Engaging Practice in Communication Education: Institutional Politics, Knowledge Economy, and State Power

A grave concern in communication education scholarship is that research in practice plays second fiddle to theory. Little is known about the phenomenology of practice in communication pedagogy, and how it shapes and is shaped by programmatic assessment in particular. This dissertation attempts to explore the complexity of practice in communication education in a non-Western culture. The project demonstrates that the organizational culture that gives rise to the work of communication program administrators is always filtered and enacted through the interplay of institutional politics, the global knowledge economy, and state power. Using two public universities in Ghana, I argue, based on interpretive ethnographic fieldwork, that communication education is undergoing a shift from an instrumentalist, objectivist paradigm to a humanistic pedagogy of critical awareness. The latter, however, remains, largely unmapped in the field. Using ideas of practice that meet at the intersection of phenomenology and critical theory, I show how discursive practices of communication faculty as well as regimes of control owned by the state shape knowledge work in this epistemic community. The crystallized data, i.e., direct participant observations, in-depth interviews with faculty, minutes, memos, and curricula of two communication departments, accreditation manuals, and legal and policy documents about higher education in Ghana, raise concerns to make communication education in that cultural space more Afrocentric. This move, I argue, is crucial for engendering the strategic partnership of African communication researchers in the web of global scholarship. To this end, I call for a pedagogy of transcultural competence informed by a dialectical calculus between local interests and global exigencies

The governmentality of journalism education in Ghana

This study evaluates the role of two state regulatory regimes in shaping journalism education at a public university in Ghana. Focusing on the mandates of the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the work demonstrates how these institutions monitor, evaluate and shape the curriculum of the undergraduate program in communication studies at the University of Cape Coast. Based on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the paper shows that the journalism program designed by both faculty and state regulatory regimes for the University of Cape Coast, as in many other universities in sub-Saharan Africa, is still primarily focused on media-centric, developmentalist and instrumentalist approaches, and pays little attention to critical theory and transcultural aesthetics. The fusion of these theoretical perspectives into the communication education curriculum is crucial for empowering students to unmask practices that perpetuate social inequality, dominance, power asymmetry and hegemony in society in order to transform it in positive ways

The question of rhetorical agency in scientific communication: A case study

Though rhetorical scholars have argued that scientific inquiry does not lack human agency, our knowledge of how agency is enacted in scientific texts is blurred. Using abstracts from the American Journal of Bioethics, this paper argues and demonstrates how our understanding of rhetorical agency can be enhanced through the neglected theory of tagmemics. Intended as a heuristic, the paper argues that contributors to the American Journal of Bioethics are capable of constructing individual responsible agency that is in tandem with rhetorical choices they make within their community of consensus

When a Woman is Nude : A Critical Visual Analysis of Harlem Photograph

This paper offers an alternative oppositional reading against the obvious dominant taken-for-granted codes of scopophilia by which Aaron Siskind s Harlem photograph is interpreted The paper draws primarily on the works of French thinkers Roland Barthes and Jean Baudrillard to make the case that the nudity of the Black woman evokes a false sexual pathos and heigthens the fetishization of her bod

Post-truth, the Print Media and Political Messages in Ghana

Post-truth is a regular component of electioneering campaigns and political discussions among politicians in sub-Saharan Africa. This regularity and dearth of literature have made the concept attractive to researchers who are interested in exploring its intricacies. This article examines the post truth strategies adopted by Ghanaian politicians of the two leading parties in their politically aligned newspapers -The Daily Statesman and The Enquirer. Three strategies were detected, namely kairos, disinformation/misinformation and strategic transmission of lies. By strengthening their gatekeeping performance through close examination and vetting of political statements before publishing them, newspaper editors stand the chance of moderating post truth politics and its attendant notoriety on the political scene of Ghana

The black hole in science journalism: A study of journalism students’ accommodation strategies of scientific writing

This study examined strategies employed by journalism students to accommodate scientific communication into public news. Data were collected from news articles of 130 journalism students, 130 science-based research articles, 3,990 minutes of interviews between scientists and trainees, and among 25 focal participants. We found that some journalism students could not adequately accommodate scientific articles into news reports due to their passive knowledge of newswriting journalese. We also observed that journalism students had difficulty in interpreting scientific research claims, and showed less resilience to cope with the angst of scientists about the journalistic profession and the humanities. The paper concluded that the accommodation of scientific communication into public news is a rigorous process that requires the active participation and praxis of journalism students

When Men of God Go Wild: A Study of Flaming in Sermonic Discourse on a Ghanaian Radio Network

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Beyond technophilia: A critique of media globalization

AbstractIn this paper, I revisit discourses of media globalization through a cultural approach. I do so by contextualizing theoretical possibilities of grasping media globalization by engaging with the conceptual categories of notable scholars. In doing so, I reposition the globalization debate from its decidedly technophilic and economic determinisms to a nuanced, culturally situated discussion. The paper provides a wider context for grasping how the globalization of the media shapes, configures, and reconstitutes everyday practice and conditions of local and globalized practices. Issues raised in this light include historical contexts framing globalization (for instance, is it a question of homogeneity, heterogeneity, cultural imperialism, hybridity, or what?), political economic perspectives on transnational media conglomerates and their work of empire as well as the work of resistance by nation states in regulating global flow

The Current State of Communication Education in Ghana: A Critical Analysis of Stories from the Field

Narratives offer academic communities a moment of reflexivity. However, stories told by members in academic communities are  under-studied. Drawing on Wenger’s idea of community of practice, the present study examined the narratives of 12 senior  communication educators in three public universities in Ghana, and how the narratives shape the knowledge economy. Using field notes, technical documents, and structured interviews, the study revealed that community practice in the field of communication education in Ghanaian public universities is constrained by a not so vibrant community that faces challenges in localising a Western curriculum, and is yet to coordinate its local language research agenda

Freedom of speech and the discourse of flaming in Ghana: Evidence from radio panel discussions

Following the liberalisation of the airwaves in Ghana in the mid-1990s, the right to freedom of speech has been guaranteed although not without abuses. This freedom is evident in the activities of radio networks that urge listeners to participate in radio panel discussions (RPDs) through making interactive telephone calls or by posting text messages. In this paper, I explore the discourse of flaming on the panel discussions of Joy FM and Peace FM, two popular private radio stations. Grounded in Herring's (2004) computer-mediated discourse analysis, the Judy shows that listeners of RPDs use SMS to deprecate other selves. The study also reveals that flaming is precipitated by such technological affordances of mobile telephony as anonymity, pseudonymy and facelessness. The analysis further shows that social dissatisfactions were more frequent on RPDs than political complaints. Based on these findings, the study recommends that media houses educate the public on the face threatening potential of the SMS technology, given that derisive messages undermine the social, cultural and national cohesion