The Palgrave Handbook Of Language And Crisis Communication In Sub Saharan Africa

This handbook attempts to fill the gap in empirical scholarship of media and communication research in Africa, from an Africanist perspective. The collection draws on expert knowledge of key media and communication scholars in Africa and the diaspora, offering a counter-narrative to existing Western and Eurocentric discourses of knowledge-production. As the decolonial turn takes centre stage across Africa, this collection further rethinks media and communication research in a post-colonial setting and provides empirical evidence as to why some of the methods conceptualised in Europe will not work in Africa. The result is a thorough appraisal of the current threats, challenges and opportunities facing the discipline on the continent.

Even though sub-Saharan Africa is the region most affected by HIV/AIDS in the world, no new theories have been discovered, and questions about life and death are ignored. This book uses certain selected communication practices to offer the foundations of an African theory of communication, applicable to the crisis of HIV/AIDS.

This edited volume considers why the African language press is unstable and what can be done to develop quality African language journalism into a sustainable business. Providing an overview of the African language journalism landscape, this book examines the challenges of operating sustainable African language media businesses. The chapters explore the political economy and management of African language media and consider case studies of the successes and failures of African language newspapers, as well as the challenges of developing quality journalism. Covering print and digital newspapers and broadcast journalism, this book will be of interest to scholars of media and journalism in Africa.

This book examines the role of language and communication in transforming politics and governance in southern Africa. Interdisciplinary in approach, it covers themes including marketing, political advertising, activism, violence, elections, and the media. It combines theoretical works with individual case studies on Lesotho, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana. It will appeal to all those interested in public policy, governance and political communication, as well as linguistics, media studies and African politics.

This book examines the role of the media and literature in transforming politics and governance in southern Africa. Drawing inspiration from Critical Language Policy theory, it demonstrates how politicians utilise language and the media to legitimate their authority, influence citizens’ behaviour, and how they vote. Interdisciplinary in approach, it covers themes including marketing, political advertising, activism, violence, elections, and the media. It appeals to all those interested in public policy, governance and political communication, as well as linguistics, media studies and African politics.

This book challenges the view that digital communication in Africa is relatively unsophisticated and questions the assumption that digital communication has a damaging effect on indigenous African languages. It offers a paradigm of language merging that provides a blueprint for the decolonization of African languages through digital platforms.

This handbook comprises fresh and incisive research focusing on African media, culture and communication. The chapters from a cross-section of scholars dissect the forces shaping the field within a changing African context. It adds critical corpora of African scholarship and theory that places the everyday worlds, needs and uses of Africans first. 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 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. Altogether, the book foregrounds convivial epistemologies relevant for locating African media and communication in the pluriverse. This handbook is an essential read for critical media, communications, cultural studies and journalism scholars.