U Rebrand

(Re)branding Africa is a collective effort and only when 'the lion learns to write, do tales of the hunt glorify the hunter'. In essence, this African proverb means that if we want stories that are balanced, reflect the Africa that we know,  we will need to write those stories, take those photos, shape those images, and brand ourselves in our true light. Rebranding Africa is not a concept for a select few. It is a concept for all that have some form of African identity. There are a lot of activities that one can do to help (re)brand Africa in your communities and on the world wide web. Whilst revisionist knowledge does not always translate in to action or change, its a good start.

U (Re)brand:

U Rebrand Wikipedia - Participating in a wiki website is an easy way to help rebrand Africa. Site like wikipedia involves open source content that is available to the world. Wikipedia is also a site that readily pulls up when one conducts a web page search. Whilst wikipedia's content should be used with caution, it is important to know, unlike in its early inception, Wikipedia is actually more accurate than many encyclopedias and websites - When someone prints information, it is cross checked more often than a print encyclopedia.

U Rebrand Google Maps - Google is always looking for photos to upload of its geographic locations. Right now, only South Africa enjoys having the 'street view' capabilities, but for other countries, you can still upload photos of a particular area. This will help with creating images of Africa that represent the Africa you know.

U Rebrand Google - Google in general is always looking for volunteers to help them translate pages into other languages. This is an easy way to ensure that African languages and perceptions of African languages are well represented online.

U Rebrand News Content - With advances in technology, writing letters of concern, or correction to editors of  online or offline newspapers and magazines is much faster and is free. When one comes across information that doesn't reflect the real Africa, one can rebrand by writing to its author or placing comments on comment boxes.

U Rebrand TV - Whilst rebranding a TV ad may involves a little more work, one can still send e-mail letters to the company or the the station that airs content that does not reflect the true Africa. You can also set up a Facebook group against it, which brings unwanted negative publicity to that company or product. If you have a twitter account, tweet about it. If you have a blog, blog about it.

U Rebrand Webpages - Just like with Google, there are many web pages looking for volunteers to help bring about a more balanced world wide web. Participation in such sites is key.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous19/5/11

    hi, i am doing a geography project on
    HOW DOES THE FIFA WORLD CUP 2010 HELP REBRAND AFRICA?

    anything useful would help ALOT :)

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  2. Whenever a country is selected to host a huge sporting event like WC2010, they get an increase in news coverage, tourism, visitors etc...This means that they have the attention of the world. The country now needs to work on managing the image or reputation that they want millions of viewers to see. Hosting is good for Public relations and it sends a message that the country is politically stable, secure, and competent enough to host such a large scale event. It shows that it’s a 'team player' in the international stage, and lastly, it provides that country a window of time to advertise itself, its culture, its people the way it wants. As an example, Germany's hosting the WC a few years ago helped Germany re-brand its negative image which was associated with Nazism, hate, and unfriendly intolerant people. This is not the image that Germany wanted for itself. They had been trying to shake this negative perception for a long time. During the WC, it was able to show the world that it is not a racist fascist country (a reputation it gained after two world wars) because they welcomed everyone to their country and projected a new image of a friendly, accepting country. For WC 2010, the images of a secure, progressive, stable African country helps rebrand Africa in that it showed the world that South Africa (SA) wasn't stuck in the past, experiencing racial/ethnic fighting, etc... And showed it had many tourist attractions to offer. It changed international perception of South Africa from its apartheid past. Even though South Africa is one country, African countries (especially the lesser known ones), often get the regional (continental) brand because people often unfairly lump African countries together or don't know much about the country. So as an example, if SA is getting a positive brand image, and someone comes across the country Malawi for the first time, they will assume Malawi is similar to SA, so Malawi will benefit from the WC re-branding too as would the rest of the continent.

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