Africa Media Review Vol. 1. No. 1. 1966. 
©African Council on Communication Education. 
A Proposal for New Communication 
Research Methodologies in Africa 
by Isaac Obeng-Quaidoo* 
Abstract 
This article looks at mass communication research in the African cultural 
and traditional context and suggests some innovative approaches that 
would enhance local communication research endeavours.. It examines 
how African peoples, cultures, institutions and communication 
environments impede or facilitate social research. The author calls for 
indigenous efforts in the construction of new theories and methodologies 
in communication research that would appropriately fit the African 
context of development. 
Resume' 
L'article examine la recherche en communication de masse dans le contexte 
de la culture et des traditions africaines pour ensuite suggerer quelques 
nouvelles approches en vue d'encourager les efforts des chercheurs locaux. 
II observe comment les peuples africains, leur cultures, institutions et 
environnement en matiere de communication entrave ou facilite la recherche 
sociale. 
L'auteur lance un appel en faveur d'efforts authoctone en vue de l'elaboration 
de nouvelles theories et methodologies de recherche en communication 
qui pourraient etre plus adaptees au contexte africain du developpement. 
* Isaac Obeng-Quaidoo is a Lecturer, School of Communication' Studies, University of 
Ghana, Legorr. 
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Introduction 
The past two decades and half have witnessed communication seminars, 
workshops, and symposia1 in various countries on the African continent. 
Some of these gatherings have tended to be international in outlook, but 
others have been confinded to the local issues. At least some of the reports 
of these seminars try to indicate certain limitations of the Western social 
research methods when used in the rural areas of Africa. It has been indeed 
a worthwhile exercise to establish the limited usefulness of the methods 
which most African communication educators, critics, and commentators 
have imbibed from the developed countries. 
One observer of the research scene, Mowlana, has noted2 that after the 
doctorate degree in Mass Communication from the developed countries, it 
takes a person from the developing country about six years to divest 
himself/herself of the concepts and models which he/she has learnt in the 
developed countries and which are at times not workable in his/her own 
country. This divestation takes a while because, during his/her student 
days, the person did not only learn the mechanics of constructing a 
questionnaire, interviewing, handling computer cards, or differentiating 
raw data from interpretation, but he/she also learnt the the culture that 
accompanied such academic pursuits. Since cultural learning and 
unlearning is much slower and more gradual than mechanical education, it 
takes a long while for a person to step back and re-examine his/her thinking 
and culture. 
This paper takes a look at the African mass communication research 
context; the problems we seem to gloss over as if they do not exist. It then 
introduces certain approaches which might enhance our research 
endeavours. 
The fundamental aim is to raise questions for consideration. Again, the 
approach here is that instead of adding to the litany of the unsuitability of 
western models, we rather look at ourselves, our culture, our 
institutions, and the African communication environment, and how all 
these impede or facilitate research. 
The Role of Culture in Formulating Methodologies 
A discussion of communication research in rural Africa entails 
essentially the use of scientific knowledge for the systematic application of 
modern and traditional communication to aid and enhance the processual 
change in the social, economic, political and cultural milieu of ruralites. 
Culture, as used above, is generic to all the other three concepts, and these 
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three concepts can be subsets of culture. For instance, we can safely talk 
about an economic culture or political culture of a country and each time 
culture would be salient because culture "serves as a screen or filter 
through which new technology, methods, and ideas are introduced (or 
evolved in) into society," (Ketudat, 1983: 127-133).3 Not long ago, there 
was a great deal of talk about transfer of technology to the developing 
countries. But what the technological enthusiasts forgot was that, whereas 
it is well recognised that science is universal and transferable, the 
methodologies and technologies for obtaining scientific knowledge are not 
universal. Again, these are screened by the prevailing culture, and the 
relationship between cultural heritage and modernization, according to 
Ketudat, "poses the question of how far it is necessary to make adjustments 
in the cultural tradition in order to accommodate new technology and 
innovations or vice versa." 
