In the past ten years, global Internet penetration grew sevenfold, from 6.5 percent to 43 percent. In Africa, one in five persons has access to the Internet today, compared to only ten percent in 2010 (ITU, 2015, ICT Facts and Figures - The world in 2015). At the same time, the use of social media is growing at an incredible speed. In June 2015, Facebook counted 120 million active users across Africa, of which over 80% were accessing the platform using mobile devices (BBC Afrique, 2015, Facebook ouvre un bureau en Afrique).

From monitoring elections and addressing issues such as unemployment and corruption to providing humanitarian aid during crises – new media has been used in an array of instances around the world in the last decade. In Senegal for instance, social media helped mobilize people during the water shortages in the capital of Dakar in September 2013. Using Twitter, protests were launched against the government’s and city of Dakar’s lack of action to solve the problem. Also, the platform helped locate neighbourhoods where water was still available (Jeune Afrique, 2013).

Liberation or threat?

In communication science, new communication technologies – in particular the Internet and social media – have been referred to as “liberation technology” because of their “potential to empower citizens to confront, contain, and hold accountable authoritarian regimes — and even to liberate societies from autocracy” (Diamond, 2012, p. XI).

However, there is also a negative side to new media: Al Qaeda has also made active use of the Internet and social media as a communication tool and for recruiting new members. Authoritarian governments have spread their propagenda through social media or blocked citizens’ access, as done by the Egypt authorities at height of protests in early 2011 (Douai &Olorunnisola, 2013, S. 277). Social media is a great tool for people to express themselves and to get involved in the political discourse. But as more and more voices can be heard, it could easily turn into a tool for mixing up rumours and truths.

Social media to involve the youth in politics

Since the Arab Spring, the role of social media in influencing political action by young people has gained increasing attention. Although social media did not cause the revolution, Facebook and Twitter have undoubtedly been an important platform for mobilising the crowds. Today, 50 per cent of the African population is under 20 years old, according to Unicef (Unicef, 2014, Generation 2030 Africa, p. 18). The youth thus forms a significant part of the population. In Kenya for instance, the share of people under 35 years of age amounts to 79 percent of the population (Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2014, Kenya Facts and Figures 2014) and 70 percent of those eligible to vote (Douai & Olorunnisola, 2013, S. 275). As researchers Douai and Olorunnisola point out: “Getting the youth to make informed choices would likely prove useful for democracy and may work to improve society” (Douai &Olorunnisola, 2013, p. 275).

A study investigating the relationship between youth engagement on social media and their interest in politics holds Facebook to be an important source for political information and news. Especially for young people in Kenya, it has increasingly been replacing traditional media, such as television, radio and newspapers. Young Kenyans use Facebook to express themselves and to debate political issues such as employment, youth empowerment and social services. 47 percent of young people using Facebook have already talked to a politician through a social network. Besides, youth active on social media were found more interested in politics and more willing to vote in the next election than youth not using social media (Douai & Olorunnisola, 2013, p. 280-282). This shows that social media cannot be neglected as an important channel for young people and has helped getting them more interested in and involved in politics.

Geomapping the crisis

Kenya is far ahead of other African countries when it comes to the use of Internet and social media. In 2014, the East African country counted 21.3 million Internet users, thus coming 4th place in the African top 10 Internet countries, established by Internet World Stats (Internet World Stats, 2014, Internet Usage Statistics for Africa: Africa Top 10 Internet Countries 2014 Q2). New communication technologies have been used in various ways in Kenya, such as to assist young farmers and after the post-election violence in 2008. Following the presidential elections in December 2007, around 800 people had been killed in deadly riots in just a few weeks. In this context, Ushahidi was established. Meaning “testimony” in Swahili, Ushahidi is a website allowing citizens to map crises, corruption or human rights violations. It combines geomapping with other new communication technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, voicemail, SMS or emails (Meier, 2012, p. 95-98). The free and open-sourced mapping platform has since been used in more than 150 countries. Over 60.000 maps have been created for a wide range of incidents, like providing help after the Haiti earthquake or reporting sexual harassment of women in Egypt (Ushahidi, n.s., Features).

In Egypt, the platform has been used extensively, also to monitor the parliamentary elections in late 2010. U-Shahid (“shahid” means witness in Arabic), as the platform is called in the North African country, helped people in Egypt and around the world to get information on the on-going election and to report possible violations of the electoral laws. This was particularly important as international election-monitoring groups had not been allowed to be present for the elections. The government was also making use of social media: It had established a special department to observe content published on Facebook and to spread pro-regime reports to counter the activists’ criticism (Meier, 2012, S. 98-107).

