How to adapt TikTok’s Afropessimist ‘fun journalism’ into a plus for development
Jacob Nyarko
Oswelled Ureke
Browse the Internet or turn on international news and chances are the coverage of Africa you find is about war, coups, displaced populations and disease. Generally, the west and its media are blamed for this negative, Afropessimistic portrayal of the continent.
Africans have taken strategic steps to repair this negative narrative. An example is the Africa Rising campaign, launched in 2000 by a coalition of African activists and organisations to highlight the role of Africa in global development and encourage Africans at home and in the diaspora to contribute positively.
Social media platforms play a large role in content distribution, and as Communication scholars with expertise in Ghana and Zimbabwe respectively, we have been especially intrigued by the ways in which citizens of these two countries use TikTok to report on themselves.
Our study explored the self-critical content that many Africans share on the app, with posts and comments by Ghanaian and Zimbabwean creators generating entertaining information that we call ‘fun journalism’. But while the TikTokers use this method to comment on important issues, the way they do it could harm the reputation of their countries – and influence decision-making in unintended ways.
Fun journalism and reputation
As a creative and innovative platform, TikTok has enabled users to produce multimedia materials and share them across the globe. According to the Digital 2025: Ghana report by Datareportal, 81% of Ghanaians aged 16 and over use the Internet to access TikTok monthly. That makes it the second most popular platform after WhatsApp (93%). Zimbabwe, meanwhile, has 2.05-million TikTok users aged 18 and above.
Studies show that users tend to ‘play’ with social media, even when they use it for serious things. Our study showed that the fun videos uploaded by TikTokers from Ghana and Zimbabwe covered serious issues like security, education, sanitation, corruption, entertainment, religion and sports.
For example, one Ghanaian TikTok video compares how a Ghanaian and a European would react if they picked up money that someone had lost. The video suggests an African would keep the money, while a European would try to locate the original owner.
In many instances like this, users ridicule their countries and fellow citizens, comparing African conditions to the Global North in ways that degrade local endeavours. In one video, for instance, a user imitated Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa having difficulties explaining the number of zeroes in a million. This gave the impression that he was semi-literate and out of his depth.
We found that, generally, such discourse on TikTok, entertaining as it may be, was laden with similar insults and critiques of government. Although some of the content raised legitimate concerns, it seldom offered solutions to the identified challenges, suggesting that content that jokingly covers significant national development can also erode reputational gains made by the two countries by framing these negatively.
Comparing this phenomenon to other countries, a study on Chinese uploads onto TikTok showed the following results: 41% positive, 53% neutral and 6% negative.
Self-ridiculing factors and misinformation
TikTokers ridiculed the reputation of Ghana and Zimbabwe in three ways:
- exaggerated production of video content. This includes emotional background sounds, tone of voice, slang, animation, unfavourable shooting locations and poor video quality
- comparing African countries to foreign conditions, and
- generating unfavourable comments
‘Fake news’ has become an integral part of social media, raising doubts about the credibility of information generally. We argue that such content should no longer be seen as harmless humour.
Implications and measures
As the press freedom rankings of both countries fall, TikTok can be a safe, open space for citizens to raise important public concerns. The platform makes space for a diversity of opinions particularly from the youth, making it important for communication and building consensus in development. But we argue that TikTokers should be encouraged to rather offer constructive criticisms and propose solutions.
Policy makers should tap into the vast repository of ‘fun’ information published on TikTok for development. The opinions expressed there are a helpful reflection of societal needs, and this can be taken into consideration when formulating policies.
Mainstream professional media could adopt the ‘fun journalism’ model to tell serious stories in ways that boost development and reputation, making such information accessible to a larger audience
Media regulatory bodies, nongovernmental organisations and civil society groups are encouraged to educate netizens to publish critical and progressive stories about their countries. This can help combat misinformation and disinformation on social media, particularly TikTok.
Finally, governments should take steps to positively project their respective countries to the world. They could run educational programmes to inculcate a sense of patriotism and identity to rekindle the initiatives that Africa Rising advocated.
- Nyarko is a Lecturer of Communication Studies at the University of Cape Coast
- Ureke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg
- This article was first published here