Thus, any discussion of methodological innovations without 
considerations for the underlying cultural imperatives is like a captive 
mouse gyrating forever. As we shall delineate later, certain cultural values 
can be modified to suit certain innovations, but, relying on the work by 
Smoliez (1981)4, Ketudat again emphasizes that every culture has a core 
value with a "boundary beyond which one cannot adjust or change without 
detrimental effect on that culture." The core value of different cultures 
may be different. For example, the core value of the Greeks and French is 
their languages. That of the Chinese is their family and clan. The Jewish 
core value is their religion. 
For the African culture (s) which is (are) not mentioned in Smoliez and 
Ketudat's analyses, African communication methodologies would have to 
delve into the disparate anthropological, sociological, psychological, 
religious, political, historical, writings about Africans in order to deduce 
some meaning and understanding of African core value. Where lies the 
core value boundary of African culture? And for those of us who want to 
pontificate about the suitability or otherwise of certain methodologies for 
the African rural areas, it behoves us to analytically explicate the core value 
boundary of African culture (s). It is only then can we see the filter through 
which most of our research methodologies would pass for a better 
understanding of African society and meaningful development. 
The Likely Core Value Boundaries of African Culture 
The heading for this section of the paper brings home to the reader that 
we do not have clear cut answers to the questions we are raising. As usual, 
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we want African communication researchers to look at their societies, 
because the methodologies come from the societies, not outside. 
Everything we are going to say below is by no means new, but we have 
not seen anyone who has tried to examine them in the context of 
communication research methodology development in the African context. 
It is an attempt and critiques are needed for continuous improvement and 
elaboration. We have identified four key areas which, to us, come closer to 
the core value boundaries of African culture. These are: 
(1) the role of the supreme God/Allah and lesser gods in the daily life of 
the African; 
(2) the African concept of time and its influence on him/her; 
(3) the African's concept of work and its relationship to how he/she 
perceives his/her own relationship to nature; 
(4) the non-individuality of the African and how this affects his/her world 
view. After discussing all these core value boundaries, we then explicate 
the implications for communication research and methodological 
development in the African context. Let us first look at God and lesser gods. 
The African's worldview evolves around one Supreme God, or Allah but 
below this God or Allah are the lesser gods who listen to people's 
prayers and supplications, and at times dish out reward or punishment to 
people according to their deeds. The Supreme God or Allah, according to 
the African, seems to be far away, slow and does not manifest Himself 
frequently at our level of existence, and so the African (both the traditional 
and the sophisticated) consult the representatives (priests, juju men) of the 
lesser gods for rapid results in their daily affairs: for examination, success in 
farming,, promotion on the job, travelling, for money, choice of a partner, 
and even the killing of another person. 
One further question we need to ask in this regard is whether the 
spiritual churches in Africa are taking over the work of the animistic 
traditional and Christian churches or re-emphasizing the work of fetish 
priests and local shrines. We have to be clear in our minds, as researchers, 
whether this idea of Supreme God and lesser gods exercises a profound 
influence on the thought, imagination and day-to-day activities of the 
African. Do people always run back to the gods for solution to any 
problems, and why? 
Another likely core boundary of African culture is the concept of time. 
Time, in the traditional African thought, is a symbol for events. The linear 
concept of time in Western thought (with an indefinite past, present, and 
infinite future) is practically foreign to African thinking. The future is 
absent because time and events which lie in it have not taken place, and, 
therefore, cannot constitute time. Mbiti (1971: p. 17)5 defines African time 
as'A compositionof events which have'occured,those which are taking place 
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now and those which are immediately to occur. What has not taken place or 
what has no likelihood of an immediate occurence falls in the category of 
'no-time.' What is certain to occur, or what falls within the rhythm of 
natural phenomena, is in the category of inevitable or potential time." 
