Paper short abstract:

This paper offers some first insights in the sharing process of one's research findings with a previously built audience of Cameroonians through usage of the social media site Facebook.

Paper long abstract:

Social relations are being rigorously reconfigured through connectivity on social media. Increasing online interconnectivity between Africanist researchers and our informants calls for novel approaches to the exchange and dissemination of information and knowledge. Social media technologies have been employed to retrieve information, yet they too offer unique platforms on which research outcomes can be dispersed and shared with informants and other interested parties. This paper offers some first insights in this sharing process of research findings through a usage of Facebook media. Several academic papers relating to a wider research project have been made available for free on an open source repository. These papers have been advertised on a previously established personal Facebook page as well as several relevant Facebook groups, connecting to research informants as well as larger online communities. Links to the papers and a blog were accompanied by anecdotes and visual material. The papers which have been put forward have incited curiosity among a number of research informants and others, occasionally inspiring discussion. However, it has been observed that, in these publicly accessible spaces, ethical considerations -in particular the safeguarding of the anonymity of one's research participants- need to be taken into further consideration.