Noisy polymedia in urban Ghana: Strategies for choosing and switching between media under unstable infrastructures

Abstract

This ethnographic article examines how Ghanaian urbanites choose between new media platforms under inadequate infrastructures. By combining participant observation with digital ethnography, the case studies described here show how informants change their media choosing and switching habits due to unstable electricity and dysfunctional inter-city roads. Thus, moral and social choices face an infrastructural ‘noise’ that diverts people’s digital practices. These findings contribute to Madianou and Miller’s theory of polymedia by suggesting that constraints of economy, access, literacy, or infrastructure cannot be exempt from the analysis of media choice, especially in Africa. It suggests the term ‘noisy polymedia’ as an expansive version that acknowledges how people use digital tools under unstable infrastructural conditions. Furthermore, this article demonstrates how smartphones became essential tools for ‘leapfrogging’ inadequate infrastructure in Africa as informants choose strategically between devices, payment plans, applications, and usage patterns.