In this case, according to traditional concepts, time is a two-dimensional 
phenomenon, with a long past, a present, and virtually no future. And 
since what people do is motivated by what they believe, and people's belief 
systems have some organization in terms of time perspective; either they 
are deeply rooted in terms of the historical past, present, or future or not at 
all. According to Rokeach (1970: pll8)"A time perspective may be broad or 
narrow. An attitude may have a narrow time perspective in the sense that 
the beliefs comprising it are oriented primarily in terms of the historical 
past, or present, or future".6 For example, a closer look at the African shows 
that he/she has many myths explaining the past, but there are no myths 
explaining the future or end of the world, since time has no end. 
This time concept also subsumes the African concept of reincarnation 
(which is different from the philosophical considerations of the East). 
Death, for the African, means the death of the physical body, but the real 
essence of the human being lives on and would be born again into the same 
family or clan. Added to this is the view that the African never accepts 
death as a natural phenomenon. There is always a reason for death; 
whether it comes to the youth or the aged, and this explains our preoccupation 
with necromancy and visits to the priests and shrines to find out 
why someone is dead. 
The African may not have full commitment to industrial work since 
he/she: is not seen to respond to firing, layoffs, or unsatisfactory work conditions 
by returning to the village farm. He/She has in mind that industrial 
wage is for subsistence living: actual money can be obtained from farming. 
We observe that, unlike the western industrial man cultured in the 
Protestant ethic, and who considers industrial work as a duty connected 
with one's eternal reward, the African considers work as a necessity for 
survival, not a duty. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how one 
views this situation) this epitomises the African's relationship to nature. 
Nature is not something to be subdued or conquered, but a manifestation to 
be co-operated with. And this, indeed, explains our elaborate sacrifices and 
prayers when we want to cut down a big tree, build on a spot, or start a 
project on land or water. 
The non-individuality of the African. Apart from the celebrated 
extended family system which encompasses everyone within the 
immediate clan, people from a similar village tend to regard each other as 
brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, godfathers, unless there is a 
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conflict or friction among families in the village. This explains why the 
caring for the aged, the destitute, the handicapped members of the group is 
the duty of all well-to-do and able bodied members of the extended family. 
The four core value boundaries we have outlined above by no means 
exhaust all the critical core values that may exist. We have not even 
discussed why some families keep on producing children until they have a 
male heir as a sign of their own personal immortality. What we have not 
done in this paper is to explicitly tell the reader whether such and such core 
value boundary is functional or dyslunctional for the developmental or the 
modernization process in Alrica, and the possible positive or negative 
consequences for the communication research methodological 
innovations. 
Application of Some Research Methodologies to the Core Value 
Boundaries 
What we prefer to do is to let the core value boundaries that we have 
identified be what they are, and then look at how certain African contextual 
research methodologies can fit them. Since a search of some of the 
literature did not produce any studies, can research methods on the African 
continent rely on our own accumulated field of experiences? 
Let us take the non-individuality of the African as a core value boundary 
and see how certain methodologies can be explicated to fit. A closer look at 
most of the communications studies done in the rural areas have involved 
survey methods and case studies. This has mostly meant the interviewing of 
individuals, and then the aggregation of individual responses to achieve a 
composite whole. There is nothing wrong with survey research if only we 
recognise its limitations, but in the African context it would be worthwhile 
to interview people in groups. 
So far the ideal situation has been to train the interviewer to interview 
separately two adults in each household; preferably a male and a female. But 
field experience has taught us that frequently it is difficult, if not 
impossible, to draw one member of the family aside and interview him/her. 
We find that a whole troop of youngsters and even other adults would like to 
listen to the kind of questions the interviewer is going to ask one member of 
the family. Persistent persuasion that the interview is for only one member 
of the family sometimes falls on deaf ears, and the interviewer is quite 
helpless to drive away the unwelcome crowd. This situation is especially 
common in compound houses in the villages. 
We know that when a second, a third, or numerous people surround an 
individual during an interview, the individual's "true" responses change to 
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the socially acceptable ones, and invariably this reduces validity and 
reliability. In some cases, even some members of the unwelcome crowd try 
to correct the interviewee if they feel that the response he/she has given is 
not convincing or appropriate to them. 
