Introducing: Journal of African Media Studies

The Journal of African Media Studies has launched this year (2009) with two issues so far. The editors (Winston Mano, principal; Monica Chibita and Wendy Wilems, associates) describe the "imperatives" of the Journal in Issue Number One's opening Editorial:

"The Journal of African Media Studies (JAMS) provides a new platform to debate issues about media, communication and culture in Africa. Our first goal is to promote the often neglected but important area of media research in Africa....

The second imperative for JAMS derives from our desire to contribute to the growing body of empirical work in media, communication and cultural studies. In this regard, JAMS complements other existing English-language and area-focused media, communication and cultural studies journals that promote research on marginalized and often ignored contexts (e.g., Latin America, Middle East and Asia)....

The third related, and more political, imperative for JAMS arose from the now firm realization that the bulk of work in media theory is ‘based upon data from just two spots, Britain and the United States, which have remarkably similar leitmotifs in their cultural, economic and political history that mark them out from other nations on the planet’ (Downing 1996). We see the role of JAMS as providing perspectives that help free the field from the stranglehold of theories from one particular context (see also Ake 1982; Sparks 1998; Nuttall and Michael 1999; Park and Curran 2000; Hart and Young 2003; Abbas and Erni 2004; McMillin 2006; Thussu 2007). We aim to contribute to the ongoing re-positioning of media and cultural studies outside the Anglo-American axis. Left unchallenged, this gives rise to ‘the most often mistaken impression that the Western text and Western ways of making meaning are universal, and, therefore, to be copied by academics the world over’ (Nyamnjoh 1999)."

JAMS is among the Library's e-resources and can be accessed from the homepage.