Part I: Media and Communication Studies in Decolonial, Postcolonial and Protest contexts.- 1. If I were a Carpenter:  Reframing debates in Media and Communication Research in Africa, Bruce Mutsvairo.- 2. Can the subaltern think? The Decolonial turn in Communication Research in Africa, Last Moyo and Bruce Mutsvairo.- 3. Decolonising Communication & Media Studies Research: a Smash-and-Grabber’s Guide,  Colin Chasi.- 4. Decolonising Communication Studies: Advancing the discipline through fermenting participation studies, Colin Chasi and Ylva Rodny-Gumede.- 5. Decolonization and Postcoloniality:  The Challenges at Stake in Media and Communication Research in Francophone Africa, Christian Agbobli and Marie Soleil Frere.- 6. Researching and Teaching African Media Studies from the “Centre”: Challenges and Opportunities for Epistemic Resistance, Toussant Nothias.- 7. “An-Other thinking” 1 Film theory: Film Studies and Decolonisation in Africa, Beschara Karam.- Part II: Conceptualizing and Contextualizing: Lessons and Limitations.-  8.The Four-leafed Clover: Political Economy as a Method of Analysis, Ruth Teer-Tommaselli.- 9. The Southern African Spy machine: Emerging Research on Communications Surveillance and Resistance in the Region, Jane Duncan.- 10. Bridging Critical and Administrative Research Paradigms in the Interest of a Politically Engaged African Research Agenda, Ylva Rodny-Gumede.- 11.Comparative Media Studies in Africa: Challenges and Paradoxes, Susana Salgado.- 12. The Social is Political: Media, Protest and Change as a challenge to African media research, Herman Wasserman.- 13. Mobile Phone Communication in the Mobile Margins of Africa: The ‘Communication Revolution’ Evaluated from Below,  Mirjam de Bruijn and Inge Brinkman.- Part III: Cross-disciplinary Approaches in the Digital Age.- 14.  “The Devil is in the Rumba Text.” Commenting on Digital Depth, Katrien Pype.- 15. Technopolitics and New Media in Africa, Iginio Gagliardone.- 16. Interrogating the Culture of Exclusion in the Diasporic Media activity, Everette Ndlovu.- 17. Law and Innovation in the Somali Territories, Nicole Stremlau.- Part IV New and Old Media: Perspectives, Methodologies, Developments and Ethics.- 18. Terrorists’ Social Media Messages: A Critical Analysis of Boko Haram’s Message and Messaging Techniques, Chris Wolumati Ogbondah and Pita Agbese Ogaba.- 19. Gender Perspectives in Media and Communications Studies in Africa, Kristin Skare Orgeret.- 20. Mono-method research approach and scholar-policy disengagement in Nigerian communication research, Ayobami Ojebode, Babatunde Raphael Ojebuyi, Oyewole Adekunle Oladapo and Obasanjo Joseph Oyedele.- 21. Ubuntu and the communication-power nexus,  Leyla Haidarian-Tavernaro.- 22. Questioning the Role of Foreign Aid in Media System Research, Suzanne Harris.- 23. Rethinking Media Research in Africa, Tanja Bosch.- 24. This Hard Place and That Hard Terrain: Zimbabweans Doing Media and Cultural Studies On or In Zimbabwe Since the mid 1990, Nhamo Mhiripiri.- 25. BBC and African audience: Insights from ethnography, Muhammed Musa.- 26. For the Attention of African Media Scholars: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis, Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u.

This handbook attempts to fill the gap in empirical scholarship of media and communication research in Africa, from an Africanist perspective. The collection draws on expert knowledge of key media and communication scholars in Africa and the diaspora, offering a counter-narrative to existing Western and Eurocentric discourses of knowledge-production. As the decolonial turn takes centre stage across Africa, this collection further rethinks media and communication research in a post-colonial setting and provides empirical evidence as to why some of the methods conceptualised in Europe will not work in Africa. The result is a thorough appraisal of the current threats, challenges and opportunities facing the discipline on the continent.

“The authors challenge the ‘Western colonized’ epistemology underlying the teaching and research of media and communication in Africa...many critical questions are asked, the need for decolonization is emphasised and motivated, and the ‘ferment in the field’ debate and discourse is continued from an African experience, interpretation and perspective. In the process the book also becomes a rich and valuable source of information about the actual practice and use of media and mediated communication in Africa.” (Pieter J. Fourie, Emeritus Professor and Research Fellow in Communication Science, University of South Africa, South Africa, and Lifelong Fellow of the South Africa Communication Association, SACOMM) “This volume grapples with fascinating philosophical, ontological, epistemological and methodological questions from the nascent field of African media and communication. Rethinking methods for media research from an African perspective is a necessary political and emancipatory exercise. The essays in the volume achieve two main objectives: First they critique and overturn uncritical assumptions and prescriptions that have seen those researching media and communication uncritical adopt Western concepts such as gender. Secondly, and unlike most books, the volume rethinks and offers alternative methods and immerses itself in African knowledge systems such as Ubuntu to do meaningful research on realities of life in Africa.” (Winston Mano, Reader and Director of the African Media Centre, University of Westminster, UK) “Bruce Mutsvairo’s brilliantly edited analysis of Palgrave Handbook of Media and Communication Research in Africa is rich, intellectually astute, deeply knowledgeable and finely detailed. This book offers a very compelling analysis and it is essentially a must read. It is tightly argued and well-organised. If you care about the future of media research in Africa, you must read this book. It is an admirably excellent piece of work to be honest.” (Brian Chama, Sheridan Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, Toronto, Canada, and author of Tabloid Journalism in Africa, 2017)

Brings together leading scholars from across the continentOffers a counter-narrative to the methodological and theoretical approaches adopted from the West in the African contextChallenges some of the widely held notions and stereotypes about media and communication research in Africa