[Commlist] Call for Book Chapters: Communication Rights in Africa: Emerging Discourses and Perspectives

*Call for Book Chapters*

*Communication Rights in Africa: Emerging Discourses and Perspectives*

**

Editors:*Tendai Chari (PhD), Senior Lecturer,*University of Venda, South 
Africa

Email: (tendai.chari /at/ univen.ac.za) <mailto:(tendai.chari /at/ univen.ac.za)>



*Ufuoma Akpojivi*,*(PhD) Associate Professor*and Head of Department, 
University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Email: (Ufuoma.Akpojivi /at/ wits.ac.za) <mailto:(Ufuoma.Akpojivi /at/ wits.ac.za)>


Communication rights has been an integral component of the human rights 
discourse for the longest of time (Hamelink, 1994; 2004a; 2004b, UNESCO, 
1980; O’Siochru, 2005; CRIS, 2005; Alegre & O’Siochru, 2005). Approaches 
to the role of communications differ significantly across cultures, not 
least because communication rights encompass a multiplicity of rights. 
Compounding this conundrum is a persistent impasse regarding what 
communication rights entail in post-colonial contexts such as Africa, 
who should protect them, how and against whom and how existing rights 
relate to broader communication rights in a digital context.  Jean d’ 
Arcy, is credited for making the first explicit reference the ‘the right 
to communicate’ in 1969 (O’Siochru, 2005). Back then proponents of the 
communication rights within the New World Information and Communication 
Order (NWICO) debate arena pivoted their demands around democratization 
of the global media system and a balanced information flow between the 
Global North and the Global South, which were crystalized in the 4Ds; 
Development; Democratization, Decolonization, and De-monopolization 
(Hamelink, 1994). African nations also expressed disquiet about 
increased cultural homogenization, misrepresentation of minority 
cultures, media commercialism and increased concentration. While 
communication rights and its more politicized variant, ‘the right to 
communicate’ had receded to the backburner after the ‘death’ of the 
NWICO debate, the new reality spawned by the digital revolution has 
re-ignited attention on a host of concerns which hark back to earlier 
demands by African nations to rethink the justness of the global media 
information distribution system. While many of the controversies 
associated with NWICO persist through discursive constructions that 
mimic earlier notions of the right to communicate, new issues, 
challenges, questions (and players) linked to interactivity, 
connectivity and inter-operability in the context of the digital 
environment have emerged (Musiani, et al 2009).  A range of new human 
rights such as citizens’ right to access digital infrastructures such as 
the #DataMustfall campaign in South Africa in 2016 speak to the new and 
evolving expressions of citizenship in the context of digitality 
(Oyedemi, 2015).  On the one hand, the open architecture of digital 
media has facilitated the subaltern to partake in national conversations 
and to assert their cultural identities. On the other hand, challenges 
of Internet connectivity and exclusionary business practices such 
astronomical prices of data and gadgets threaten prospects for 
inclusivity in the digital sphere. Serious concerns have also raised 
questions about the spread of fake news, misinformation, disinformation 
and hate speech on social media networks and how these in turn subvert 
the rights of others and what legitimate regulatory measures can be 
implemented by the state without undercutting the rights of citizens. 
Balancing communication rights and other human rights within a digital 
environment is a delicate exercise, as some African governments, in 
their attempt to curtail the spread of fake news, hate speech and 
critical voices have either shutdown internet services (Mare 2020) or 
formulated restrictive regulatory mechanisms as witnessed in Uganda, 
Ethiopia, Nigeria amongst others (see Olaniyan and Akpojivi 2021).  
Also, concerns about the intensification of commodification of 
information propelled by the dominance of the neo-liberalism market 
system have heightened demands for the right to self-expression and 
equal access to digital technologies and infrastructures in the context 
of an ever-increasing digital divide. The extent to which communication 
should be geared towards preservation of national identity and national 
development in Africa resonates with the NWICO discourse, but also 
connects with contemporary demands for decolonization of communication 
through protection of cultural diversity in a context where indigenous 
African cultures are increasingly marginalized while dissenting voices 
are jettisoned from public discourses (Article 19, 2003; Anawalt, 1994). 
The ever-expanding range of issues encompassed within the communication 
rights discourse, particularly within the African context, where freedom 
of expression, corporatization of the media and with state repression 
obfuscate understanding of what constitutes communication rights, who 
should protect them and how. This edited volume contributes to the 
understanding of the multiple dimensions of the communication rights 
discourse from an African perspective. We invite contributions that 
explore residual and emerging discourses around the content, conception, 
conversations, implementation, institutions and actors within the 
communication rights discourse.We are particularly interested in 
original contributions that tackle these issues using a broad range of 
theoretical and methodological approaches. The abstract must clearly 
state the objectives of the study, the theoretical framework and the 
methodological approaches to be deployed. Possible topics include, but 
are not limited to:

