An Original Contribution to African Communication Theory: The Ubuntu Communication Model

Dominant communication theories applied in African academic and professional contexts were developed in individualist, Western ontological frameworks that inadequately account for the communal, relational, and ancestral dimensions of communication that characterise many African cultural traditions, including those of Nigerian ethnic communities. This study developed an original theoretical contribution to African communication theory through the construction of the Ubuntu Communication Model, grounded in West African, and specifically Nigerian, cultural communication practices. A constructive theoretical methodology drawing on African philosophy, indigenous communication studies, Ubuntu theory, and critical intercultural communication was employed. Philosophical analysis examined Ubuntu principles (umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, a person is a person through other persons) and their structural parallels with Igbo (ndi mmadụ), Yoruba (àwọn ènìyàn), and Hausa (mutanen juna) communal personhood concepts, identifying shared communal communication premises. Empirical grounding was provided through 48 months of ethnographic observation and interview data across community communication events in Anambra, Oyo, and Kano States, generating rich descriptions of communal communication practices. The Ubuntu Communication Model proposes five core communicative principles that distinguish ubuntu-informed communication from Western communication models: circular narrative authority (shared rather than sender-centered message origination), consensus-building as process rather than outcome, ancestral voice as a legitimate communication participant, communal healing as a communication function, and ecological communication embeddedness (community as a communication context rather than merely an audience). The model undergoes theoretical review by 25 African communication scholars and constitutes an original contribution to the globalisation of communication theory.

Keywords: African communication theory, Ubuntu, indigenous communication, theoretical model, West Africa