Week 4- YouTube and Online Video

Boosters of internet technology commonly celebrate its transformative effect on culture. The frequency of this fervor endorses a uniformity of opinion, discouraging critical analysis of these suppositions. While there can be little doubt the digital age has radically shifted the manner in which we communicate and share information, there is a need for deeper investigation into how, and how much, these innovations have actually affected various strata of global society. 

In Wall’s “Africa on YouTube,” Ghana and Kenya are case studies in the claim that YouTube has granted Africans greater access to information and, more specific to this study, means of self-representation. While technology is commonly claimed as empowering African citizenry in communication and commerce, Wall’s examination reveals that only a small minority of Africans have access to the internet. The vast majority of YouTube postings about both Ghana and Kenya are made by people living in the West, raising the specter of stereotypical representations of “otherness”, primitive lifestyles and other tropes endemic to colonialist narratives (especially within tourist-themed videos, second most common in this study). What Wall's study reveals is the potential for the internet (and specifically YouTube) to redress issues of global communication, information sharing and self-representation is ultimately dependant on access. 

While Wall’s research is useful in challenging the rhetoric of African self-empowerment through technology, it is undermined somewhat by YouTube’s user profile architecture. The study is admittedly unable to discern which of the participants are of Western heritage and which belong to the wider African diaspora. If one’s ability to engender technological self-representation is dependent on access to said technology, it would serve to reason that Africans living in the west would have more potential to do so. Consider that the majority of the videos Wall uncovers are for entertainment purposes, primarily music videos. Wall notes that many of these videos are emulations of Western musical forms (namely hip-hop), thus by association a phenomenon connected to colonialist legacy. And while America in particular maintains an undeniable cultural hegemony over much of the world, the study overlooks the significant fact that hip-hop in itself is a musical form derived from diasporic African traditions (e.g. griots, Jamaican soundsystem culture, etc.), an exercise of self-expression adapted by African-Americans and in turn emulated by Africans. What I’m suggesting is the reality of African post-colonial representation is more nuanced than Wall’s study would suggest, especially when one considers the role of Africa’s wider diaspora in formation of identity. Okayafrica.com is a good example of a US-based website that gives a platform for greater exposure to African musicians (including but not limited to Ghana and Kenya) and continental issues. 

Works Cited: 

Lucas Hilderbrand (2007). YouTube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge. Film Quarterly. Vol. 61(1), pp48-57. 

Patricia G. Lange ‘(Mis)conceptions about YouTube’ in Lovink, G. and Niederer, S. (eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2008. Download under Creative Commons License here: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/videovortex/ 

Melissa Wall (2009). Africa on YouTube: Musicians, Tourists, Missionaries and Aid Workers. International Communication Gazette, Vol. 71(5), pp393-407.