Resuscitating the African Oral Artistic Tradition: Towards a Re-enactment of Storytelling for Moral Rebirth among the Nigerian Youth

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niyi Akingbe ◽  
Mark Ighile ◽  
Emmanuel Adeniyi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
National Development ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
African Society ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Economic Climate ◽  
Cosmological Beliefs ◽  
Use Of The Internet

The study was conducted to examine the role of storytelling in the moral upbringing of the Nigerian youth. Storytelling is one of the important subgenres of the prose form of oral literature. Being a verbal art used in traditional African society for entertainment and didacticism, its usefulness in inculcating in children values, mores and cosmological beliefs of traditional African society cannot be downplayed. In recent times, however, the art seems to have suffered atrophy since it is rarely told by parents to their children. One factor responsible for this is the creeping pace of the poor economic climate currently ravaging many African countries. Suffice it to state that, a poor economy has continually forced many parents to scout for the fleeting means of survival which prevents them from spending quality time with their children. As it appears presently, storytelling seems to be threatened in Nigeria, and by extension the entire Africa, by the overbearing influence of the cyber age. Undoubtedly, the cyber culture heralds the age of technological revolution which manifests in the overwhelming use of the Internet and social media. However, the age has witnessed the evolution of several devices that ostensibly render the art of storytelling preposterous. Nevertheless, while social media is fast spreading a subversion of African traditions, it becomes increasingly important to counterbalance this trend with the art of storytelling. Consequently, this study was conducted with a view to reiterating the significance of storytelling as a veritable conduit for moral regeneration of youth and children in the quest for national development. Iwo and Evbologun, two traditionally oriented Yoruba and Bini communities acclaimed for their folkloristic enterprises, were chosen for the study. Given their cultural inclinations, the choice of these communities was informed by the need to re-evaluate the practice or otherwise of the storytelling art there. The study is anchored in structuralism to explain that cultural elements operate in an interrelated manner. Interestingly, it found that oral narrative (storytelling) is ostensibly declining among most Nigerians, though some people understand its usefulness and want it to be resuscitated.

The Use of Social Media by the Botswana Government and Governance of Liquid Communication

Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshepho Lydia Mosweu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Service Access ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Social media as a communication tool has enabled governments around the world to interact with citizens for customer service, access to information and to direct community involvement needs. The trends around the world show recognition by governments that social media content may constitute records and should be managed accordingly. The literature shows that governments and organisations in other countries, particularly in Europe, have social media policies and strategies to guide the management of social media content, but there is less evidence among African countries. Thus the purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of usage of social media by the Botswana government in order to determine the necessity for the governance of liquid communication. Liquid communication here refers to the type of communication that goes easily back and forth between participants involved through social media. The ARMA principle of availability requires that where there is information governance, an organisation shall maintain its information assets in a manner that ensures their timely, efficient and accurate retrieval. The study adopted a qualitative case study approach where data were collected through documentary reviews and interviews among purposively selected employees of the Botswana government. This study revealed that the Botswana government has been actively using social media platforms to interact with its citizens since 2011 for increased access, usage and awareness of services offered by the government. Nonetheless, the study revealed that the government had no official documentation on the use of social media, and policies and strategies that dealt with the governance of liquid communication. This study recommends the governance of liquid communication to ensure timely, efficient and accurate retrieval when needed for business purposes.

Novel interfaces in science communication: Comparing journalistic and social media uptake of articles published by The Conversation Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 096366252110193
Author(s):  
Lars Guenther ◽  
Marina Joubert
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Science Journalism ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Public Science ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Agenda Setter ◽  
Or Economics ◽  
Media Ecosystem

Science amplifier platforms such as The Conversation have gained popularity in a changing media ecosystem in which the traditional roles of journalists are eroded, and scientists are urged to engage with society. The Conversation constitutes a blend of scientific communication, public science communication and science journalism, and a convergence of the professional worlds of science and journalism. In this study, we investigated the nature and impact of the Africa-focussed edition of this platform, The Conversation Africa. We analysed articles published over a 5-year period since its launch in 2015 ( N = 5392). Contents from South Africa dominate the platform, but contributions from other African countries are increasing. Regarding the role of The Conversation Africa as an inter-media agenda setter, mainstream media more often republished stories related to politics or economics, while stories about social issues such as education, conservation and art were more often shared on social media.

