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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Mobile phone: The assimilation of the SMS by orality society
| Panel |
73. New Social Spaces. Mobility and technology in Africa
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| Paper ID | 89 |
| Author(s) |
Ouhonyiouè, Kibora Ludovic
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| Paper |
View paper (PDF)
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| Abstract | Located in West Africa, Burkina Faso is a sahelian country of 12,000,000 inhabitants. The population comprises about sixty (60) ethnical groups which tradionally base on the oral tradition to communicate. Even being one of the less developed countries in the word, the introduction of the mobile phone use in the late 1990s in Burkina Faso, surprisingly enticed the populations for this new technology Burkina Faso is a landlocked farming country. About 80% of the population is living in the rural areas. However, initiatives have been locally developed by the users for the possession and the use of the mobile, adapting it to the social, cultural and economic realities of the country.
The urban areas early benefited from the coverage of the mobile phone network. The local populations very often identify hills, tress, rocks or any other elevated system, from the top of which, they can transmit or receive their calls. According to statistics issued in 2006 by the ministry of the economy and development about 42% of the population in BF are living in absolute poverty with less than one U.S $ a day, but in less than a decade, the use of the mobile phone the poor peasants widely exceeded the use of the traditional phone which is operative since the political independence of the country in 1960.
The three mobile phone operators, which are Telmob, Celtel, and Telecel companies have set up since 2002, a system to send short written messages called SMS. This new system of communication has also been very easily assimilated by the populations regardless their age or socio-professional activities. The use of the Short Message Systèm is an evidence of the populations in the “country of upright people” to pragmatically adapt their needs to the realities of the moment. However, the enticement of the populations for a technology of communication which is based on handwriting is guile amazing in a country which nationwide educational attendance rate is about 45% and the literacy rate, about 25%. The low cost to transmit messages, the spelling mistakes unconsidered etc. are some of the elements which allow understanding the importance of the SMS use in Burkina Faso.
We’ll try to explain through personal experience and through what has been written on the subject, how it has been possible for populations of a different culture, who until now have developed other means to communicate, to make their own, this system of modern communication that has come from abroad.
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