Postcolonial and Subaltern Scholarship on Communication in the African Continent

This chapter examines Postcolonial and Subaltern approaches to communication studies in Africa, challenging Eurocentric and American frameworks that have historically dominated the field. Despite growing scholarly interest in de-Westernizing communication, African-centered conceptualizations of communication through postcolonial and subaltern theoretical frameworks have not been fully unpacked. Through a systematic review of research spanning five decades (1974–2024), we analyzed 58 academic works focusing on Africa using JSTOR, EBSCO’s Communication and Mass Media Complete database, and Google Scholar. We employed the Boolean search term “Africa” (in abstract) AND “subaltern” OR “postcolonial.” Our analysis reveals three distinct conceptualizations of communication emerging from African contexts: communication as storytelling, communication as representation, and communication as resistance. Specifically, we highlight how communication practices are embedded in power structures shaped by colonial legacies yet simultaneously serve as vehicles for challenging hegemonic narratives. This work contributes to deepening the scope of communication scholarship by centering marginalized perspectives within the discipline and outlining how this body of work complicates dominant conceptualizations of communication.