PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF THE AFRICAN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SPACE K. A. PANZEREV Candidate of Philological Sciences (Saint Petersburg) Today, the formation of the information and communication space in Africa is only at an early stage of its formation, and the continent's states are waiting for the support of world leaders in information and communication production. But one cannot help but wonder: what should the African information and communication space eventually become, and what indicators will indicate that it is fully formed and ready for integration into the global global information space? In our opinion, the answer to this question lies in two dimensions - quantitative and qualitative. The first category includes such characteristics as the total number of personal computers, telephone lines, Internet service providers providing information and telecommunications services, as well as the total number of literate people. In order to illustrate more clearly the conditions in which modern information technologies are developing in Africa, it is necessary to focus on quantitative indicators in more detail. Of all the mass media in Tropical Africa, radio broadcasting continued to be the most widespread, i.e. accessible to almost every inhabitant of a particular African country, at the end of the last century. Television was also available in major cities. The ratio of TV viewers and radio listeners is remarkable in such countries as Ghana (115 and 680 thousand), Nigeria (68 and 224 thousand), Senegal (41 and 141 thousand), Cameroon (34 and 163 thousand), Benin (11 and 110 thousand), DRC (2 and 375 thousand), Chad (1 and 242 thousand)1. The level of telephony was extremely low. The leaders in this area by the end of the 20th century were Seychelles, Mauritius, and South Africa, which had 100 or more telephone lines per 1,000 people (176, 132, and 100, respectively). As for the relatively recent introduction of mobile communications in Africa, by 2000, 1 ... Read more