By Takura Zhangazha*
As is increasingly the case across the world, social media
is now a permanent fixture of Zimbabwe’s political battleground. And again as is the case in every country
that lays claim to being democratic, its
use for political mobilisation proposes escalates during election campaigns.
Given the fact that Zimbabweans shall be voting on Monday 30
July 2018, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp apart
from being sources of information have become purveyors of a great deal more political
opinion, innuendo, bias and activism.
Because of this it is important to think through the current
and contextual placement of social media may mean for Zimbabwe’s scheduled
elections.
One thing that is almost certain is that there will be no
role for global political consultants such as was the now ‘non-existent’
Cambridge Analytica that could allegedly invade what little privacy rights
remain on social media and use algorithms to sway voters to a particular side.
But as is now already the case, there are organised groups
of social media specialists and party supporters, sympathisers that are
actively tweeting, ‘whatsapping’ and ‘facebooking’ for their side.
And all the main political parties that are in this election
appear to be expecting their supporters to harness social media to demonstrate
either their popularity or effectiveness of their campaigns.
And its all fair game. For now. Though I anticipate that
social media content on the elections and between parties will get more rabid
as the Election Day nears and as the results start to be officially announced.
The striking characteristics of the electoral campaign
related social media content is that it appears to be serving the primary function
of fortifying political positions or functioning almost strictly as ‘echo chambers’ of already held perspectives/views.
At least for those that are online or have some sort of
intermittent access to the internet. This means that the initial primary target of the
political social media content is to those that are ‘converted’ by way of which
party they support. So their party, its
leaders and supporters must be actively seen to be on social media for the
purposes of giving each other confidence and demonstrating the amount of (sometimes
contrived) public support that they have.
These campaigns are therefore designed for instilling greater confidence
and ‘pride’ for party members and supporters.
In the second instance, these now confident online party
supporters then try and expand their party’s reach to a broader audience. And in
most cases this is the urban and Diaspora based Zimbabwean voter who has
greater access to the internet and social media. Here the content is as with the first primary
target audience, highly politicised and intended to demonstrate an already existent
political strength (through numbers shown by pictures of rally attendances and
embellished negative stories of rival political parties.)
In turn the targeted voter also accepts, likes, receives,
shares information that suits their preferences. Especially on the whatsapp platform. Bringing
to the fore, again, the fact that electoral content on social media for the
2018 election is mainly about confirming, strengthening already established
preferences. This is largely because of
the highly personalised, materialist and loyalist nature of our country’s electoral-political
culture.
The middle ground of this social media content is hard to
find. It’s largely comprised of election
related support organisations that will either urge people to crosscheck their
names on the voters roll or put out analysis on the law and other requirements
for a free and fair election. All
juxtaposed against what obtains. Such social
media content is largely ‘instrumentalised’ by one political contestant or the
other depending on what the issue is. If it is critiquing the current electoral
system, it will be used to malign the ruling party. If it is commending the electoral system it
is used to malign the mainstream opposition.
Then there is the personal dimension to political content
around the elections that is increasingly coming to the fore. Prominent activists and celebrities on Zimbabwean
Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp have also taken to putting out content that
clearly indicates which side their rooting for.
And in some cases there have been some twitter spats between them, again,
based on their preferences. One can only hope that these spats stay online and
remain no more than political banter.
Though in most instances it does seem that these will spill over from
the online to the physical.
And where we discuss the relationship between the online
world that social media represents with the real world, we also have to be wary
about how electoral content may also affect the emotional and psychological
state of those that are putting it out or consuming it.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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