[Commlist] New Special Issue in African Journalism Studies on Indigenous Language Community Media, Cultural Studies and Participatory Development: Lessons from the African Continent

*Call for Papers (**Special Issue in African Journalism Studies): *
*Indigenous Language Community Media, Cultural Studies and Participatory 
Development: Lessons from the African Continent*
*
*
*NB: No APC will be charged to Authors *
*
*
*Guest Editors: Dr Tshepang Molale (University of the Witwatersrand, 
South Africa), Dr Israel Fadipe (Augustine University, Nigeria), Dr 
Phillip Mpofu (North-West University, South Africa), & Prof Abiodun 
Salawu (North-West University, South Africa)*

*Context*

African indigenous language media and journalism encompass people’s 
native languages still in existence and extinct among the different 
African communities wherever they are found; African native physical and 
spiritual communication systems, media and journalistic forms, and 
indigenised Western communication systems such as radio, television, 
print, news broadcasting, film, digital platforms and so on through 
which African agencies and stories can be showcased. In an edited 
scholarly compendium, /African Language Media, /Mpofu, Fadipe and 
Tshabangu (2023) further describe indigenous language media and 
journalism as collective tools that Africans use for communication, 
socialisation and community. Furthermore, much of what has been written 
in terms of research on indigenous language media in Africa tends to 
concentrate on themes such as indigenous language extinction (Ngulube, 
2012), revitalization (McNulty, 2019; Roy-Campbell, 2019), language 
policies (Robinson & Vũ, 2019), the role of indigenous language media in 
education, indigenous language and digitization (Salawu, 2021), 
indigenous language sustainability, economics, and development (Salawu, 
2016), to mention a few. Platforms, such as, radio (Leketanyane et al, 
2021), television, (Mpofu et al. 2023), music (Salawu and Fadipe, 2022), 
theatre, social media networks, and media audiences political economy of 
minority language radio (Mathe and Motsaathebe, 2023), social media 
platform and indigenous language media (Mathe, 2024) have been used as 
reference points for the research conducted in the abovementioned 
themes. Geographically, interesting insights and scholarly debates have 
extensively covered Anglo-Saxon regions in Southern Africa, East Africa, 
and West Africa, with fewer studies coming from areas such as North 
Africa and Francophone countries in the continent.

In addition, and more thematically, the is a dearth of research interest 
devoted to Indigenous Language Community Media and Journalism practice 
in Africa. This is notwithstanding some scattered studies that have 
emerged over the years where specified and individualised aspects of 
indigenous language media and journalism are dealt with, although not 
exhaustively. For example, Chibuwe and Salawu (2020) published a study 
in AJS, where they found that English Language Newspaper Journalists in 
Zimbabwe tend to perceive those working in indigenous language press as 
“rejects” since their craft is less respectable, not lucrative and not 
worth building a solid career on. Another example is the work by 
Tshabangu and Salawu (2022), who proposed a new research agenda that 
calls for works in indigenous language journalism in Africa, after 
observing that this research area remains under-explored due to lack of 
scholarly interest, neglect, and an obsession with commercial and 
mainstream media that use colonial “lingua Franca”, such as English.


The goal of this special issue is to unearth strategies, theoretical 
insights, and journalistic practices of indigenous language community 
media and journalism from Africa, as a way of exposing and dispelling 
myths, such as, indigenous language media and journalism practices are 
useless, they does not lead to any lucrative career pathways, and make 
no contribution to the broader information, communication and 
dissemination ecosystem for indigenous and minoritised communities in 
Africa.

This could be through unearthing interdisciplinary theoretical 
approaches that otherwise are under-explored in Indigenous Language 
Community Media and Journalism practice, including:

·Development Communication, Participatory Democracy and the Public Sphere,

·Media Convergence and narratives around the counter-public sphere,

·Cultural studies, development and indigenous language community media,

·Audience Participation and Participatory Communication,

·Afrocentric theoretical approaches to media and cultural studies, and,

·Decolonisation of Indigenous Language Community Media

In this way, we hope to advance scholarship on this emerging, but 
nascent research domain, from marginalised and peripheralized locales 
across the African continent. We are looking for case studies of the 
African indigenous language community media scholarship, methodologies 
and collaborations from different regions: West Africa, East Africa, 
Central Africa, Southern Africa, and Northern Africa.

This call for articles further seeks to invite scholars and 
practitioners within the indigenous/African language community media 
space to submit a 500-word abstract of high-quality research articles, 
centred around, but not limited to, the following themes:

·*African Journalism Practice, Audience Participation, and Participatory 
Communication*

·*African Language Community Media and Journalism practice, Deliberative 
Democracy and the public sphere*

·*Indigenous Language Community Media, Counter-public sphere, and media 
convergence and*

·*Cultural studies, Development, and indigenous language media*

·*Afrocentric theoretical approaches to media and cultural studies*

·*Participation, the media, and society*

·*Postcolonial critiques of media studies and social development*

·*Audience consumption, uses and gratification of community media news*

·*The role of the practitioner in the African language community media 
space*

·*African indigenous Knowledge systems, community media and content 
production for a local indigenous audience*


      Submission Instructions

Interested scholars can submit a 500-word extended abstracts, 6-8 
keywords, and 100-word Author Bio(s) to (Tshepang.Molale /at/ wits.ac.za) 
<mailto:(Tshepang.Molale /at/ wits.ac.za)> and cc to 
(israel.fadipe /at/ augustineuniversity.edu.ng) 
<mailto:(israel.fadipe /at/ augustineuniversity.edu.ng)>

Timelines

-***Deadline for submission of 500-word extended abstracts, 6-8 
keywords, and 100-word Author Bio(s): 12 September 2025*

*-Date for communication of abstract acceptance or rejection: 12 October 
2025*

-*Deadline for submission of Full 6000-8000 word research article: 27 
March 2026 (the AJS ScholarOne Manuscript Portal will be opened for 
authors to submit their full papers)*

The journal uses the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed., author-date 
(http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ 
<http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/>). All submitted 
articles/manuscripts will be subjected to plagiarism detection software, 
such as iThenticate and Turn-it-in, to guarantee originality.

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