U-Shahid combined different social media platforms such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook. That way, 2,700 instances of election irregularities could be documented, thanks to the help of the crowd and a team of trained bloggers verifying the information received. Topics reported ranged from bribes for votes over cases of violence to falsification of election ballots. As Patrick Meier, director of crisis mapping at Ushihidi, explains, information on U-Shahid were more timely and provided more evidence, such as pictures and videos, than reports by the traditional media. He concludes that the project had an impact on the political space and discourse by bringing transparency into the electoral process, although it may not have deterred fraud, due to its visibility still being limited (Meier, 2012, S. 107).

Information, aid, rumours

During the post-electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010/2011, social media has been very actively used by civil society, although it did not always serve noble causes. New communication technologies did provide an alternative source of information in a context of unreliable, unprofessional and highly partisan coverage by traditional media (Essoh, 2014, L’Autre Côte d’Ivoire). Reporters without borders, who monitored the media coverage during the campaign, the elections and the fallout of the crisis, said the state radio and TV RTI served as an “influential and dangerous propaganda tool rather than a public service media” (Reporters without borders, April 2011.

In this context, social media served as a platform for debate and exchange of information among the citizens in Côte d’Ivoire as well as the diaspora. Volunteer solidarity groups were organised to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population caught in the war. The Facebook group SOS Medical Advice, for instance, served as a kind of hospital, offering counselling by nurses and doctors and medical aid in a situation of war. Another Facebook Group, Chaîne de Solidarité pour les déplacésd’Abobo, collected donations such as clothes, food, basic medications, water and cleaning products for people fleeing from Abobo, a district in Abidjan that had been a scene of massive violence (Essoh, 2014, L’Autre Côte d’Ivoire ).

Twitter explosion

As Edith Brou, an Ivorian blogger and digital manager explains: “The Twitter bubble exploded from the end of the year 2010 (period of socio-political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire) and experienced a growing evolution with a community of well-informed and very connected Internet users” (Brou, 2012, Twitter Les Hashtag les plus utilisés en Côte d’Ivoire). Two hashtags, created during the crisis, have been particularly explosive.

The first is #civ2010 (for Côte d’Ivoire 2010), created by the Ivorian NGO Akendewa in the early days of the presidential election campaign in October 2010. It was initiated to exchange information on the campaign, on the candidates and the voting process. However, by the second election round it had developed from a watch blog and reporting space to a space where people expressed their hatred (Guèye, Headley, Letourneux, 2011, The Use of Social Media During Côte d’Ivoire Post-Electoral Crisis(e)).

The same NGO created a new hashtag in April 2011, #civsocial. It meant to provide concrete solutions and practical assistance to the victims of the crisis, but also to separate humanitarian aid actions from the often aggressive and hateful debates monopolizing #civ2010. The hashtag was accompanied by a Facebook group, a website and a call center providing help (Essoh, 2014, L’Autre Côte d’Ivoire).

Twitter was the tool to report scoops, especially when traditional media ceased to be able to report. On 27 February, it was Twitter that first reported how the state TV and radio station RTI had stopped broadcasting from Abidjan, which was later confirmed by the international media (Guèye, Headley, Letourneux, 2011, The Use of Social Media During Côte d’Ivoire Post-Electoral Crisis(e)).

But the Internet has also been a site for rumours, insults and opposing narratives of the crisis. It was also a “place where the powerful and antagonists of Ivoirian post-electoral crisis could be ridiculed” (Schumann, 2015, p. 133).

An opportunity for democracy

During the past decade, Internet, mobile phones and social media have been growing at explosive rates on the African continent. Social media has on the one hand empowered authoritarian governments to spread their propaganda and to monitor and neutralize prodemocracy movements. On the other hand, it has had an important impact on elections, the political debate, and different forms of civil participation. It has provided an alternative channel for information when traditional media was struggling with censorship. It helped to organise humanitarian aid in situations of war, to mobilize people for social uprisings or to expose abuses of authoritarian regimes. New media has also shown to be an effective tool to get young people interested and involved in politics.

The population in Africa is increasing and is expected to double to 2.4 billion in 2050 (Unicef, 2014, Generation 2030 Africa). Already today, half of the African population is made up of young people. It is therefore even more important for politics to open up to social media and the opportunities it can provide to inform and involve the youth and thus reinforce democracy.

By Tanja Schreiner, former intern at KAS Media Africa.

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