{"id":338329,"date":"2021-09-12T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/"},"modified":"2021-09-12T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T13:00:03","slug":"decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/","title":{"rendered":"#Decolonizing the internet starts with looking at media history"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3298d1c3dac\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a3298d1c3dac\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/#Media_ancestors\" >Media ancestors<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/#Power_structures\" >Power structures<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/#Knowledge_systems\" >Knowledge systems<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/decolonizing-the-internet-starts-with-looking-at-media-history\/#A_greater_understanding\" >A greater understanding<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Decolonizing the internet starts with looking at <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> history<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"legacy\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.crassh.cam.ac.uk\/events\/25659\">Historically<\/a>, many media institutions were at the service of \u201cthe colonizing empire\u201d, both in how they were modeled and used. They were meant to <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/africaworldpressbooks.com\/thunder-and-silence-the-mass-media-in-africa-by-dhyana-ziegler-molefi-k-asante\/\">advance the ideology<\/a> of colonizers in colonies.<\/p>\n<p>Today some print and electronic media remain <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/journals.co.za\/doi\/pdf\/10.10520\/EJC146406\">at the service of coloniality and imperialism<\/a>. They play out colonialism\u2019s legacy, coloniality \u2013 the patterns of power that persist long after the end of formal colonialism. This process has a regressive effect. It betrays the progressive role that is <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/us.sagepub.com\/sites\/default\/files\/upm-binaries\/67529_McQuail___Mass_Communication_Theory_Chapter_4.pdf\">generally associated<\/a> with media institutions as spaces for sharing ideas and knowledge about modern societies.<\/p>\n<p>This leads me to ask: is it possible to decolonize today\u2019s largest global communication platform, the internet? There is no linear <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roach to the process. But any attempt must start with looking at how the internet spreads knowledge and ideas about Africa and Africans.<\/p>\n<p>Decolonization, to me, is moving away from seeing the world today as a universe and instead viewing it as a \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dukeupress.edu\/constructing-the-pluriverse\">pluriverse<\/a>\u201d: multiple worlds existing side by side, occupied by people actively working to emancipate themselves from the colonial power imbalances that have characterized the modern world. That is what the internet should be: a communication tool that fairly represents these \u201cpluriverses\u201d.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Media_ancestors\"><\/span>Media ancestors<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It is also important to contextualize the decolonization debate in reference to the internet by looking at its ancestors \u2013 other institutions of communication. As a researcher in media studies, I have a special interest in the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/02572117.2018.1518038\">history of the media<\/a> and how media institutions are <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/wiredspace.wits.ac.za\/bitstream\/handle\/10539\/24600\/DOCTORAL%20THESIS_SUBMISSION%20COPY%20WITH%20CORRECTIONS%20-%20FACULTY%20SUBMISSION_Siyasanga%20Tyali.pdf?isAllowed=y&amp;sequence=2\">in conversation<\/a> with the concept of colonialism or coloniality. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfrancis.com\/chapters\/edit\/10.4324\/9781351273206-14\/community-radio-african-interest-broadcasting-siyasanga-tyali\">I also examine<\/a> how decolonization might occur.<\/p>\n<p>In thinking about anything to do with decolonisation, it\u2019s important to understand the history of colonisation. How does it manifest itself in the present moment? How does its afterlife take shape or form in the aftermath of settler or direct extraction by the colonial society?<\/p>\n<p>Next, the internet must be understood as a space that represents the continuities and discontinuities of the colonial legacy. It has the potential to reproduce as well as to change people\u2019s understanding of the world.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Power_structures\"><\/span>Power structures<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The philosopher Frantz Fanon was among those who reflected on the colonial nature of an internet ancestor, radio. He spoke about the role radio played in the bigger colonial project in Algeria, and the space that Radio Algiers occupied. Radio Algiers, a then French broadcasting station which functioned in Algeria for decades, was a re-edition of the Paris-based French National Broadcasting System. In 1959, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.campusincamps.ps\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/fanon-this-is-the-voice-of-algeria.pdf\">Fanon wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u2026among European farmers, the radio was broadly regarded as a link with the civilised world, as an effective instrument of resistance to the corrosive influence of an inert native society, of a society without a future, backward and devoid of values.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This history teaches societies that platforms of communication are not free from ideological influence. It is on those basis that we need to be vigilant about the contemporary role that is played by communication platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Today the internet is, for many societies, the default distributor of ideas, \u201cfacts\u201d, opinions and various knowledge systems. It is also the default gatekeeper of knowledge in modern society.