Ngurumo blamed journalists and bloggers for the dearth of African stories on the internet.
“The stories have to cover the feelings and aspirations of people. Most of the stories – cultural, social and political, are in the rural areas. The rural people are isolated because they have no access to technology and may not be able to blog or publish their stories,” Ngurumo said.
He said journalists generally concentrate on sourcing stories from urban areas because of the availability of technology.
To develop local content, Ngurumo argued Africans have to develop the civic will to blog more because “it does not take political will to start and maintain a blog”. Ngurumo told the Indaba that Africa has to “villagize” the internet and ensure that people in the rural areas blog, podcast and tell their stories to the world.
Speaking about lack of critical mass of African languages on the internet, Ngurumo said he chose to blog in Swahili because that is the language he knows best and that it is spoken by about 100 million people in east, central and parts of Southern Africa.
“Why would I want to blog in English (when) 100 million Africans communicate in Swahili?” asked Ngurumo.
Through his blog, www.ngurumo.blogspot.com, he is able to reach several people, mostly from Tanzania where Swahili is the national language. The comments on the blog, he says, have been used to gauge the political and social temperatures in his country.
Source: HANA www.highwayafrica.ru.ac.za
