Vol. 5 No. 1 (2025): Communication, Culture, and Change in Contemporary Africa

The fifth volume, first issue of The Abuja Communicator (2025), gathers a set of studies that reveal how deeply intertwined communication, culture, and social transformation are in contemporary Africa. The articles in this edition traverse multiple terrains—political communication, cultural identity, protest performance, and digital disruption—but they converge on a central concern: the role of communication in shaping who we are, how we govern ourselves, and how we navigate rapid global change.

At the level of democracy and governance, Taiwo Adisa, Daniel Omatsola, and Olympus Ejue explore the widening communication gap between Nigerian legislators and the citizens they represent. Their study underscores how the absence of sustained, transparent dialogue erodes trust in democratic institutions. In a complementary way, Reuben Muoka and Isaiah Ilo interrogate citizen journalism, revealing its promise and perils in the Nigerian media ecosystem. Together, these studies show that communication is not an accessory to governance but a constitutive element of democratic legitimacy in the digital age.

Turning to culture and identity, several contributions examine the fragile negotiation between tradition and modernity. Mark Obayi and Barth Oshionebo analyze the (mis)representation of Mike Ejeagha’s folkloric songs on social media, exposing how entertainment-driven digital culture can distort the deeper moral values embedded in traditional music. Similarly, Timothy Nwokolo and Margaret Efurhievwe critique the encroachment of Western musical influences on Ekobe music of Ibusa, asking whether preservation and innovation can coexist without erasing cultural distinctiveness. Roseline Yacim and Aduragbemi Ogundiran extend this cultural inquiry into cinema, analyzing how Kunle Afolayan’s Aníkúlápó stages the tension between free will and structural constraints within gendered African contexts. Each of these studies demonstrates that African identity is not static but constantly renegotiated through cultural production, media representation, and artistic performance.

Another set of contributions foregrounds protest and technological transformation. Chidiebere Ekweariri and Effiong Amako interpret the 2020 EndSARS movement as radical performance, where sound, space, choreography, and digital mediation transformed civic dissent into a powerful dramaturgy of resistance. Osemhantie Okhueleigbe and Nicholas Omoko examine how hyperconnectivity, technoference, and technopola reshape human relationships, mental health, and journalism in a digitally saturated society. Mark Ikeke further highlights how digital technologies can be harnessed positively to safeguard indigenous agroecological knowledge, showing the dual face of technology as both disruptor and preserver.

Taken together, the articles in this issue affirm that Africa’s present and future cannot be understood apart from the communicative practices that animate its politics, the cultural traditions that root its identity, and the technologies that transform its everyday life. Communication mediates legitimacy in governance, performance dramatizes the demand for justice, digital platforms reshape cultural memory, and technology reconfigures social relations.

This is why we chose “Communication, Culture, and Change in Contemporary Africa” as the unifying theme of this issue. It reflects the shared insight of our contributors: that Africa’s challenges and opportunities are ultimately communicative. To understand the continent’s trajectory, one must pay attention to how its people speak, perform, remember, and connect—both within enduring traditions and across new digital frontiers.