In order to resolve this problem, we need to have group interviews in 
both the rural and urban areas of Africa. Let us bear in mind though that 
group interviews have their own unique limitations in the African context. 
Depending on the topic for interview, (family planning information, 
diffusion of innovation, indiscipline in society, desirability or otherwise of 
military rule, uses of radio, television and video, diffusion of information), 
the interviewees may disagree and alternations may result whereby the 
interviewer may have to spend most of the interview time being an umpire. 
However, for a well-trained skilful interviewer this would be the ideal time 
to collect significant data. People at times tell the truth when they are 
involved in heated argument. 
In the African context too, researchers can experiment with 
interviewing family groups. We should bear in mind that children and 
young adults are not supposed to talk when older people are talking, unless 
they are invited to participate in the interview. Due to the male dominance 
in most African socieites, wives at times want their husbands to answer all 
questions, even those relating to contraceptives and family planning 
(Obeng-Quaidoo, 1979).7 
We can also interview the whole compound, not just one family in the 
compound. But such an approach brings its own attendant problems. 
Although members of one compound tend to be homogeneous in terms of 
consanguinity and ethnic affiliation, experience has shown that different 
family members in the same compound are at times heterogeneous with 
regard to SES variables (even if we use farm size, home ownership, number 
of wives and ability to care for children at school, number of cows, or 
motorability and brand of car). 
Let us look at the implications for research of the other African core 
value boundaries: work as a necessity for survial, not as the Protestant ethic 
would consider it as a duty. To my mind, the idea of work as a necessity 
for survival has implications for the development of African communication 
theory which would, in the long run, guide research. As we indicated 
above, research without any philosophical or theoretical base tends to be 
very sterile. In the beginning, communication research in the United States 
was based on the manipulative and propaganda considerations in order to 
aid the War efforts. Much emphasis was and still is put on how the 
communication affects or influences the receiver. On the other hand, if 
we recall the traditional African's attitude to nature, we realise that his/her 
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communicative behaviour is not to manipulate or influence another, but in 
reality to co-operate and share information or ideas, or meaning. 
If research verifies what we have outlined above to be valid, then our 
research methodology in the African context would be to find out how far 
the communicator understands the audience, instead of asking how the 
audience understands what is communicated. The focal concept here 
should be meaning sharing. By meaning, I do not point to just the understanding 
of a particular language, or understanding of the message. For 
example, if an African broadcaster tells his/her audience that using contraceptives 
(pills, IUD, condom, etc.) reduces over-population, this would be 
understood by almost all audience members, but for a majority of his 
audience, the communicator might not have shared meaning. For, the 
question of having one, three, five, or seven children is an ontological one, 
and to communicate meaningfully the communicator must share the views 
of inheritance, survival after death, individual actualization and 
immortality through the male child, and the positivity and blessings that 
society attaches to fecundity. This kind of meaning sharing helps the 
member of that audience to be aware of him/herself and his/her relationship 
to the overall issue of over population. 
With regard to core value boundary of time, the implications for research 
appear to be numerous. If we divide the concept (time) into two broad 
categories: 
(1) time as events, and 
(2) time as a transcendental phenomenon, we find that what we do in the 
field of research need modification. If time is cyclical and it means events, 
then as researchers,,we should approach the rural people as if they know 
their own problems. Events can be problematic, but let them tell you that. 
As researchers, we should not impose our "falsely" perceived problems on 
them. 
Field experience has shown that while we interviewers are in most cases 
in a hurry to finish one interview and move to another in order to complete 
the cases alloted to us, most interviewees are relaxed and ready to share 
their water, food and engage us in certain conversations which are 
"irrelevant" (according to our definition of the situation). But for the 
ruralite, the interview situation is an event, something is happening. "Why 
the hurry? If the interview is not completed today, it can be continued some 
other time." The interviewee seems to be asking and answering the 
interviewer. With the cyclical nature of time, there is no need to be 
anxious, and overly worried about unfinished tasks. One would always 
come back and complete them. 
