Out of Africa - New Media, Back Writing and the African Diaspora

Abstract: The aim of this study is to explore the relation of New Media, in particular blogging, at the intersection of the African Diaspora, identity construction and postcolonial thought. Postcolonialism is a theory and practice that seeks to encounter the dominant Western discourse and its affects on both the individual as well as society as a whole. It critically addresses and means to deconstruct Western representations of the ‘Third World’, in the case of this study ‘Africa’. It aims at hearing and recovering the experiences of the colonized or of those who have to deal with colonialism’s legacies and one of the most established strategies to do so is ‘writing back’ and delivering a counter-story that challenges the dominant discourse and its inherent power structures. New Media, through the relative ease of access and the communicative possibilities they present, blur the lines between media producers and consumers. They offer an attractive option for anyone with a certain level of computer literacy (and economic conditions) to enter the stage and produce his/ her own media content. Through New Media, it becomes possible to confront dominant media culture, politics and power and reclaim a space where a different story can be told. Weblogs, or blogs, are one of the most popular phenomena within New Media. They are a format for creating a sense of individual presence on the Web, allowing the author(s) to articulate and archive his/her/their thoughts. They can be seen as ‘digital identity narratives’, where people tell stories about themselves and how they see the world.In the frame of this study, six weblogs which belong to a blogosphere of African, mainly diasporic bloggers, have been analysed using a combination of narrative analysis and qualitative interviews in order to learn more about how New Media impact on the construction of identity for those who are permanently challenged by society for being ‘the Other’, and how they are used to oppose the Western discourse about Africa and to ‘write back’.