Social Media and Elections in Africa, Volume 2

Challenges and Opportunities

Martin N. Ndlela, Winston Mano, Martin N. Ndlela, Winston Mano

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030326814
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030326821
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

This book, the second of two volumes, explores the challenges and opportunities presented by the increased presence of social media within African politics. Electoral processes in Africa have assumed new dimensions due to the influence of social media. As social media permeates different aspects of elections, it is ostensibly creating new challenges and opportunities. Most evident are the challenges of hate speech, misogyny and incivility. This book considers the impact of digital media before, during, and after elections, as well as authorities' attempts to legislate and regulate the internet in response. Contributions to this volume analyse social media posts, transgressive images, newspaper articles, and include case studies of Algeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda. This results in the delivery of an original depiction of the use of social media in a variety of African contexts. This book will appeal to academics and students of media and communication studies, political studies, journalism, sociology, and African studies. 

© The Author(s) 2020

M. N. Ndlela, W. Mano (eds.)Social Media and Elections in Africa, Volume 2https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32682-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Social Media, Political Cultures and Elections in Africa

Winston Mano¹   and Martin N. Ndlela^{2, 3}  

(1)

Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster, Harrow Campus, Middlesex, UK

(2)

Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Elverum, Norway

(3)

Department of Strategic Communication, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa

 

 

Winston Mano (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

 

Martin N. Ndlela (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Protests against misrule are becoming more and more visible in the digital age in Africa. Consider the civil disobedience in Sudan that culminated in the 11 April 2019 Sudanese coup d’état that deposed President Omar al-Bashir after 30 years in power or the energetic youth-driven street protests in Algeria demanding substantive reforms even after forcing the resignation of long-serving President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019. Similarly, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo President Kabila was forced not to stand for re-election after fierce protests against his continued hold on power after his term had expired in 2016. The constitution barred him from running for a third term. In Cameroon protesters have become more visible against poor performance of the government of Paul Biya, who at 86 is one of the oldest rulers in the world. In Egypt and Uganda, protests are common in spite of the heavy-handed response of the authorities. In most cases the military hold on to power or are willing to sacrifice political leaders to retain power. The book starts by mentioning these prominent cases of protests, which we argue have become more visible due to social media. In these cases, new digital tools are an important part of the political changes.

Increased political change in Africa has coincided with the introduction of new communication technologies and services. From online electoral campaigning, online fundraising for politics to electronic voting, the new technologies are changing the way we communicate politics in Africa. The internet, and social media in particular, is arguably having unprecedented implications in the mediation of political culture and power, doing away with established forms of gatekeeping in traditional journalism. Online communication is creating relatively more open platforms for direct interaction in politics. Social media, which develops from existing and past technologies, has captivated African audiences and users, giving voice to many including youths, women, diasporas, rural voters, urban voters and others usually marginalised in electoral issues. Social media is winning more people to politics through a unique blend of audio, visuals and other information types that permit close monitoring of those seeking votes. It is bringing new agency, tactics and strategies to the evolving relationship between politicians and citizens. It has brought more innovative ways to handle political party interests and ideologies. New technologies have also given birth not only to a variety of new actors, but to more potent forms of influence and control. At the heart of the emerging political cultures and political behaviours, there is a complex interplay of online and offline networks that have brought change and continuity to electoral politics as we know it. Traditional political parties in Africa have had to adopt new technologies and adapt to the emerging new technological environments where individuals and groups have become producers of information. They have had to embrace social media both as innovation and as a strategy to cope with change. Even though the internet penetration rates are still comparably lower than in other regions of the world, Africans are using social media in ways that are producing changes to political cultures.

However, the emerging accounts of the internet and new technologies in Africa are often too rosy and deterministic, choosing, for example, to view the internet as a magic bullet that transforms and brings social change. The impact of the technologies is taken to be automatic, with immense revolutionary changes to African life. This technicity underplays the social factors and lacks sufficient evidence. This book refutes such an instrumentalist view of the internet and argues that the new technologies are but tools that are reliant on users, in contexts with supervening social necessities that need to be carefully investigated. There is a need to critically discuss social media, its policy frameworks, users, their contexts, the social media applications they use and how these impact specific African political systems. Analysing social media in terms of societal processes will not only help explain the meaning of social sharing and dialoguing in social media but also help to answer questions about its relevance in changing African political contexts.

It is also important to temper the above optimistic view of social media in African democracy with a frank discussion of risks that arise from elections dependent on social media. The main concern is technological control, fraud and manipulation of the electoral process to the extent that the will of the people will not be exercised freely. Military, corporate and political capture of these technologies is already a reality in some of the African countries. The promise of participatory democratic culture is restrained by insistence on narrow state-led security issues, hyper-commercial logic and neoliberal modes of life which drive the technical design of these technologies. In reality the emerging communities are not just about politics but also oriented towards entertainment, including sports, gambling and religion. Social media’s efficacy is also undermined by its poor penetration, creating a divide in knowledge between those connected and those outside the net. There is a need to investigate the growing differences between virtual and offline citizenship in the African contexts. Arguably, at the moment, only a few Africans have the digital literacy needed for social change. The possibilities that come with new technologies are, therefore, dependent on existing social conditions, including gender, income and education. Social media’s research can be examined through a deeper understanding of existing political arrangements in a given historical and political moment. The book is aware of the above-mentioned barriers and provides a provisional critical appraisal of social media and elections in Africa by focusing on evidence from across the continent.

