Digital Technologies and African Societies

Challenges and Opportunities

Julien Atchoua, Jean-Jacques Maomra Bogui, Saikou Diallo

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119777281
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

The integration and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in African countries is increasingly observable in various sectors of activity (banking, education, trade, etc.) despite a digital divide still relevant. ICT has become a major sector of the recent growth of a new informal economy in African cities (Chéneau-Loquay, 2008). This question has been at the heart of various international meetings. An overall positive and even utopian momentum is generally heard about the contribution of digital technologies to the development of African states. The adoption or appropriation of digital technologies by Africans is presented in many speeches by politicians or institutions involved in the field of cooperation and international development as an important issue for the development of this continent. These different considerations give rise to reflections on the following themes. - Social Media and Public Space in Africa - Challenges of the digital economy in Africa - ICT and modernization of higher education in Africa

PART 1
Social Media and the Public Space in Africa

1
Civil Society in the Consolidation Process of Democracy in Burkina Faso: Balai Citoyen on Facebook

In the early 1990s, some international organizations and non-government organizations (NGOs), including those endorsed by UN bodies and working in development such as CARE, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, VSF-CICDA, GRET, etc., found a way to evaluate the state of African-style democracy in the concept of good governance (Cubillos and Appolin 2004). For these institutions, evaluation measures were based on a number of founding concepts: participation, rule of law, adjustment capacity, consensus orientation, equity, accountability and strategic vision. In this interpretation, good governance must make it possible to combine the rights and duties of a community of interests.

In Burkina Faso, civil society organizations (CSOs) have been looking at the management of public affairs by politicians since the beginning of independence in 1960. To this end, we note the following:

“Beyond the political instability that has always characterized Upper Volta, in the 1970s it was able to afford the ‘luxury of democracy’, even if it was ‘a democracy with a military face’ in a regional environment dominated by a single party; it owes it above all to the existence of a combative civil society, which has managed to preserve a minimum level of autonomy in relation to the attempts to control the different regimes that have followed, until the advent of the Burkinabe revolution on August 4, 1983.” (Loada 1999, p. 7)

While the political resolutions of the revolution initiated by Thomas Sankara at the end of the coup of October 15, 1987 made it possible to bring civil society closer together, it was above all the democratization process that began in the 1990s that created a favorable context for the expansion of the latter (Sandwidi 1996). From the murder of journalist Norbert Zongo in 1998 to the popular uprising that preceded the fall of the Blaise Compaoré regime in 2014, Burkina Faso is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy and effectiveness, of which abstentionism and mistrust of citizens towards decision-makers are the most obvious symptoms. At the same time, citizens show, more than ever, a desire to get involved in the management of public affairs, and the structures that allow them to invest themselves in the life of the city are increasing in number (Saldomando 2001). According to a European Union report, Burkina Faso has about 12,000 CSOs (professional, religious, youth, trade unions, national and international NGOs, community organizations, networks and umbrella organizations, etc.) (EU+ 2016 Group). Thus, organized civil society, as a lever for revitalizing the democracy, aspires to be fully integrated into democratic decision-making processes (Planche 2004).

The emergence of Burkinabe civil society on the political scene is not new; however, it is with the emergence of Balai Citoyen (French for Citizen’s Broom) and many others that civil society has emerged as an essential actor in political change. This movement has undergone qualitative development marked by a commitment to the struggle to strengthen the democratic process and build the rule of law. The role played by Balai Citoyen in the period from October 27 to 31, 2014, preceding the attempt made by the Blaise Compaoré regime to amend Article 37¹ of the Constitution, reveals a mechanism for mobilizing all segments of the population in favor of political change (Brother and Angelbert 2015). Thus, through the popular mobilization it provoked, Balai Citoyen undeniably led the regime to include these problems in its political agenda. In this sense, the politicization of issues related to impunity, justice, the rule of law and democracy has led to the integration of Balai Citoyen into the Burkinabe political scene and given its activities a political character.

How can we explain the rapid emergence of Balai Citoyen in the political sphere in Burkina Faso? The choice of social networks (Facebook) on the Internet by Balai Citoyen was a strategic means of mass communication in order to bypass the traditional communication channels under the control of the regime. This general mobilization approach of populations by Balai Citoyen on Facebook is part of a dynamic:

“to support as closely as possible the evolution of ever more efficient media. Political communication very quickly took hold of the Internet, which has increased its power and considerably extended its area of influence, thanks to its rapid evolution towards Web citizenship, which forms a brand new network of rumors and influence. The relatively recent evolution in the early 2000s from the Internet to Web 2.0 and a much more social and relational set of properties (collaboration, sharing of information and content, personalization, knowledge management, use of social networks, communication) has fostered the emergence of digital social networks that have quickly crystallized politicians’ expectations and desires for transparency, immediacy and proximity to citizens.” (Babau and Eyries 2015, p. 2)

1.1. Problems

Like other social networks, Facebook is a field of projective reality and a construct of the social, political and cultural imagination. In a dynamic of social change, these types of social changes become products accepted as reality by the public. On Facebook, the reality of events is, in most cases, assimilated with the projective reality. Such an approach leads audiences to act by supporting symbolic constructs that have few or almost no link with reality (Palliart 2000). Projective messages, derived from the myths maintained by social networks such as Facebook, encourage its users to collectively live a story with the main actors. Internet users thus contribute to the construction of a virtual reality and convert it into real life. How does Balai Citoyen proceed to build an image of itself as an active player on Facebook? Through what operational mechanism does Balai Citoyen use Facebook to influence the Burkinabe political landscape after Blaise Compaoré? What role do the key actors of the movement play on social networks in the political struggle and democracy in Burkina Faso? To explore these questions, we will consider two main hypotheses. The first hypothesis concerns the fact that the main actors of Balai Citoyen have been able to conquer the public on Facebook through charming operations that consist of displaying their socio-professional status. As for the second hypothesis, we note that Balai Citoyen uses Facebook as a tool for political combat in defending the democratic ideal through crowd mobilization.

1.2. Theoretical and methodological approach

The objective of this study is to show the role of Balai Citoyen in the consolidation of post-insurgency democracy in Burkina Faso through social networks (Facebook). It is part of a systemic approach that builds on the work of the invisible college of the Palo Alto school. The systems theory developed by this school reflects the action of one element on another, which in turn leads to a response from the second element to the first. This is what we call feedback, as highlighted in cybernetics that lays the foundation for this theory. This appro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART 1: Social Media and the Public Space in Africa
• PART 2: Issues Linked to the Digital Economy in Africa
• PART 3: Digital Technologies and Human Development
• List of Authors
• Index
• Other titles from ISTE in Systems and Industrial Engineering – Robotics
• End User License Agreement