<\/p>\n<p>The internet literally spreads ideas about oneself or one another \u2013 particularly about one another, in keeping with the power structures of the global order: global South vs global North, the colonial subject vs the colonizing subject.<\/p>\n<p>The ideas spread by the internet could mean that one is seen to be, for instance, lacking in morals, evil, a savage, and uncivilized. This is the real power of the internet as a communication medium: it buttresses or disrupts knowledge about the world.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Knowledge_systems\"><\/span>Knowledge systems<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The internet is also a knowledge carrying platform. It produces and spreads ideas that carefully work their way into one\u2019s mind, thereby wittingly or unwittingly shaping one\u2019s view of the world. The global South and particularly the African continent has not, by and large, technologically leapfrogged. <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/1176668\/internet-penetration-rate-in-africa-by-region\/\">Internet access within the continent is uneven<\/a>, with the continent\u2019s eastern and central regions lagging most.<\/p>\n<p>Africa, then, has played a limited role on the internet as a carrier of knowledge. So it is reasonable to argue that the knowledge carried by the internet on Africa and Africans needs to be continuously interrogated. What needs to be further probed is whether or not the internet disrupts the narrative on Africa as explained by the West and colonial societies. Or does it entrench those narratives and understandings?<\/p>\n<p>The \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/09502380601162548?scroll=top&amp;needAccess=true\">coloniality of knowledge<\/a>\u201d within the context of the internet means that the African subject \u2013 with limited representation on the internet \u2013 continues to be explained through an imperialistic knowledge outlook. As a result of its limited online representation, the continent and its people largely remain unseen and unheard. They are talked and written about. Their forms of knowledge are packaged by others on the internet. All this, by subjects who largely reside in neo-colonial and imperialistic geographies.<\/p>\n<p>This all entrenches the narratives as described by theorist Edward Said when <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/1343582\">he noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Poverty, dependency, underdevelopment, various pathologies of power and corruption, plus of course notable achievements in war, literacy, economic development: this mix of characteristics designated the colonised people who had freed themselves on one level but who remained victims of their past on another.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_greater_understanding\"><\/span>A greater understanding<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>To begin to decolonize the internet, to me, means to recognize the history of colonialism and its omnipresence even within systems and platforms that are meant to be most progressive.<\/p>\n<p>It is to understand \u201ccoloniality of knowledge\u201d and come to terms with aspects of the \u201chidden\u201d or invisible power matrix in the world today. It means recognizing the uneven distribution of access to the internet, and what this means for who contributes most to the internet as a source of knowledge. It is to understand how this undermines those whom the world has traditionally designated as the unseen and the unheard.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is an edited version of a talk the author gave at <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/mediamonitoringafrica.org\/2021\/06\/15\/media-release-decolonising-the-internet-how-artificial-intelligence-shapes-our-world\/\">an event<\/a> on 1 July 2021 titled \u201cDecolonising the internet: How AI shapes our world\u201d.<\/em><!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0 !important;max-height: 1px !important;max-width: 1px !important;min-height: 1px !important;min-width: 1px !important;padding: 0 !important\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" class=\"js-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/166598\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\"\/><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n<p><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0 !important;max-height: 1px !important;max-width: 1px !important;min-height: 1px !important;min-width: 1px !important;padding: 0 !important\" src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/166598\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" alt=\"The Conversation\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" class=\"\" srcset=\"\"\/><\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>Article by <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/siyasanga-m-tyali-1261674\">Siyasanga M Tyali<\/a>, Associate Professor and Chair of Department, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-south-africa-1951\">University of South Africa<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished from <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/challenging-the-internets-colonial-structure-starts-with-looking-to-media-history-166598\">original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/decolonizing-internet-media-history-syndication\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Decolonizing the internet starts with looking at media history&#8221; Historically, many media institutions were at the service of \u201cthe colonizing empire\u201d, both in how they were modeled and used. They were meant to advance the ideology of colonizers in colonies. Today some print and electronic media remain at the service of coloniality and imperialism. They&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/09\/pexels-christina-morillo-1181248.jpg&signature=e6e251601deae0c7d2c27ec33c4edf45","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}