PAN-AFRICAN ACTIVISTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: MENTAL WORLDS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF DIGITAL DISCURSIVE FACES
Experiences and observations shape individuals within their worlds—be it their environment, mindset, or actions. Everything leaves an imprint, even at the most subtle levels, much like events themselves. Building on the idea of events as markers of statement production (Lokonon, 2022), this study extends the inquiry to include technology and ideology as active forces shaping the mental worlds of those benefiting from the transformation of information production and content management through the internet. Power, once confined to its traditional domains of privilege and domination, is now redistributed. The proletariat, once an ideologically defined concept, appears more representative of a reality that materializes the imagined. Similarly, Africa, with its historically marginalized Pan-Africanist ideology, transitions from an abstract ideal to a tangible realization. From imagination to the self-realization expressed through discourse, what marks are left on discursive faces? This research innovatively continues the conceptualization of ‘’discursive faces beyond the traditional frame’’, exploring the imprints of construction within a framework influenced by social worlds shaped by environment, ideology, and technology. The evolving African political e-rhetoric is analyzed to reveal how these discursive faces are constructed through the interplay of narrative structures, storytelling, and sociotechnical traits unique to each activist claiming Pan-Africanism as their ethos. This study is both theoretical and practical, following the logic of discursive face approaches and mental models with semi-automatic data processing (Google software and Chat GPT 4).
Keywords: Pan-African activists, digital discourse, mental models, narrative construction, discursive e-faces.
