ABSTRACT
While it is true that the canon of communication study is considered by many to be unmistakably Western, with the most visible countries in communication journals being “English-speaking ones, the U.S. in particular” (Lauf, 2005, p. 148), it is also true that we hear calls from Western scholars “to reflect on culturally based assumptions that characterize current theories of communication and to imagine how our field might be enriched or perhaps even fundamentally transformed by concepts derived from different cultural traditions” (Craig, 2007, p. 256). To such calls, responses are often framed as a debate about the ‘de-westernization’ of communication studies, cf.: “Undeniably, ‘de-westernized’ knowledge is in, parochial and Eurocentric research out” (Waisbord & Mellado, 2014, p. 361). The thrust of such efforts seems to be in line with the main meaning of the prefix ‘de-’—that of removing something. And yet, while rarely explicitly formulated, recent writings on ‘de-westernization’ seem to be more consistent with another meaning of this prefix-that of departing from something: whether they admit it or not, most debates about the ‘de-westernization’ of communication studies still depart from the Western canon, albeit in the efforts to subvert it.
