Year: 2015
Type: editorial
Abstract: As of this year, the frequency of the journal will also increase from three to four issues per year, incorporating an annual African Digital Media Review to be edited by Hayes Mabweazara.These developments follow a progression of the journal over the past years as the scope shifted from a strong regional focus on southern Africa to a broader, comparative one which strives to incorporate perspectives from around the continent and, increasingly, between Africa and other parts of the Global South.Also important in the revised aims and scope is that although the point of departure is Africa, the journal does not merely concern itself with a geographical area.Rather, it aspires to provide a platform from which scholars can engage with global debates in the area of journalism studies from the vantage point of Africa -its political, economic and social realities, and the daily lived experience of its people.This means that 'African journalism studies' should be much more than an uncritical application of methods and theories to African case studies -but rather a robust and rigorous engagement with them from a perspective that dares to be radically different.The ultimate objective is not to provide material to support Northern theories, but to contribute to the development of theory and critical methodologies in their own right; not merely to slot into global research agendas, but to help shift the assumptions and questions that underpin them.Such an engagement requires a contextual embeddedness in order to understand journalism as a set of values and practices that cannot be divorced from sets of power relations, steeped in history
Source: African Journalism Studies
Author: Herman Wasserman
Institution: University of Cape Town
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1998596052