School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University
Alette Schoon is a South African academic who researches issues of digital inequality, particularly focusing on less-connected mobile-only marginalized users. Alette runs a winter school for African media studies researchers in Makhanda, called DigiMethods Africa, which focuses on new tools and methods. Her academic articles span a variety of topics including how mobile phones may facilitate stuckness, how hip hop artists from marginalized Black neighborhoods combine mobile internet and secondhand computers to distribute their content, arguments for the decolonization of digital methods, and how TikTok is used in anti-racist work in South Africa. She has compiled some of her findings into a short film and currently co-supervises a computer science student's project that aims to use AI to help fact checkers flag disinformation in the lead up to elections in South Africa. She is also a fellow of the Open Seeds for Open Science programme and is collaborating with Henri-Count Evans to craft videos detailing DigiMethods workshops for distribution to African universities.
Contact School of Journalism and Media Studies, Rhodes University
Alette Schoon
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