Globalisation and social media technologies: implications for Africa identity formation.

Abstract

With advances in information and communication technology, social interactions among people of diverse backgrounds and integration of regions across the globe have assumed a new dimension. Distance and time are no longer constraints to communication. While globalisation is conceptually integrating, for instance, Africa with the rest of the world, the use of the social media technology is contextually providing platforms for social interactions among Africans and between Africans and the Western world. This new order of integration and interactions has provided Africa with such opportunity of keeping pace with global development but at the cost of losing identity by following the seemingly evolving globalised crowd that encourages the culture of commonness in a new reconstructed digital space. The provision of mechanism for user profile and personalisation within the social media technology framework allows for identity formation within the context of its construction and negotiation but the intrinsic influence of globalisation on Africa has resulted in overlapping identity, especially for Africans in diaspora. This qualitative research study examines the narratives around the implications of globalisation and social media technologies on Africa identity formation..