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Emerging technologies are redefining relationships and, more importantly, cultures. Scholars in the media field are consumed with redefining media considering these technologies. The inadequacies of the old definition are constantly glaring, leading to modifications and exploration of new functions.

In the divide between the Centre and Periphery, the Centre has consistently provided a climate conducive to developing new technologies and other upstarts. For the most part, much of the Periphery has been a net consumer of the technologies from the Centre.

It may appear that the Centre has had a monopoly role in technology production; however, the glimpses of success of some technologies that have emerged in the Periphery could tell different stories.

While the United States, on the surface, is the giant player in the incubation industry, there are emerging incubation centres of significance in Asia, specifically in South Korea, China and India, among others.

These production Centres produce technologies that reflect their cultural reality. The economies of the North, such as the US and European nations, are exceptionally skilled at marketing and popularising these developments.

Sometimes they implement measures to minimise innovations from elsewhere or place significant roadblocks in their paths to prevent them from achieving market dominance. The case of TikTok in the US is just one point.

The US is loath to have software developed in China dominate its market. The same applies to the spread of 5G and associated technologies. The arguments may be framed as security threats, but they are more than that.

The Periphery is often a net consumer of the technologies from the Centre, most of which are passed down after saturating the Centre markets. They gladly lap these technologies without concern for their impact on their cultures.

Kenya is among Africa’s leading countries in social media consumption, spending nearly four hours daily on social media. South Africans and Egyptians spend even more time online.

However, online technologies are developed without any reference to African realities. They lack African values, worldviews, and beliefs.

Innovations are seldom adopted by culture keepers but rather by people at the periphery of local cultures. After their experiences, these restless souls return to the community to introduce their discoveries, often at the expense of local practices.

Unsurprisingly, the young people currently dominating social media in Kenya and other African countries operate these platforms without regard to African cultural practices.

Most anthropology scholars go to great lengths to articulate African values. These include respect for the authorities, deference to the elders, community, spirituality, and so on.

The Periphery’s glorification of these technologies has not helped. There is a near perception that adopting technologies, by some definition, the modernisation theory, elevates the adopters.

In the case of the Periphery, the technologies have been adopted, so to speak, in a vacuum, not by the vanguards of culture but rather by marginal players whose view of technology has now catapulted them to centre stage.

We have young people with cell phones and new content creators, but we have questions about what kind of content is available and to whom it is offered. Crowd-chasing has become an end in itself. The main reason behind crowd-chasing is commercialisation. All this takes place in a void.

If we could build a strong value base, essentially building this into our curriculum through the education process, we may influence the adoption of new technologies and how these technologies are used. It may address the current indiscipline in our social media spaces.

— The writer is the Dean of Daystar University’s School of Communication-