The new media outfit known as Social Media Week, SMW, believes it is cool to have Africans tell African stories, but it says the story teller must be properly equipped with modern technology.
SMW, based in Lagos, Nigeria, notes that there are two sides to every coin: one side believes Africans have been telling their stories. But the Western media, using sophisticated state-of-the–art tools, have stifled the voices of indigenous African story tellers. The other side insists that Africans are not doing enough to project their own image.
The co-founder of SMW, Ngozi Odita, says there is no doubt that the proper use of technology can help Africa tell her stories, and perhaps, recreate the narratives about her peoples and their cultures.
In a chat with newsmen in Lagos, Ms. Odita said she had given talks at different tech conferences and art institutions on the subject and how SMW is using digital tools to reframe the conversation around Africa. She felt it is important to bring the conversation home, so that Africans can begin to tell their own stories in their own terms.
SMW Lagos, which has already published five editions, is engaged in providing the ideas, trends, insights and inspiration to help people and businesses to understand how to achieve more in the digital age.
For the edition billed for next week, SMW publishers are eager to get Africans to stay connected by sharing their stories more closely and by bridging the gap between me-and-us styles of reporting.
The publishers like to emphasize that the idea is to learn how to strike a balance in the reportage of controversial and sensitive issues. Many African publications tend to flaunt their individual stories to look like what the Western media would approve and patronize.
So as Ms. Odita puts it, African story tellers must be encouraged to tell their authentic experiences but first they must be given the proper tools. For every member of a community to add value to the much-desired view point, the reporter or story teller must look out for equity. In other words, he or she must go with clean hands.
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