Space, Time, and Culture on African/Diaspora Websites: A Tangled Web We Weave

The four articles presented in this collection on the topic 'Space, time, and culture on African/diaspora websites' address African/diaspora websites and their networks in divergent ways and focus on a number of broad themes. These are: that the future is located in and shaped by the past; movement and displacement in geographical terms are re-conceptualised through website activities to produce discourses of identity; online and offline interactions are linked and there is fluid passage between the two; while web design programmes define the visual and content-based structure in vertical and horizontal sections, the websites analysed here are individualised by the specific collection of texts and images and the more or less extended presence of sounds and videos; the Internet has enhanced the possibilities for visibility and has opened up a range of new dynamics for creating and reaching out to publics, also for individuals or groups that are not likely to acquire a voice on traditional media platforms.