ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the major developments in communication study in Sub-Saharan Africa from the 1950s until the present. It focuses some of that void as well as to provide a synopsis of African communication history by suggesting three major phases or paradigms namely the modernization, Africanization and diversification paradigms. The first two decades of communication study in Sub-Saharan Africa were highly marked by the modernization paradigm. The opening of Ghana's journalism program marked the beginning of institutionalized communication study in Sub-Saharan Africa. Even if the first phase of communication study in Sub-Saharan Africa was confined by the modernization paradigm and often impelled by foreign interests, it should be noted that not all western researchers subscribed to a one-dimensional view of development. The content of Africa Media Review reflected the general direction of communication research in Sub-Saharan Africa within the Africanization paradigm. Diversification in both communication practice and scholarly approaches has characterized African communication from 1990 until the present.
