The Decolonial Turn in Media Studies in Africa and the Global South

 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 histories 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.

Last Moyo has produced a refreshingly bold book that stretches the theoretical and methodological boundaries of the decolonising/de-Westernising media studies debate beyond the familiar frayed discourses emerging from Western scholarship. He cogently presents hitherto unseen insights that not only challenge established disciplinary boundaries but also usher in new ways of (re)imagining the theory and praxis of the decolonial turn in media studies. The book daringly presents an unapologetic critique of the pervasive intellectual imbalances in which the Global South is predominantly treated as a reservoir of raw fact, and often made to fit the theories and truths produced on the basis of Euro-American knowledge. It stresses the centrality of diversity and difference, and the need to engage with epistemologies, methods and pedagogies from a wide range of backgrounds by deploying multiple ways of knowing that are truly representative of different kinds of canonical knowledge. The book is thus not only a valuable effort towards decolonizing media and communication studies; but also delivers thoughtful arguments about why a close understanding of on-the-ground, lived intellectual and material realities of the Global South is mandatory if we are to refine the normative visions of media and communication. This is undoubtedly a classic book, and a must read for all scholars committed to challenging hegemonic forms of knowledge in mainstream scholarship as well as anyone committed towards building democratic and respectful North-South conversations in media and communication studies.

Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara, Glasgow University Media Group, University of Glasgow, UK & Associate Editor, Journalism Studies & African Journalism Studies

Last Moyo lectures in the Department of Communications and Multimedia Design at the American University, Nigeria. His research interests are in global media, comparative media, critical and political economy studies, and digital media studies. His work appears in journals such as African Journalism Studies, International Journal of Communication, Telematics and Informatics, and Journalism, among others. Moyo earned his PhD in Media Studies from the University of Wales, UK.