Niall McNulty was interviewed in the June issue of the New Scientist magazine, for an article ‘An app for folklore’ that examines how digital technologies are used to preserve cultural knowledge for future generations.
“As mobile devices become ubiquitous in Africa, the need for this type of regional and language-specific content, and the tangible link it provides between communities and their multiple pasts, becomes all the more important,” says Niall McNulty, the Ulwazi Programme’s digital manager.
The Qwasha! Portal for community digital content is an online public archive of counter narratives, community media productions, interviews, stories and activities. This initiative is addressing the need to increase the use of Information Communication Technologies and related social media platforms to facilitate and amplify citizen voices and grassroots exchange, dialogue, and collaboration at local, regional, continental and global scale in all spheres of public life. The hope is that by putting effort into a more organized public action archiving practice in community based development initiatives within the eThekwini metro area the online platform can be seen as another tool in the hands of citizens, a means through which they can voice their view and move citizens closer to the realization of fundamental human rights to free expression, thought, association, access to information and the right to dissent.
Niall McNulty with the Qwasha! team
Niall McNulty helped develop the digital components of the project, using the open-source collections management software Omeka and a number of social media applications. The archive can be accessed at https://qwasha.org.za/archive
Presented at the IAMCR 2012 Conference, Durban, South Africa.
The Ulwazi Programme uses the public library infrastructure, Web 2.0 technologies and the community to collect and disseminate indigenous knowledge and local histories. This user-generated content is compiled in an online digital library in the form of a website and access is provided through current mobile and web technologies. In this paper I describe the history of the programme, its objectives and its structure. The website’s usage statistics are then unpacked to reveal the demographics of its users and popular content, with a focus on the use of the regional vernacular, Zulu.
Niall McNulty will be presenting a paper at the forthcoming International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Conference 2012, in the Digital Divide session. Niall’s paper looks at local content created by and for local users in the local vernacular, using the Ulwazi Programme as a case study. The full conference programme is available here.
IAMCR is the worldwide professional organisation in the field of media and communication research. Its members promote global inclusiveness and excellence within the best traditions of critical research in the field.
Niall McNulty was interviewed in the June issue of the New Scientist magazine, for an article ‘An app for folklore’ that examines how digital technologies are used to preserve cultural knowledge for future generations.
