By Enock Sithole
As the African media landscape evolves under the pressures of digital change, misinformation, and political contestation, journalism education across the continent is also undergoing transformation.
Yet, one question continues to spark debate among educators and practitioners: Should journalism and communication be taught as one discipline or as separate fields?
Across universities from Kampala to Johannesburg and Lagos to Accra, journalism and communication remain closely linked, but how they are taught, structured and understood varies widely. Some universities merge them under a single umbrella of “mass communication”, while others distinguish sharply between professional journalism training and theoretical communication studies.
The relationship between journalism and communication in African universities is deeply historical. In the early decades after independence, many countries — notably Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Ghana — established mass communication programmes to train both journalists and public communicators needed for building the new nations.
This shared origin blurred the boundaries between the two fields. Students trained in mass communication learned everything from news writing to public relations, broadcasting and development communication. The approach was practical for its time, addressing both the need of journalists and for state communication officers to drive social change.
But as African societies and their media systems diversified, so did the need for differentiation.
Makerere University: blending practice and theory
At Makerere University, in Uganda, one of Africa’s oldest and most influential journalism schools, journalism and communication are taught within the Department of Journalism and Communication. The department’s integrated model is a legacy of Uganda’s post-independence education system, which combined professional skills with critical scholarship.
Students study foundational courses in communication theory, media law and ethics before branching into specialisations such as print, broadcast, or online journalism. This blended approach produces graduates who understand both the social context of communication and the technical demands of journalism. Yet, there are specialisations in strategic communication, where they study public relations and development communication, on the one hand, and journalism, on the other, where they study print, broadcast, online etc., said Dr Fred Kakooza, a lecturer at Makerere.
Wits University: Professional journalism meets critical inquiry
Further south, at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, the Wits Centre for Journalism (WCJ) takes a more defined stance. At Wits, journalism is treated as a distinct professional discipline grounded in ethics, investigative techniques and newsroom experience. Communication For Social Change is offered as an optional course within the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Master’s in Journalism and Media Studies programmes.
WCJ does not run undergraduate studies in journalism, it starts students at an Honours programme, where students are taught core journalism skills, from multimedia production and data journalism to investigative reporting.
The WCJ model reflects South Africa’s robust media landscape, which demands journalists who can combine academic insight with high-level technical competence. The curriculum has been designed to produce journalists who are critical, ethical and digitally skilled, ready to work in a newsroom from day one, after graduation.
While some schools are pushing for separating journalism and communication training, many academics still defend the unified model, arguing that Africa’s media environment demands versatile communicators who can shift between journalism, public relations and development communication, especially in smaller markets where professional boundaries are fluid.
Converging futures: integration with purpose
The various models lead to the conclusion that across Africa, the line between journalism and communication is neither fixed nor uniform. Some universities separate them sharply, others teach them together, but most occupy the middle ground.
The trend is clear: schools are moving toward integration, not only because the disciplines are identical, but because the modern media industry demands multi-skilled professionals. Journalists, today, must understand strategic communication and digital engagement, while communicators must employ journalistic storytelling to build credibility.
An African media scholar, once observed: “Africa needs journalists who can think like communicators — and communicators who can act with journalistic integrity”.
Whether taught side by side or in separate departments, journalism and communication education in Africa is converging toward a shared mission: to prepare storytellers who can inform, engage and transform society in a continent whose narratives are increasingly told by its own voices.
After all, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman wrote in the classic Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media work that “there are, by one count, 20,000 more public relations agents working to doctor the news today than there are journalists writing it.”
This suggests a point about the large influence or presence of public relations/strategic communication relative to journalism in the news we consume.