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ABSTRACT
The ubiquity of new media technologies in many parts of Africa today and the celebratory narratives with which their adoption is routinely discussed in the continent often firmly silence some important questions. Among these is new media technologies’ inherent capacity to also exclude, neuter or appropriate “popular” voices. This article attempts to explore this paradox. Focusing on Web 2.0 applications, more specifically Twitter, and using Kenya as a case study, the article explores the emergent expressive cultures new media technologies have incubated in the country. It argues that they “disrupt” the “normal” thus creating important pockets of “indiscipline” which variously challenge and confront power, and very often from the margins- but only partly. For while digital technologies enable and encourage public participation in “popular” conversations about self, community and nation through practices such as “individuation”, the article also explores how these possibilities are constrained by problematic material conditions that render claims of popular inclusion and participation in these digital spaces fundamentally tenuous.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See for example, Tully and Ekdale, “Sites of Playful Engagement,” 67–82; Ndlela, “Social Media and Elections in Kenya”, and Portland Communications, How Africa Tweets.
2 Portland Communications, How Africa Tweets.
3 Ibid.
4 Bruns and Burgess, “Researching News Discussion on Twitter,” 803.
5 Ibid.
6 Fenton and Barassi, “Alternative Media and Social Networking Site,” 181.
7 Ibid.
8 Plevrity, “Satirical User-generated Memes,” 50.
9 Fenton and Barassi, “Alternative Media and Social Networking Site,” 181.
10 Stiegler, Acting Out, 37.
11 Stiegler, “Teleologics of the Snail,” 35.
12 Stiegler, Acting Out, 42.
13 Fenton and Barassi, “Alternative Media and Social Networking Site,” 182.
14 Castells, Communication Power, 120.
15 Fenton and Barassi, “Alternative Media and Social Networking Site,” 183.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., 190.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid, citing Hindman, The Myth of Digital Democracy.
21 Simon et al., “Twitter in the Cross Fire- The Use of Social Media in the Westgate Mall Terror Attack in Kenya”.
22 Tully and Ekdale, “Sites of Playful Engagement,” 67.
23 Makinen and Kuira, “Social Media and Postelection Crisis in Kenya,” 328–335.
24 See also Rotich and Goldstein, “Digitally Networked Technology in Kenya’s 2007–2008 Post-Election Crisis,” 1–10.
25 Dugmore and Ligaga, “Citizen journalism in South Africa and Kenya: The Quandary of Quality and the Prospects for Growth,” 248–64.
26 Ligaga, “Virtual Expressions,” 1
27 Ibid.
28 See for example Bruns and Burgess, “Researching News Discussion on Twitter,” 801–14; Munson et al. “Sociotechnical Challenges and Progress in Using Social Media for Health”.
29 Taylor and Pagliari, “Mining Social Media Data,” 3.
30 Tully and Ekdale, “Sites of Playful Engagement,” 67–82.
31 See Warner, “Publics and Counter Publics,” 49–90, for a critical reading of ‘publics’.
32 The Standard, “This Man Robert Alai”, 19 October 2013.
33 Ogola, “African Journalism,” 236.
34 Ibid.
35 Agutu, “Police Use Teargas to Disperse Langata Pupils.”
36 Mwangi, Boniface. “Occupyplayground: Police Used Teargas on Our Children but for Now We Celebrate.” The Guardian, 20 January 2015.
37 Mbembe, “Provisional Notes on the Postcolony,” 8.
38 Street, Politics and Popular Culture, 12.
39 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, 19.
40 Musila, “The ‘Redykyulass Generation’s’ Intellectual Interventions in Kenyan Public Life,” 279.
41 Musila, “Laughing at the Rainbow’s Cracks: Blackness, Whiteness and the Ambivalences of South African Stand-up Comedy.”
42 Ogola, “‘If you Rattle a Snake, be Prepared to be Bitten’,” 173–200.
43 Ligaga, “Virtual Expressions,” 1–16.
44 Ruganda, Telling the Truth Laughingly, 1.
45 Milner, “Pop Polyvocality,” 2359.
46 Plevriti, “Satirical User-generated Memes,” 4.
47 Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture.
48 Portland Communications, How Africa Tweets.
49 Plevriti, “Satirical User-generated Memes,” 60.
50 Ibid.
51 Ruganda, Telling the Truth Laughingly, 1.
52 See Ogola, “African Journalism.”
53 Bimber, “The Study of Information Technology,” 323–33.
54 Stein, Joel. “Why We are Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate.” Time Magazine, 20 August 2016.
55 Ibid.
56 The Daily Nation, “60 bloggers arrested in Kenya this year- report”, 30 November 2016.
57 Ogola and Owuor, “Citizen Journalism in Kenya,” 239.
58 Ibid., 240.
59 Ibid.