This is a private owned, English newspaper that has been running for about two decades now. It is noted for its critical perspectives on the government. It reports heavily on the anglophone regions. Its original website, www.postnewsline.com, was recently changed in 2009. The newspaper is now located at: www.thepostwebedition.com/Index.aspx. The interactive feature was turned off for some months but was reinstated in June 2009. Many members of the community lost contact with each other. The move has reduced traffic on the website and reduced the number of the community. In fact, there is a new community building up now with new names. The former site is now occupied by the blog “Upstation Mountain Club”, and it gives readers the chance to react to news stories and other articles culled from many sources, including newspapers, magazines, and other blogs.
Published in Chapter:
Constructing a Diaspora Anglophone Cameroonian Identity Online
Eric A. Anchimbe (University of Bayreuth, Germany)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-773-2.ch008
Abstract
The chapter illustrates how Cameroonians living in the diaspora discursively construct their identity as anglophones, i.e., as coming from the anglophone part of the country (the North West and South West Regions) in online interactions. In order to do so, they draw from several sources: the colonial history and heritage of the country, the geographical origins of the anglophones, and the linguistic factor: the use of English. Emphasising certain traits that make them different and superior, the anglophones create an in-group almost on par with ethnicity. This in-group is recreated discursively in the data used here. The data were collected from the interactive feature of The Post Newspaper, online version. The chapter concludes that virtual identity construction follows similar strategies as real identities in non-virtual communities albeit differences imposed by the medium.