13:30 - 15:00
Room: Arts - Lecture Room 1
Stream: Digital Africa
Chair/s:
Nathan Richards
NETIZENS AS ACTION CITIZENS: THE CASE OF FEMALE IN NIGERIA (FIN) FACEBOOK FINSTERS AND THEIR STORIES AND THEIR ACTIONS
Iyabode Omolara Daniel
Department of Languages, Faculty of Arts, National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja, FCT

Online citizen action has been a very popular way of bringing down unpopular governments as shown by the Arab Spring. In addition, it is also the means of garnering support for or opposition against political candidates, depending on how the public perceives them. This could be seen in the unmatched popularity of Obama online even though he is no longer POTUS and the organized action against Trump, even though he is now POTUS. The wild jubilation of Zimbabweans when Mugabe was brought down could also be seen as a result of the people being gingered by the online trends as well as the online involvement of the international community. Nonetheless, the way the online community has also becomes a means of gender mainstreaming and gender empowerment has not really been focused. This paper thus looks at the online community called Female in Nigeria, a Facebook group, serving as an online platform that has greatly empowered many Nigerian women and those women married to Nigerian men. The paper does a profile review in terms of looking at the systematic way the online platform has helped to change the defeatist psychology of many Nigerian women and empowered and emboldened them to fight against injustices, even if it is against other women that are perceived to be doing things anti-women. The paper will take a critical look at the testimonies of these women and do a profile analysis of the contents of their Facebook posts based on Daniel (2008) proposal of self-determinism. This is in order to determine their linguistic choices of before and now. Most often than not, many of the women are posting for the first time, and sometimes, their posts could be second or third time. For ethical reasons, the names of the women will not be indicated neither will all their stories be told. It is expected that the findings should reveal what essentially changes the women from their stories. Our suspicion is that the secret may actually be in the women’s ability to bond and encourage one another. In addition, the fact that there are strict rules that forbid the women from sharing the stories of others help the women to be totally open as shown by some of the very personal things shared on the platform. In all, one can say that this group seems to have helped to shatter not just the glass ceiling in relation to the women’s psychological predispositions but also because the idea of women being the enemies of women. This negative concept in relation to women cooperation appears to have been finally put to rest as shown by these women’s ability to really support one another; this is a reality for the simple fact that, as a member of the group, the author has enough access to many of the women’s stories to be able to actually know this for a truth.


Reference:
Th-A13 Digital Africa 2-P-003
Presenter/s:
Iyabode Omolara Daniel
Presentation type:
Panel
Room:
Arts - Lecture Room 1
Chair/s:
Nathan Richards
Date:
Thursday, 13 September
Time:
14:00 - 14:15
Session times:
13:30 - 15:00