What Does Political Communication Stand for from a Global South Perspective?[1]
Manuel Alejandro Guerrero, Universidad Iberoamericana
Giselle Kuri Carrasco, ASHOKA
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-98564-1, PDF
Political communication developed around studying liberal democratic processes, such as voting, campaigning, and governmental and public communication, primarily in the U.S. and Western Europe. Until the 1980s, the field focused on elections, participation, and accountability within democratic frameworks, resulting in theories and predominantly quantitative methodologies based on Western democratic models. By the end of the 1980s, these theories and methods were ripe to be tested in other parts of the world.
In most cases in the Global South, political communication appeared first as a practice. After the Soviet Union’s collapse and the different transitions from authoritarian rule in the 1980s and 1990s (O’Donnell & Schmitter, 1986), Western political marketing and public relations consulting agencies, sometimes through local partners, began to explore these “new potentially democratic markets”—many of them, at least, electorally competitive. This exploration coincided with the consolidation of TV as the most important battlefield for political disputes (Keane, 1991; Kavanagh, 1995; Maarek, 1995). Thus, despite the differences in party and electoral systems and civic and political culture, political communication in democracies worldwide became more Americanized (Negrine and Papathanassopoulos, 1996, 2007).
Soon after, political communication started to be analyzed in the Global South through theories and methodologies developed in Western contexts and adapted to fit into the models. In 2001, Pippa Norris defined political communication as “an interactive process concerning the transmission of information among politicians, the news media, and the public [operating] downward from governing institutions toward citizens, horizontally in linkages among political actors, and also upward from public opinion toward authorities” (2001: 11631). Procedurally, this definition is still useful, mainly in studying liberal democratic political arenas through Western theoretical and methodological approaches. But can it cope with the diversity and complexity of other contexts and polities where political life is not so clearly top-down?
The region’s unique political, economic, and social contexts influence political communication in the Global South. While it adopts strategies and platforms developed in the U.S., the infrastructure, technology, media literacy, and political dynamics blend traditional and innovative forms. Authors have called for studying these processes from broader and diversified academic viewpoints to foster a more thorough and inclusive understanding of global political communication (Vaccari, 2021; Neyazi, 2023). In most relevant forums and academic spaces, there is a firm claim for the need to de-center (Waisbord & Mellado, 2014), de-Westernize (Curran & Park, 2000; Mutsvairo et al., 2023; Waisbord, 2023), or de-colonize (Gunaratne, 2010; Magallanes-Blanco, 2022) communication and political communication studies. One example is the special edition, number 28, of this Political Communication Report (2023), dedicated to “De-westernizing political communication.” Waisbord (2022) argues that this de-Westernization should be both an academic and intellectual stance that “interrogates the provenance and the positionality of academic knowledge” and a political movement that calls “to curiosity about and engagement with ideas produced in various corners of the world.”
Thus, it is pertinent to ask: What does political communication mean for the Global South? The sheer size and diversity of the regions that make up the Global South, with their complex political, religious, linguistic, and cultural landscapes, makes it nearly impossible to provide a single answer to this question. At a broad level, political communication still focuses on exchanging information between political actors, the “media-platforms-social media,” and the public. However, what requires careful revision is the way we have theorized and tested their (inter)relations through theoretical and methodological approaches mainly designed to explain Global North realities in places referred to with labels such as “underdeveloped,” “developing,” “unconsolidated,” or “hybrid.” This is a consequence of constant comparison to liberal democratic political environments of a few Northern nations with the desire to “bring others to their level.”
Without any intention to justify the diverse problematic aspects of the political communication practices and contexts in the Global South, authors have argued in favor of developing and using original theoretical frameworks emerging directly from these territories (Santander, 2010). By prioritizing locally-designed frameworks (Badr, 2023), academic production and reflection on political communication has adopted a more diverse and contextualized understanding of realities in the Global South (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2019; Cabas-Mijares & Omotoso, 2024; Karam & Mutsvairo, 2021; Marques & Miola, 2021; Mutua et al., 2022; Porto, 2016; Rojas & Valenzuela, 2019; Torrico-Villanueva, 2019; Wasserman, 2021; Zhang & Neyazi, 2020).
