ABSTRACT
Aided by globalization, free-market capitalism and global trade treaties, liberalization of telecommunications sector has been touted as a market ideology that has positively transformed global communications. But, beyond the exaltation of neoliberal free-market regime in communication, scholarly analysis of global communications demands both the industry-market appraisal and critical analysis of global communication corporations. In this chapter, I offer a critical conceptual analysis of the imperialist nature of Western digital technology corporations in Africa. The African communication landscape is dominated by foreign, mostly American communication corporations. It has become an attractive technology market and essential to the imperialist network of digital tech corporations. Drawing on postcolonialism and the understanding of coloniality as an on-going process of economic and cultural domination, I examine the place of Africa in global digital capitalism. Supported with empirical evidences of data from the digital market structure and analysis of global communication corporations in Africa, I propose a model of digital coloniality. This model identifies the pattern of exploitation, colonization of communication spaces and the spatial expansion of technology corporations to present a picture of digital coloniality in Africa. From this, I recommend a decolonial thinking about technology in Africa.
