Social diary and news production: authorship and readership in social media during Kenya’s 2007 elections

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an analysis of the politics of (self-)referentiality on the Kenyan weblog kenyanpundit.com during the elections of 2007 and their violent aftermath. It discusses news reporting on this website through the concept of a communication circuit, and the changing forms of address by conceptualising the narrative as a social diary. These two parallel routes of interpretation, the first spatial and the second temporal, are framed in the wider context of the role of the media during the Kenyan electoral period. The analysis shows the boundaries between news producers and publics to be blurred, even if the blogger Kenyan Pundit controlled the final publication of the writing in her function as gate-keeper to the blog. The online space provides the possibility for a participatory readership that is in principle limitless, but it is shown that this online space does not render older axes of debate – such as the nation and ethnicity – obsolete. I argue that the weblog’s community engage in evaluative and emotive debates about the news. However, these debates do not constitute a uniform whole; rather, the blog posts and comments on Kenyanpundit.com form a narrative diary that establishes the weblog as processual rather than static.

KEYWORDS:

• Kenya
• elections
• blog
• citizen journalism
• publics
• public sphere

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the input of all participants of the ‘Digital Publics’ Workshop held at Cambridge in September 2016, and especially the editors Stephanie Diepeveen, George Karekwaivanane and Sharath Srinivasan for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Barber, Anthropology, 174.

2 McNeill, “Teaching”.

3 Darnton, “An Early Information Society”.

4 Barber, Anthropology, 202.

5 Murthy, Twitter, xi, quoted in Tully and Ekdale, “Sites”, 68.

6 Rosen, “The People”.

7 Bruns, Blogs.

8 Hermida, “From TV to Twitter”.

9 Macharia, “Blogging Queer Kenya”.

10 “On-line biographies”; McNeill, “Teaching”.

11 Darnton, “An Early Information Society”, 3.

12 Leow, “Reflections”, 235.

13 Darnton, “An Early Information Society”, 1–35.

14 Biography, special issue on on-line biographies 1, 2003; McNeill, “Teaching”.

15 Spitulnik, “The Social Circulation”.

16 PEW, “Global Publics”; Cf. Bernal, Nation as Network.

17 ITU, “Percentage”.

18 Macharia, “Blogging Queer Kenya”.

19 WhiteAfrican. “Why the Internet Matters in Africa.” 31 December 2007. http://whiteafrican.com/?s=why+the+internet. See also Mwizi Kibaraka Toka, “Thank You Kenyan Pundit”.

20 Zuckerman, “Kenya”.

21 Okolloh, “Ushahidi”, 65.

22 Marcus Beckedal. “Speaking with a Kenyan Pundit – an Interview with Ory Okolloh,” April 7, 2009. https://netzpolitik.org/2009/speaking-with-a-kenyan-pundit-an-interview-with-ory-okolloh/

23 Clark Boyd. “Global Voices Speak through Blogs.” BBC News, April 6, 2005; TED Speaker. “Ory Okolloh: Blogger and Activist,” August 2008. https://www.ted.com/speakers/ory_okolloh; Esther Dyson. “Ory Okolloh: The Activist who Helps Africans Exercise their Power”, Time, April 24, 2014.

24 Ligaga, “Representing”.

25 Okolloh, “Ushahidi ”; Mäkinen and Kuira, “Social Media,” 331; See also KP, January 8, 2008.

26 Comment: Kags, December 30, 2007. See also Comments: Dillon and eunwa, December 30, 2007; sisbigbones, December 31, 2007; kayliz, December 31, 2007; Imani, January 1, 2008.

27 Cf. Lamoureaux, Message in a Mobile.

28 Commenters often refer to Ory Okolloh with “Ory”, but I have decided to use the name under which she opened the blog: Kenyan Pundit. She and the readers are also referred to as the KP-community, KP standing for Kenyan Pundit.

29 Waki, “Report”; Human Rights Watch, “Ballots to Bullets”.

30 See, for example: Wainaina, One day, 210, 211; Quotes of such messages in Quist-Arcton, “Text messages”; Zuckerman, “Kenya”; IRIN, “Spreading”; Mutahi and Kimari, “Impact”. For a more profound interpretation: Ligaga ‘“Virtual Expressions”; Ligaga, “Ethnic Stereotypes”.

31 Ismael and Deane, “The 2007 general election”; Wachanga, “Kenya’s Indigenous Radio Stations”; Mäkinen and Kuira, “Social Media”; Waki, “Report”, 295–303.

