralism. The subsequent regional case study-based chapters draw on various emic theories and methodologies and find a complex arrangement of visuality between sociocultural and sociopolitical practices and institutions." (Publisher description)
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"Author Bagele Chilisa updates her groundbreaking textbook to give a new generation of scholars a crucial foundation in indigenous methods, methodologies, and epistemologies. Addressing the increasing emphasis in the classroom and in the field to sensitize researchers and students to diverse perspec
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tives - especially those of women, minority groups, former colonized societies, indigenous people, historically oppressed communities, and people with disabilities, the second edition of Indigenous Research Methodologies situates research in a larger, historical, cultural, and global context to make visible the specific methodologies that are commensurate with the transformative paradigm of social science research." (Publisher description)
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