The focus has been—and should continue to be—oriented toward generating new questions and new ways to look at reality as it is in these regions. Nevertheless, more efforts are required to complement and strengthen the relatively limited diversity in predominant political communication theoretical approaches (Phelan & Maeseele, 2023) that still show how political communication in the Global South does not fit the established models. An inductive approach may help adopt a new gaze. Some advantages of the inductive approach are its flexibility and adaptability, which enable researchers to modify their inquiries based on what they find through observations and data. Inductive reasoning may also be particularly effective for hypothesis generation from empirical evidence, uncovering unexpected relationships, and opening new avenues for research.
However, one should maintain a critical stance to avoid the temptation to replace one “truth” for another and beware of not romanticizing—or worse, justifying—forms of political communication that may serve instrumental purposes in the Global South. Chakravartty and Roy (2023) show how, in the case of India, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has led the call for de-westernization, with a clear political agenda based on a right-wing interpretation of ethnicity and an authoritarian limitation of pluralism. As these authors rightly say, de-westernizing should not mean replacing one “locational certitude with another. Rather, de-westernizing means we change our questions and frameworks, not our answers.”
Some defining aspects of political communication from the Global South
The considerable differences in cultures labeled under the imperfect term “Global South” offer innovative and stimulating political communication methods and practices and often share transversal patterns that require innovative forms of theorizing and researching to understand. In broad terms, political communication implies information flow processes among political actors, news content providers, and the public, now in contexts where digital technologies and platforms have different penetration and reach. In the Global South, we require new questions about how these elements (inter-)relate to elucidate the nuance in the information transmission processes, the autonomy, role, and weight of the stakeholders in generating, shaping, and transmitting information, the degree of independence, plurality, and accessibility of information content providers, and the role of digital technologies and platforms in these three previous aspects. Without being exclusive, the following elements highlight some conditions in which these questions should be posed since they reflect unique challenges and opportunities regarding how the Global South’s political communication landscape intersects with evolving technology, inequalities, and power struggles.
Technology Access, Infrastructure, and Appropriation
Internet access is crucial yet uneven in the Global South, where socioeconomic disparities shape digital divides (ITU/UNESCO, 2024). This means political communication relies on a mix of digital tools like mobile phones (GSMA, 2024) and traditional media such as radio. This fosters grassroots activism and change-making (South Africa — Akpojivi, 2023– and Nigeria — Uwalaka, 2023—are two interesting cases) and may accelerate challenges like misinformation and state control. This highlights the hybrid nature of the media environment in the Global South, where both old and new media continue to play critical roles.
Critical Views on Liberal Democracy Are Important
In the Global South, critical perspectives on liberal democracy are often shaped by historical experiences of colonialism, economic exploitation, and foreign intervention (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). For many, liberal democracy is seen as a vehicle for continuing these power dynamics rather than a genuine system of self-governance (Forjwuor, 2023). This skepticism has fueled the rise of alternative political models and communication strategies that emphasize nationalism, cultural identity, ethnicity, economic sovereignty, and resistance to Western influence. In some cases, anti-liberal rhetoric may resonate with populations that have experienced the negative consequences of neoliberal economic policies with consequential increases in inequalities and injustice (McEwan, 2009; Adler-Nissen & Zarakol, 2021). In others, local elites may fuel such rhetoric to preserve their power and reduce accountability and pluralism.
