On the Relevance of Using Social Media Platforms as Archives for the Writing of African History

Abstract

In 2020, around 453 million people - roughly a third of the entire population on the African continent - were reported to be using the internet and about 217 million African users were active on social media. In this paper we suggest to understand social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and community forums as a kind of archives for writing African histories of everyday life. We argue that these platforms provide user-generated archives in the sense that they are built by users who document their everyday life by uploading items (photographs, videos, graphics, texts) which they either created themselves or which they accessed somewhere and made available by uploading them. By engaging with literature on archival science as well as on social media platforms, we discuss the opportunities which come along with the emergence of these new archives but also the ethical challenges that need to be faced when using sources from these online platforms. The article also engages with practical considerations on how to access, store and cite these sources. While many of the issues raised apply toAfrican Studies more generally, we discuss the topic with a focus on African contemporary history.