Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

Over a decade ago, when Nigeria's migratory digital elite in the United States pioneered a newfangled form of citizen online journalism that disrupted the professional certainties of domestic legacy journalism, the country's professional journalists perhaps assumed that the disruptive effect of this insurgent, nonprofessionalized, non-\routinized but nonetheless transformative form of journalism would be transitory. But diasporic citizen online journalism is not only now an integral part of Nigeria's media ecosystem, it has also inspired successful homeland digital-native emulators and is challenging, even in some cases supplanting, traditional domestic media formations as sites of consequential democratic discourse. With Nigeria's frenetic and deeply engaged social media scene, diasporan citizen journalism, homeland news, and social media activism are merging to create the most energetic moment in Nigeria's media history. This book chronicles the emergence and transformation of Nigeria's diasporic citizen journalism from the margins to the mainstream of the country's journalistic landscape and draws parallels with the mainstreaming of alternative media formations in other parts of the world.

Farooq A. Kperogi is Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, USA. He is a columnist for the Nigerian Tribune and blogs at https: //www.farooqkperogi.com/