Table Of ContentAfrican Communication Systems and
the Digital Age
The book covers African communication systems, discussing modes and
forms of communication across West, East and Southern Africa and com-
paring them with traditional and new media.
African Communication Systems and the Digital Age contextualizes commu-
nication by bringing to the table African contributions to the field, examining
the importance of African indigenous forms of communication and the inter-
sectionofAfricancommunicationsystemsandthedigitalage.Thebookcovers
various concepts, models, theories and classifications of African communica-
tion systems, including instrumental communication, types of African music
and their communication properties, indigenous writing systems, non-verbal
communication,andmythologicalcommunication.Throughcarefulanalysisof
communication in Africa, this book provides insights into the various modes
of communication in use prior to the advent of traditional and new media as
wellastheircontinuedrelevanceinthedigitalage.
African Communication Systems and the Digital Age will be of interest to
students and scholars of African communication.
Eno Akpabio is a Professor of Information and Communications Studies at
the University of Namibia.
African Communication
Systems and the Digital Age
Eno Akpabio
Firstpublished2021
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Contents
List of illustrations vi
1 Background and context of African communication systems:
Decolonizing and contextualizing communication 1
2 Conceptualizing African communication systems: Classification,
theories and models of African communication systems 14
3 Instrumental communication: Devices and instruments 25
4 Demonstrative communication: Music 40
5 Iconographic communication: Icons 55
6 Extra-mundane communication: Africa and the realm of the
supernatural 65
7 Visual communication: Non-verbal communication 77
8 Institutional communication: Traditional institutions 89
9 Venue-oriented communication, structure and features: Sites of
communication 102
10 Mythological communication: Myths and legends 114
11 Taxonomic communication: Names as communication 124
12 Axiomatic communication: Folktales and proverbs 133
Appendix: Devices and instruments 144
Index 152
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Synergy of indigenous and modern media 11
2.1 Doob’s model of communication 15
2.2 Classification of African communication systems 22
6.1 Extra-mundane communication 67
7.1 Himbas of Namibia 78
7.2 Herero dress 79
1 Skin drum 144
2 Woodblock 145
3 Metal gong 145
4 Bell 146
5 Pot drum 147
6 Rattle 148
7 Trumpet 149
8 Flute 150
9 Gourd 151
10 Tambourine 151
Tables
2.1 Classification of African communication systems 21
4.1 Efik omens 51
11.1 Kaguru of East-Central Tanzania clan names 128
1 Background and context of African
communication systems
Decolonizing and contextualizing
communication
As with many other fields, Western scholarship has attempted to lay full
claim to media and communication. And like many scholars of African des-
cent have done in other fields, this book is an attempt at decolonizing media
and communication and bringing to the fore the contributions of Africa to
the media and communication field. This cannot be done, however, without
addressing some misconceptions and untruths.
Africans havea richheritagewhichwe ought tobeproud of. Wemust not
fall into the temptation fostered by legacy media, academic sophistry and
popular culture that Caucasians are the master race and everyone else must
accepttheir subjugation.Every part ofhumanityhas madesomecontribution
to our collective progress and wellbeing.
Let’s start with civilization to which every ethnic group has added value.
Diop1 has shown convincing evidence of its Black origins, at a time when
Caucasians were at a primitive stage of civilization in comparison. Amillineau
goes so far as to state that:
Egyptian civilization is not of Asiatic, but of African origin, of Negro
origin, however paradoxical this may seem. We are not accustomed, in
fact, to endow the black or related races with too much intelligence, or
even with enough intelligence to make the first discoveries necessary for
civilization. Yet, there is not asingle tribe inhabiting the Africaninterior
that has not possessed and does not still possess at least one of those
first discoveries.2
This is precisely why it has proven difficult to find vestiges of Egyptian civi-
lization in Western Asia, which is considered the cradle of the Indo-Eur-
opeans.3 On the contrary, scholars4 have pointed to glaring similarities
between Africa and Egypt in areas such as cosmogony, totemism, circumci-
sion, kingship, social organizations, political organizations, matriarchy, eco-
nomic organizations and languages.
But the main reason why this task is crucial is not simply to foster a sense
of pride among Africans given the present picture, which might not appear
rosywhencomparedtootherregions.Itisnotonlytopreventimpressionable
2 African communication systems
minds from succumbing to the sustained propaganda that nothing good
can come out of Africa. It is not just to break the exotic image of Africa
being a place to escape to, which destination marketing has fostered. It is
intended to provide a context; a historical and cultural background on
which to build and advance.5
Given the various attempts at putting down the Black race, marginalization
of indigenous African communication was naturally to be expected. There
wereanumberofcontributoryfactors.Eventhoughslaverywasnotoriginally
race-based, slaves were predominantly Black in the 17th and 18th centuries,
and the myth of African racial and cultural inferiority became the rationale
for this.6 Inaddition, whenthe colonialoverlords arrived,theyhad their own
ideas about how society ought to run and went on to implement these ideas.