Changemaking and Civic Engagement
Based on the previously stated critical views on liberal democracy, it is particularly important to consider the role and the weight of non-governmental political actors, such as social entrepreneurs, who, in some regions, are helping to shape collective paradigms regarding contribution, empathy, and agency in the Global South. For instance, as the Solutions Journalism Africa Initiative (SJN, 2024) shows, the more political communication integrates and amplifies some of these voices, the more civic engagement can be seen as a success metric. Moreover, beyond uplifting the work of individuals, learning from change-making networks that gather interdependent communities around a shared vision and values has proven to have effects that can “outpace and outsmart systemic social problems” (Ghosh, 2023). These considerations invite a reflection regarding who is seen and valued as a political actor, news content provider, and general public in the Global South, where processes do not tend to be as clearly top-down, linear, and transactional.
Media Literacy and the Challenge of Misinformation
Media literacy is essential for political communication (UNESCO, 2021). Populations where education systems have prioritized only a few at the expense of the many are vulnerable to misinformation, which internal and external political actors use to destabilize political life (Chibás-Ortiz & Novomisky, 2023) and foster religious tensions, as seen in countries like Myanmar, Nigeria, and Lebanon. However, misinformation in the Global South has been, in many ways, a prevalent feature of information ecosystems where some degree of distrust has always accompanied the way people consider information and their political actors. In this respect, Global North’s idealizations of a “pre-information disorder” time defined by an informational approach characterized by truthful information presented by impartial media reporting on trustworthy politicians for rational citizens have always been contested and problematic. Notions of truth and falsehoods and their impacts and forms of weaponization work and are perceived differently (Lenoir & Anderson, 2022). The role of the state, the nature of the media (corporate, state, public, community, and alternative), the social role of journalism and its cultures, the news consumption culture, the penetration of technology, and the role of Western media and their narratives all should be contextualized to understand the meaning and challenge of misinformation.
Artificial Intelligence and its Implications
In the Global South, AI poses several potential risks for political communication (Simon et al., 2024), largely stemming from existing inequalities and limited regulatory frameworks. Technology can be exploited to amplify falsities, manipulate public opinion, and even interfere with electoral processes through microtargeting and disinformation campaigns that prey on the populations, especially where religious, ethnic, regional, or social cleavages are deep (Hasan, 06/06/2024). Whoever has power and intent can influence political narratives. Additionally, AI-driven surveillance tools may strengthen authoritarian control, limiting dissent and invading citizens’ privacy, reinforcing the influence of those already in power (Chennupati, 2024). With limited data privacy regulations, AI often prioritizes powerful political and corporate interests, potentially deepening social divides. Finally, reliance on AI algorithms designed in the Global North can mean that local cultural, linguistic, and social nuances are often misrepresented, leading to biases that may distort political narratives and deepen the marginalization of certain groups.
Final Remarks
Political communication in the Global South requires a nuanced examination of how information flows, how stakeholders shape messages, and how media channels maintain openness and independence in contexts where technology may deepen existing power imbalances or open new avenues for participation. Given the region’s diversity and unique challenges, an inductive approach, grounded in local realities and the examples of changemakers, offers valuable insights alternative to Global Northern frameworks. However, avoiding romanticizing or justifying practices that may serve narrow political interests is essential. Instead, this widening of perspectives aims to foster a critical yet context-sensitive approach to political communication in the Global South and also to benefit those studying the Global North, as they might highlight some processes and information flows that are usually overlooked, disregarded, or under-researched.
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Manuel Alejandro Guerrero is an academic and researcher at the Universidad Iberoamericana, member of the National System of Researchers, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and the Academic Council on the United Nations System. He is also president of ORBICOM, the global network for UNESCO Chairs in Communication. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the European University Institute of Florence, Italy, and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge.
Giselle Kuri-Carrasco holds a B.A. in Communication from Iberoamericana University in Mexico and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University (Washington, DC). She is currently the Narrative Change Leader for ASHOKA, the world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs, focusing on social impact and storytelling. Additionally, she is a dialogue facilitator and host of the ALIVE! Podcast. For four years, she developed the communication and marketing department at Fondo Unido – United Way México and served as the Latin America Representative on the Board of Up with People International Alumni Association. Giselle has participated in several local and grassroots initiatives for social change in more than 15 countries.
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