Department of French

Dr Arthur Asseraf, University of Cambridge

March 22nd, 10:00-11:00

ORB.132

This paper explores the circulation of news in Algeria under French rule in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through a close study of the diffusion of information of various levels of veracity in Mediterranean, African, Arabophone and Islamic spaces, it presents a new understanding of how communication and information flows changed the dynamics of imperial rule. The role of new technologies such as the printing press, telegraph, cinema, and radio, and their interaction with older media like songs, rumours, letters, and manuscripts helps us rethink the development of immagined communities in French North Africa. By inserting the often overlooked history of Algeria into broader narratives of the evolution of media in the age of mass communication, this paper goes some may to developing a new way of thinking about global connectivity at the turn of the 20th century.