The Political Economy of Social Media in Zimbabwe (An Urban Dog’s Breakfast)

By Takura Zhangazha* 

This would generally be assumed to be a rather boring subject matter.  Because social media is exactly what it is- social and ephemeral.  Except that it comes with human behavioral modification elements that cannot be ignored.  Especially at an individual level.  It easily remembers as quickly as it can forget.  Even though a majority of us desire recognition by its algorithms for the things we post. That is wanting to either trend, get in touch with long lost high school friends that we would never have remembered in our previous analogue as opposed to our now sort of digital lives.  

And in most cases we are somewhat justified in feeling like we own social media.  Individually.  The number of spats about trying to take each other timelines, newsfeeds or tags is always amazing to watch or read.  And of course the emergence of influencers, even in a Zimbabwean social context, is also astounding.  With a decent number of these being either musicians, pastors, models, comedians or in some cases journalists that eventually take one political angle or the other as it relates to either their values or their desire for eyes/views of their social media content. 

But like everywhere else in the urban global world, social media in urban Zimbabwe has come to mean highly personalized access to information.  More so information that you individually prefer. Be it political, social, entertainment or economic.  A phenomenon that has been described as the ‘echo chamber’ effect of social media. 

As it is, social media as represented in our national case largely by WhatsApp, Facebook and eventually Twitter, functions in its own awkward political economy circle and cycle.  

And it all begins with ownership for profit. In the Zimbabwean context, there are service providers that are in control of access to social media as well as more significantly the internet.  Initially there were three of them that provided, at cost, this access.  Namely NetOne, Telecel and the largest of them all Econet Wireless Zimbabwe via mobile telephony.  Now the latter has become a primary behemoth via its expansion/investment into not only fiber optic cable companies such as ZOL but also its reach into the yet to be fully explored rural market via transmission towers. 

These companies however do not directly own social media.  Neither do they own the devices that we use.  There are other bigger players such as Facebook (which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram), Twitter and the mobile device manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei.  The latter also operates transmission equipment that the three aforementioned Zimbabwean companies also use. 

Simply put, mobile telephony and internet/social media access is seriously big business at not just a national scale but more significantly a global one.   And we are the pawns in this profit motivated game.  Which we all, within the Zimbabwean context, quite thoroughly enjoy as it gives us some sort of quick political and social opinion empowerment that we previously never had thanks to the government monopolizing mainstream state and even in some cases private media content. 

We have therefore taken to social media like ducks to Zimbabwean water.  Except that we do not own that water.  But it is sold to us, like snake oil, on the basis of our desire to not be left out. One way or the other.

So for example, and I am sure a number of cdes reading this will attest to this, you do not pay Facebook, Google or Twitter to open an account with them.  It is for free.  What is however not free is your voluntarily given data.  It is then sold on to potential advertisers by way of quantitative reach for the profit of these owners. AS they deem fit via their privately owned algorithms.

Because it’s a general given that in our Zimbabwean context, the right to privacy is not high on our human rights priority list, we would sooner be recognized than protect any assumption of privacy on these social media platforms.  Hence we are happily social media ‘cannon fodder’ or like ‘lambs to the slaughter’. 

What becomes ironic is that we do not really seek recognition among ourselves but more from the owners of the platforms themselves and their global north societies.  For many of us it does not really matter where the ‘followers’ or subscribers are from, we desire that official recognition (Twitter blue tick/YouTube shield) more than we desire influencing our own context via these platforms.  In some cases, as soon as the United States or United Kingdom local embassies retweet or like a specific post then we appear to have arrived at a necessary recognition.   Except that we forget the ephemeral nature of social media and its equally temporary ‘recognition’ status.   Let alone those that would control such ‘recognition’ algorithms depending on what is permissible for you to post on what you falsely consider your personal social media property. 

The primary value of our Zimbabwean social media content is that it affects our ephemeral urban feelings. And that the owners of our local telecommunication companies, those of the attendant social media platforms and those that sell the actual mobile telephony gadget profit from what we are feeling. While at the same time urging us on to feel in specific ways via algorithms.  It is an urban dog’s breakfast. 

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)