Key developments in political communication in Africa

Abstract

The major purpose of this study is to conceptualise political communications beyond assessing the role of mass media in election campaigns in Africa. We are concerned with how the media influences participation in political decision-making, production, publication, procession and distribution of media messages among interactive citizens, probing ways through which these mechanisms influence political processes in Africa. We seek to scrutinise, within a pietistic political context, the manipulation of mass media messages, information-censorship techniques among the political elites, the discursive political potential of social media platforms and the plethora of a politicised public opinion, ascertaining end-to-end analysis of the history, rituals, concepts and theoretical insights of political communication within an African context. For several reasons, some of which are conscientiously analysed here, the formal ending of colonialism has been marked by a debilitating delay towards democratisation, with journalists and media professionals seeking to maintain allegiance to the ruling party, which normally controls the media, in return for either political protection or journalistic privileges.