| | Historically, Senegal has gambled heavily on the potential of New Information & Communication Technologies (NICTs). Indeed, in an environment dominated by oral communication, state- controlled radio broadcasting has been a tool for the reproduction of power (Sagna, 2000). What, then, would be the social and political impact of liberalising and transnationalising the audiovisual media, as well as of ending state control over tools of mass propaganda? The national telecommunications company (SONATEL) undertook a bold initiative, beginning in 1985, to develop the country's telephone service. The resulting system, which was implemented gradually and consists of an all-digital fiber optic network, provides a national coverage which is second to none in West Africa. SONATEL continues to modernise its basic network, providing expanded teleservices and facilitating development of the information superhighway. In the last three years alone, there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of minutes Senegalese have spent online. This revolution in ICTs provides a foundation for a 'civilisation of the universal', to use Léopold Sédar Senghor's phrase, and poses a major challenge for Senegal's increasingly urban, internationally-oriented society. |
