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Written Conversations in a Global Nigeria: Nigeria and the Newsgroup

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Ben Moran
Ben Moran*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

This paper takes for its starting point research into a single Internet discussion group, soc.culture.nigeria. It aims to provide a broad overview of the group's characteristics for those readers unfamiliar with such groups, and to highlight some important issues surrounding this form of communication which could provide a basis for consideration of other online discussion groups in the context of African studies. In particular, as this essay originated with a conference on ‘African Readerships’, it addresses the changing nature of the reader/writer distinction, and the blurring of boundaries between such categories as ‘Nigerian’, ‘African’ and ‘international’. For instance, what is the relationship between these discussions, largely written in the US but read around the world, and Nigeria? How should we understand the term ‘Nigeria’, given the culturally and linguistically divided nature of the state, if not in terms of its geopolitical boundaries?

Type
Reading and Readership in West Africa
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 83 , 2000 , pp. 11 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2000

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References

References

The main body of the research project is to be published separately, as an Occasional Paper of the Centre for African Studies, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Misty Bastian (1996) has chronicled the group's development.Google Scholar
Usenet ‘lurker ratios’ have been estimated at around 90-95% (ReCount, 1996).Google Scholar
Occasionally pictures are included in messages, or links to web-sites containing pictures are discussed, but this is quite rare.Google Scholar

Works cited

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