The Use of the Internet and Social Media by Microenterprises in South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 58-65
Author(s):  
Obey Dzomonda ◽  
Olawale Fatoki ◽  
Olabanji Oni ◽  
Mgoako Prudence Bosch
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Internet And Social Media

scholarly journals Global South teacher educators in digital landscape: implications on professional learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Maria Antonietta Impedovo ◽  
Sufiana Khatoon Malik ◽  
Kinley Kinley
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Digital Resources ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Digital Landscape

Abstract This article explores Pakistani and Bhutanese teacher educators’ digital competences about the use of social media, digital resources and professional online communities and implications of this on professional learning. The two countries, less discussed in international educational literature, are facing a growing use of the Internet in teaching and learning. Data include a survey completed by 67 teacher educators from Pakistan and 37 teachers from Bhutan, as well as semi-structured interviews from both countries. This study provides evidence of how teachers’ interaction on social networks and the use of digital resources play a central role in the introduction of innovative pedagogical practices of teacher educators, and teacher educators remain interested in knowledge sharing through social media for their professional learning.

scholarly journals Online Multilingual Hate Speech Detection: Experimenting with Hindi and English Social Media

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeraj Vashistha ◽  
Arkaitz Zubiaga
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Competitive Performance ◽  
Speech Detection ◽  
Improve Model ◽  
Use Of The Internet

The exponential increase in the use of the Internet and social media over the last two decades has changed human interaction. This has led to many positive outcomes, but at the same time it has brought risks and harms. While the volume of harmful content online, such as hate speech, is not manageable by humans, interest in the academic community to investigate automated means for hate speech detection has increased. In this study, we analyse six publicly available datasets by combining them into a single homogeneous dataset and classify them into three classes, abusive, hateful or neither. We create a baseline model and we improve model performance scores using various optimisation techniques. After attaining a competitive performance score, we create a tool which identifies and scores a page with effective metric in near-real time and uses the same as feedback to re-train our model. We prove the competitive performance of our multilingual model on two langauges, English and Hindi, leading to comparable or superior performance to most monolingual models.

scholarly journals An analysis of compensation collected for the depletion of Angola’s oil resources

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Pieter Van der Zwan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
National Development ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Production Sharing ◽  
Compensation Systems ◽  
The People ◽  
Oil Resources ◽  
Rich Countries

The African continent contributes approximately 12% of the world’s oil production. Despite this wealth, many citizens of oil-rich African countries live in poverty, often because their governments do not collect sufficient compensation for the depletion of oil resources to fund national development or do not utilise compensation collected for the benefit of the people. In this article the extraction tax regime to collect compensation on Angola’s oil resources is compared to the regimes in other oil-rich countries to identify aspects from which Angola can learn with regard to the compensation systems of those countries. It is concluded that Angola may be able to improve its extraction tax regime by learning from governance measures over natural resource funds in Norway and Canada, by implementing measures to increase its oil royalty income in times of economic prosperity and by defining deductible costs more specifically in its production-sharing agreements.

Literacy: Gateway to a World of Exploits

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Biale Zua
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
National Development ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
National Governments

The importance of literacy to the personal development of an individual and existence of any nation cannot be overemphasized. Literacy is the foundation for meaningful development of any nation. It is not a single entity but an interconnection of several fields―education, health, agriculture, and more. For example, a literate individual can have access to information relating to her career or business. However, not every individual in the society is literate enough to contribute to national development. Thus, strong literacy skills are necessary to function in today’s contemporary society. This research examines literacy across African countries with a view of determining countries with high literacy rates. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have low literacy rates with gender and regional disparity. Therefore, sub-Saharan Africa national governments need to develop strong literacy skills in their countries to participate effectively in the globalized society.