32 ICC, “Kenya Case”; Waki, “Report”, 295–303.

33 IRIN, “Spreading”.

34 Waki, “Report”, 295–303; Human Rights Watch, “Ballots to Bullets”, 2008: 22–24; Kenyan Pundit, December 30, 2007.

35 Goldstein and Rotich, “Digitally Networked Technology”, 5.

36 Mäkinen and Kuira, “Social Media”, 329.

37 Okolloh, “Ushahidi”, 65.

38 “Kenya Burns”, blogger quoted in Mäkinen and Kuira, “Social Media”, 329. For the distinctions between information, communication and news: van Dijk, News as discourse, 1–5.

39 Goldstein and Rotich, “Digitally Networked Technology”, 8.

40 Tully, “Ushahidi”.

41 May 31, 2005.

42 Cf. Ochiagha, Achebe and Friends.

43 Pahl, “Afropolitanism”, 78.

44 Macharia, “Blogging Queer Kenya”.

45 Comment Fran, December 29, 2007.

46 December 28, 2007.

47 Comments: Ivory December 23, 2007 and Rateng December 29, 2007, December 21, 2007.

48 Lam, “Second Language Socialization”, 47.

49 Comment Njoro, November 11, 2005; See also Comment audrey, December 29, 2007.

50 January 5, 2008.

51 January 6, 2008.

52 January 6, 2008.

53 December 23, 2010.

54 Lam, “Second Language Socialization”, 45.

55 Comment Keguro, December 28, 2007.

56 Comment: anon, December 27, 2007. See also: December 24, 2007; December 30, 2007; January 16, 2008.

57 Macharia, “Blogging Queer Kenya”; Cf. Bernal, Nation as Network.

58 December 10, 2005.

59 December 29, 2007.

60 December 18, 2007.

61 Comments Keguro and KenyanCommentator, December 28, 2007.

62 December 29, 2007.

63 January 29, 2008.

64 Comments SM and Acolyte, January 29, 2008.

65 Comment Kenyan Damu, December 30, 2007.

66 Comment LJK, December 29, 2007.

67 Comment Silaha and reaction by Kenyan Pundit, December 31, 2007.

68 Comments acolyte and toiyoi, October 24, 2006.

69 December 18 and 19, 2007.

70 December 21, 2007.

71 Comment Ms K, December 27, 2007.

72 Comment Digz, December 27, 2007.

73 December 27, 2007.

74 Comment AK, December 27, 2007.

75 December 28, 2007.

76 December 30, 2007.

77 Comment Fran, December 29, 2007.

78 29 and 30 December 2007.

79 December 31, 2007.

80 December 31, 2007.

81 January 1, 2008.

82 January 2, 2008.

83 Comment KenyanCommentator, December 29, 2007; Comment Abass, December 30, 2007; Comment: Cassidy (January 2, 2008), January 1, 2008.

84 Comment siji (December 31, 2007), December 27, 2007.

85 Comment Mutua, January 2, 2008; also: Comment TK, January 8, 2008.

86 Comment Favour (December 29 2007), December 27, 2007.

87 Comment Linda O, December 29 2007.

88 Comment Nyatty, Timor-leste (December 31, 2007), December 31, 2007.

89 Comment Abass, December 30, 2007; see also: Comment Debaba, January 2, 2008.

90 Comment Wanjiru (December 31, 2007), December 27, 2007.

91 Comment Mwikali35, January 1, 2008.

92 Comment Paul, January 5, 2008; January 6, 2008.

93 Comments Fiona and mamanyongesa, January 10, 2008.

94 January 10, 2008.

95 Comment Sijui, January 12, 2008.

96 January 12, 2008.

97 January 15, 2008.

98 Comment Ishara, January 26, 2008.

99 Comment Fiona, January 1, 2008; Comment NYC, January 16, 2008.

100 February 28, 2008.

101 Barber, Anthropology, 140.

102 Bernal, Nation as Network, 12.

103 Ligaga, “Representing”, 2; Ogola in Wasserman, Popular Media, 123–6.

104 Ligaga, “Representing”, 4; Bernal, Nation as network, 4 refers to “ordinary people”.

105 Barber, Readings, 3, 4.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support to attend the Workshop was offered by Research Foundation Flanders, and the department of African Languages and Cultures of Ghent University.