"African Journalism Fields: What's Bourdieu Got to Do with Them?"

Is there such a thing as a Transnational African Journalism Field? This chapter argues that there is indeed such a field. It shows how scholars can theorize such a field and the benefits of taking a transnational approach when theorizing journalism on the continent. Relying on a sociology of knowledge approach, this chapter takes a postcolonial field theory approach to articulate the boundaries of such a field while paying particular attention to the enduring logic of coloniality in how journalism and journalists operate in the continent. It argues that journalism in Africa has often been transnational in scope, beginning with missionary newspapers that sought to indoctrinate, followed by colonial and indigenous fields, and to this post-colonial moment. Studying journalism as uniquely bounded by national geographies, therefore, not only shortchanges this rich and nuanced history but also creates a bifurcated world in which journalism on the continent is forever stuck in spaces of absence, ensconced in what Mbembe (2015) calls a negative moment. A transnational approach not only centers African journalists and the fields they are immersed in but also works to theorize how or even if journalistic doxa can be aligned with an African habitus. It is an approach keen on conviviality rather than the antagonisms likely to persist through a preference for nation-states as the defining unit of analysis