#TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou: An Afrodiasporic Subaltern Counterpublic

Abstract

Media representations of African underdevelopment are central to the communicative potential and reach of international development in the mainstream public sphere, but they are not without sustained critique and confrontation. By conceptualising the humanitarian-themed campaign – #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou on Twitter, as an Afrodiasporic Subaltern Counterpublic, this article considers how UK African diasporic communities have utilised this digitalised environment to oppose the popular but problematic ‘face of development’. Applying Nancy Fraser’s counterpublics theorisation and drawing on social media ethnography and multiple participant interviews, it shows how oppositional counter-discourses among these online diasporic communities challenge problematic African representation within ‘white media’. This is realised in three distinct but interrelated discursive practices: (1) Afrodiasporic solidaristic orientations; (2) Diasporic solidarism as an assemblage(d) response to development’s institutionalised whiteness; and (3) Countering Africa(n) misrepresentations.