African Journalism Studies

Indigenous Language Community Media, Cultural Studies and Participatory Development: Lessons from the African Continent

African indigenous language media and journalism encompass people’s native languages still in existence and extinct among the different African communities wherever they are found; African native physical and spiritual communication systems, media and journalistic forms, and indigenised Western communication systems such as radio, television, print, news broadcasting, film, digital platforms and so on through which African agencies and stories can be showcased. In an edited scholarly compendium, African Language Media, Mpofu, Fadipe and Tshabangu (2023) further describe indigenous language media and journalism as collective tools that Africans use for communication, socialisation and community. Furthermore, much of what has been written in terms of research on indigenous language media in Africa tends to concentrate on themes such as indigenous language extinction (Ngulube, 2012), revitalization (McNulty, 2019; Roy-Campbell, 2019), language policies (Robinson & Vũ, 2019), the role of indigenous language media in education, indigenous language and digitization (Salawu, 2021), indigenous language sustainability, economics, and development (Salawu, 2016), to mention a few. Platforms, such as, radio (Leketanyane et al, 2021), television, (Mpofu et al. 2023), music (Salawu and Fadipe, 2022), theatre, social media networks, and media audiences political economy of minority language radio (Mathe and Motsaathebe, 2023), social media platform and indigenous language media (Mathe, 2024) have been used as reference points for the research conducted in the abovementioned themes. Geographically, interesting insights and scholarly debates have extensively covered Anglo-Saxon regions in Southern Africa, East Africa, and West Africa, with fewer studies coming from areas such as North Africa and Francophone countries in the continent.

In addition, and more thematically, the is a dearth of research interest devoted to Indigenous Language Community Media and Journalism practice in Africa. This is notwithstanding some scattered studies that have emerged over the years where specified and individualised aspects of indigenous language media and journalism are dealt with, although not exhaustively. For example, Chibuwe and Salawu (2020) published a study in AJS, where they found that English Language Newspaper Journalists in Zimbabwe tend to perceive those working in indigenous language press as “rejects” since their craft is less respectable, not lucrative and not worth building a solid career on. Another example is the work by Tshabangu and Salawu (2022), who proposed a new research agenda that calls for works in indigenous language journalism in Africa, after observing that this research area remains under-explored due to lack of scholarly interest, neglect, and an obsession with commercial and mainstream media that use colonial “lingua Franca”, such as English.

Findings from the above case studies, and others more, are interesting, and worth exploring further through deeper and critical exploration. For example, the experience from Zimbabwe requires comparative analysis with other media and journalism platforms, such as radio, television, and alternative media, as well as with other countries in the continent. In addition, arguments from the latter study by Tshabangu and Salawu (2022) echo the need for a much-needed scholarly compendium, in the form of a special journal issue that seeks to curate, synthesise, and collate a corpus of knowledge in Indigenous Language Community media and journalistic practice from the African continent. 

This argument stems from a careful review of the body of knowledge in journals that are relevant for African language media research such as African Journalism Studies (AJS) and Journal of African Media Studies (JAMS). The review has exposed the paucity of research and the scarcity of thematic treatment of this case of ours. Both AJS and JAMS are revered African-based journals that focus on African journalism, media, and communication research.

For example, in AJS, two generic issues (Volumes 30, issue 1 and 2) published in 2009 partially explored African language media scholarship. Yet, none of its 19 special issues from 1989 to 2021 so far has fully focused on African indigenous language media scholarship, considering its role in meaningful participatory development and endangerment due to excessive focus on Western-styled media and colonial languages.

With regards to JAMS, since 2009 to 2024, none of the issues from Volume 1 to Volume 16 have been devoted to African indigenous language media scholarship, although some issues from 2009 to 2024 feature articles that explored some aspects of the field in African media scholarship like language broadcasting, indigenous language films and music, community radio, indigenous African communication systems, and indigenous language newspaper. There is no doubt that focusing more on African indigenous media, and journalism practice would contribute to decolonization and drive the success of African knowledge production that is beginning to surface in African studies scholarship. Moreover, it goes without saying that although AJS has pioneered groundbreaking journalism and media studies research and scholarship in South Africa, and in a more continental context, it is arguable that issues around indigenous language community media, journalism practice, bottom-up participatory development, citizen deliberation, agency, social change and the media have not received enough attention.  

Besides, it is time for AJS to consider a full special issue for this area of communication and media studies, since the last time it investigated some related issues was 16 years ago.

This kind of work, will build upon existing contributions from some scholars who have over the years produced edited volumes, such as, for example, Gunner, Ligaga, and Moyo’s (2011) compendium entitled Radio in Africa: Publics, Cultures, Communities; Garman and Wasserman’s (2017) Media and Citizenship: Between Marginalisation and participation; and more recently, Chiumbu and Motsaathebe’s (2021) Radio, Public life and Citizen Deliberation in South Africa.

The goal of this special issue is to unearth strategies, theoretical insights, and journalistic practices of indigenous language community media and journalism from Africa, as a way of exposing and dispelling myths, such as, indigenous language media and journalism practices are useless, they does not lead to any lucrative career pathways, and make no contribution to the broader information, communication and dissemination ecosystem for indigenous and minoritised communities in Africa.

This could be through unearthing interdisciplinary theoretical approaches that otherwise are under-explored in Indigenous Language Community Media and Journalism practice, including:

·      Development Communication, Participatory Democracy and the Public Sphere,

·      Media Convergence and narratives around the counter-public sphere,

·      Cultural studies, development and indigenous language community media,

·      Audience Participation and Participatory Communication,

·      Afrocentric theoretical approaches to media and cultural studies, and,

·      Decolonisation of Indigenous Language Community Media

In this way, we hope to advance scholarship on this emerging, but nascent research domain, from marginalised and peripheralized locales across the African continent. We are looking for case studies of the African indigenous language community media scholarship, methodologies and collaborations from different regions: West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa, and Northern Africa.     

This call for articles further seeks to invite scholars and practitioners within the indigenous/African language community media space to submit a 500-word abstract of high-quality research articles, centred around, but not limited to, the following themes:

·      African Journalism Practice, Audience Participation, and Participatory Communication

·      African Language Community Media and Journalism practice, Deliberative Democracy and the public sphere

·      Indigenous Language Community Media, Counter-public sphere, and media convergence and

·      Cultural studies, Development, and indigenous language media

·      Afrocentric theoretical approaches to media and cultural studies

·      Participation, the media, and society

·      Postcolonial critiques of media studies and social development

·      Audience consumption, uses and gratification of community media news

·      The role of the practitioner in the African language community media space

·      African indigenous Knowledge systems, community media and content production for a local indigenous audience