Internet Addiction and Fear of Missing Out

2019 ◽  
pp. 253-268
Author(s):  
Joseph Kofi Wireko
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Internet Addiction ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Fear Of Missing Out ◽  
Compulsive Checking ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Use Of Internet

Smartphones and the evolution of new ICTs have enabled people, especially the youth, to stay connected to their social and professional network. This has resulted in compulsive checking for status updates and messages, for fear of missing out (FOMO). FOMO, which is a form of internet addiction, has its downside among students. This chapter is an empirical study that seeks to examine the disruptive effect of FOMO on the academic performance of students. Four hundred twenty-two university students were surveyed on their use of internet (social media services) and its result on their academic activities. A Likert scale was used to measure their use of the internet (social media) and its relationship with their academic performance. Chi-square and factor analysis were conducted. The results showed that continuous use of internet had negative effect on students' academic performance and it affected the female students more than their male counterparts. Tertiary institutions should intensify guidance and counselling sessions for students in order to mitigate the negative effects of use of internet on students.

The Internet, Social Media, and Knowledge Production and Development of Political Marketing

2019 ◽  
pp. 562-593
Author(s):  
Nyarwi Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
The Impact

Though the use and development of the Internet, World Wide Web and social media and their impacts on politics have been robustly investigated, specific attention has not yet been paid to explore the impact of adaptation and use of social media by political actors and organizations on the knowledge production and generation of political marketing. In order to fill this knowledge gap, a conceptual framework to explore modes of knowledge production and generation of political marketing has been proposed. The transcendental realism approach postulated by Bhaskar (1998, 2008) and the meta-theoretical assumptions of political marketing proposed by Henneberg (2008) were adopted. A content analysis of 320 articles of Journal of Political Marketing published in between 2002 and 2015 was carried out. This work reveals that the adaptation and use of the Internet and social media have been accounted for in producing and generating the operational or the rudimentary-conceptual or the established-conceptual knowledge of political marketing.

E-Development in Bangladesh

2011 ◽  
pp. 632-641
Author(s):  
Mohammed Jabed Sarwar
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Information Dissemination ◽  
Developing World ◽  
National Development ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Economic Networks ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
The Right

Numerous factors, like political stability, physical infrastructure, basic healthcare, and so forth influence the extent and speed of social and economic development. There is no suggestion that ICT can eliminate the need for these or offer a panacea for all development problems. But detail analyses of experience around the world reveal ample evidence that, if used in the right way and for the right purposes, ICT can have a dramatic impact on achieving specific socio-economic development goals, as well as, play a key role in broader national development strategies. The real benefits lie not in the provision of technology rather in its application to create powerful socio-economic networks by drastically improving communication and the exchange of information (Vulkan, 1999). Recent developments in the fields of communications and information technology are indeed revolutionary in nature. Information and knowledge are expanding in quantity and accessibility. In many fields, future decision-makers will be presented with unprecedented new tools for development. In such fields as agriculture, health, education, human resources and environmental management, or transport and business development, the consequences could be really quite revolutionary. Communications and information technology have enormous potential, especially for developing countries, and in furthering sustainable development (Hamelink, 1997). ICTs have therefore brought about a new hope for the developing world. Many of these countries continue to labor in the agricultural age and their economic development is thus restricted and unable to move on and catch up with the developed world. Most developing nations have also been unable to industrialize their economies leading to greater impoverishment and dependence. In this context, the very prospect of “leapfrogging” the traditional stages and cycles of progress, is seen as revolutionary. Telemedicine, distance education, wireless applications, the use of the Internet for a wide variety of critical information dissemination tasks—hold the promise of overcoming fundamental barriers of infrastructure which have plagued the developing world (Mody, 1999).

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