Social media dissidence and activist resistance in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Dissidents exist in every nation, always have, and perhaps always will – existing in that risky space between being patriots and being enemies of the state. Social media, on the other hand, is a fairly recent tool of communication defined by its heightened ductility in the hands of users. The admixture of social media and political dissidence has thrown many governments in a ceaseless panic, reflected in the raft of legislation enacted to control and constrain cyber activities. This paper studied the ‘social media dissidence’ phenomenon in Zimbabwe in the period 2016 within the context of digital media and the publics in Africa. The periodization understudy is noticeable because it bore witness to a variety of unsettling acts by individuals that provoked panicked responses from the state. Using qualitative data drawn from Facebook and Twitter and deploying Mamdani’s citizen and subject, the study examines the nature of the born-digital dissidence in a sample of two cases, #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka. The paper establishes the possibilities and limitations of deploying social media as a tool for expressing protest and dissidence. The study found that social media dissidence is marked by constant fluidity, transmogrification, crests, and troughs.