Contextualizing Islamic Communication

Guest Editors:
Dorien Kartikawangi
Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Indonesia

Septiawan S Kurnia
Bandung Islamic University, Indonesia

Arba’iyah Satriani
Bandung Islamic University, Indonesia

In Asia, the various contexts of communication take place with differences in cultural, social, religious, economic, political, and so on. This differentiation, then, contribute to the characteristics of “communication”, such as Asian Communication which is different from European Communication, or African Communication. In Arab-Islamic, for example, research by Ayish (2003), found the characteristics of communication are “formalistic, indirect, hyperbolic, asymmetrical, metaphysical and orally biased.”

In the context of Islam, communication also has Islamic characteristics which are related to the characteristics of diverse ethnic Muslim populations in South, East, and Southeast Asia, that have significant social and political differences. The Muslim population in several places is often categorized as ethnicity, as well as religiosity. These varied characteristics imply the broad dimensions of Islamic communication from theoretical perspectives. Islamic communication is not only da’wah (evangelism) but extends beyond that. These various Islamic contexts have not been studied in Islamic communication.

In the early thinking, the discussion was about the Islamisation of communication theory (Hussain 1986). More recently, scholarly thoughts about Islamic communication has been mostly constructed in the perspective of westernization (Ghosh 2008); such as a study of Islamic communication theory based on culture (Khiabany 2007), terrorism studies (Powell 2011), bias and terrorism labeling (West and Lloyd 2017), “jihadist terrorism” (Schuurman 2019), Islamophobia studies (Al-Azami 2021), media and perceptions of terrorism (Dolliver and Kearns 2022). Islamic communication movements are reduced into a single “cultural” unit (Zaidi 2006). In general, such studies are focused on the debate between “Western Communication” and “Islamic Communication” (Hafez 2000).

On the other hand, Islamic communication has certain ethical values (Sadig 2017). The Islamic life of Muslims in Asia has certain patterns, forms, and values of communication life in each tribe or region (Khiabany 2007). The political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts in Muslim-majority countries still influence how journalists scrutinize the Islamic journalism worldview (Muchtar et al. 2017).

By avoiding the discussion of cultural and religious differences, and making Islam in the status of  “an ontological category” (Semati 2011), this special edition will discuss Islamic communication based on the thoughts, behaviour, and attitudes of Muslim natives in various parts of Asia, based on their Islamic identity as Asians to gain an understanding of the diversity of Islam in Asia.

Focus of Special Issue

The focus of this AJC special issue is Contextualizing Islamic Communication. This focus is based on the perspective of the elements and context of communication. The  analysis and discussion encourage communicators, messages, media, and audience to discuss issues of Islamic communication in various regions of Asia, and to provide a better understanding of how and why Islamic communication is practised by Muslims and their communities. This Special Issue is expected to provide knowledge as well as perspective to academics, researchers,  subjects and communication policy makers to gain a better understand and realize what Islamic communication is about. Manuscripts covering theory and method are therefore particularly welcomed.

The article topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Islamic communicator style
• Islamic communication messages
• Islamic media
• The relationship of communication in Islam
• Group communication in the Islamic world
• Islamic health communication
• Islamic cultural communication
• Islamic communication in society
• The impact of media on Islamic society
• Audience research on Islamic communication

Submission Procedure

Researchers are welcome to submit an extended abstract of up to 2,000 words to ajc.specialissue@gmail.com before June 15, 2022. From these submissions, the Special Issue editors will invite selected authors to submit a full paper (of up to 9,000 words) according to the author guidelines of the Asian Journal of Communication. These full papers will be peer-reviewed. The timeline for the Special Issue is as follows:

Reference:

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