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Misinformation across digital divides : theory and evidence from Northern Ghana
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Gadjanova, Elena, Lynch, Gabrielle and Saibu, Ghadafi (2022) Misinformation across digital divides : theory and evidence from Northern Ghana. African Affairs, 121 (483). pp. 161-195. doi:10.1093/afraf/adac009 ISSN 0001-9909.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adac009
Abstract
Social media misinformation is widely recognized as a significant and growing global problem. Yet, little is known about how misinformation spreads across broader media ecosystems, particularly in areas with varying internet access and connectivity. Drawing on research in northern Ghana, we seek to address this gap. We argue that ‘pavement media’—the everyday communication of current affairs through discussions in marketplaces, places of worship, bars, and the like and through a range of non-conversational and visual practices such as songs, sermons, and graffiti—is a key link in a broader media ecosystem. Vibrant pavement and traditional media allow for information from social media to quickly cross into offline spaces, creating a distinction not of the connected and disconnected but of first-hand and indirect social media users. This paper sets out how social, traditional, and pavement media form a complex and deeply gendered and socio-economically stratified media ecosystem and investigates its implications for how citizens differentially encounter, process, and respond to misinformation. Based on the findings, we argue that efforts intended to combat the spread of misinformation need to move beyond the Western-centred conception of what constitutes media and take different local modalities of media access and fact-checking into account.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | African Affairs | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0001-9909 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | April 2022 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 121 | ||||||||
| Number: | 483 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 161-195 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/afraf/adac009 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 18 February 2022 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 17 May 2022 | ||||||||
| Funder: | Funding for this research was provided by the Global Challenges Research Fund and an Impact Fund award from the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. | ||||||||
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