Women’s political participation in Zimbabwe: play and content creation on Twitter

ABSTRACT

Digital technologies and discursive spaces have become ubiquitous for political participation. This article analyses women’s political participation in Zimbabwe. The article uses play theory to analyse how women interact or communicate on social media. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse political content extracted from a hashtag-based dataset. Follow-up interviews with female activists were also carried out through the Twitter direct message (DM) to ascertain the effectiveness of Twitter for political communication. The article notes that Twitter offers opportunities for political participation and provisions a visible back-up of digital followers which was previously invisible or indiscernible through traditional media and formal political structures. Through play, women amplify or downplay perspective by posting emotive personal photos, emojis, textual metaphors and other satirical items usable on Twitter. The article argues that play or counter-play generates a hyperbole of political realities. I define counter-play as an activity of creating content for and against.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• political content
• satire
• play
• counter-play

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Queensland meaning United Kingdom. The tweet assumes that most women saying Ian Smith ( colonial regime) was better than the ruling regime are based in diaspora.

2 From 2018, ZANU-PF unleashed what they call ‘varakashi’ (invincibles) on social media to counter and oppose any progressive agenda by the opposition (see Mathe, 2020).

3 Yellow is the colour theme of the opposition party CCC, women in the opposition attached every tweet with a yellow theme colour. And encouraging the audience to use the yellow dot whenever responding to dissonant tweets by ZANU-PF followers.

4 The tweet was accompanied by a personal image. The Hashtag #ZanuPFMustGo was still used in a social tweet.

5 This was a ridiculing tweet with a cup full of froth and no beer-indicating the former Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Jonathan Moyo that was now a noisemaker only on Twitter.

6 ED refers to Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.

7 This tweet was attached with a video of a woman and 2 men wearing ZANU-PF regalia and dancing to a South African song ‘Chill with the Big Boys’

8 Cde Mnangagwa is the current President of Zimbabwe.

9 The tweet was attached with the photograph of the former colonial Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith.

10 ‘Dira rizare Linda!’ means pour to the full referring to the image tub attached to the tweet.

11 ‘ … enda unogeza’ means go bath. I hide the name of female abused for ethical purposes.

12 ‘kusageza kuno affecta brain’ not bathing affects your brain.

13 ‘ko unenge wageza nguvai zvaunomukira social media’-what time do you bath when you spend your time on social media.

14 ‘Hure rinonzi’ means a whore. I hide the name of the female abused for ethical purposes.

15 ‘Handei tinovarakasha’ means let us go and deal with them.

16 Auxillia Mnangangwa is the First Lady in Zimbabwe. Attached to the tweet was her image. The tweet reflects abuse of power and corruption by the First Lady.

17 Nyatsime is a village where violence broke out between CCC and ZANU-PF members over the death of Moreblessing Ali. Fambai ma CCC means job well done CCC members. Thus, the tweets alludes that CCC members were involved in the violence.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Limukani Mathe

Limukani Mathe is a Lecturer and Research Fellow attached to the Entity of Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) at the University of North-West in South Africa. Previously, he was a Lecturer and Research Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg. His research interests are at the intersection of democracy and digital technologies with particular focus on web-based communities (commentary forums, social media, news sites), indigenous language media and journalism practices in the Global South.