Bridging Research and Expertise: Dominant West African Trends in Communication Studies.

West Africa, in this article, is used as an analytical framework for examining communication research from a diachronic perspective. The text is based on a literature review through which the author analyzed a corpus on West African work (articles in scientific journals, grey literature, and books on African communication research). After briefly sketching scientific production trends at the continental level, the author provides a historiography of West African communication research from the 1940s onwards. The substantial contribution of the subfield of philosophy of communication and the foundational orientation that it has lent to research, especially in the 1980s, are then reviewed in greater detail. Particular attention is paid to Francophone communication and gender research. Finally, the article identifies the discernible trends guiding the future agenda of communication research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]