Time as transcendental phenomenon implies that, for the African, the 
cause of events at times lies outside his/her influence. At our level of 
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existence, not every phenomenon or event is explicable. This means that in 
the research situation if an interviewee provides "don't know" answer 
because the situation is the will of God or the gods, we should not force any 
alternative responses on them. The answer they willingly give is part of 
their world view. 
If we combine the core value boundary view of God/Allah and the lesser 
gods with time as part of the African transcendentalism, can we argue then 
that spiritual motive dominates the African's life? If an individual believes 
that this existence is just temporary and that the real life is somewhere in 
the heavens, one's general behaviour is bound to be different from someone 
who does not have such beliefs. 
If African researchers consider the outline above as something theoretically 
worth pursuing, then the starting point would be to discover the 
African's mode of intrapersonal communication with these "otherworldly" 
phenomena which invariably influence the Africa's existence. A 
broad outline of an African theory in this area would facilitate the 
emergence of certain useful methodologies. For instance, it might likely be 
that in future, we shall not arm ourselves with prepared questionnaires for 
the villages. Rather, we shall live in the villages as participant observers, 
partake in the activities of the shrines, talk to juju men, attend the spiritual 
churches, the established Christian churches, before we engage villagers in a 
free open-ended discussions of their spiritual activities vis-a-vis the physical 
realities of their surroundings. Such an approach will help us find the 
intuitive communicative behaviour of the African. 
Summary and Conclusion 
Our education in the developed countries arms us with certain necessary 
logical tools for arriving at certain scientific explanations, but we return to 
our developing countries and gradually realize that the logic and 
rationality we tend to bring to every situation are not shared by other 
members of our society. We go in circles with our educated methodologies 
until we stop to ask«urselves:Why haven't the rural people changed? It is 
only then that we begin to think of new theories and methodologies which 
would fit the African context. 
It would be unfortunate if an impression has been given in the paper 
that survey, research and participant observation are the only 
methodologies we should modify for the African context. We should, by all 
means, continue using our content analysis. But, let us forget the content 
analysis of the African newspapers (to find out whether they report 
developmental news) for a while (a sort of benign neglect), and as 
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researchers, move to other areas. For instance, we can turn to the 
accumulated judicial records and examine how certain cases have been 
decided in favour of some of our core value boundaries because the 
boundaries were threatened. Such an exercise will, in the long run, help us 
to understand why our journalists write the way they want to in our 
papers. 
REFERENCES 
1. (a) There was one with the theme: Motivation, Communication and Information 
for Development Purposes in Africa and Asian Countries, Ibadan, 
1st - 9th July 1974. 
(b) Seminar on Development Support Communication Strategies. 
Freetown, 18th - 22nd August, 1975. 
(c) Communication and Rural Development Accra, 30th November - 3rd 
December 1981. 
(d) We are also aware of similar seminars in Nairobi, Arusha, and in 1983, in Lagos 
and Buea, Cameroon 
2. Personal conversation with Professor Hamid Mowlana during a communication 
seminar in Lagos in July 1983. 
3. Ketudat, Sippanondha (1983) "The Roles of Culture and Scientific Co-operation" in 
UNI VERSITAS: A Quarterly German Review of the Arts and Sciences. Vol. 25, 
No. 2. pp. 127-133. 
4. Smoliez, J.J. (1981) "Cultural Values and Scientific Development" in Cultural 
Heritage VS. Technological Development (ed.) by R.E. Vente, R.S. Bhathal, 
R.M. Nakhoode. Maruzen Asia. 
5. Mbiti, J. (1971) African Religions and Philosophy. New York: Praeger Publishers. 
6. Kokeach, M. (1970), Belief, Attitudes, and Values, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 
7. Obeng-Quaidoo, I. (1979) "Cultural Differences Affecting the Introduction of Birth 
Control Information in Africa: the case of Ghana'.' APaperPresentedataSeminaron 
Family Planning in Accra. 
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