The digital milieu has presented both opportunities and challenges for media and political communication. It has revolutionised how public information is produced, disseminated, and consumed. We have seen increased use of internet-based platforms, especially social media, by political actors for political campaigns, public engagements and mobilisation.

This has been amplified by the use of artificial intelligence in political communication. On the one hand, digital platforms enable robust citizen deliberations, allowing citizens to speak back to power through online comments, public protest coordination, citizen journalism, and multiple user-generated content. However, on the other hand the new media ecosystem has also brought along several challenges, including misinformation, algorithmic bias, and a host of ethical issues.

There has also been a notable increase in other unscrupulous practices, including fake news and propaganda.The communicative landscape in Africa is marked by a constellation of systemic challenges, including the persistent digital divide, lingual marginalisation and constrained media freedoms.

These conditions are mediated and in some cases exacerbated by the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into public and political discourse. These developments call for critical scholarly inquiry into the layered intersections between digital technologies, systemic disparities and new configurations of power on the African continent. Therefore, the inaugural Africa Regional IAMCR Conference invites scholars, practitioners, activists, and early-career researchers to critically engage with the dynamic intersections of political communication and the evolving African socio-political landscape.Hosted under the theme “Reimagining Media and Political Communication in Africa: Voices, Power and Participation in the Digital Age”, this conference seeks to explore how political communication, in its broadest sense, shapes and is shaped by the shifting contours of power, identity, democracy and digital technologies across the African continent.

The gathering aims to foreground African perspectives, challenge global North paradigms, and augment the diversity of political communication practices on the continent from traditional media and community radio to algorithmic politics and digital protest cultures.

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