ABSTRACT
The discourse of the short life span of indigenous language media in Africa is located within the larger conversation on globalization and foreign domination of Africa’s socio-cultural, economic and religious milieu. In Nigeria especially, indigenous language newspapers have remained stagnant in the labyrinth of interests, politics, taste, economic turmoil, dislocation of indigenous ideology, Westernization and national decay in reading culture. Literature has accounted and provided reasons for the extinction and endangerment of indigenous language newspapers where they still exist in Nigeria. The survival of Alaroye, an indigenous language newspaper published in the Yoruba language in South-West Nigeria, is a puzzle begging to be examined. Using an ethnographic methodological approach, this chapter explains the survival of Alaroye as an endangered indigenous language newspaper and what lessons can be garnered by investors, publishers, media professionals, readers and the nation at large. The study of this surviving model has cultural, economic, political and empirical significance, especially for a country and continent seeking to take a detour into self-realization from foreign ideologies, values and cultures.
