Digital Political Communication and Indigenous Languages in Africa

Despite calls to decolonise the media, indigenous languages still have minimal representation on digital platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and existing studies have tended to focus on stylistic elements rather than a deeper exploration of how indigenous languages are used in political communication.

This book explores the various kinds of political communication that social media enables or curtails in African indigenous languages. Despite calls to decolonise the media, indigenous languages still have minimal representation on digital platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and existing studies have tended to focus on stylistic elements rather than a deeper exploration of how indigenous languages are used in political communication. This book addresses this gap by delving into how local language discursive texts, which are central to participatory journalism and citizen interpretive communities, function on social media platforms and online forums. Often complex and sometimes vulgar, these texts play a significant role in political communication in Africa, and their study offers important new perspectives on the potential of digital platforms as spaces for unrestricted linguistic expression.