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ABSTRACT
This article examines the extent to which different forms and technologies of media production facilitate popular participation in a ‘digital public’ across the politically fragmented Somali territories. Based on textual analysis of local media and comparative examination of news production and consumption, the article emphasises the dual character of the public sphere in the Somali context. Here, local media production centred in individual capitals of different political administrations coexists and overlaps with a transnational arena of Somali-language broadcasting and debate from various externally-based media networks. In this distinctive Somali media ecology, multiple forms of ‘old’ media intersect with digital technologies that have emerged throughout the post-1991 period of statelessness, conflict and political reconfiguration. Local public spheres of media production and public engagement help create state-like identities and political imaginaries. Nonetheless, these are articulated in the wider transnational Somali-language digital public that such administrations have limited ability to control. In this context certain notions of a transnational Somali ethnolinguistic or religio-cultural community are maintained not in spite of conflict and fragmentation, but rather as a result of a media ecology and digital public that itself exists as an outcome of political instability and flux.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Golis University, Puntland State University, and the University of Mogadishu for their assistance with my fieldwork. Thanks are owed to journalist Liban Ahmed and researcher Faduma Abukar Mursal for their comments, as well as to all my respondents in Somalia. I would also like to thank the anonymous peer-reviewers and the editors of this issue for their helpful critiques.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Anderson, “Imagined Communities.”
2 From 2009–2011, I was employed by the University of Hargeysa, and from 2012–2015, by a major international humanitarian organisation working primarily in south-central Somalia and Puntland.
3 University of Mogadishu, Puntland State University (Garoowe) and Gollis University (Hargeysa). All interviews, surveys and focus groups were conducted in Somali.
4 Habermas, The Structural Transformation; Dean, “Cybersalons and Civil Society”; Poster, “CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere.”
5 Bennet and Pfetsch, “Rethinking Political Communication.”
6 Fraser, “Let’s be Responsible Citizens”; Mustapha, “The Public Sphere in 21st Century Africa,” 31; Nyamnjoh, Africa’s Media.
7 Hasty, The Press and Political Culture, 12.
8 Bernal, Network as Nation; Gagliardone, “New Media and the Developmental State”; Hammett, “Resistance, Power and Geopolitics in Zimbabwe”; Lynch, “After Egypt”; Ogone, “Intra-national Ethnic Diasporas”; Obadare & Willems, Civic Agency in Africa; Tomaselli, “Repositioning African Media Studies.”
9 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia; Ahmed, The Invention of Somalia; Besteman & Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia; Eno, Eno & Van Lehman, “Defining the Problem in Somalia.”
10 Calhoun, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, 279.
11 Wedeen, Peripheral Visions.
12 Barber, Readings in African Popular Culture, 2.
13 Willems, “Interrogating Public Sphere,” 7.
14 Mosley, “Somalia’s Federal Future.”
15 Hammond, “Somalia Rising.”
16 Goobjooge, “Dhageyso: Nabadoon Axmed Diriiye: Gobolka Banadiir Hawiye ayaa leh inta kalena marti ayay ku tahay” [Listen: Peace-maker Axmed Diriiye: “Banaadir region belongs to the Hawiye, others are guests (here)”] 30 March 2016. Accessed 28 June 2016. http://goobjooge.com/axmed-diiriye-gobolka-banaadir-hawiye-ayaa-leh/
17 Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland.
18 Walls et al. “International Election Observation Mission.”
19 Renders, Consider Somaliland; Hoehne, “Mimesis and Mimicry.”
20 Barnes, “The Somali Youth League.”
21 Adam, Gather Round the Speakers.
22 Stremlau, “Hostages of Peace.”
23 Email correspondence with current editor of Muqdisho newspaper, February 2015.
24 Hoehne, “Newspapers in Hargeisa.”
25 Interview with Mahamoud Abdi Jama, Head of Somaliland Journalists’ Association [SOLJA]. Hargeysa, 5 May 2015.
26 Feldman, “Somalia: Amidst the Rubble”; Nurhussein “Global Networks.”
27 Focus group, Garowe, Puntland State University, 7 March 2015.
28 Interviews with website owners in Somalia and in the diaspora. London, 27 May 2015, and Garoowe, 27 February 2015.
29 Interview with Mahamoud Abdi Jama, Head of Somaliland Journalists’ Association [SOLJA], Hargeysa, May 5, 2015. Not everyone, of course, is equally accepting of plagiarism, especially journalists with professional media experience outside of Somalia and who endeavour to produce what they see as higher quality content. (Interview with Somali-origin journalist working with international and regional media organisations, 13 May 2015).
