Abstract
Within the past couple of years, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, at the behest of the Cameroonian state, randomly sends out SMS, warning people of prison sentences and hefty fines if they abuse digital mediasphere.
Amongst the listed abuses are the sharing of false information, introducing viruses to communication networks, propagating pedophilia through social media, invading the privacy of media users, and network piracy. These messages reinforce individual and collective fears on the risks associated with digital media identities. First, they are aware that hackers and scammers work tirelessly to hack and scam smartphone and social media users, with the sole aim of defrauding unsuspecting individuals. Secondly, particularly in the southwestern part of the country where the state is fighting an insurgency, armed gangs take advantage of the war and kidnap people for money. Kidnappers always access victims’ phone contacts from whom they demand ransom.
These two examples reveal open violations of the state’s injunctions, questioning the state’s apparent powerlessness in the face of the illicit actions of digital media predators. How are we to understand the state’s declaration despite the criminality?
My intention in this chapter is to use examples of online swindling and an economy of extortion on the mobile phone to demonstrate digital media users’ narrative of risk associated with digital identities.
Bio
Dr. Primus M. Tazanu is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Buea, Cameroon. He is also a senior guest researcher at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Primus holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Freiburg, Germany. He was educated in Cameroon, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. His academic career has taken him to the Universities of Basel (Switzerland), Freiburg (Germany), Witwatersrand (South Africa) and Copenhagen (Denmark).
Dr Tazanu’s research focuses on social practices and the production of meanings through media technologies: digital sociality/economies and governance, media and Pentecostalism, media and racism. Furthermore, his research draws from a multidisciplinary background and training: social anthropology, media studies, critical diversity studies, international migration and ethnic relations, development studies, political science, and sociology. He published his book Being Available and Reachable: New Media and Cameroonian Transnational Sociality in 2012.