By Dr Theodora Dame Adjin-Tettey
The Department of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana held its third Trends in Media and Communication Conference (TiMC) on 5 – 7 November 2025. The online biennial conference, which started in 2021, brings together academics, researchers and media and communication practitioners to share research and deliberate on critical issues concerning the media and communication landscape.
A major highlight of the three-day event was the pair of keynote addresses delivered by Professor Abiodun Salawu, the Director of the entity, Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the North-West University in South Africa, and Professor Amin Alhassan, an academic, journalist and public servant who serves as Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). Both speakers offered compelling insights into the conference theme, “Disruptions in the African Media and Communication Spaces.”
Speaking at the opening, Professor Abiodun linked humans’ ability to innovate and create to the creative attributes of God, but also emphasised that innovation and change bring about disruptions which are sometimes not embraced by all, or at best, are resisted. He advocated the centring of ethics and quality as journalism takes advantage of the positive aspects of present digital disruptions, including artificial intelligence.
Speaking on Day Two, Professor Amin Alhassan said the disruptions occurring within the media and information environment are a form of (media) “ecological rebalancing”, which is reorganising the hybrid public sphere with opportunities to extend the reach of quality information and news. As individuals and media industries adapt to the disruptions, Professor Alhassan believes that ethical wisdom will ensure positive outcomes.
The convenor of TiMC 2025, Dr Aurelia Ayisi, called for a deep reflection on the ethics, policies, and pedagogies that must accompany current digital innovations, as well as shifts in influencer cultures and notions of trust and truth, and radical audience fragmentation. She also encouraged conference participants to embrace the possibilities that these changes present and to think critically about how African media systems can adapt and thrive while staying rooted in values of integrity, equity, and public service.
On his part, the Provost of the College of Education, University of Ghana, Professor Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe, charged participants to “embrace disruption not as chaos but as creativity in motion, an opportunity to collectively reimagine what media and communication can become” on the African continent.
The conference ended with a doctoral colloquium on how graduate students and emerging researchers can navigate the academic publishing terrain. The session brought together three editors-in-chief of some of the foremost African-based communication and Media studies journals, Professor Viola Milton, Professor Winston Mano and Professor Etse Sikanku. The panellists highlighted the need for emerging researchers to primarily weigh their manuscripts’ value and originality, while also ensuring that manuscripts are well-aligned with a specific journal’s scope and audience.
The conference sparked a lively discussion in both the plenaries and concurrent sessions, particularly around media and information literacy for countering disinformation and digital harm, privacy, surveillance, and digital rights in African media, how power and representation are being enacted in African digital media, and sustainability and climate reporting in the digital age, among others.