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SECTION A: THE NATURE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATION FROM AN AFRICAN AND
DECOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE
The Nature of Global Communication from an African and Decolonial Perspective
1.1 Introduction
Global communication occupies a contested terrain where historical power imbalances intersect with
contemporary digital transformations. From an African and decolonial perspective, understanding
the nature of global communication requires interrogating the structures that have long determined
who speaks, who is heard, and whose stories matter in the international arena. This essay analyses
how information flows through international media organisations, examining the dynamics and
implications of these flows from Global South contexts. It then explores three interconnected media
policies—cultural policies, information policies, and media policies—that could address the scope of
mediated communication from print to digital space, drawing on Majid Tehranian's framework of
modernisation paths. The argument contends that meaningful decolonisation of global
communication requires policy interventions that recognise both the persistence of colonial
structures and the possibilities for resistance and transformation emerging from African and Global
South experiences.
1.2 Information Flows Through International Media Organisations
The contemporary global information landscape is characterised by profound asymmetries that
reflect and reinforce historical patterns of power. International media organisations, particularly the
major Western news agencies such as Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse,
continue to exercise significant agenda-setting influence over what constitutes news and how events
are framed for global audiences. These organisations function as gatekeepers of international
information, determining not only which events receive coverage but also the interpretive
frameworks through which they are understood. As Thussu (2006) has demonstrated, international
agencies exercise a significant agenda-setting role that affects which international events are covered
by national news organisations and may even determine the relative weight that other organisations
assign to each story. Their dispatches fundamentally influence the very concept of news in the rest of
the world.
The structure of global news flows reveals persistent inequalities that have been extensively
documented in the literature. There exists a vast disparity between the volume of news flowing from
the developed world to the developing world and the amount flowing in the opposite direction, a
disparity fostered by the working practices of Western news agencies that has led to a massive
information imbalance (Boyd-Barrett, 2015). This imbalance is not merely quantitative but
qualitative, as the reluctance of agencies to convey information from the developing world back to
the West has entrenched patterns of representation that systematically marginalise non-Western
perspectives. Mwangi (2018) observes that many Western news consumers are rarely exposed to the
positive or even neutral everyday African news stories; in fact, a news story will have to be
overwhelmingly negative to disrupt the pattern of global news flows and break through the Western
preference for news from elite and proximate nations. This structural bias has significant
consequences for how Africa and other regions of the Global South are perceived internationally.
SECTION A: THE NATURE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATION FROM AN AFRICAN AND
DECOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE
The Nature of Global Communication from an African and Decolonial Perspective
1.1 Introduction
Global communication occupies a contested terrain where historical power imbalances intersect with
contemporary digital transformations. From an African and decolonial perspective, understanding
the nature of global communication requires interrogating the structures that have long determined
who speaks, who is heard, and whose stories matter in the international arena. This essay analyses
how information flows through international media organisations, examining the dynamics and
implications of these flows from Global South contexts. It then explores three interconnected media
policies—cultural policies, information policies, and media policies—that could address the scope of
mediated communication from print to digital space, drawing on Majid Tehranian's framework of
modernisation paths. The argument contends that meaningful decolonisation of global
communication requires policy interventions that recognise both the persistence of colonial
structures and the possibilities for resistance and transformation emerging from African and Global
South experiences.
1.2 Information Flows Through International Media Organisations
The contemporary global information landscape is characterised by profound asymmetries that
reflect and reinforce historical patterns of power. International media organisations, particularly the
major Western news agencies such as Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse,
continue to exercise significant agenda-setting influence over what constitutes news and how events
are framed for global audiences. These organisations function as gatekeepers of international
information, determining not only which events receive coverage but also the interpretive
frameworks through which they are understood. As Thussu (2006) has demonstrated, international
agencies exercise a significant agenda-setting role that affects which international events are covered
by national news organisations and may even determine the relative weight that other organisations
assign to each story. Their dispatches fundamentally influence the very concept of news in the rest of
the world.
The structure of global news flows reveals persistent inequalities that have been extensively
documented in the literature. There exists a vast disparity between the volume of news flowing from
the developed world to the developing world and the amount flowing in the opposite direction, a
disparity fostered by the working practices of Western news agencies that has led to a massive
information imbalance (Boyd-Barrett, 2015). This imbalance is not merely quantitative but
qualitative, as the reluctance of agencies to convey information from the developing world back to
the West has entrenched patterns of representation that systematically marginalise non-Western
perspectives. Mwangi (2018) observes that many Western news consumers are rarely exposed to the
positive or even neutral everyday African news stories; in fact, a news story will have to be
overwhelmingly negative to disrupt the pattern of global news flows and break through the Western
preference for news from elite and proximate nations. This structural bias has significant
consequences for how Africa and other regions of the Global South are perceived internationally.