30 Interview with Abdifatah Askar, Director of PLTV, Garoowe, 3 March 2015.
31 Hansen, “Revolving Returnees”; Hammond “Diaspora Returnees to Somaliland.”
32 Himilo newspaper, Hargeysa, 25 April 2015, “Qaxootiga Yurub oo lagu sifeeyey cayayaan liita” [Refugees described as bad as insects in Europe].
33 Abdi, Elusive Jannah.
34 Meeting attended between Somaliland Journalists’ Association representatives and 10 female radio/TV journalists, Hargeysa, 7 May 2015.
35 Stremlau et al. “The Political Economy of the Media.”
36 National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), “Press Freedom at Risk in Somalia” NUSOJ Annual Report, 2014. http://www.ifex.org/somalia/2015/01/13/somalia_annualreport_2014.pdf;
37 Somalia Media Law, Article 25.2. See also Human Rights Watch, “Like fish in poisonous waters,” 2016. https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/05/02/fish-poisonous-waters/attacks-media-freedom-somalia.
38 VOA Somali, 19 May 2015, “Puntland oo dib u Fasaxday TV-ga Dawladda Somalia” [Puntland gives permission again for Somali Government TV to operate]. http://www.voasomali.com/content/article/2777271.html
39 Stremlau, “Hostages of Peace.”
40 BBC Somali Service Facebook photo/link post, 1 March 2015. Accessed 4 January 2017. https://www.facebook.com/bbcsomali/photos/a.388773159474.173374.367167334474/10152877126394475/?type=1&theater.
41 BBC Somali Service Facebook photo/link post, 1 March 2015. Accessed 4 January 2017. https://www.facebook.com/bbcsomali/photos/a.388773159474.173374.367167334474/10152825670464475/?type=1.
42 At the time of writing, Somaliland authorities had blocked access to social media sites for the holding and immediate aftermath of the November 2017 Presidential election.
43 BBC “Debating Mogadishu Pictures” Live Response, 27 August 2015. Accessed 4 January 2017. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-34012096?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=[Debating%20Mogadishu%20pictures%2616:10]&ns_fee=0#post_34076461.
44 Safia Aidid, “Can the Somali Speak? #Cadaanstudies,” 30 March 2015. Accessed 4 January 2017. http://africasacountry.com/2015/03/can-the-somali-speak-cadaanstudies/.
45 BBC, “#BBCtrending: The Somali woman who's become a global star on Instagram,” February 17, 2015. Accessed 28 June 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31462954.
46 Caasimada Online, “Arag sawiro laga soo qaaday taankiyo & gawaari casri ah oo saaran markabkii lagu qabtay dekedda Berbera dhowaan” [See pictures taken of tanks and modern vehicles from ship held recently in Berbera port], 1 February 2015. http://caasimadda.com/arag-sawiro-laga-soo-qaaday-qaar-kamid-ah-gaadiidkii-dagaal-ee-ku-rarnaa-markabka-berbera-kusoo-xirtay/; See John Webster’s replica tanks website for the source of the copied pictures. Accessed 4 January 2017. http://www.milweb.net/webverts/59550/.
47 Horseed Media, “Somaliland oo hubkii Saarnaa Markabkii Berbera ku xirnaa la soo degtey!” [Somaliland offloads weapons from ship impounded in Berbera], 2 February 2015. Accessed 4 January 2017. https://horseedmedia.net/2015/02/02/somaliland-oo-hubkii-ka-dejisay-markabkii-hubka-sidey-ee-ku-xirtay-berbera/.
48 Xog-doon newspaper, Muqdisho, “Puntland oo ku eedeysay Somaliland inay taageerto xoogaga Al-Shabaab ee Galgala” [Puntland accuses Somaliland of supporting Al Shabaab in Galgala], 31 January 2014.
49 Hoehne, “Resource Conflict and Militant Islamism.”
50 Osman, Media, Diaspora; Lindley, “Transnational Connections and Education”; Ahmed, “Remittances and Their Economic Impact.”