Democratic Transition and Digital Media Activism in Africa: A Zimbabwean Case Study

The aim of this study was to discuss how digital media activism influences democratization and social change in African countries in democratic transition such as Zimbabwe. The dissertation was also aimed at examining the relationship between democratic transition and digital media activism in Zimbabwe before critically evaluating the significance and extent to which digital media activism impacts on the political public sphere in Zimbabwe in particular and Africa in general.

The study is underpinned by a strand of multiple theoretical and conceptual frameworks. These include the Habermasian (1989) notion of the public sphere and Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) concept of radical democracy. Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) theory of radical democracy is an antidote to Habermas’s (1989) theorization of the public sphere. While for Habermas (1989), democracy is based on consensus, for Laclau and Mouffe (1985) radical democracy is deeply rooted in dissensus and conflict. This study argues that digital media provide communicative spaces for both consensus and dissensus.

The dissertation also deployed the social constructivist approach to have a better grasp of how subalterns in African countries in democratic transition such as Zimbabwe appropriated digital technologies to create communicative ecologies for counter hegemonic narratives. There was a general consensus among the respondents on the potential of digital media activism in Zimbabwe as a communicative site of struggle for democratisation and social change. Most respondents noted the significant gains that had been made in recent years by hashtag movements like #ZimbabweanLivesMatter, #ThisFlag, #Tajamuka and social media influencers like the late UK-based lawyer and academic Dr Alex Magaisa and veteran journalist and award-winning film-maker Hopewell Chin’ono. However, the study found that although digital media activism in Zimbabwe has made some significant headway in recent years, the gains were not huge enough. This drawback was attributed to several inhibiting factors. Most respondents agreed that the general political environment in the country was not conducive to democratic change. In addition, there was a yawning gap between Zimbabweans in the diaspora and those inside the country in terms of access to digital media. Most respondents agreed that the majority of digital media activists were based outside the country where they enjoyed unabridged basic freedoms and cheaper internet tariffs in their host countries. On the other hand, digital media remained a preserve of a few urban and peri-urban citizens in Zimbabwe. Most Zimbabweans in the rural areas did not have access to digital technologies due to poverty. Generally, the findings showed that while digital media activism might have been more effective for Zimbabweans based in the diaspora, its impact, in some cases, was seriously constrained due to the absence of embodied activism.

This study makes a significant contribution to the theory of political participation. It attempts to shed more insights on how citizens under authoritarian rule exercise their agency by deploying digital technologies as a site of struggle for democratisation and social change.