Maggie Dwyer - Social Media and Politics in Africa: Democracy, Censorship and Security

This exciting edited collection documents how social media gain significance in different but comparable contexts on the African continent. Moving beyond technological utopianism, it provides much-needed nuanced analysis of the way in which social media both challenge and reproduce power relations.

Dr Wendy Willems, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science

This volume is a timely political biography of social media use in Africa. The book is guided by a desire to avoid the often decontextualized and totalizing narratives that routinely attend the study of social media in the continent. Its critical significance thus lies in its faithfulness to context and history. Bringing together contributors from a diverse range of disciplines, the volume is also methodologically innovative, rich in data and analytically profound. This is one of the most important studies of social media in Africa in recent times.

George Ogola, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Central Lancashire

ICTs are changing our world in many different ways. In this volume we are confronted with interesting case studies from Africa about the ways ICTs, especially social media, change the political landscape. The detailed case studies highlight how political agency is moulded through these technologies and may indeed lead to revolutionary change. These are developments in the making and as such the book is an invitation to researchers to continue the work that the authors of this volume have started.

Mirjam de Bruijn, Professor of Contemporary History and Anthropology of Africa, Leiden University

What a brilliant, rich and much-needed collection! Maggie Dwyer and Thomas Molony have done a fantastic job of bringing social media to the core of the present, and future, of African politics. This edited volume sheds a fascinating light on the understudied use of social media across the continent. In doing so, it not only makes a powerful case for why Africanists should study social media, but also why social scientists interested in digital media and democracy ought to engage the diverse, complex, and enthralling landscape of African politics.

Dr Toussaint Nothias, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Maggie Dwyer is a Lecturer in the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on politics, security, and international development, primarily in West Africa. She is author of the book Soldiers in Revolt: Army Mutinies in Africa .

Thomas Molony is Director of the Centre of African Studies at the Univer sity of Edinburgh. His geographic focus is mostly on East Africa, where he has written on history, information and communication technology, politics, elections and security.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

DEMOCRACY, CENSORSHIP AND SECURITY

Edited by Maggie Dwyer and Thomas Molony

Social Media and Politics in Africa: Democracy, Censorship and Security, was first published in 2019 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

www.zedbooks.net

Editorial Copyright Maggie Dwyer and Thomas Molony 2019
Copyright in this Collection Zed Books

The right of Maggie Dwyer and Thomas Molony to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Plantin and Kievit by Swales and Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Index by Rohan Bolton
Cover design by Keith Dodds
Cover photo Sven Torfinn/Panos Pictures

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-498-1 hb
ISBN 978-1-78699-497-4 pb
ISBN 978-1-78699-499-8 pdf
ISBN 978-1-78699-500-1 epub
ISBN 978-1-78699-501-8 mobi

CONTENTS

Maggie Dwyer and Thomas Molony

Peter Chonka

George Karekwaivanane and Admire Mare

Tanja Bosch

Brian Ekdale

Maggie Dwyer, Jamie Hitchen and Thomas Molony

Emily Riley

Nkwachukwu Orji

Jean-Benot Falisse and Hugues Nkengurutse

Charlotte Cross

Stephanie Diepeveen

Alisha Patel

Denis Galava

Bruce Mutsvairo and Kate Wright

Figures

Tables

is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Production at University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on community radio, talk radio and citizenship, health communication, youth and mobile media and social networking.

teaches in the Department of Digital Humanities at Kings College London and is a post-doctoral research associate at Durham Universitys Global Security Institute. His research looks at relationships between media technologies, conflict, political identity and state (re)construction, with a regional focus on the Horn of Africa.

is a Lecturer in International Development at The Open University. Her research focuses on policing, politics and development in East Africa.

is Deputy Director and Research Lead (Digital Media, Voice and Power) in the Centre of Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge. Her research interests lie in the ways that different forms of power are realised through communication technologies. With a focus on Kenya, she has examined this through the study of face-to-face political gatherings as well as mobile phones and social media.

is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. He studies media work within global digital cultures. His work has appeared in a number of academic journals, including Media, Culture & Society ; African Journalism Studies ; and Journalism Practice .

is a Lecturer at the Centre of African Studies in the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His main research is on ordinary peoples and community engagement with basic services (health care, education, justice) in contexts of fragility. Recently, his mixed-methods research has focused on the African Great Lakes region, with a particular interest in the use and production of data at the community level.

is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. A career journalist, he served as a writer, columnist and managing editor of East Africas largest newspapers, The Daily Nation and The Standard .

is a research analyst and evaluation expert who has almost a decade of experience working across Africa on projects related to elections, corruption, politics and urbanisation. He has particular expertise on the issues in Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. Jamie is a regular commentator for World Politics Review and his analysis has also been published in The Mail & Guardian and Washington Post . He was part of a research team awarded a grant by WhatsApp to look into the use of the platform during Nigerias 2019 election.

is a Lecturer in African Studies at the University of Edinburgh and his research focuses on two main areas. The first is the shifting relationship between law and politics in Zimbabwean history, and the second is the social, political and economic impacts of digital media in Zimbabwe.

is a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Journalism, Film and Television, University of Johannesburg. His research focuses on the intersection between technology and society. He has done work focusing on the relationship between digital media and journalism, politics, digital campaigns in hybrid electoral systems, communications surveillance, digital literacy and internet freedom.