Beyond platform-centrism and digital universalism: the relational affordances of mobile social media publics

ABSTRACT

In debates on digital affordances, mobile devices and social media platforms are often treated as separate (physical or digital) objects which function independently from each other and from the environments in which they are used (‘platform-centrism’). However, mobile phone use has increasingly been dominated by social media apps while social media are frequently accessed via mobile devices, particularly in Global South contexts where users often rely on mobile-only internet access via subsidized/zero-rated social media data bundles. Furthermore, the affordances of mobile social media are shaped by the physical, mediated and political contexts in which they are used. Technological affordances are far from universal (‘digital universalism’) but take on different shapes across the globe. Drawing on research carried out during the September 2011 Zambian elections, this article introduces the notion of ‘relational affordance’ to emphasize the interplay between mobile social media, users and their varied contexts. Despite the relatively low number of mobile internet users at the time, the Facebook group of the popular, privately-owned Zambian television station, Muvi TV, quickly emerged as a fast-paced forum for the sharing of information on the elections. Three ‘relational affordances’ – infrastructure, home-based access and temporality – help to explain the emergence of this active mobile social media public. This analysis challenges previous accounts of mobile social media publics which identified negative (constraining) affordances like the control exerted by Facebook page administrators and positive (enabling) affordances such as the ‘always-on’ nature of mobile social media use and their ‘on-the-go’ access in public spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• mobile internet
• affordance
• publics
• Global South
• Zambia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It should be noted that user statistics – such as those included in the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) ICT database – offer estimates which are often derived from data provided by mobile phone operators. These estimates may deviate from actual usage patterns. For example, official data underestimate the common practice of mobile phone sharing which has been particularly prevalent in different parts of the Global South as well as users switching between multiple SIM cards from different mobile network providers which prevailed in my Zambia study.

2 In the meantime, the original page (https://www.facebook.com/askmuvi) is no longer available and has been replaced with a new page (https://www.facebook.com/muvitvsocial).

3 Source: Internet World Stats Usage and Population Statistics, retrieved from http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm#zm.

4 Interview with Muvi TV representative, Lusaka, 26 September 2011.

5 See ICT indicators, Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA), retrieved from http://onlinesystems.zicta.zm:8585/statsfinal/ICT%20Indicators.html.

6 Original, edited comment on Muvi TV Facebook page, poster anonymised, 20 September 2011, 05h22.

7 Original, edited comment on Muvi TV Facebook page, poster anonymised, 28 September 2011, 11h56.

8 Original, edited comment on Muvi TV Facebook page, poster anonymised, 15 September 2011, 19h23.

9 Interview with young female college student in Arcades Shopping Mall, 27 September 2011.

10 Interview with university graduate in Arcades Shopping Mall, 21 September 2011.

11 Original, edited comment on Muvi TV Facebook page, poster anonymised, 21 September 2011, 10h17.

12 See ICT indicators, Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA), http://onlinesystems.zicta.zm:8585/statsfinal/ICT%20Indicators.html.

13 See Internet World Stats: https://www.internetworldstats.com/af/zm.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy Willems

Wendy Willems is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include global digital culture and social change; postcolonial/decolonial approaches to media and communications; media culture and neoliberalism in the Global South; and popular culture, performance and politics in Africa. Her research has been published in journals such as Communication Theory, Media, Culture and Society, Popular Communication, Telematics and Informatics, World Development and Africa Development. She is co-editor of Civic Agency in Africa: Arts of Resistance in the Twenty-First Century (2014, Oxford: James Currey) and Everyday Media Culture in Africa: Audiences and Users (2016, London: Routledge) [email: [email protected]].