{"id":2311,"date":"2021-03-31T06:37:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T05:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/mancept\/?page_id=2311"},"modified":"2021-04-01T14:26:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T13:26:58","slug":"social-media-and-the-democratic-process-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/mancept\/social-media-and-the-democratic-process-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media and the Democratic Process in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Social Media and the Democratic Process in Africa<\/h1>\n

Convenors<\/b><\/p>\n

Peter Aloysius Ikhane <\/b>(University of Ibadan, Nigeria)<\/p>\n

Elvis Imafidon <\/b>(SOAS, University of London)<\/p>\n

\n

The democratic process in Africa is much beset with challenges on different fronts: electoral violence, vote buying, election rigging, and ethnic politicking and marginalization (Ng\u2019oma 2017; Olayode 2016). Particularly challenging, however, is that the democratic \u2018virtue\u2019 of self-dignity realised through unhindered participation in the democratic process (Runciman 2018), is being undermined. The social media, which has become central in political engagements, and holds promise of unsuppressed democratic participation (Ogri, Mboso & Adomi 2016) has begun to come under the heavy-handedness of the state.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In many countries in Africa, the state has begun to make it difficult for social media users to freely express themselves or question their leaders, by crafting and implementing heavy-handed regulations that require online users to register with regulators, as well as compel bloggers and content creators to pay exorbitant taxes (Karombo 2020). For example, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania and Burkina Faso are among countries who have joined a growing trend of heavy-handed regulatory oversight of social media users. Indeed, the oversight tendencies of the state has been particularly crucial ahead of recent elections in Tanzania (28 October, 2020), Burkina Faso (22 November, 2020) and Uganda (14 January 2021), where leaders sought to contain the effect of social media on their re-election bids (Karombo 2020). Restrictions on social media were also implemented in 2019 around elections or referendum in countries including Togo, Burundi and Guinea (Obia 2021).<\/span><\/p>\n

Though, in Africa,\u00a0 the suppressive control of free speech in social media is not by the big tech companies, who own social media platforms as David Runciman had alluded to in his \u201cHow Democracy Ends\u201d (2018), if, however, Runciman\u2019s persuasive argument that the attack on individual\u2019s dignity through suppression of free speech is the greatest threat to democracy\u2019s survival in the twenty-first century be broadly construed, then the limiting encounters of self-expression occasioned by the state\u2019s restrictions of social media use in many African countries pose a grave challenge to the survival of democracy on the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the light of the foregoing, the we invite submission of contributions that critically engage the role of social media in the democratic process with reference, but are not limited, to the following questions:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n