In the process, anything indigenous suffered neglect. Informal, indigenous
education, literature and the indigenous means of communication to men-
tion a few were subjugated. They had the view that anything indigenous
was “primitive, barbarous and unholy.”7
Europeanscholarsalsocompoundedtheproblem.Theirscholarshippainted
Africa as oral and emotional and the European thought system as rational.8
Africanknowledgesystemswasdesecratedandlabelledassuperstition.9Scho-
larlyinterestinthecolonialperiodwasintendedtopaintAfricansasinferior;10
hence,everyeffortwasmadetoensurethatAfricansrejectedtheircivilization.
But scholars are beginning to give due credit to Africa for its cultural vitality,
whichhashadapositiveimpactonothercultures.11
African scholars have tried to discard this colonial and prejudiced bag-
gage. A first or major plank of African/Black Diaspora studies involved dis-
mantling this perspective.12 Chinweizu, Jemie and Onwuchekwa13 have gone
to great lengths to debunk the myth that the African is “an apprentice Eur-
opean” whose literary output must be viewed as “an overseas department of
European literature.” Ngugi wa Thiongo has since ceased writing in the lan-
guage of the colonizer, alongside other forms of protest and denunciation of
the paternalism of some Western scholars and critiques by African literary
scholars. Anthropology gave this distorted and false view academic cred-
ibility in that Africans and other poor souls were studied to determine how
they differ from the Western model/how inferior they are to “us.”14
African communication scholars are also taking up the gauntlet. Wilson,
contesting the narrow use of the word “mass” posits that:
[to]…thosewhohavecometoequatethewordmasswithsuchconcepts
as the mass audience or ‘the global village’, the application may seem a
bit of a misnomer given the image and picture of the large population of
people that are often involved in these “mass” concepts. But we are
talking about little communities, clans, villages… numbering a few
thousands in scattered settlements… whose desires are for information
machinery that exists with them [emphasis added]… For our purpose, the
mass medium shall be defined as that through which large numbers of
African communication systems 3
people are reached through any of our traditional [indigenous] mass
media, namely ‘eyei’, ‘nnukenin’, ‘obodom’, ‘ntakrok’, and others.15
Thus, communication and media are moving away from the province of
thosewhothinktheyhaveexclusiveownership.Infact,thetop-downsystem
fostered by the colonialists and adopted by indigenous African leaders was
defeatist and served to create “‘silence’ and ‘non-communication’ at the
grassroots…”16
The importance of African communication systems
Communication is at the centre of human experience,17 and especially indi-
genous communication. The incontestable fact is that indigenous commu-
nication pervades every aspect of our lives as Africans and has continued to
march on. For politicians seeking elective office, if they spent a lot of money
only on campaigns on traditional and legacy media, they would receive a
shock when the results are in. In the same vein, dissemination of develop-
ment messages without factoring in these indigenous communication modes
would be an exercise in futility. No wonder then that almost every depart-
ment of mass communication in Nigerian universities now teach African
communication systems; a realization that the traditional mass media cannot be
the be-all and end-all in reaching Africans effectively.
In politics, it is not sufficient to devote a substantial budget to media
advertising or to launch a computer virus that popularized Raila Odinga
across cyberspace. Grassroots mobilization that involves interpersonal com-
munication, cultural events such as praise singing and even endorsement by
a traditional ruler may make all the difference when the results are in. Even
public communication campaigns that do not factor in the indigenous
modes of communication might reach only the urban and educated town
dwellers while passing over the rural dwellers and less-educated members of
the community, to such an extent that the campaign will be a resounding
failure. Public health approaches that are culturally compatible with the
intended audience are more effective.18
Remaining on the topic of effectiveness, as far back as the colonial period
British traders and marketers were urged to embrace and communicate in
African languages if they were to be in a position to compete with, among
others,theGermans,JapaneseandDutch,whoweremakingbetterheadwayin
their trading relationship with the locals.19 They were urged to borrow a leaf
fromtheJapanese’sbook,forinstance,becausetheirsuccesswasattributableto
paying“closeattentiontostylenamesreadilygraspedbynativecustomers.”20
Clearly, interest in and the study of African communication systems is of
critical importance because of its equity, which embraces the ability to con-
nect and resonate with the people. Its resilience despite the buffeting it has
facedunderlinesitscontinuedrelevanceeveninthefaceofrapidadvancesin
more modern forms of communication. But equally important is the fact
