There is a new trend in Sub-Saharan countries’ media, which have been previously using foreign languages in addressing their audience, to “Arabize” their content. This has been commonly observed in government and state-run media outlets, rather than private ones. The degree of Arabization varies from one media outlet to the other depending on the resources and the capacities of their teams. Other factors include the influence of Muslim or Arab minorities in these countries, and their interaction and ability to play a prominent role in these societies through civil institutions that preserve and teach the Arabic language.

A variety of formats

This trend, which recently emerged in parallel with a displayed interest by these countries to have closer relations with Arab countries, is gaining ground and momentum as evident in the following indicators:

1- Adopting Arabic as the primary language: Arabic has been used in the media in countries where Arabic language is more prevalent in society. This includes television and radio programing, publishing printed newspapers and websites in Arabic.

Djibouti is one example where daily Arabic-language broadcasts increased after state-owned television programming was restructured. Instead of once a week, Arabic cultural programs now broadcast twice a week and religious programs three times a week. The state-run radio station has increased its Arabic broadcast to three hours every day including news, general and entertainment programing. Since 1997, the Ministry of Information has published Al-Qarn newspaper twice a week. This publication was perceived as an initiative of the incumbent President, Ismail Omar Guelleh, when he was presidential chief of staff.

The move to Arabize media outlets in Djibouti is partly due to the establishment of the National Media Committee to regulate print and broadcast media. This committee has several goals including restoring the Arabic language to broadcast and print media – most notably in the state news agency, which, until today, only publishes news in French.

2- Creating devoted Arabic-language programing in Sub-Saharan countries: Eritrea currently broadcasts set hours of the Arabic language program “the Voice of the People” on the radio, as well as on state-owned television. Nigeria also broadcasts Arabic-language news segments. Furthermore, there are various Arabic newspapers and social media accounts publishing news about the country. The Voice of Nigeria radio station has several hours of Arabic-language programing, and Vision FM in the capital Abuja has aired some news coverage of the 2015 presidential elections in Arabic.

The presence of a Muslim community in Nigeria, to some extent, has helped create Arabic-language websites concerned with preaching of Islam, teaching the Quran and Arabic as a language. Despite the obstacles, there is a trend among Muslims in Nigeria to create civil entities to preserve the Arabic language through teaching it to the youth and printing their publications in Arabic. Those publications aim to promote the entities’ community activities and progress. However, these efforts are facing many impediments including the lack of resources and funding, which prevent them from expanding into broadcast media, print and satellite stations.

Several reports reveal that the Arabic-language is growing as well in Ethiopia even though it is only limited to print and radio outlets, and is hardly used on television. Ethiopian radio airs a daily Arabic program that runs for an hour including several news and entertainment segments. These segments cover domestic and regional developments, and include some cultural programs and songs.

In Mali, Arabic and other foreign languages spoken in the country are provided with a set airtime on certain radio programs.  Arabic programing on Mali’s state radio is broadcast once a week and includes entertainment, news and education segments.

3- Relying on print media as a means for Arabization: Arabic language newspapers in several African countries serve as the main method for promoting the language, as it is rare to hear Arabic on television. For example, Ethiopian state and private television networks have no Arabic content, although there are several Ethiopian newspapers published in Arabic, such as Al-Alam -founded in the 1950s by the Ethiopian Ministry of Information. There are also reports indicating that several local newspapers publish some of their pages in Arabic. In addition, there are magazines that are published fully in Arabic such as the monthly Islamic publication, Bilal. 

Even though there is little Arabic content in Eritrea’s broadcast media, a state-owned newspaper, Eritrea al-Haditha, is printed in Arabic and English five days a week by the Eritrean Ministry of Information. Other independent entities publish Arabic newspapers, as the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students’ publications, Al-Mustaqbal and Al-Nabd.

4- Integration in Arab journalism circles: Many African reporters are now submitting entries in Arabic journalism competitions and participating in conferences. Many of them are also actively launching websites and social media accounts in Arabic to help spread African news such as, Afrika Arabi that was launched by African journalists. Additionally, Somali journalist Abby Fareh was elected as the general secretariat of the Federation of Arab Journalists in May 2016 demonstrating support for African based Arabic language media.

In conclusion, the trend towards Arabizing the media in Sub-Saharan countries will increase interest among many Arab countries in order to bolster relations with these countries, and encourage greater involvement in regional issues.