Fake News in the Sahel: Afrancaux News, French Counterterrorism, and the Logics of User-Generated Media

Abstract

Studies of fake news have historically suffered from being primarily Western-centric and focusing on news emanating from formal media outlets. The Sahel has generated its own unique version of fake news, the authors refer to as Afrancaux News. Using nationwide public opinion surveys in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, open-source online forum ethnographic research, and postcolonial epistemological predispositions, the authors suggest that although other historical instantiations exist, the most prominent contemporary example of Afrancaux News can be seen in the fake news stories related to the French counterterrorism presence in the Sahel.