Decolonising Public Relations in Africa: Centring Local Epistemes in Ghanaian Political Communication

At independence, African countries were faced with the task of decolonising. Countries were renamed as part of a broader Africanisation agenda. A quest for decoloniality and Africanity was manifest in many ways. However, efforts to decolonise media and communication studies have so far been “media centric”. Outliers such as Public Relations have been left out of urgent debates on decoloniality. This thesis addresses this gap by centring local epistemes in public relations in ways that decolonise political communication, using Ghana as a case study.

Despite the growth of democracy in Africa over the last few decades, democratisation in Africa has met with many problems and the role of public relations in Africa’s democratisation is arguably adding to the existing problems. The overarching purpose of this dissertation was to investigate how political parties have utilised decolonised Public Relations (PR), PR strategies, tactics and activities in Ghana’s electioneering campaigns. More importantly, this research was aimed at decolonising Public Relations in Africa by examining the decolonial political PR strategies political parties deploy to win elections. Proverbs instead of global North theories are used to explain what the political parties do in terms of Public Relations.

The study employed in-depth interviews and triangulated with a content analysis of media archives. The findings of the research show that while there are opportunities for decolonising PR, the curriculum has to change to reflect the call for decolonised PR. The findings also show that public relations has furthered Ghana’s democracy and ensured that the two main political parties engage voters. Challenges and limitations notwithstanding, the research provides invaluable insights into how African thought and knowledge systems can be applied in public relations, political communication, and its implications for democratisation in Ghana. It contributes original insights to recent debates on decolonisation in African communication and media studies and the subsequent impact of political communication in the African context.