Over a decade ago, when Nigeria's migratory digital elite in the United States pioneered a newfangled form of citizen online journalism that disrupted the professional certainties of domestic legacy journalism, the country's professional journalists held out hope that the disruptive effect of this insurgent, non-professionalized, non-routinized but nonetheless transformative form of journalism would be transitory. But diasporic citizen online journalism is not only now an integral part of Nigeria's media ecosystem, it has also inspired successful homeland digital-native emulators and is challenging, even supplanting in some cases, traditional domestic media formations as sites of consequential democratic discourse. With Nigeria's frenetic and deeply engaged social media scene, diasporan citizen journalism, homeland news, and social media activism are merging to create the most energetic moment in Nigeria's media history. This book chronicles the emergence and transformation of Nigeria's diasporic citizen journalism from the margins to the mainstream of the country's journalistic landscape and draws parallels with the mainstreaming of alternative media formations in other parts of the world. Farooq A. Kperogi is Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, USA. He is a columnist for the Nigerian Tribune and blogs at https: //www.farooqkperogi.com/
When we work or play through digital technologies – we also live in them. Communities form, conversations and social movements emerge spontaneously and through careful offline planning. While we have used disembodied communication and transportation technologies in the past – and still do – we have never before actually synchronously inhabited these communicative spaces, routes and networks in quite the way we do now. Digital Diasporas engages conversations across a selection of contemporary (gendered) Indian identified networks online: “Desis” creating place through labour and affective network formation in secondlife, Indian (diasporic) women engaged in digital domesticity, to Indian digital feminists engaged in debate and dialogue through Twitter. Through particular conversations and ethnographic journeys and linking back to personal and South Asian histories of Internet mediation, Gajjala and her co-authors reveal how affect and gendered digital labour combine in the formation of global socio-economic environment.
The explosion of digital information and communication technologies has influenced almost every aspect of contemporary life. Diasporas in the New Media Age is the first book-length examination of the social use of these technologies by emigrants and diasporas around the world. The eighteen original essays in the book explore the personal, familial, and social impact of modern communication technology on populations of European, Asian, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American emigrants. It also looks at the role and transformation of such concepts as identity, nation, culture, and community in the era of information technology and economic globalization. The contributors, who represent a number of disciplines and national origins, also take a range of approaches—empirical, theoretical, and rhetorical—and combine case studies with thoughtful analysis. Diasporas in the New Media Age is both a discussion of the use of communication technologies by various emigrant groups and an engaging account of the immigrant experience in the contemporary world. It offers important insights into the ways that dispersed populations are using digital media to maintain ties with their families and homeland, and to create new communities that preserve their culture and reinforce their sense of identity. In addition, the book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the impact of technology on society in general.
Exploring the intersections of digital humanities and African diaspora studies How can scholars use digital tools to better understand the African diaspora across time, space, and disciplines? And how can African diaspora studies inform the practices of digital humanities? These questions are at the heart of this timely collection of essays about the relationship between digital humanities and Black Atlantic studies, offering critical insights into race, migration, media, and scholarly knowledge production. The Digital Black Atlantic spans the African diaspora’s range—from Africa to North America, Europe, and the Caribbean—while its essayists span academic fields—from history and literary studies to musicology, game studies, and library and information studies. This transnational and interdisciplinary breadth is complemented by essays that focus on specific sites and digital humanities projects throughout the Black Atlantic. Covering key debates, The Digital Black Atlantic asks theoretical and practical questions about the ways that researchers and teachers of the African diaspora negotiate digital methods to explore a broad range of cultural forms including social media, open access libraries, digital music production, and video games. The volume further highlights contributions of African diaspora studies to digital humanities, such as politics and representation, power and authorship, the ephemerality of memory, and the vestiges of colonialist ideologies. Grounded in contemporary theory and praxis, The Digital Black Atlantic puts the digital humanities into conversation with African diaspora studies in crucial ways that advance both. Contributors: Alexandrina Agloro, Arizona State U; Abdul Alkalimat; Suzan Alteri, U of Florida; Paul Barrett, U of Guelph; Sayan Bhattacharyya, Singapore U of Technology and Design; Agata Błoch, Institute of History of Polish Academy of Sciences; Michał Bojanowski, Kozminski U; Sonya Donaldson, New Jersey City U; Anne Donlon; Laurent Dubois, Duke U; Amy E. Earhart, Texas A&M U; Schuyler Esprit, U of the West Indies; Demival Vasques Filho, U of Auckland, New Zealand; David Kirkland Garner; Alex Gil, Columbia U; Kaiama L. Glover, Barnard College, Columbia U; D. Fox Harrell, MIT; Hélène Huet, U of Florida; Mary Caton Lingold, Virginia Commonwealth U; Angel David Nieves, San Diego State U; Danielle Olson, MIT; Tunde Opeibi (Ope-Davies), U of Lagos, Nigeria; Jamila Moore Pewu, California State U, Fullerton; Anne Rice, Lehman College, CUNY; Sercan Şengün, Northeastern U; Janneken Smucker, West Chester U; Laurie N.Taylor, U of Florida; Toniesha L. Taylor, Texas Southern U.
This book explores how the children of Iranian immigrants in the US utilize the internet and develop digital identities. Taking Los Angeles—the long-time media and cultural center of Iranian diaspora—as its ethnographic field site, it investigates how various web platforms are embedded within the everyday social, cultural, and political lives of second generation Iranian Americans. Donya Alinejad unpacks contemporary diasporic belonging through her discussion of the digital mediation of race, memory, and long-distance engagement in the historic Iranian Green Movement. The book argues that web media practices have become integral to Iranian American identity formation for this generation, and introduces the notion of second-generation “digital styles” to explain how specific web applications afford new stylings of diaspora culture.
This book examines how African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American diasporas use media to communicate among themselves and to integrate into European countries. Whereas migrant communities continue employing print and broadcasting technologies, the rapidly growing applications of Internet platforms like social media have substantially enriched their interactions. These communication practices provide valuable insights into how diasporas define themselves. The anthology investigates varied uses of media by Ecuadorian, Congolese, Moroccan, Nepalese, Portugal, Somali, Syrian and Turkish communities residing in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK. These studies are based on research methodologies including big data analysis, content analysis, focus groups, interviews, surveys and visual framing, and they make a strong contribution to the emerging theory of diasporic media.
Increasingly, young people live online, with the vast majority of their social and cultural interactions conducted through means other than face-to-face conversation. How does this transition impact the ways in which young migrants understand, negotiate, and perform identity? That's the question taken up by Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0, a ground-breaking analysis of the ways that youth culture online interacts with issues of diaspora, gender, and belonging. Drawing on surveys, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, Koen Leurs builds an interdisciplinary portrait of online youth culture and the spaces it opens up for migrant youth to negotiate power relations and to promote intercultural understanding.
Nations, migration, and the world wide web of politics -- Infopolitics and sacrificial citizenship: sovereignty in spaces beyond the nation -- Diasporic citizenship and the public sphere: creating national space online -- The mouse that roars: websites as an offshore platform for civil society -- Mourning becomes electronic: representing the nation in a virtual war memorial -- Sex, lies, and cyberspace: political participation and the "woman question."