3 - Habitus in the Postcolony

Summary

Focusing on journalists’ training between 1960 and 2015, this chapter captures the enduring strength of colonial logic effectuated through nonjournalistic actors, such as the education field. It shows how curricula focused on Western canonical thought reinforce a sense of liminality in a field already perceived as out of touch. It discusses the role of journalism education in inculcating specific normative assumptions about how the fields should work on the continent. It argues that journalism education now, just as at the dawn of independence, is such that the profession is heavily moored on Western understandings of journalistic doxa.