E-Jurnal

Don't Tax My Megabytes : Digital Infrastructure and the Regulation of Citizenship in Africa

---

Across Africa, governments are increasingly taxing Internet access, sometimes targeting specific websites and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. This raises questions about the digital infrastructure and how it mediates relations between states and citizens in Africa. Comparing recent efforts in Guinea and Benin with tax Internet data, this article argues that these taxes restrict and slow down access to a global resource. I also argue that the emergence of the digital addressing infrastructure represents a shift from disciplinary to control societies. This notion counters dominant narratives of digital media as necessarily democratizing forces in Africa by showing how African governments rework digital infrastructures to regulate populations. Ultimately, processes of interpretation and translation from above as well as from below need to be understood as enmeshed in specific historical-political arrangements of power, thus challenging both essentialized notions of media infrastructures and binaries that equate hybridity with resistance and meaning-making with the subversive.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

336.209 6

Penerbit

Los Angeles : University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, Annenberg Press., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

4309–4326 hlm ; 18 lembar

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

1932-8036

Klasifikasi

336.209 6

Tipe Isi

-

Tipe Media

-

Tipe Pembawa

-

Edisi

Vol. 17

Subjek

taxes

Info Detail Spesifik

Document Type: Article

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar