FACEBOOK, YOUTH AND POLITICAL ACTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ZIMBABWE AND SOUTH AFRICA A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND MEDIA STUDIES, RHODES UNIVERSITY by Admire Mare September 2015 ABSTRACT This comparative multi-sited study examines how, why and when politically engaged youths in distinctive national and social movement contexts use Facebook to facilitate political activism. As part of the research objectives, this study is concerned with investigating how and why youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa use the popular corporate social network site for political purposes. The study explores the discursive interactions and micro- politics of participation which plays out on selected Facebook groups and pages. It also examines the extent to which the selected Facebook pages and groups can be considered as alternative spaces for political activism. It also documents and analyses the various kinds of political discourses (described here as digital hidden transcripts) which are circulated by Zimbabwean and South African youth activists on Facebook fan pages and groups. Methodologically, this study adopts a predominantly qualitative research design although it also draws on quantitative data in terms of levels of interaction on Facebook groups and pages. Consequently, this study engages in data triangulation which allows me to make sense of how and why politically engaged youths from a range of six social movements in Zimbabwe and South Africa use Facebook for political action. In terms of data collection techniques, the study deploys social media ethnography (online participant observation), qualitative content analysis and in-depth interviews. Theoretically, this study jettisons the Habermasian theory of public sphere in favour of Fraser’s (1990) concept of the subaltern counter-publics, Scott’s (1985) metaphor of hidden transcripts and some insightful views on popular culture gleaned from African studies. Melding these ideas into a synthesised theoretical frame, this study argues that Facebook fan pages and groups can be conceptualised as parallel discursive arenas where marginalised groups (including politically active youths) have a political life outside the dominant mediated public sphere often in ways that are generally viewed as “irrational” and “non- political” in mainstream Western literature. This study also proposes ways of enriching Fraser’s concept of subaltern counter-publics by incorporating elements from Scott’s metaphor of hidden transcripts in order to analyse the various kinds of political discourses which are circulated on social media. i The findings demonstrate that youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa are using Facebook to engage in traditional and alternative forms of political participation. Findings show that Facebook in both political contexts is deployed for transmitting and accessing civic and political information, as a conduit for online donations and fundraising, for contacting political decision makers, as a venue of political activism, as an advertising platform for social and political events and as a platform for everyday political talk. It demonstrates that the broader political context shapes and constraints the localised appropriations of Facebook for political purposes in ways that deconstructs some of the postulations of the cyber-optimist and pessimist approaches. The study also found that youth activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa used Facebook in their own unique ways as shaped and dictated by the broader political and mediated opportunity structures. It argues that youth’s engagement with social media platforms for political purposes should be understood in their own terms without necessarily imposing inflexible boundaries on what counts as political participation. Although Facebook like other social media platforms foster avenues for cognitive engagement, discursive participation and political mobilisation, these political practices are not immune to the influences of offline processes. Youth activists in all the six case organisations used Facebook as a complementary and supplementary space for political processes rather than as a standalone platform. The study also argues that compared to South Africa, the political uses of Facebook in Zimbabwe are largely influenced by practices of state surveillance. It also found that whilst youth activists in South Africa are deploying Facebook to supplement traditional methods of political activism, their counterparts in Zimbabwe are using the same technology to circumvent the restricted political and media environment. The findings also indicate that youth activists in both countries are using Facebook as a change agent tool within the broader media ecology which is characterised by the increasing interpenetration of older and newer media platforms. In terms of micro-politics of participation and discursive interactions, this study found that Facebook pages and groups should viewed as a “sites of power” where corporate forces and platform specific code coalesce together fostering “algorithmic” gatekeeping practices and the favouring of paid for content over non-paid for user-generated-content which ultimately affects activists’ visibility and reach within the online media ecology. These gatekeeping practices therefore further complicate claims by cyber-optimists that social media platforms ii are the sine qua non spaces for symmetrical and democratic participation. This study argues that “subtle forms of control” characterise the much glorified participatory cultures on Facebook in ways that defy optimistic accounts of the role of new media in political change. iii DEDICATIONS For my parents Reuben Mare and Daisy Gomba-Mare & In loving memory my late grandmother Stella Tuge Charumbira-Gomba (14 August 2014) iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my saviour and Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the lion of the tribe of Judah, I salute you for showering me greater and sufficient grace, for the unfailing love and financial provision. Indeed: “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength”. Whilst it has become a cliché that “behind every successful man is a woman”, I would like to expand this axiomatic saying by noting that “behind every completed thesis are the invisible choreographers”, whose mental astuteness and resolute insistence on nothing but the best ensured that “dance compositions and movements were arranged in a sequential and flawless order”. This thesis wouldn’t have seen the light of the day if it was not because of the tireless and at times magnanimous efforts of my two world-class supervisors: Professors Jane Duncan & Herman Wasserman. It was because of their intellectual stamina and acumen that my initial fuzzy and ambitious ideas were panel beaten into a well-rounded argument. Thank you Profs, for putting up with my slow pace at times and for allowing me to nag you through your personal and professional email addresses when I needed urgent clarifications. Prof Jane Duncan, thank you once again for the research projects which helped me to finance this academic pursuit. Thirdly and most importantly, I would like to thank and appreciate the invaluable support of my dearest wife Evelyn Grace Chipo Ruwende-Mare who endured sleepless nights solo- parenting our handsome and intelligent son Akudzweishe Darell Mare. To you my sweetheart EVE thanks for being real a soldier. You were there always in terms of financial, spiritual, emotional and moral support. I couldn’t have asked for a better wife than you. Thanks for putting up with my academic obsessions which saw me move from one African city to the other attending conferences and conducting research. It’s not easy to endure life of parenting without your better half. No amount of words is enough to say thank you but I know the LORD will bless you a thousand-fold. To Akudzweishe, the screams, childhood tantrums and noise couldn’t put me off my pedestal. These served as a great motivation that one day this journey would come to a stop. Thanks for the one year of great fun and unending bliss. v Fourthly, I am also deeply grateful to youth activists from the six social movements in Zimbabwe and South Africa for allowing me to be a constant “nag” in your Facebook inboxes and to make use of your precious time at your workplaces and sometimes your leisure time during the weekends. I will be forever grateful for your unfailing generosity and commitment which enabled you to put up with my academic curiosity. I would like to acknowledge the financial support I received from the South African Netherlands Partnership for Development (SANPAD) for the first two years of my PhD studies. Fifthly, I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement from my many friends, who kept prodding me to “submit” even when the going seemed tough. The question “when are you going to submit” became a constant anthem throughout my academic journey. These include: Doc Jacinta Maweu, Doc Hayes Mabweazara, Doc Sarah Chiumbu, Doc Blessing Makwambeni, Doc Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, Doc Samuel Chigome, Stanley Tsarwe and Malvern “Mala” Chiweshe. To Stanley Tsarwe, Malvern Chiweshe, Japhin Nyengera, Trust Matsilele, Prof Lynette Steenveld and Prof Larry Strelitz thanks for hosting me on several occasions I came to Grahamstown and Johannesburg without making prior accommodation arrangements. To Apostle Mazando, Evangelist Alfred Machangani & Prophet Tarisai Muzenda, your prayers were never in vain. Hlulani Halimani and Elisha