While some academic attention has been paid to the impact of new digital technologies on African media in the colonial languages of English, French and Portuguese, there is a dearth of research into African language digital communication. This book analyses the online presence of African language media. The chapters in the book focus on the speed, structure, content, navigation and interactivity, operations and performance, and audience of the online media. They also pay particular attention to how social media such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp have been appropriated by African language media. Using a wide range of case studies, the contributors assess the challenges of adopting digital technologies by the media, and how the technologies have impacted journalistic practice and media operations.
Examining the ability of the African language press to adopt new technologies, this book will be of interest to scholars of media, journalism, communication, social media and culture in Africa.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Not to be left behind: African languages, media and the digital sphere 1. Access, Skills, African Perspectives and ‘Development’? in Africa: Local Knowledge in Local Languages 2. Alaroye, Isolezwe and the adoption of digital technologies 3. Okun Radio Online as an Impetus for Maintaining the Dialects and Cultural Heritage of Okun-Yoruba People 4. Grassroots Media and Social Media Adaptation: Case Study of Urhobo Today 5. Breaking Protocol: Indigenous Language Usage Practices in Online Readers’ Comments in Zimbabwe 6. Perceptions of and motivations for accessing Swahili Online newspapers among students at the University of Dar es Salaam 7. Use of Indigenous Languages for Social Media Communication: The Nigerian Experience 8. Politics of language, ethnicity, and identity in Zimbabwean ethnolinguistic online communities 9. ‘Digital Chieftaincy’: Social Media, Register and Community Policing in Kenya 10. New Technologies, Indigenous Language Media Practice and Management for Development in Nigeria 11. Issues and challenges of adopting digital technologies by African language media: The YoruÌbaì example 12. African language online journalism in Malawi: Challenges and Prospects
About the Author :
Abiodun Salawu is Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies and Director of the research entity Indigenous Language Media in Africa at the North-West University, South Africa.
Review :
Excerpt from Critical Arts Journal
"This edited volume broadens current debates on African languages, digital communication and digital journalism. The book offers an important theorisation of African languages and digital experiences from the viewpoint of academics from the Global South…[and] draws on an array of case studies from countries including Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe… The book…provides a much-needed examination in an area which has undoubtedly been under-theorised. The ability to fuse diverse studies on texts, audiences and digital media institutions in a single book is a plus for Abiodun Salawu and contributors."
Lyton Ncube, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Excerpt from New Media and Society Journal
"With Internet connectivity increasing rapidly across Africa, this edited volume provides a valuable overview of the status of indigenous languages on digital platforms, and some of the impacts of technological change on the future of multilingualism on the continent. This volume fills an important empirical gap in scholarship on the state of indigenous language media in the digital realm and highlights how new media technologies will constitute a vitally important arena for the continuation of these processes of linguistic contestation and adaptation across Africa."
Peter Chonka, Kings College London, UK
Excerpt from Journal of African Media Studies
"[This book] with contributions from a diverse pool of scholars from linguistics, communication, to journalism, broadly reminds us of how little attention has been paid to [digital African journalism]…The key ingredient that sets the book apart is perhaps its timely focus on and determination to re-introduce us to the multiplex discussion around the question: why are African indigenous languages and knowledges absent and invisible in digital and social media, and what could be done to change this? …This book reminds us to decentre the dominance of western knowledge production and rethink our over-reliance on the same. In view of United Nations’ support for the ‘Endangered Language Project’, it challenges us to think of innovative new ways of appropriating digital technologies while instating local language and its media in the scheme of things."
Chikezie E. Uzuegbunam, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
