Digital Identity and Cultural Reproduction Among African Youth in The Age of Social Media

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@article{1718253,
      author = {Sule, I., Adekoya, T. F.},
      title = {Digital Identity and Cultural Reproduction Among African Youth in The Age of Social Media},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2024},
      volume = {8},
      number = {2},
      pages = {1406-1415},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1718253.pdf},
      abstract = {In the twenty-first century, social media has emerged as a central arena for identity performance and cultural negotiation among African youth. While global research increasingly explores digital self-presentation, there remains limited understanding of how African youth use online platforms to reproduce, transform, and hybridize cultural traditions. This study investigates digital identity and cultural reproduction within African social-media contexts, focusing on youth practices across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and Tanzania. Employing a qualitative, interpretivist design that combines digital ethnography and qualitative content analysis, the research analyzed a simulated dataset of 60 posts drawn from Instagram, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter). Thematic analysis revealed six dominant themes: hybrid cultural identity, language as identity marker, cultural reproduction through digital performance, resistance and redefinition, Pan-African digital solidarity, and digital cultural agency. These themes illustrate how young Africans strategically employ digital platforms to blend heritage and modernity, affirm collective belonging, and resist marginalization. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, Goffman’s self-presentation theory, and Bhabha’s postcolonial hybridity, the study demonstrates that digital identity functions as both continuity and innovation — a means of sustaining culture while reimagining it for global circulation. Ultimately, African youth emerge not as passive consumers but as active cultural producers, transforming social media into a vibrant arena of Pan-African connectivity, cultural resilience, and creative agency. The study concludes by calling for more empirical, cross-diasporic, and subcultural research on digital Africanness in the evolving global mediascape.},
      keywords = {Digital Identity, Cultural Reproduction, Hybridity, African Youth, Social Media, Pan-Africanism, Digital Culture},
      month = {August},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV8I2-1718253}
  }