The role of geopolitics of knowledge in the mediatization of global university rankings

Abstract

While worldwide media increasingly cover and follow global university rankings’ (GURs) results, a concerted attempt to offer a relational knowledge/power lens underlying the mediatization of GURs remains absent. Drawing on Walter Mignolo’s (2011) “geopolitics of knowledge” concept, we analyzed the Bangladeshi national media’s coverage of Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. rankings (between 2019 and 2021). Amid a globalized media terrain, we illuminate how the geopolitics of knowledge helps foreground ranking logics in national HE (higher education) policy discourse at the periphery of GURs outcomes (e.g., Bangladesh) through the mediatization process. We first show how Bangladeshi media foregrounds GURs as a barometer of quality and accountability to comment on the Bangladeshi HE sector’s deficits. We next demonstrate how Bangladeshi media privileges particular knowledge and authors’ experiences, thus furthering interlocal or transnational hierarchies to help recontextualize GURs in the local context. We argue that national media perpetuates the geopolitics of knowledge via GURs coverage and authorship, allowing ranking logics to be mediatized and foregrounded in national HE policy discourse in a Global South context.