After reading this paper, I realize African Twitter and social media shares many similarities with Black Twitter. Due to the fact that Africa is often technologically behind in the way of media like news or mobile devices that have the ability to alert individuals of news constantly, Africans use the hashtag system on social media to communicate events that are of importance or significance. In the paper they group the influential hashtags into five groups: “global media events; culture and everyday life; crisis intervention; governance; and protest movements”. The same can be said for Black Twitter. For global media events we actually adopt hashtags from “Africa Twitter” such as #PrayforSudan, #BringBackOurGirls, #WorldCup or #PrayForNigeria, just to name a few. The Black American population often adopt what is going on in Africa because, at the end of day, we come together in solidarity to help our black brothers and sisters. We also utilize hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter or #JusticeForTrayvon. The next similarity that we share is culture and everyday life. The #GrowingUpAfrican hashtag was also circulating in America among African people that lived here. As someone who is African, I can personally say I have used many of the Africa Twitter Hashtags, for example #JollofWars or #NigerianJollofvsGhanaianJollof. These hashtags make this into mainstream media, which is the purpose of this. As for American culture and everyday life, Black Twitter uses things like #AskRachel or #GrowingUpBlack to unite the community. Africa Twitter also uses crisis intervention like the #BringBackOurGirls hashtags mentioned above or the #Ebola. Black twitter also uses these, along with ones of our own like #Zika or #SandraBland. Both Africa twitter and black twitter also utilizes governance hashtags, as you can see throughout the current election. Even politicians use them to attract younger voters. Finally, like the Africa twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, Black twitter also uses things like “Justicefor[insert name], or #NoJusticeNoPeace. There are many similarities in the way both Africa Twitter and Black Twitter utilize social media to create a niche to get their message out there. Social media forces us to be confronted with the issues going on in other countries or amongst minorities, and Africa twitter is the perfect example of how a continent can force people to listen.