·The human rights based approach to communication in Africa

·Communication rights offline and online in Africa

·Free-flow of information and communication rights

·Freedom of expression as a communication right

·The right to privacy, surveillance capitalism and communication rights

·Social media and activism, clicktivism

·Digital citizenship: rights and advocacy

·Digital Activism and social movements

·Internet shutdowns/censorship

·Internet rights, universal access to the Internet

·Politics of digital infrastructures

·Communication rights and digital monopolies

·Public Service media and communication rights

·Media regulation and communication rights

·Rights -based approach to journalism

·Investigative journalism and communication rights

·Communication rights for social bots

·Mainstream Journalism and human rights

·Media representations/misrepresentation and communication rights

·Digital piracy and communication rights

·Intellectual property rights

·Citizen journalism as a human right

·User-content comments and communication rights

·Open access publishing and communication rights

· Content Sharing, Wikis and communication rights

·The Knowledge Movement and Communication rights

·Language rights and the media

·Communication Rights and Indigenous Knowledge Systems

·Communication rights and decoloniality

*Abstracts and biographies*

Abstracts should be between 400 and 500 words.

Abstracts should be emailed as word (toTendai.Chari /at/ univen.ac.za) and 
(Ufuoma.Akpojivi /at/ wits.ac.za) 
<mailto:(Tendai.Chari /at/ univen.ac.za)(%20and%20Ufuoma.Akpojivi /at/ wits.ac.za)>

Biographies should not be more than 200 words

*Length of Articles*

Articles should not be more than 7000 words including references

Reference Style: Harvard

*Important Dates*

Deadline for Accepting Abstracts:  15 December 2021

Notification for Accepted Abstracts:  31 January 2022

Deadline for Full Papers: 30^April 2022

Expected Date of Publication: 31 October 2022

*Targeted Publisher: Routledge*

**

*References*

Alegre, Alain and O’Siochru, Sean (2005) “Communication Rights”. In A 
Ambros, V Peugeot and D. Pimienta (Eds.) World Matters: Multicultural 
Perspectives on Information Societies, pp475-502. Caen: C&F Publishers.

Anawalt, C. Howard (1984) The Right to Communicate. Denver Journal of 
International Law & Policy, 13(2): 219-236.

D’ Arcy, Jean (1969) Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Right to 
Communicate. EBU Review, 118, 14-18.

Hamelink Cees and Hoffman Julia (2008) The State of the Right to 
Communicate./Global Media Journal,/7(13) 1-16.

Hamelink, Cees (2004) Did WSIS Achieve Anything at all?/Gazette: The 
International Journal for Communication Studies,/66(3-4):281-290.

Hamelink, Cees (2004) Towards a Human Right to Communicate./Canadian 
Journal of Communication,/29: 205-212.

Mare, Admire (2020) State-Ordered Internet Shutdowns and Digital 
Authoritarianism in Zimbabwe./International Journal of Communication/, 
14: 4244-4263.

Musiani, Francesca, Pava Elena and Padovani Claudia (2009) Investigating 
Discourses on Human Rights in the Digital Age: Emerging Norms and Policy 
Challenges. International Association for Media and Communication 
Research (IAMCR, Annual Congress on “Human Rights and Communication”, 
July 2009, Mexico: Mexico, pp359-378.

Olaniyan, Akintola and Akpojivi, Ufuoma. (2021). Transforming 
Communication, Social Media, Counter-Hegemony and the Struggle for the 
Soul of Nigeria./Information, Communication & Society,/24 (3): 422-437.

O’Siochru, Sean (2005) Assessing Communication Rights: A Handbook. New 
York: CRIS.

Oyedemi, Toks (2015) Internet Access as Citizen’s Right? Citizenship in 
the Digital Age./Citizenship Studies/, 19 (3-4); 450-464.

UNESCO (1980) Many Voices One World. UNESCO: Paris.



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