Deconstructing Africa’s negative image through sarcasm on TikTok

Abstract

The emergence of social media has facilitated the deconstruction of the negative image of Africa as portrayed by the Western media through an Afro-positive counter-narrative by Africans on various social media platforms. This article investigates the use of sarcasm on TikTok to address Africa's negative image. The qualitative study purposively samples 44 posts shared by @charityekezie on TikTok to identify the misconceived issues about Africa she addresses on her page and further explores the sarcasm expression practices that are present in the videos she shares. Document analysis and observation are employed to collect data for the study. The findings are
discussed thematically through the lens of the echoic mention theory and the pretence theory of irony. The study's findings revealed that misconceptions about Africa concerning the continent lacking basic needs, infrastructure and transportation, English language proficiency, communication technologies, clothing and beauty products are addressed by @charityekezie on her TikTok page. The findings further indicated that allusion to previous comments by other TikTok users, use of non-verbal cues and verbal communication were the sarcasm expression practices adopted by @charityekezie on her TikTok page. The study recommends that African social media content creators use their TikTok accounts to address positive images about the continent to the rest of the world. The study further concludes that the TikTok application and its affordances enable individuals to contribute to the deconstruction of the negative image of the African continent.