6 Domestic Solar Media in Rural Tanzania: Toward an Energy– Media Matrix

An exploration of Tanzanians’ use of solar panels to energize media technologies in rural villages in Eastern Tanzania, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, via interviews conducted in sixteen homes in the villages of Mbezi-Singida, Chanika, and Mwasonga in 2019 as part of the Social it Solutions workshop with the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, describes how rural Tanzanians talk about and use solar panels in efforts to energize media technologies such as lightbulbs, radios, mobile phones, stereo systems, and television sets. Analysis of interview data reveals that the Julius Nyerere–era principle of ujamaa—especially its relation to familyhood, rural village life, and self-reliance—implicitly persists in the ways rural Tanzanians energize and organize media technologies. Tanzanian media ruralities are characterized by energy-conscious, self-reliant, sociotechnical practices at the village level.