The ascendance of social media in African politics comes at a time when so-called traditional media are increasingly captured by market and political forces. Forces of censorship, political controls and neoliberal agendas have combined to limit the efficacy of public media for political communication. Publicly funded media have failed to create more democratic communication linked to social change. In many African countries there are weak public (service) media systems monopolised by the state. Business and commercial interests often side with the government to manipulate the public political agenda. While political authorities have traditionally controlled television, radio and newspapers, new media has proven difficult to control. Shutdowns of websites or strictures to internet service provision remain clear testimonies of the fear of social media in Africa. The extent to which these clampdowns are justified is debatable. Social media penetration is poor and its content has both negative and positive influence on democratisation. There is need for more rigorous academic discussion of social media’s impact on specific elections.

Social Media and Elections in Africa Volume 2 discusses how elections are increasingly influenced by social media, carefully engaging with the social change processes, attitudes and behaviours of those behind the rapid uptake of social media. Through case studies, the volume further explores the influence of social media on specific electoral processes, actors and societal systems. It considers social media as increasingly important in African elections because it offers a break from failed public media systems in Africa that have been far from representative of the views of the majority. Many have lacked a voice and those connected while able to modify, redistribute or spread messages often have not been listened to by those in power. The chapters in this volume highlight some of the problems, risks and setbacks with the role of social media in elections. Marginalised interest groups such as youths and women continue to face discrimination. In Sudan it was Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old female engineering and architecture student, who was one of the leaders of Sudan’s uprising against long-time former ruler Omar al-Bashir ending his near-30-year reign. The book will especially show how and why women and youths have been at the forefront of protests in Africa. Even though women are the majority in most African countries, there are less women than men in formal employment. Africa is the world’s youngest population with about two-thirds aged below 25 and about 40 per cent below the age of 15.

This volume tackles a broad range of themes including how social media deals with marginalised groups in electoral politics, especially women, youths and activists. Building on debates about media and gender it argues that social media facilitates conversation on electoral matters but its role depends on the context in which it is applied. In most cases it is perpetuating misrepresentations and stereotypes of women that is common in advertising, television, and newspapers. This became clear in three chapters. Mateveke and Chikafa-Chipiro’s chapter engages with how social media’s coverage of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe assumed new dimensions of misogyny directed at Grace Mugabe, wife of Robert Mugabe, at a time when others thought she was being prepared for the presidency. Ncube and Yemurai’s chapter analyses selected tweets to establish the treatment of female Zimbabwean politicians on social media during the run-up to the July 2018 elections. The verbal violence and harassment against female politicians online is an attempt to make them submit to the patriarchal gatekeepers of political power. Drawing on representational theories particularly Goffman’s work on framing and Gramsci’s conceptualisation of hegemony in conjunction with feminist readings of Lara and Chigumadzi, Ncube and Yemurai’s chapter concludes that notwithstanding the rampant sexism that female politicians in Zimbabwe have to deal with, both offline and online, they have been able to find and deploy their own agency.

Selnes and Orgeret’s chapter also engages with gender issues, specifically dealing with women and election activism in Uganda, using the Pads4Girls Social Media Campaign as a case study. Social media affords a voice to marginalised groups; however, the Pads4Girls campaign clearly showed how social media in Uganda was not taken seriously. Women in politics are perceived as overstepping into the masculine realm of politics and challenging masculine power and dominance, and hence they are criticised by both men and women. It is not enough to have a voice as in all cases women were maligned and objectified in social media, putting paid to the often taken for granted notion that social media has an automatic emancipatory potential in society.

Africa’s population has close to 600 million youths who arguably have no adequate political representation. At election time the youth are often involved in campaigns and other forms of activism but getting a voice through social media has not increased their access to political power and resources. Malila and Pela’s chapter documents the ways in which youths in South Africa actively engage with political party messages using the case of students at Rhodes University during the 2016 elections. She found that youths are highly critical of what they engage with online. However, Malila discovers failure by political parties to harness social media to relate to students. This caused apathy. Ndlela’s chapter similarly discusses youth’s participation in electoral politics, identifying what he considers inequalities in the emerging digital public sphere in Kenya. Contrary to utopian claims of emancipatory claims of being digital, in Kenya the new technologies are resulting in a new digital divide.

