Social Media in the African Context

Abstract

Social media has revolutionized the way Africans communicate and socialize. People now create, share, exchange, and modify their ideas in virtual communities. This chapter critically presents the benefits and pitfalls of social media in Africa, demonstrating that social media is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, social media has connected geographically separated people, enabled user-generated and interpersonal communication, enabled fast and efficient communication, empowered society with an unrestricted flow of information, and facilitated online learning and work-related functions. Social media also facilitates decentralized democracy and the political engagement of the masses. It has also become a platform for Africans to demystify the “dark continent” narrative. On the negative side, social media is time-wasting, creates an anti-social generation, and negatively influences African culture. It also promotes cyberbullying, criminal activities, the spread of sensationalism, hate speech, xenophobia, threats to national security, and false information. Overall, social media has become a “valuable repository of information,” a “hyperspace,” a “new world,” and a “form of currency” in its own right. In essence, new forms of citizenship are emerging across the continent, placing African governments in a complex puzzle of considering censorship and regulatory control to curtail the power social media is granting to the masses. However, an increasingly networked society in Africa is not merely a potential threat to the continent; the increased connectivity also has positive implications for the continent’s political, economic, and socio-economic transformation.