The Wits Centre for Journalism will host the 2026 South African Communications Association conference (SACOMM) at Wits University from 9 – 11 September. A pre-conference programme for emerging scholars will take place on 8 September.
The theme for 2026 is Asserting the Human in the Time of Technofeudalism: Global South Perspectives.
The contemporary media environment is characterised by the increasing influence of platforms in what has come to be known as the platform economy. Scholarly debates shaped by this reality, including the political economy of the media, address whether capitalism is now dead or whether we live in a world marked by a different form of capitalism. Those who argue that capitalism is now dead (e.g., Varoufakis 2023) point to what may be called the refeudalisation of society, in which ‘rent’ is the new profit.
The rise of a platform economy, which accumulates capital through rent, in the form of ‘workers’ renting space or experience on platforms such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc., is said to have overtaken the significance of capital accumulation through the production of tangible goods. Thus, they argue that we now live in a technofeudal era. However, others (see Gilbert 2024) argue that capitalism is not necessarily dead, but that we live in a ‘new regime of accumulation’ in which profit is derived from investing in the creation, maintenance, and innovation of platforms on which individuals and organisations pay rent. In other words, as Morozov (2022) argues, it is more persuasive to hold on to the argument that capitalism is simply reinventing itself.
These arguments open up avenues for analyses of the current media and information environment. In a context where a few platforms significantly determine access to information, markets, cultural visibility, and even social existence, it is necessary to consider the impact on real humans. The impact is unequal across the world. Just as capitalism grows through the accumulation of excess value resulting in acute inequalities, technofeudalism, or the new regime of capital accumulation, is lived through unequal connectivity, infrastructural dependency, digital colonialism, and the intensification of platform governance over culture, labour, and knowledge production.
The race to AI dominance further exacerbates the inequalities brought by the new regime of capital accumulation. The Global South is particularly affected due to its long-standing experience of constrained and subordinate role-play in the Global economy. There is a need for analytical and potential proposals to reclaim the discourse and valorise and assert the experiences and homegrown solutions of people in the Global South.
This conference theme invites scholars to interrogate how the human is being redefined and reasserted in the emerging order of technofeudalism or regimes of capital accumulation. Further, scholars are invited to explore innovations that acknowledge this emerging order but chart possible ways, especially for the Global South, to centre the human while staying relevant and possibly chart new paths for capital accumulation with the human in mind.
Submissions are invited from those who focus on the theme, as well as from others in line with the general SACOMM conference. Some possible themes include, but are not limited to:
• Technofeudalism and media innovation for sustainability
• Journalism practice and technofeudalism debates
• Technofeudalism and its implications for strategic communication
• Re-centering the human in communicative activities in a technofeudal system
• Decolonial perspectives on technofeudalism
• Agency in the Global South and the charting of new directions in a technofeudal system
• Re-imagining communities and access to information in a technofeudal system
• The human in the university curriculum and media training
• Health communication in a technofeudal system
Submissions may come from a range of disciplines, including but not limited to communication studies, media studies and journalism, communication education and advocacy, and strategic communication.
Abstracts will be peer-reviewed, and accepted papers will be presented at the conference either in a traditional presentation format or as part of a panel.
Follow this link to complete the form.
Important dates:
– Deadline for submission of abstracts: 30 April 2026
– Notification of abstract decision: 15 May 2026
We look forward to your submissions.