In contexts lacking press freedom, social media has provided a counter power to media capture. Activists have used social media to mobilise and speak truth to power. The emerging digital dialogue, as argued by Benecke and Verwey in their chapter, even though it is virtual, provides political protesters with opportunities to influence more diverse groups, increase their resistance of normative hierarchies and improve quality of participation from like-minded citizens. This became clear from their example of the Alex Total Shutdown movement (ATS) that started in April 2019 when residents of Alexandra Township in Gauteng, South Africa, protested for better service delivery just before the national elections in that country. In Algeria, as discussed by Zaghlami in his chapter, activists have similarly used social media to push for constitutional change. Algerian activists use social media in ways that bypass mainstream media, offering platforms and spaces for activists to speak out and mobile with increased momentum from February 2019. However, digital dialogue has also generated hate speech as is shown in the chapter by Ogbonna and Okafo in which they examine the extent to which The Punch and The Guardian online/published newspapers cover hate speeches in Nigeria. A content analysis research method was used with purposive sampling of The Punch and The Guardian newspapers online/published editions from January to June 2018. The findings show inadequate coverage of hate speech, (only 23 issues from 360 editions based on the published edition), even though most of the reportage on the issue is of the hard news genre. Mukhudwana’s chapter engages with Twitter accounts of selected political leaders in South Africa during the #ZumaMustFall campaign. She investigates the extent to which Twitter is implicated in claims of echo-chambers, homophily and populism. The findings are mixed including how there is diversity of political opinions and alternative forms of political deliberation. Uzuegbunam’s chapter engages with popular cultural discourses during Nigeria’s 2015 General Elections, analysing how social media memes and other visuals were deployed by activists to ridicule and lampoon those abusing power. The research also examines influence of social media cultures on people’s opinions regarding the electoral process. Tyali and Mukhudwana’s chapter provides a reception analysis of social media political advertising in South Africa. The case studies demonstrate the perceived value of social media as an alternative sphere platform for censored political information and content.

Altogether, the contributors to the book provide nuanced analyses of evidence of how social media is influencing electoral processes in Africa, providing opportunities as well as challenges. The book provides a compelling case for youths and women as an unignorable category for consideration in the new digital public communication in Africa. It contributes to work on the role of new technologies in the African democratisation process, offering both optimistic and worrying accounts about the role of social media.

© The Author(s) 2020

M. N. Ndlela, W. Mano (eds.)Social Media and Elections in Africa, Volume 2https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32682-1_2

Begin Abstract

2. Misogyny, Social Media and Electoral Democracy in Zimbabwe’s 2018 Elections

Pauline Mateveke¹ and Rosemary Chikafa-Chipiro¹

(1)

Department of English and Media Studies, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

Pauline Mateveke (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Rosemary Chikafa-Chipiro

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

MisogynyDisgrace narrativeSocial mediaElectoral democracyWomen politicians

End Abstract

Introduction

Social media has to a great extent been hailed as a platform for democratic expression that is representative of new media technologies as ideal tools for modern democratic societies. Studies have shown how social media has opened up additional, if not alternative spaces for public deliberation by way of extension of the Habermasian public sphere and providing a multimedia platform for greater democratic participation, inclusion and expression (Bruns & Highfield, 2016; Essoungou, 2010). Other studies have defined Social Network Sites (SNSs) as facilitating citizen and democratic networking (Loader & Mercea, 2011). Most of the literature reflects that even political parties, their respective leaders and civic organisations have since harnessed social media for their political ends, campaigning in particular (Enli & Skorgerbo, 2013; Ndlela, 2015).

In the African media and political landscape, it would seem that democratic expression on social media is possible, more so with revolutionary changes as demonstrated by the Arab Spring. Kenya and Ghana have notably gained some successes in the deployment of social media in their electoral processes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Social Media, Political Cultures and Elections in Africa
• 2. Misogyny, Social Media and Electoral Democracy in Zimbabwe’s 2018 Elections
• 3. Women and Election Activism in Uganda: The Pads4Girls Social Media Campaign
• 4. Discrimination Against Female Politicians on Social Media: An Analysis of Tweets in the Run-Up to the July 2018 Harmonised Elections in Zimbabwe
• 5. Young People, Social Media, and Political Participation. The Limits of Discursive (In)Civility in the Kenyan Context
• 6. Youth, Elections and Social Media: Understanding the Critical (Di)Stance Between Young People and Political Party Messaging
• 7. Social Media as a New Source of Empowerment in Algeria
• 8. Post Digital Dialogue and Activism in the Public Sphere
• 9. #ThisFlag: Social Media and Cyber-Protests in Zimbabwe
• 10. #Zuma Must Fall This February: Homophily on the Echo-Chambers of Political Leaders’ Twitter Accounts
• 11. An Analysis of Newspapers’ Coverage of Hate Speech in Nigeria
• 12. A Critical Analysis of Transgressive User-Generated Images and Memes and Their Portrayal of Dominant Political Discourses During Nigeria’s 2015 General Elections
• 13. Discourses on Political Advertising in South Africa: A Social Media Reception Analysis
• Back Matter