Abstract

For African politics, the challenge of  democratization and its corollary concept of modernization consists of creating economic, political and societal progresses, allowing people to live together peacefully in a social cohesion; and consequently, political communication plays a starring role in this process. However, some scholars observed that the digital era brought about 'miscommunication' in the current society (Wolton, 2020). This theoretical research circumnavigates the new strategy of media communication implemented by African politics [populists] in this era of digital media prevalence. The study not only focuses particularly on West African countries—more specifically on Frenchspeaking-countries like Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso—and explores the role of digital media, especially hypermedia platforms, in the animation of [un]democratic movements in this part of the continent; but also the investigations go beyond the West African context and examines the state of populism in the continent. Thus, this explorative study surpasses the decisive role of digital media in the rise of awareness in West African society to consider the challenges and the obstacles created by new populists all around the globe.

Keywords: Hypermedia, Digitalization, Populism, Techno-politics, Political Discourse, West Africa